Hate Speech

Khaled Hosseini is the author of "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns", and he has some strong opinions about the use of "Hussein" as a dirty word and a call to violence against Barack Obama :

The media frenzy over a pastor at Obama's church seems to finally be dying down. But why hasn't there been a similar frenzy over the bigoted hate-mongers who are endorsing John McCain. McCain embraces the endorsement of far worse people than Obama's pastor, and it gets ignored by the media. Jews on First has this report:

Barrack Obama dealt frankly, openly and intellectually with the issue of his complex relationship to Jeremiah Wright. Contrast that with John McCain's embrace of Christian Right leaders Pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley. This is big picture stuff...

...the media has not lingered on John Hagee's anti-Catholic bigotry, even though McCain stood smiling with Hagee to receive the televangelist's endorsement. When McCain subsequently distanced himself from Hagee's hateful statements, it was only for fear of losing Catholic votes...

Hagee has based his career, wealth, position and enormous power on hatred: hatred of Islam, of homosexuals, and of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Yet John McCain went out of his way to court him, in hopes that Hagee's endorsement would make the Christian Right forget his not-so-long ago disdain for them as "agents of intolerance." McCain courted Hagee knowing full well that, when it comes to Israel, Hagee is doing all he can to insure there is to be no land for peace deal. Ever.

One thing that is sure to get your ass banned from Culture Kitchen is hate speech. Not only is it disgusting and contrary to our policies, but it is also pathetic and labels you as a complete and total loser.

We just had a Nazi anti-Semite come and post some crap about Jews and Jewish conspiracies. Sadly, in the process he used a book that is perfectly innocent of his intolerance yet is too easily used by people with small minds for a purpose its author never intended. The Thirteenth Tribe, by Koestler (a Hungarian who was, like me, a borderline atheist, moderately Zionist Jew). This was a very interesting and speculative book that suggests that the kingdom of the Khazars, the ruling elite of which had converted to Judaism, is one of the origins of Ashkenazi Jews. It is an outdated and largely disproven hypothesis that is nevertheless well worth a read. But narrow-minded Nazi sympathizers use it to claim that Jews do not have ancient roots but are, rather, merely Europeans with no link to the Middle East. The evidence for a Middle Eastern link for Jews is overwhelming, and, in a huge irony, points to a common origin for both Jews and Palestinians. Extremist Jews and extremist Palestinians tend to deny each other's validity, despite this clearly common origin.

But that isn't even my point. My point is, Nazism, racism, anti-Semitism and pretty much every kind of hate speech is nothing but a disgusting sign of deep insecurities. I consider the use of hate speech to be symptomatic of a very small intelligence, a small penis, or some other deep deficiency that a person cannot face up to, so has to create a myth of superiority that requires the denigration of others. A person with a modicum of intelligence and self-confidence can cope with their deficiencies and live happy, productive lives despite whatever problems or handicaps they might have. But some people cannot face the fact that they aren't some kind of super-person, and, in a perpetuation of adolescent self-importance, has to believe that they are always right and anyone who is different from them must be sub-human.

from Talk to Action

Many professed shock after last week's attempted bombing of an Austin women's clinic. Others felt shocked by their shock, since the religious right's thinly disguised rhetoric of hatred has so permeated our public discourse as to have become the norm. But for some it is easier to pretend not to see what is before their faces, far easier to remain willfully blind.

In 1998, nurse Emily Lyons lost her left eye, was partially blinded in her right and sustained other permanently disabling injuries when another bomb — similarly packed with nails that flew as deadly shrapnel — was detonated at a Birmingham clinic by Eric Rudolph.

"Many may find the graphic images of my trauma ... to be offensive. I hope so. Violence is ugly. You should be offended by the senseless damage caused by the attack. It isn’t the photographs that are bad; it is the act of hate that created them."

Hers are powerful words. But are Emily's courage [pdf photo link] and Emily's words more powerful than the rhetoric of hate that made them necessary?

This also comes from Daily Kos. We are in the middle of what seems to be a successful campaign to convince advertisers that they should not be advertising with Ann Coulter because of her advocacy of terrorism, incitement to violence, and her use of hate speech. Already more than 11 advertisers, including Verizon, AT&T/Cingular and Netbank, are removing their ads from Ann Coulter's website and this has gotten the attention of CNN which reported on the Daily Kos effort.

Remember, Ann Coulter has publicly advocated bombing the NY Times building, poisoning a Supreme Court justice, beating up American citizens she disagrees with (something that may have inspired an actual attack), and has expressed hatred of 9/11 widows. Some advertisers, once made aware of the kind of things she says, quickly pull their ads.

So we are keeping up the pressure and need your help. The Daily Kos Story has an extensive list of advertisers and I strongly urge you to take a look and contact a few. I will highlight a handful here, but this is only a fraction of the targeted advertisers. Go to the Daily Kos Story for a full list.

USA Today: Marketing/Advertising email contact page is here.

I had the chance to meet Hugh Hewitt at a conference here in NYC --we attended each other's panels at Personal Democracy Forum. He struck me as such a nice person I had the same reaction I had whenever I find out they're Republican : WHY?!?

Heh.

Anyhow, I was looking around the republican blogosphere to see if I could find anything substantial about Ann Coulter's hate-filled comments against John Edwards. At Hot Air I found the clip of the event buried deep in the blogs through a Google Alert.

Then I found this awesome post by Hugh.

Hugh Hewitt:

When Coulter employed the f-word to abuse a candidate, she made herself radioactive because the word is a simply invitation to hate. It was repulsive.

I cannot imagine Coulter being invited to any panel or television appearance on which I would want to appear. Colleges and universities must also stop inviting her to appear as a representative of the conservative movement in America. She is not. You want smart, accomplished and funny conservative women? Ask K-Lo, Laura Ingraham or Carol Liebau to appear, or chose from scores of others. But not Ann Coulter --she represents only a snarl and a deep need to be noticed.

Amen brother.

The film of the moment that Rudy Giuiliani witnessed and has still to condemn is after the jump :