Common Cause condemns bigotry, hateful statements caught on film at rally
Common Cause’s 40 year history of holding power accountable has been marked by a commitment to decency and civility – in public and private. So we are of course outraged to find that a few of those attending the events around a gathering Common Cause helped to organize Sunday near Palm Springs voiced hateful, narrow-minded sentiments to an interviewer in the crowd.
We condemn bigotry and hate speech in every form, even when it comes from those who fancy themselves as our friends.
Anyone who has attended a public event has encountered people whose ideas or acts misrepresented, even embarrassed, the gathering. Every sporting event has its share of “fans” whose boorish behavior on the sidelines makes a mockery of good sportsmanship; every political gathering has a crude sign-painter or epithet-spewing heckler.
We organized the “Uncloak the Kochs” panel discussion and took part in the rally afterwards to call public attention to the political power of Koch Industries and other corporations, their focus on expanding that power, and the dangers it presents to our democracy.
We’re committed to staging other forums and public events in the coming months to continue that effort. We urge all Americans of good will to join us.
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Thoughts?
I’ve yet to hear an “epithet-spewing heckler” at a tea party or meet a sign-bearer at a tea party that wasn’t someone with the LaRouche camp trying to start trouble, so I can’t really get on board with the “every political gathering” part. Protests are fun – when people can disagree without lowering themselves to a level of humanity that should’ve been left in the 60s.
And despite what Common Cause said in reply to me on Twitter, I don’t think it’s “ridiculous.” That any of these things were said – ridiculous, yes – but “ridiculous” that any attention should be paid it? No. How will such individuals ever feel compelled to right a very prejudiced wrong if not for attention and shame? Especially after this same ideological sect lectured to America about civil discourse in light of the Tucson tragedy?
Perhaps certain people are just out of touch?
Having never been called a “murderer” for an act proven completely unrelated to them, while getting simultaneously lectured to (and death threats due to the accusations) about using civil discourse, some people don’t understand the irony of this latest incident or what it feels like to have such attention upon them. The antagonists are excused every time. When the left engages in such language, “move on.” When the right is blamed for something, i.e. Arizona, persecute all tea partiers and regulate the airwaves.
Regardless, I’m glad to see Common Cause condemn all of the remarks. While the impetus is on them to condemn all the remarks as it was their event, they are the only group to do so. Common Cause didn’t try to explain away the actions of the various individuals caught on tape advocating for the lynching of a black Supreme Court Justice and his wife – or the murder of Fox’s Roger Ailes. They didn’t shirk the responsibility, like many other progressives – in fact, Common Cause’s condemnation disputes others’ insistence that the blame is Christian Hartstock’s rather than the people in the video. They took a step further than anyone else and it’s worthy of acknowledgment.
Hopefully this condemnation will count for something against language such as this and progressives will realize that it won’t undermine their cause to refrain from such behavior.
Based upon this video, I invite Common Cause to condemn the false accusations leveled at the tea party.
Related: this, from the Wall Street Journal:
Further, the formerly mainstream media, in their determination to cast the Tea Party movement as violent and racist, have frequently violated their own ethical principles–among other ways, by reporting uncorroborated claims as if they were established fact (“Tea Party Protesters Scream ‘Nigger’ at Black Congressmen,” reads a March 2010 McClatchy Newspapers headline) and even by lying outright (Paul Krugman’s false claim, in the New York Times no less, that Michele Bachmann had used “eliminationist rhetoric”).
We’d venture to say that Hartsock has provided more evidence that Common Cause is a violent, racist movement than all the media put together have done vis-à-vis the Tea Party.