July 1, 2003 – Irvine, California - In yet another typical case of casket chasing that makes ambulance-chasing lawyers seem like nice guys, right-wing commentators have taken the brutal murder of two in an Irvine, California supermarket as yet another opportunity to prop up the Republican Party on the backs of corpses.

“Thank God this happened in Orange County,” said one radio commentator heard at the 2 O'clock hour in Los Angeles, commenting on the death of the assailant at the hands of police.  “If this had happened in Los Angeles, there would have been protests about shooting the guy and lawsuits – and the cops probably wouldn’t have shot him anyway.”

The co-host chimed in, “Yeah, and we would have been paying $80,000 a year to keep this guy in lock-up.”

Most telling is that these dishonest right-wing attacks have now moved to the mainstream media – the hosts were Conway and Steckler of 97.1 FM Talk Radio.

Of course the rest of the right wing AM hosts and newspaper commentators chimed in during their shows and columns, but the fact that such inaccurate, smearing propaganda has become so mainstream now speaks to the complete domination of the right wing over the media at the current moment.

The whole line of commentary is a rehash of the right wing’s usual usage of some absurd extreme to frighten and anger people into supporting President Bush and the Republicans.  Here, the line is that if you support Republicans, the guy with the Samurai sword goes down then and there.  If you support Democrats, he gets cake, mental therapy, pedicures, and cable TV, on top of millions of dollars in lawsuits, and a nice pat on the back from the police officers who would arrive on the scene.

The reality is that there are people on both sides of the aisle who would go very soft on criminals, and those who would go very hard.  Many religious conservatives are so peace and forgiveness minded they make left-wing peaceniks seem like guillotine operators.

Of course there are those on the right who would shoot a man who is wielding and attacking with a Samurai sword, as well as those on the left, and those in the middle.  The reality is, this is an incident that has nothing to do with politics, left-wing, right-wing, liberal, or conservative.  But, the right-wing commentators, and now the mainstream media as well, have no discretion nor moral code that allows them to have restraint or honesty in cases such as this.  They see an example of something horrific and disgusting, and instantly decide which angle they will use to make it an attack on anyone not supporting the Republican right wing and the President.

The facts of the situation again.  A grocery store employee allegedly shows up at work with a Samurai sword and starts cutting people to pieces, killing two and badly injuring three.  The police officers show up, the man confronts them with the sword, they shoot and kill him.

What does this have to do with deficit-ballooning tax cuts?  What does this have to do with not having a full plan for a war in Iraq?  What does it have to with rolling back environmental regulations?

You might at first say nothing, but the answer is everything.  By taking every horrific or absurd thing that occurs and asserting that it some how proves that liberals (i.e. Democrats) suck and conservatives (i.e. Bush/Limbaugh Republicans) are right and heroic as always, the new “conservatives” get people to vote for their candidates that pass the deficit-ballooning tax cuts, roll back environmental regulations, and fight wars without coherent plans.

It is the worst thing decent people can imagine.  It is not enough this insane man took the lives of two innocent people, but, thanks to the right-wing dominated media, he will take away our clean air, fiscal sanity, and national security.

We at The Moderate Independent are here to ensure that this cycle is broken.  With your continued readership and spreading of the word about this resource to your friends, we can help get a saner voice out there – one that truly serves us the information we need, not propaganda below all limits of amorality for the purpose of benefiting one end of the political spectrum.

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