Originally Posted By ecdc Last night's American Experience on PBS was on James Earl Ray and the assassination of Dr. King. At one point they explored the rhetoric of George Wallace and discussed how commonplace it was for "non-violent" people like Wallace to incite violence in less stable personalities like Ray. Of course, the line from people like Wallace to Ray is obvious to anyone watching. But if a similar thing happened today (and it has already happened with violent threats and violence against someone like George Tiller) people would insist there's no connection between Glenn Beck, crazy person, or Sean Hannity, or Rush Limbaugh, or John Boehner, and violent acts by less stable people acting out on their rage and fear. Make no mistake, just as it's obvious with past events, it's clear there's a direct line between this conservative rhetoric and violence and threats today. In fact, one of the specific things they called out was that some white Americans felt they were "losing their country" to Dr. King and they wanted it back. Sound familiar?
