Andrew Cohen Assassination Plot

That's sad news, and alarming. I think you might consider changing the blog title, though, because it seems a little alarmist and not entirely accurate. Someone in Virginia received a death threat about Andrew, while another teacher was assassinated in Pennsylvania, but there was no actual attempt on Andrew.

Now, it does seem to be a very serious threat, the most serious kind given that the first threat was actually carried out, and we have every reason to believe the second would have been as well, but the title gave me images of someone crawling through a window with a gun or firing a shot, and that's not what happened.

Sorry if you find that annoying, Robb.  :) I've just done some work in editing and sometimes feel the need to do it even when I haven't been asked.  :)

Have to wonder why this man decided to target Cohen. Apparently he had no relationship with Cohen, just the other man. So why Cohen?

Could it have something to do with all the virulent attacks on Cohen in the blogosphere? Some have asked whether all the virulent attacks on Obama have resulted in increased death threats on him, as many as 30 a day. [1]

Senator Patty Murray from Washington State received death threats over her support for the health-care bill a couple of months ago. [2] In fact, eleven senators received death threats over the health-care bill. [3] (In case you didn't follow it, there was widespread misinformation, extremism, fear baiting, etc.) There are more stories like this, Senator Kennedy, for example, who was constantly demonized by the right wing and received many death threats [4].

The information age, this new technology (internet, cable television), has changed things. How do our responsibilities and ethics need to change? How does our culture need to change to adapt to this new technology? Is this an example of culture (LL) lagging behind advances in technology (LR), as advances in LR technology tend to come before ethical development (LL)? Here is a quote from Ken to explain what I mean by that:

"But the fascinating point that Marx spotted was this: the technological innovation happens very fast (in the LR), simply because you can change the materials of production fairly quickly: put down your bow and arrow, pick up a hoe, dig a hole like this, put in the beans, watch. But the superstructure--the worldview, the cultural accoutrements of religion, meaning, beliefs, shared values, and so on (LL)--moves much more slowly, because this involves not just picking up a new piece of matter (in the Right-Hand world), but an interior subjective transformation of consciousness (in the Left Hand)--a notoriously slow and difficult process. Therefore, with almost any widespread technological innovation, the superstructure of values and beliefs now lags behind the transformations in the techno-economic base. In short, there is a disjuncture between LL and LR (between old superstructure and new base, between old paradigm and new realities, between old culture and new social system, between old meaning and new functional fit, between old semantics and new syntax). And that spells disaster." [5]

He is referring to events like the Holocaust, where people with pre-rational (pre Orange) ethics got a hold of industrial technology (Orange). It's one thing to be a small child with violent impulses, another to be a small child with a gun.

The man who made these threats, and carried out one of them, seems terribly deranged. He also seems to be coming from an Amber worldview, or, as Ken would say, "Amber with a Red driver," like Christian fundamentalists who kill abortion doctors. He said things like,

“May God’s might be swift and strong. May evil be utterly destroyed wherever it is lurking. May all be set free from the clutches of evil, for good, for all time.” [6]

I doubt he was able to follow the nuances or multiple perspectives of the "rude boy" guru debate, to say the least. Maybe he just picked up on the tone of some of the posts.

At any rate, I now read that one of the disaffected students, one who just published a book on the subject, is spreading news about it to the integral blogosphere, and the integral blogosphere is cooperating. [7] Now, I know that none of them want to encourage this sort of thing at all, that this is truly the last thing that they would want, but I wonder if we might ask ourselves some questions about responsibility and ethics given this new technology. If we aren't careful about how we discuss things, we might well "demonize" someone--and someone out there might actually take it just like that.