There’s a term for what Fox News and wingnut radio do. It’s called ‘Stochastic terrorism’

The outrage from some of the media and the progosphere in particular over dog whistle tactics used by the conservative media to spread hate and encourage violence against progressives, especially Democratic politicians, has been drowned out by the whines of innocence from the very wingers who perpetrate it. But now the media has a taste of exposing the right’s violent streak, it cannot be put back in the can. The ugliness of Beck, Palin et al. is now part of our popular media coverage. It will continue to be dissected and hopefully will no longer be ignored. False equivalences are a key element of a pundits’ toolkit and will not easily be phased out but now the media has been alerted to the right’s rage, perhaps we can fight fake comparisons with a little more weight.

FogerRox of DemocraticUnderground.com applies the term Stochastic terrorism to this dog whistle.

Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to stir up random lone wolves to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.

This is what occurs when Bin Laden releases a video that stirs random extremists halfway around the globe to commit a bombing or shooting.

This is also the term for what Beck, O’Reilly, Hannity, and others do. And this is what led directly and predictably to a number of cases of ideologically-motivated murder similar to the Tucson shootings.

Interesting post. Read the whole thing.

H/T: @catawu