It has been a disturbing day. And like all fast moving news stories the known and unknown ‘facts’ shift by the moment. We will learn more as time goes by but we do know a few things as of now.
We know that six people are dead and that one of them was a nine year old girl who was born on 9-11-2001. We know that she was interested in government as being part of the solution and that that is why a neighbor brought her to today’s event.
We know that 13 others were wounded including Congresswomen Giffords.
We will learn more details by the minute and in the hours and days to come.
We know the shooter had ‘issues’ and left behind some pretty weird videos. That he is disturbed is quite clear. Less clear is the full story of why he acted and what imagined grudge led him to justified mass murder, but in some way that doesn’t matter.
We live in an era where political rhetoric lives in the red zone and where outright lies are treated as just another point of view. Everything is relative. A Tea Party fuck from Arizona (named Beck–naturally) told Dave Weigel today that he:
wasn’t looking forward to the coming “finger-pointing” over this incident, which has definitely claimed the life of a judge, John Roll, who’d been protested over an immigration ruling. “People blame the right for Oklahoma City,” said Beck. “People blame the left for the Pentagon being bombed. I don’t know this guy who did this, but there are crazy people in all walks of life. One rotten apple does not make a bad batch.”
As I recall it was Al-Qaeda that bombed the Pentagon and last time I looked they weren’t a left wing group except in the fevered imaginations of wingnutopia. And it is these fever dreams of hate, righteousness and justification that always leads to violence. And yet we are about to be treated to a media bending over backwards to equate right wing violence to left wing violence in America. Hint: there is no equivalence–the Right wins the most violent award hands down. People murdered by right-wing violence in America must be counted in the thousands if not the tens of thousands (and if you count the Civil War then it would be in the hundreds of thousands). The Left in America has never matched the violence of the Right in word or deed. And yet, we are suppose to pretend there is a balance. Fuck that.
Since Obama was elected the Right and the Republican Party have been playing with fire. It has been an endless series of lies designed to gin up paranoia, hate, fear and a call to take action to ‘take back your Country’. It was only a matter of time before somebody got hurt.
For the wingnuts facts no longer matter. Anybody can make up their own facts and talking points to justify any action. I would say that the shooter did this. Perhaps he came up with his own set of imagined facts, grievances and action plan on his own or perhaps he had some help (word is that folks in AZ are looking for others who may have been involved). Maybe this murderer has a poster of Palin taped above his bed and maybe not. Maybe he is an active Tea Partier or maybe not. Maybe he is an active anti-immigrant warrior or maybe not. In the end, I’m not sure it matters.
Whatever we find out it is clear that he has followed the Wingnut game plan and made up a set of facts, crafted some people as the villains of his fantasy and then justified defeating them by any means necessary. In this he is just like Palin or Boehner or Beck or King or any of the fucksticks who incite and organize using fear, ignorance, bigotry and smears. The game plan is to recast your political opponents as monsters who must be destroyed to save the Nation.
With today’s shooting we know–once again–that some of the unhinged will hear that message load and clear. We know once again that these violence ready psychopaths will act when their mind is primed by rhetoric of hate. And we know once again that the TeaBaggers, Wingnuts, grifters and politicians like Palin selling this bile will react with shock that anybody ever took their rhetoric of violence or their lies seriously.
A child was murdered today. She was killed because some think their political gain is justified by any rhetoric, any lie or any action. This myth of wingnutopia that justifies any action in the defense of their fantasized and bastardized notion of liberty is a real threat to America.
I’ve lost all tolerance for those who would excuse and justify this politics of hate. They do not get to wash the blood of today off of their hands. They are splattered with this blood and if we do not take them on there will be more blood in the future as more of these wingnut inspired psychopaths kill again.
This must stop.
Update: This is worth a read.
The Dangerman
Born on 9/11 and died at the hands of a domestic terrorist; how very sad.
jeff
Hi Dennis–it was a long time ago, but there used to be lots of Leftist terrorism, and there still is in parts of the world. The Weather Underground (Bill Ayers’ alma mater) bombed the Pentagon before Al Qaeda.
The extreme incendiary rhetoric on the right is rightly condemned and I hope they tone that shit down and make it clear they do not condone violence. We will learn more about the assassin tomorrow or Monday, probably. Given the stuff he wrote, I am doubtful we’ll know what the hell he was thinking. We do know that the violent rhetoric (the tree of liberty….etc.) is dangerous and cynical and irresponsible.
Maude
And of course there is no blame left for Beck. He neglected to say that he’s been trying to panic people about the government.
Parmenides
It will not stop unfortunately. The republicans do not care about their words or their effect. They are willing to say anything because their true plans cannot come to fruition, going back to a pre new deal government a pre civil rights era government. So they will say what they will, they will quiet themselves for a while, but there’s always 11 on the volume nob.
Hunter Gathers
It will never stop. Political violence is the ‘gift’ that every American generation passes to the next. There are many burdens that the American psyche carries along with it: the stain of slavery and Jim Crow, the never ending struggle for gender and sexual orientation equality, our wars, and the political violence that pretty much defines our history post Civil War. And political violence will continue to passed down to generation after generation.
It will always be with us.
Assassination is as American as baseball and apple pie.
Dennis G.
@The Dangerman:
It is sad beyond belief.
A hero in this tragedy is the becoming Clearance Dupnik the Pima County Sheriff. His news conference today was a beacon of sanity and he did not shrink from calling out the hate speech of the Right:
asiangrrlMN
Thank you, dengre. What you’ve said here mirrors what I just said over at ABL’s place.
I agree that this shit has to stop–I’m just at a loss as to how to get it to stop.
@Dennis G.: And getting a lot of shit for it from the right, of course, who says HE’S politicizing the shooting.
WarMunchkin
Do you ever get the feeling that we’re just naturally two separate countries at this point? What makes a nation-state anyway, besides geographical boundaries? How is it possible that they just cannot see the same reality as we do? I have no doubt that a lot of these Tea Partiers actually do believe that that there’s moral imperative to stop Democrats with “second amendment remedies” — it isn’t wrong to them, because, I don’t know, they think we violated the constitution, or don’t have governing legitimacy because of ACORN or whatever.
Face
Oh yes they do. Because Dems do it, too. Remember Cantor’s HQ bullet-that-wasnt-but-the-MSM-doesnt care? Remember how Dems incited such violence by passing bills the Repubs didn’t like? Remember that Dems didn’t allow amendments to be added to bills passed last year? See….both sides are guilty. Dems pretty much asked for it with such behavior. CNN and Fox is about to tell me the same thing.
Third Eye Open
*This is not a cry for help, I am not going to do anything rash that would hurt myself or others*
I am done folks. I can’t do this anymore. I used to love the fights, I loved the banter, but I can’t find it in me to see the humanity in the “other side” at this point. I exploded at people who are fucking morons, but that is not excuse. Maybe this is what growing older is about, finding your balance and just trying to make your little corner of reality a little bit better, but for me, it’s not worth the ever increasing silver chin-hairs and watching my non-political friends get on with getting on.
I think I need to decompress. I have consumed more alcohol than I ever thought in the past couple months, something that still scares me to death, coming from a family with health and addiction problems. Today just sent me over the edge, and I am afraid I might lash out, not in a snarky, or prodding way, but in a serious super-nova kinda way.
Look at me, i am spewing some navel-gazing bullshit into some bottomless ether of people i have never met, never will meet, and as im choking back tears, all i can think of is “a fucking 9 year old”. If this is how its going to be, I don’t think I want to keep putting my raise into the pot, and i am afraid of what calling might mean.
…fucking 9 years old…
Nemo_N
Alsotoo, the guy had some left wing books, therefore he was not a teabagger.
Just like moving around in medicare subsidized scooters proves all those teabaggers riding them are not actually screaming against socialized medicine.
Or something.
Thoroughly Pizzled
I’m most worried that the right and MSM will learn nothing from this – or won’t care at all. I really don’t know what the breaking point will be, but if the attempted assassination of a Congressman and the death of a nine-year old girl – among others – don’t trigger any regret whatsoever, then more people will die before this is over.
Yutsano
A set of parents must bury their healthy beautiful little girl. Her uncle must bear the unconscionable guilt of taking her there today. Representative Giffords, if she is the woman I think she is, would not want us to focus on her. She would want us to focus on the child. And for the sake of the child. make this stop.
mgordon
For the record, he was probably referring to the Weather Underground in regards to the Pentagon.
asiangrrlMN
dengre, I just added a link to this post to my post. Just wanted to let you know.
@Yutsano: I agree. Everything I’ve read about Representative Giffords would support that. But, again, the question is–what can we do as individuals and as a collective?
Dennis G.
@jeff:
Yes, almost 40 years ago the ineffectual and stupid Weather Underground planted a bomb at the Pentagon. Do you seriously think that this outcome:
Is equivalent to the Oklahoma City Bombing. Really?
I might compare it to the wingnuts shooting up Congressional Offices in the last two years–that would be similar. But equating damage to computer tapes to mass murder does not compute in my book. When I looked for a bombing at the Pentagon involving mass murder then only the 9-11 attack seemed to fit the frame of that Tea Party fuckstick.
Mike Kay
An asshole at NYT is already doing the false equivalency thing, equating Palin (a former Governor and Vice Presidential candidate) who placed sniper scopes on Democrats with some random pedestrian diarist on dailykos (a kiosk bulletin board) who used the phrase “dead to me” to describe his decision to file for political divorce.
R. Johnston
Not really. This guy is almost certainly a paranoid schizophrenic suffering a psychotic break who, absent medication and further treatment, was bound to erupt in violence at some point. He’s not, unlike the typical teabagger, an ignorant retard who but for the leadership of Palin and Beck would never have done wrong to those outside his immediate acquaintance.
He’s an advertisement for universal healthcare of the sort that would have diagnosed and treated him much more than he’s an advertisement of the problems with wingnut leaders not-so-subtlety indicating an indifference to violence.
jeff
@Dennis G.:
No, I do not think that at all. Why would you ask? I was just adding a piece of historical information that I thought you didn’t know about.
The Dangerman
@Dennis G.:
No disagreement, but we don’t know the name of the big hero of the day, which is the man that tackled the shooter. I’ve only heard him described as “older”; whatever his age, taking down a guy with a 9mm wins the day.
Punchy
It wont, because expressing regret means losing viewers, which impacts the bottom line. Nothing is allowed to negatively impact the bottom line.
I cant wait to hear Savage or Limbaugh’s take on how this is the Rep’s fault for being so controversial.
Nutella
@mgordon:
Which means he had to go back thirty-eight years to find an example of left-wing violence.
Vixen Strangely
I tried to think about what someone who does this believes, and my search just kept coming back with “senseless”. Right-wing grievances– “senseless”. Immigration– “senseless”. Economic conspiracy theory–“senseless”. Untreated paranoid disorder–senseless, senseless.
It never occurred to this person that in his delusions of “doing something” he’d kill a little girl–so be it. Will he steely-eyed make like Tim McVeigh and call her “collateral damage”? Part of me suspects he would, just as sure as I suspect he never imagined that the people he was shooting at would be little girls, or wives, or husbands, or anyone’s children, or human beings, at all–just ideas, represented by these two-legged automatons, these targets he decided to shoot at, because he sort of forgot …oh wait: People. Are. People.
So Rep. Giffords was a wife and a mother and a child of some people, and Judge Rolls was a human, and that little girl was a wide-eyed, beautiful young person, too–and that was lost in rhetoric. It was obvious, and momentarily foregettable, when he started shooting–after all. People. He might have forgot he was shooting at people.
Just like certain rhetoric talks about “illegals” like these are statuses, not people. Like Scalia talks about the equal protection clause and implies that women and gays aren’t people (even if he used that clause one time to imply GWB was more a person than others, no?) Like Douthat’s talk of babies and mothers stops being about people–and about suppliers and their product. Like the GOP reduction of the unemployed to “unproductive consumers”–no longer people.
I don’t want to boil this particular hideous event to the “unpersoning” of so many humans by so much of conservative thought–I dont *want* to–but I totally understand how one might.
morzer
I think that all we can do is tell the truth, refuse to passively go along with the media’s miserable failure to tell the truth, reject the slurs from the right wing, and vigorously call them out when they utter hateful and murderous rhetoric.
I went over to the League of Ordinary Gentlemen, and it’s remarkable to see some of their commenters on the thread about the Arizona murders doing everything possible to deny that the right wing has any connection to violence or calls for violence. It’s an amazingly repellent discussion that many of them are having. I’d like to see ED Kain discuss this topic seriously and confront the fact of what talk radio, the Tea Partiers and Beck have been advocating, rather than just saying as little as possible.
Wile E. Quixote
@jeff:
Fuck off you worthless piece of shit. The overwhelming majority of domestic terrorism in America has been perpetrated by white conservatives who massively outnumber the few left wing terror groups like the Weather Underground and who racked up a body count that the few left wing terror groups in this country can only envy. Timothy McVeigh and his right wing friends killed more people than the Weather Underground, the SLA and every other left wing group of the 1960. Before McVeigh and his merry band of fuckheads there were the Aryan Nations and the Ku Klux Klan, or perhaps you don’t consider murdering civil rights workers and random black citizens as well as blowing up black churches to be acts of terrorism.
Your lame attempt at playing the both sides do it game, and invoking Bill Ayers shows that you’re nothing more than a mindless zombie Foxbot, and who gives a shit about leftist terrorism in the rest of the world you piece of garbage, this is about the United States and Americans being murdered by their fellow Americans, and again, most of the people doing that killing are white conservatives.
Dennis G.
@jeff:
I’m touchy about the false equivalence thing tonight. The idea of matching the mass murder of Oklahoma City to the 1972 Weatherman bombing is just more of the same. Yes, I guessed that this false equivalence was the connection he wanted to make, but I just will not grant that fuckstick and his pals the right to frame this debate anymore.
Sorry if I seemed to lash out at your comment.
Cheers
jeff
@Third Eye Open:
Hope you feel better. Just two weeks ago I was in a really, really bad place. Not that I’m skipping around whistling now…but somehow it’s better. I have been in a lot of pain, and I was already depressed before that. I am just saying that the panic period of depression may go away if you try to work on sleep, not drinking too much, eating well….
Best of luck to you.
Wile E. Quixote
@jeff:
Bullshit, you were playing the “both sides do it” game. You’re a piece of shit.
Mister Papercut
@Face:
I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least today if Cantor had scrambled in front of cameras to decry this violence and reveal that he, too, had been shot through the head.
jeff
@Dennis G.:
Cheers…it’s really hard right now to tell where some commentary is coming from…this has been a terrible day for the country and I am very worried about discourse and violence.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Mister Papercut: I actually had to school someone on that. He pointed to the Cantor thing to show “both sides do it to”. I didn’t hear back after I provided a link about the actual event.
@jeff: I’m not sure that acting as though this is not primarily a right wing problem in this country is helpful right now.
Dennis G.
@Mike Kay:
And of course Bai got it wrong.
When you scrape for a comment on Dkos to compare to the call to hate of Palin you are really twisting reality and the truth into a pretzel salted with dried bullshit.
jeff
@Wile E. Quixote:
Dude, put down the bottle.
asiangrrlMN
@Third Eye Open: I’m glad to see the first sentence. Is there anyone you can talk to locally? Please. This shit sucks. It really does. But, sometimes, you just have to walk away for awhile for your own sake.
Davis X. Machina
There have been civil Cold Wars before. France during the Dreyfus Affair comes to mind. The US from, say. 1856 to 1861. Some aspects of our present polity feel like those days, at least as far as one can gather just from reading.
El sueño de la razón produce monstruos.
Alison
@jeff: Fuck you. he has to be drunk to be ticked off by what you said? I don’t drink and I also think you’re an asshole. What should I put down? My fucking common sense?
STFU.
Yutsano
@Dennis G.:
Tbogg for the muthafucking win. And I just need the laugh right now dengre.
Paul
@R. Johnston:
Right on.
The guy is clearly, tragically mentally ill. The whole thing is just sad and pointless beyond belief.
Mark S.
@Third Eye Open:
It’s always a good idea to step away from this shit from time to time. It’ll drive you bonkers.
JGabriel
jeff:
Why would they do that?
The right-wing has already made it clear that they do condone violence — from Sarah Palin’s gunsights on Gifford’s congressional district and Sharon Angle’s threats of Second Amendment Remedies in the event of Republican losses, to Jesse Kelly’s Shoot an M16 With Jesse To Take Out Gabby Giffords fundraiser and the founder of the Pima County Tea Party Patriots asserting there’s nothing wrong with their rhetoric — and they have no intention of toning that shit down.
.
piratedan
well I can certainly understand how the NYT can paint that equivalence of a DKOS comment entry to that of a website tied to prominent former Republican Party Vice Presidential candidate, it’s like saying that Taco Bell and the meals served on Iron Chef are both simply food and should therefore be treated the same…..
Barb (formerly Gex)
@JGabriel: Indeed. Their rhetoric IS a condoning of violence.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”
Barry Goldwater, 1964.
For 46 years, that has been the basis for the so-called “conservative movement.” All the rest of the noise is just churn. These people are all about extremism … which means, they are extremely intent on having their way and will stop at nothing to get it. Period. Dot.
The truly evil and dangerous nature of such thinking has no bounds. Among other things, it makes these egocentric, sociopathic jerks totally vulnerable to all manner of demagogic appeals … and it means that they can be bought, and are bought, to advance toxic political agendas that have nothing to do with legitimate conservatism.
How the real meaning, and the deadly meaning, of that rhetoric has been overlooked and dismissed all this time is beyond me.
Gus diZerega
@jeff:
There was not “lots” of left wing terrorism in the US. The Weather Underground was a TINY group that killed very few people before it did itself in with incompetent bomb making and the like.
To equate that small group of losers with the right wing record is dishonest. Or to give you the benefit of the doubt, ignorant.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
IIRC, it was one of the neighbors who took her to the rally — the uncle was just the guy relating the story.
I can’t even imagine the kind of survivor’s guilt that neighbor is going to have to deal with for the rest of his/her life when all s/he wanted to do was encourage this little girl to be interested in politics.
Gus diZerega
@Davis X. Machina:
If it comes to civil war, I hope we’ll let them leave, to stew in the ignorance and venom they call “values” – or leave ourselves.
No reason to go to war over it. Norway left Sweden and both are doing just fine. I doubt the old Confederacy could pull a Norway or Sweden, but that’s their problem.
Chad N Freude
@jeff: Are you saying that planting a bomb in a restroom in the Pentagon is the moral equivalent of killing a nine-year-old girl and putting a bullet in the brain of a congresswoman?
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: I think you’re right and I just remember her uncle being involved somehow. Regardless, the survivor’s guilt point is the main issue. That person will need counseling for a very long time.
The Dangerman
@Paul:
True, but if it was just mental illness, targeting a Congressperson wouldn’t have necessarily occurred (unless that Congressperson was just really unlucky through random chance) and, given his postings, clearly there was a political component.
Chad N Freude
@LikeableInMyOwnWay: Goldwater said that (it scared me at the time), but I’ve come to believe that he didn’t mean what the phrase has come to mean in contemporary domestic terrorism. I think he would be horrified and outraged at what has been done in the last couple of decades in the extreme defense of liberty.
freelancer
@Paul:
Here’s what I just typed in a chat with a friend:
JGabriel
Chad N Freude: Let’s leave Jeff alone on that. I think Jeff has made it clear that he thought he was merely correcting Dennis on a historical triviality, and not intending to draw a false equivalence.
.
freelancer
@freelancer:
FYWP
handy
Wait, you all are not serious about the Times playing the equivalency game by comparing Sarah Palin to a comment on a blog?!
Oh. My. God.
eemom
I’ve been stuck on that for the last several hours. It is one of those “full stop” things.
And you know what else? If this event today had the effect of ending Sarah Palin’s political career and restoring some measure of sanity to political discourse in this country…….if everyone including the most batshit crazy teatards and republicans joined hands tomorrow and enacted FDR version 2011……that would still not even scratch the surface of the horror of that child’s death.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@handy: It is the paper of record.
We are so fucked.
jk
Now more than ever, FUCK John McCain. If this warped, frustrated asshole hadn’t chosen Sarah “Mooseburger Helper” Palin to be his running mate, she’d still be Sarah who? to everyone living outside of Alaska. Hopefully, there’s a special place in Hell reserved for both McCain and Palin.
SixStringFanatic
Dennis wrote “As I recall, it was Al-Qaeda that bombed the Pentagon” which made it seem as if he had forgotten the misbegotten attempt in the sixties. All Jeff was doing was pointing out the incident to which the Tea Party Fuck quoted by Dennis was referring, in said Tea Party Fuck’s attempt at moral equivalence. Jeff didn’t seem to me to be making that attempt at moral equivalence and he certainly didn’t seem to me to have earned the gratuitous insults tossed his way for trying to make a small correction of fact. I’m certainly not trying to make any attempts at moral equivalence myself, but maybe, in the spirit of the day, we could all try to ease up a bit on each other and not jump so eagerly to take offense nor be so quick and vituperative in our responses to one another.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Chad N Freude:
No, he didn’t mean it that way. But his movement took it that way, that is the problem.
Yutsano
@jk: I blame his thinking with his dick over his (what little there is) common sense. If he had actually thought about it for a second, he would have realized there were much smarter choices out there. But all he really wanted to do was get close enough to her to fuck her. And we’re now paying for his fucking old goat libido.
jeff
@Chad N Freude:
No, no, no. Not at all. Nor did I write anything that justifies that interpretation–which, by the way, I’ve abjured already.
Here’s what I wrote:
I do not see the actions of leftist groups half a century ago as equivalent, morally or otherwise, to what happened today (although I’m not sure what happened today) and certainly not to OKC. I do see the language used by the Tea Party as encouraging violence from their literal-minded or crazy followers.
I did not mean to hurt anybody and it’s actually really upsetting to me to read what’s just been said. I’m sorry, and I didn’t think what I wrote would be hurtful in any way….indeed, one must be inserting something else into my comment in order to interpret it as an apologia for rightwing violence or rhetoric. I was just adding a correction about Pentagon bombings.
R. Johnston
@The Dangerman:
Murderous paranoia about those in a position of superiority over you is utterly normal in the case of the kind of psychosis it seems obvious this guy has experienced. Maybe he’d have just taken out his parents or his college classmates absent the current political environment, but a politician in whose district he resides is well within the bounds of what might be expected even in a more sane political environment than we currently experience.
Chad N Freude
@JGabriel: I missed that. It’s another example of why we ought to choose what we say vewwy, vewwy cafuwwy when we comment. Not that that will prevent all (any?) misunderstandings.
Mnemosyne
The president’s younger daughter was born in 2001, too. I have a feeling that, like most parents across the country, he’s taking today’s events very personally.
merrinc
@JGabriel:
I fear you’re right that they won’t tone it down, they will turn it around and this will become all about the left scoring political points off this terrible tragedy.
I took my daughter, now 12, with me when I canvassed for Obama in the primary and we went door to door again on general election day. We stood in line with thousands of other people to see him speak at a rally. Never felt a bit of fear or trepidation at any time. Hard to believe that was only two years ago. Now I won’t even put a bumper sticker on my car. And my baby girl’s campaigning days are over for the forseeable future.
We’re never going to reach bottom, are we?
Paul
@The Dangerman:
Right, maybe, but we just don’t know yet.
I’ve lost (and been threatened by) friends due to depression and schizophrenia. I understand the need to find reasons for these things but sometimes all you are left with is confusion and pain.
This needs to play out before the finger pointing begins.
jeff
@SixStringFanatic:
Thanks, man. That was a bit scary. Like I said, though: it’s a horrific day, and it’s forgivable if people’s emotions are running high.
I appreciate that you read what I wrote.
Best wishes to all for a better year than this one is trying to be.
Chad N Freude
@Yutsano: I beg to differ. I think satyriasis had nothing to do with it — his Team made a cynical hey-this-babe-will-up-his popularity decision. (And not up his … organ decision).
Barb (formerly Gex)
@jeff: Yeah, that’s tough. I hope I responded gently. You certainly didn’t say anything that warranted those responses, but the day has been filled with people on the right shouting everything else down with “the left does it too!” So I can see why people were ready to shout that shit down too.
For myself, when I find that I’m in a situation similar to yours, I usually find that I could have done a better job in clarifying where I stood. Not sure if that helps here.
Beauzeaux
@jeff:
If you’re going to bring up the Weather Underground for any reason whatsoever, you need to point of that they only targeted government buildings and infrastructure, NEVER human beings. In fact their bombings were preceded by warnings so that human beings could evacuate the area.
Right or wrong…and I don’t believe their bombings were excusable by any stretch of the imagination…this is a hugely important piece of information to include, especially if you are going to use them as an example of left-wing violence.
RalfW
The others killed were Dorothy Murray, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and Phyllis Schneck, 79. (via NYT). So the judge, the 9 year old who was interested in government, and a 30 year old staffer.
Somehow, reading that three women over the age of 75 were among the victims also shocks me. These are the bedrock of so many communities. Older voters, older women who take time to talk to their Congressperson, many of whom serve as election judges or drive their friends to polling places.
Civic minded bedrock people. Maybe conservative, maybe not, maybe seeking out Giffords for help with an SSI or Medicare problem, who knows. But dead, gone, in a hail of violence and hate.
So awful.
Mark S.
@Chad N Freude:
I agree. Like everything McCain did during that campaign, it was like “Hey, that’s mavericky! Let’s do it.”
Another example: suspending his campaign despite not knowing a fucking thing about the financial crisis.
RalfW
@merrinc: Hard not to think of the armed man who paced the waiting line at the Target center in Minneapolis, waiting for Obama.
Star Tribune
September 15, 2009
Josh Hendrickson left his children at home Saturday and went to downtown Minneapolis, where President Obama was scheduled to speak, carrying two loaded pistols — one in a holster under his camo shirt and another in a back pocket. He spent the next seven hours standing in front of Target Center, he said, not to cause trouble, but to make a point.
“The Second Amendment isn’t suspended just because the president’s in town,” said Hendrickson, 32, who said he showed police at Obama’s health care rally his license to carry and conceal a weapon under state law.
Minneapolis police confirmed that they questioned a man Saturday in front of Target Center. They did not identify Hendrickson, but Hendrickson said he was questioned by Minneapolis police and a Secret Service agent after he said they spotted the outline of his weapon.
Hendrickson said he carried a .40 caliber Glock 22 handgun concealed in a holster on his hip, and a smaller Kel Tec 380 in a pocket.
As Obama has held rallies across the country in recent weeks, there have been isolated reports of individuals showing up carrying guns — one incident in New Hampshire involved a man with a gun strapped to his leg. While Hendrickson said he was not motivated by those events, he said he sympathized with those attempting to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms
“I’m a pretty laid-back guy that loves his kids and his country,” Hendrickson said.
He added, however, that he had just been released from jail a month earlier on an assault charge for pepper-spraying a customer at a Cub Foods in Brooklyn Center, where he worked as a security guard….
jk
@Yutsano:
McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin to be his running mate was the most selfish, cynical, and unpatriotic act ever committed by a presidential candidate of a major party. Palin is barely qualified to work a cash register at McDonalds and McCain knows it.
On Monday, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Don Imus, and Lou Dobbs will express outrage and righteous indignation that the left is exploiting the Tuscon shootings for political gain, then assholes like Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Howie Kurtz, John King, John Avlon, and the entire Washington Press Corps will agree with them and give them all free passes along with Palin, Bachmann, Steve King, and Allen West.
MeDrewNotYou
@R. Johnston: That’s correct and all, but I think it misses a crucial point. A major reason why all this violent rhetoric from the right is unacceptable is because of its effect on the crazed nuts out there. Your average Tea Bagger, as much as he agrees with Sarah Palin and Sharon Angle, is never going to go out and kill over it. People on the edge, though, are going to see the cross hairs on Gifford’s district and think, “She won’t say it, but Sarah wants that woman gone for America,” and act accordingly.
So sure, the gunman would quite likely have snapped an shot his family/friends/whatever eventually. The Right, however, gave him a target and a ready-made justification*. His acts impact a much broader community now; he’s effectively terrorized half the country instead of his neighborhood.
*This assumes that, even with mental illness, there was a political motivation to the killings. Seems a relatively safe assumption, but facts may not bear that out.
Chad N Freude
@Mark S.: The financial crisis suspension was just a way to get across the idea the McC was seriously concerned with Issues, while O was just interested in Campaigning to Win an Election. A lot of people – not just campaigning politicians – are unaware of the transparency of their motivations.
The Dangerman
@RalfW:
FWIW, Dorwin (it may be Dorwan) Stoddard is a man killed while covering his wife; she was shot 3 times in the leg, but will survive.
Also, FWIW, there is a picture is on the AZ Central website that makes me wonder; in a story about an intern that may or may not have saved the Congressperson’s life, there is a photo of the Congressperson on the stretcher as she is being taken away to the helicopter (or was it ambulance?). I’m not sure that photo should be in print; it’s not especially gruesome, but it’s far from … appropriate, IMNSHO. It just makes me wonder about the news, in general, and Arizona news, in particular.
jl
This is amazing news;
‘ The Twitter account of Fox 11 News Arizona said that a family friend told the station that Giffords “woke up from anesthesia & spoke to people in her room & recognized her husband Mark Kelly.” ‘
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/local-reports-gabby-giffords-awake-responsive-after-shooting.php
But later in the story, it said she is not out of the woods, and next few days will be critical.
I think Sheriff Dupnik’s comments at the press conference were right.
I haven’t watched much on the tv, since I found a lot of the commentary disgusting. Most of the press are paid corporate clowns, afraid to say anything of substance.
The shooter is probably mentally disturbed, and may have been a bomb waiting to go off against somebody no matter what. But the fact is, he decided to act on his disturbed rage, or fear, against a political figure doing official business. Who cares about what right or left did fifty, a hundred, two hundred years ago? Why not drag in the French Revolution? I think there is perfectly fair to discuss what influence the violent rhetoric of today (not forty or fifty years ago) had on this disturbed person targeting a particular political figure today.
We have a movement that implicitly threatens violence, and urges dimwits to fear a nonexistent and imaginary violent threat from anyone who disagrees with them. And what do I see in the media by the supposed Very Serious People: excuses, cowardice and flimflam.
Look at the teabaggers’ ‘tree of liberty needs to be watered with blood’ rhetoric. That was Jefferson getting overly enthused with metaphor. Immediately after he commits that inflammatory rhetoric, he says that such watering is good because it means the population is vigilant to threats against liberty. Then he contradicts himself a bit to say that violence against society in democracy is wrong, and the waterers need to be restrained and educated. It is a thoroughly confused passage in a letter Jefferson wrote.
But I have never heard any of these millionaire tv pundits point that out. They play the professional media clown and make vapid excuses, in the midst of a rash of political violence, mostly committed by disturbed individuals, and as far as I have read, ALL showing elements of right wing conspiratorial thinking.
I was out hiking today, so I missed most of it, but some of what I saw in tv was depressing.
I hope Giffords continues to make a strong recovery, along with the others injured in this tragedy today.
BDeevDad
Face it folks, by Monday, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest of the asswipes will be calling the shooter an atheist, Nazi, Bible hating lefty. Their minions have already started.
JGabriel
@merrinc:
I’m afraid that if there’s no Peak Wingnut, then there’s probably no nadir either.
.
BR
Josh Marshall said it well tonight on Countdown – that it’s a false dichotomy to say that this happened because the guy was nuts vs. because of dangerous rhetoric that’s out there. He pointed out that it’s exactly when there’s dangerous rhetoric out there that those who are nuts to begin with are pushed over the line. It’s a combination of factors and since we’re not going to be able to eliminate the incidence of paranoid schizophrenia (though we should try to make sure we help those with it) and other issues, we need to eliminate the rhetoric.
Mnemosyne
Would any of the Tucson BJers be able to keep an eye on the local news and let John or one of the other front-pagers know if the Greene family requests donations or sets up a scholarship or something like that? You know how much we all love to donate money to worthy causes, and it would at least give people a sense of doing something productive in the face of this.
MeDrewNotYou
@jk: Sadly, that is exactly what will happen. See the Paul Wellstone funeral for the test run. This time is much worse, though, because liberals are politicizing the death of a child!
Further de-humanization leading to more shit like this. Liberals aren’t people, they’re the enemy.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: I think suzanne is closest, although TR implied s/he was in the area. Either way, I’m certain either one would be willing to keep an ear to the ground for us.
jl
@Mnemosyne: Yes, thanks for that comment. I second that idea.
JGabriel
@BDeevDad: I’m not sure that will matter as much as it usually does.
Palin’s gunsight on Gifford’s district is too graphic. Literally: pictures play well on TV.
.
Chad N Freude
@MeDrewNotYou: Would you translate that into Coherence (which is my preferred language)? Thank you.
ETA: Or was it sarcasm and I missed that?
Mnemosyne
@MeDrewNotYou:
“Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”
Though at least in that case the king was punished for his words.
jeff
@Beauzeaux:
Yeah, I see that now.
Best–jeff
Barb (formerly Gex)
@MeDrewNotYou: This. They label and define as “others” those they don’t like. They dehumanize them and declare them enemies of all that is good and right. It’s exactly the kind of training we need to give soldiers so they can effectively kill in combat. We know that, we have been utilizing that since after WWII.
Zuzu's Petals
@RalfW:
I just can’t imagine someone actually pointing a gun at any one of these people. I know it happens all the time, but really, to think someone actually points a gun and shoots an unarmed man, woman, or child just…I dunno, it’s just stunning.
So stunning as to be obscene.
MeDrewNotYou
@BR: That’s what I was trying to say above, but put much more coherently and eloquently. Thanks.
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Thirded.
Mnemosyne
@JGabriel:
Even better (for the media) — they have Gifford on tape worrying about exactly this kind of incident happening. They fucking live for that shit.
I think this is going to be surprisingly hard for the Republicans to turn around because they’ve conditioned the media to run after the soccer ball every time it gets kicked, and that piece of tape is a big ol’ shiny soccer ball for the media to chase.
Chad N Freude
@Mnemosyne: Anyone want to bet that no one but Jon Stewart picks it up?
Edit: Typo correction.
Mnemosyne
@Chad N Freude:
Apparently it’s already in heavy rotation on the cable news shows, so the cat’s out of the bag. We’ll see if the hammer comes down tomorrow and it mysteriously disappears.
kdaug
I’m drunk. Think I’ll stay that way.
MeDrewNotYou
@Chad N Freude: I suck at that language, but I’ll give it a shot. ;)
Here’s the BS they’ll be slinging:
An obviously crazy person guns people, including a little girl, down. Liberals are trying to blame Republicans for a nut. They’re trying to make this tragedy about politics. Besides, their side is the violent one. Look at Weather Underground/Bill Ayers/Cantor’s windows/etc. Why can’t liberals just mourn this little girl? Why can’t they leave politics out of it?
ETA- It was sarcasm. Its been a tough day, and I’m no good at it at the best of times.
freelancer
@BDeevDad:
This is where the Right will find their smears. They will blame this on atheism and secularism without a second thought. This will be added into the (though they’ll never admit it) evolving mythology of greater wingnuttia that all evils are, and in this instance, should be put upon the heads of those that advocate a Secular (the shooter claimed to be beyond religion) – Progressive (a friend of his from years ago said she remembered him as leaning left) agenda. I don’t need to guess, but I more feel the inclination to start an office/internet pool as to which malevolent wingnut with a megaphone will use “atheism” as a jackalope tactic?
jk
@MeDrewNotYou:
Unfortunately, this scenario is so predictable, you could set your watch by it.
I think Howard Kurtz, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, and John King are arguably worse than Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, and O’Reilly. For example, I’ll never forget Blitzer pleading with a guest to reassure him that the federal government was doing everything in its power to carry out a denial of service attack against Wikileaks. In so many respects, this country is fucked up far beyond belief and/or recovery.
Zuzu's Petals
Yet another sad irony:
Zuzu's Petals
@Mnemosyne:
Evidently the neighbor was also wounded:
BDeevDad
@freelancer: Already done, fill in links yourself. Won’t give the sick bastard the satisfaction
gatewaypundit dot rightnetwork dot com slash 2011/01/shooter-jarod-laughner
And I’ve found others, but one is too many. Personal responsibility, my ass.
MeDrewNotYou
@jk: I see what you mean. At least with Limbaugh, he’s just saying, “Fuck you,” to your face. You know he isn’t on your side. With the others, shouldn’t they be exposing all of this X?
Personally, though, I hate the Limbaughs more. They get the ball rolling in the first place and get rich for it.
jk
@freelancer:
Which malevolent wingnut with a megaphone will use “atheism” as a jackalope tactic?
Glenn Beck 2-1
Michael Savage 3-1
Bill O’Reilly 5-1
Sean Hannity 10-1
Rush Limbaugh 15-1
asiangrrlMN
@MeDrewNotYou: Why choose? They all seriously suck. Not one of them elevates our political discussion, and none of them should be given any serious thought at all. Bah.
MeDrewNotYou
@asiangrrlMN: Good point. Sad, but good point.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: They can all, seriously and with all malice aforethought, die in the white hot fusion of a thousand suns. Then when they get to hell, they can be shooting practice for the Dawgs there.
JGabriel
@MeDrewNotYou:
And the proper response is:
We didn’t politics into it. Sarah Palin brought politics into it when she drew a gunsight on Gabby Giffords’ district; Sharon Angle brought politics into it when she threatened Second Amendment Remedies as a response to Republican losses; various GOP candidates brought politics into it when they threatened to resort to the bullet box if they failed at the ballot box; and Jesse Kelly brought politics into it when he held a Shoot An M16 With Jesse To Take Out Gabby Giffords fundraiser.
Or, more specifically, each of them brought the rhetoric of violent gun reprisals into politics.
The GOP lost the election in Gabby Giffords district, and now a Second Amendment Remedy, in Sharon Angle’s vile and unforgettable description, has been applied in Tucson.
We didn’t bring politics into it. They did. We’re just mounting a defense.
.
asiangrrlMN
@MeDrewNotYou: I know. I wish I was just snarking.
@Yutsano: OOooh, reaching for the Moore Award, I see. Sadly, I cannot disagree.
@JGabriel: Damn. You are on fire today. You go with your bad self.
freelancer
@JGabriel:
When the political embrace the crazy, the crazy aim at politics.
jk
@MeDrewNotYou:
I go back and forth on this issue a lot. On a visceral, gut level, I detest Beck, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Hannity, et al for their remarkable success in poisoning the well of civil discourse and dumbing down our culture to death. On the other hand, Wolf Blitzer, John King, Anderson Cooper, and Howie Kurtz put themselves forward as honest brokers who don’t have a dog in the fight and then twist themselves into pretzels peddling this he said/she said false equivalence bullshit.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Moore Award Scmoore Award. I just wan to see them eternally punished by men they will never have the courage to be or the foresight to truly respect. The thousand suns is just rhetorical flourish.
freelancer
@jk:
Is that you, Jerry? Are you back?
freelancer
I was aiming for my own nutpicked Moore award earlier when, reacting to a reader of Sully’s:
I wrote, “Fuck these women. They should be suffocated with excrement while being set on fire. “That’s to be expected when you’re so liberal.” Fuck you.”
A thousand suns would just vaporize them indiscriminately.
Lesley
What Violent Right Wing Rhetoric? http://tinyurl.com/2csu8uh Also see TBogg http://tinyurl.com/2fksw5p
NobodySpecial
I don’t wanna hear shit about this guy being SO mentally ill that he could plan an assassination and go through with it and not be aware of what he was doing.
I also don’t wanna hear shit from anyone who makes false equivalences about the far left and the far right about how TERRIBLE both sides are anymore. Leftists who do shit in this country anymore are good at property destruction, but I don’t remember the last time any one of them set off a bomb to deliberately kill, shot up a church, or assassinated a Republican Congressman. Or for that matter, a nine year old.
JGabriel
asiangrrlMN: I was furious over rhetoric the GOP engaged in and the violence they threatened over the last two years.
Now that those threats have come to fruition — now that, as threatened, a Second Amendment Remedy has taken place — I just think we should remind the American public that this IS what was threatened, and not let the GOP get away with their hypocritical condolences, their crocodile tears, and their denials of culpability.
.
jk
@freelancer:
Yes, back for a little bit.
I made a fantastic discovery on YouTube: Original Studio Versions of 2 of my favorite songs, so I don’t have to suffer thru putrid, execrable, and unforgivable cover versions
And It Stoned Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX8nAZftZL4
Stolen Moments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I777BcgQL9o
John - A Motley Moose
@freelancer: That’s an easy one – Michelle Bachmann.
jk
These threads are too long for me to scroll thru, so I apologize in advance if this link has already been cited
FoxNews has Sarah “Mooseburger Helper” Palin’s back and cuts away from ‘Giffords vigil’ when her name is mentioned
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/fox-news-cuts-away-giffords-vigil-when-
freelancer
@JGabriel:
It’d be nice if we could also lose the anonymousness of the “some people” attribution. “Some people say…”, well some people consider the necessary reaction to our current currency standard to be the murder of our represented leaders and that any nine year old child caught in the crossfire as an acceptable loss. Some people are fucking insane and their opinions shouldn’t be counted as valid counterpoints. That they do in today’s environment is nothing short of profit-driven journalistic nihilism.
jk
@freelancer:
Great Link.
Given the unbearable gutlessness of the MSM, I’d recommend Democracy Now with Amy Goodman and GritTV with Laura Flanders for honest discussions of the Tuscon shooting. I’ll also be checking Truthdig to see reactions from Robert Scheer and Chris Hedges.
Xenos
Any news on Judge Roll? All I can find is that he was at the scene, and died. Was he part of the outreach event, or was he just there buying some food?
Elizabelle
@JGabriel:
The New York Times is very puzzling tonight.
Exhibit A: articles entitled “Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics” and “In Attack’s Wake, Political Repercussions”
No mention whatsoever of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News. None. In any of the three major frontpage stories.
Although numerous expressions of concern from Republican politicians and Tea Party spokespeople.
Exhibit B: Matt Bai’s “A Turning Point in the Discourse, but in Which Direction?” with a sentence actually exonerating those spouting hyperbole and other false equivalency.
Exhibit C: Reader comment thread, at about 1124 comments. The editors are pulling out — as “highlights” — those comments saying both sides bear responsibility. While sentiment in the actual comments is running about 15:1 pinning this on rightwing and Tea Party rhetoric.
What gives?
NobodySpecial
@Elizabelle: They are simply not the friends of what’s considered ‘the Left’ in this country, especially the Op-Ed page.
SATSQ.
MTiffany
I’m kind of hoping some liberal takes revenge on the Birthers by embracing their tactic of the unappealable smear and suggesting that the Republicans are behind the shooting of a sitting member of Congress as a means of dodging a vote on repealing “Obamacare” so as to avoid a fight they can’t win without reneging on their promises to the Tea Party.
MeDrewNotYou
I went to play a game of Madden clear/collect my thoughts. What I kept coming back to was this comment from upthread. Here it is for convenience’s sake.
The thing I find most distressing is that I know that ultimately, this event won’t change America for the better. Things will be rationalized away in the manner described by various commentators. Ours is a society where, as long as you put an R after your name, you can say anything you want, threaten whoever you want, and insinuate whatever you want.
I watch Science Channel a lot and lately there have been ads for a documentary on WW2 Germany. One of the lines is something to the effect of, “How could a modern society support the murder of millions?” What really scares me about yesterday is that I know that now.
jk
@MeDrewNotYou:
How could a modern society take seriously shameless demagogues like Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh?
sukabi
@MeDrewNotYou: there’s been Time/Life commercials for “never seen before” Nazi Germany footage that says pretty much the same thing… shows footage of cute little boys and girls singing / dancing / heil hitlering… they are pushing how “normal” they were… until they started killing by the millions…
I’m creeped out by it because there are many in this country that won’t take the warning, but will use it as a blue print.
Karen
@Xenos:
CNN said that the judge came by to say hello. I don’t know if this is just respect from politicians on both sides of the aisle but it seems like she was beloved by a lot of people.
gene108
@jk:
It also helped seal the win for Team Obama. After the conventions, in September 2008, Obama and McCain were in a dead heat.
Then the financial crisis hit.
Had McCain picked a V.P. like Romney, who was knowledgeable about the world of finance and could reassure voters, in an intelligent manner, that Team McCain was on the job and could handle this mess, Team Obama may have lost or won by a much smaller margin.
gene108
On a side note, I’m actually thinking this tragedy will tone down the right win rhetoric, especially by the Professional Right.
A congresswoman was shot.
If it could happen to her, it could happen to any of member of Congress, Democrat or Republican.
I think the Republicans will push hard to make sure the Professional Right tones it down. I think the Congressional Republicans are genuinely shocked, appalled and scared this could happen to them, for them to keep quiet about the rhetoric coming from the Professional Right.
amk
As long as the american media legitimizes and keeps the rw talibanization of politics in the limelight as if were a reasonable viewpoint, this kind of mindless killing of innocents will continue. I blame the extremists enabling media for this tragic event.
amk
@gene108: You work on time machines or something ? Nice deflection on that punk mccain’s cynical move.
Lorna
Wow! You people have learned nothing! It is amazing at all the hate spewed here in these posts. Most people are middle of the road, not extreme left or right. You people have picked the hate speech right back up. Shame on all of you! I watched all the news and interviews last night and I cant tell you if the shooter was far right or far left. What I can tell you is there was something mentally wrong with him! All your hateful comments, name calling, finger pointing are just amazing to read. Trying to blame one side or the other. Trying to justify what he did by blaming others? What is wrong with all of you? I am appauled at what our great country has become. We should be pulling together as a country, but instead this crap. Maybe it is time we all look in the mirror. Unbelievable!
BobS
I experienced the false equivalence thing first-hand with a co-worker of mine last night.
When I made the point that, Just in my lifetime, most of the political violence in this country had emanated from the right (murder of civil rights workers in Mississippi, the Martin Luther King assassination, murder of abortion providers, Oklahoma City, the Atlanta Olympic bombing, and more recently the Holocaust Museum, the murder of police officers in Pittsburgh, the assault at the Rand Paul appearance), as well as the incendiary rhetoric of the leaders of their tribe like Limbaugh, Savage, Palin, & Angle (with her Second Amendment solution remark), not to mention spectacles like teabaggers behavior at congressional townhalls, multiple threats to politicians who voted for the ACA, and assault rifles openly displayed at Obama appearances, his rebuttal was tree-spiking and Keith Olberman.
Lorna
Wow, I see how it is with the moderators….if you’re not spreading hate, you can’t get your comments posted. Again amazing what we have become. This is for the moderators, think you are part of the problem? Keep on ramping up the hate, that seems that is all this website is good for!
rc
not for posting:
Edit? ??????
Was this a typo or your intention? “load and clear” in 3rd to last paragraph? Or did you mean “loud and clear”?
alwhite
@asiangrrlMN:
Anyone remember the days after the Oklahoma City bombing? Clinton and many others rightly pointed out that there was a lot of angry hate spewing out of radios all over the country. Those people were immediately attacked & Rush lead the charge. It was Clinton that was trying to make the bombing political & was Clinton that was generating hate.
In this case Rush has a whole day(Sunday) to build his bullshit case and more help from the FAUX News lineup then he could every have dreamed of back in ’95.
someguy
Spot on Dennis. We don’t know much, but what we do know, is the Republicans are to blame for this with their dangerous rhetoric and violent speech. I’m not sure what action needs to be taken but some does to silence them, since they obviously aren’t going to do it themselves. Supposed mainstream Republican leaders do this all the time, from inspiring Tim McVeigh and the militia movement, to various abortion clinic bombers and assassins, and now this. All fundamental rights can be subjected to reasonable limits – such as time, manner place restrictions on the first amendment – and violent rhetoric like “targeting” and the thinly veiled threats that serve as dog whistles (“must be held accountable”) must be stopped.
THE
Some of the stuff about the alleged shooter in this article from The Arizona Republic reminds me of the Columbine shooters more than anything else.
bemused
@BobS:
What was your co-worker’s reaction to your list? He had to have had more in his comeback bag than two pretty lame examples….
Anya
@R. Johnston:
This implies that all individuals with mental health issues are violent. This is not true. People with mental health issues, whether they have schizophrenia or any other illness are not “bound to erupt in violence at some point.” There are many people who have delusions that has nothing to do with hurting people or themselves. Mental illness might prevent them from living a normal (what ever was normal for them), but it does not necessarily lead to violence.
The violent rhetoric and vitriol can also influence and exasperate someone’s own delusions. Do you think most of the paranoid individuals who are yelling about the government targeting them are healthy individuals?
aimai
@gene108:
No, quite the opposite. They know–anyone in public life knows–how fragile their own security is. As long as they can be pretty sure that the security measures taken will protect them, while the rhetoric and anger is directed at the democrats, they will do nothing to tone down the rhetoric on their own side. Why should they? They can stand up, mouth a few platitudes, and be pretty sure that the odds are against someone targeting them. They know for a fact that NPR isn’t putting bullseyes on them, and Obama and Biden never call them out by name. Most public servants toil in relative obscurity. It is the right wing that has turned ordinary acts, like voting while liberal, into the equivalent of a test of courage. Look at Issa and his accusations that the President is “corrupt?” They did the same thing with Giffords before the shooting–then her votes were taken as a sign that she actively is attempting to destroy the country. Some of that was walked back yesterday, but not much of it. The right wing will *never* return to the days when a political disagreement wasn’t apocalyptic. They’ve got nothing else.
aimai
Basilisc
Anyone else starting to notice a pattern here?
– The right (going all the way to the top) engages in inflammatory rhetoric. Then, when someone takes the hint and people get hurt and killed, it’s because of violent rhetoric “on both sides”.
– The right under Reagan blows up the deficit. The left under Clinton balances it, even generates a surplus. The right under Bush Jr blows up the deficit again. Then the left’s priorities have to be tossed aside, because “both sides need to be fiscally responsible.”
– The right under Bush makes unsustainable military commitments, with huge costs in life, money, and national prestige. Any attempt by Obama to dial back those commitments is jumped on as a sign of weakness, so (leaving aside his actual preferences) his range of action is extremely limited.
– The right deregulates, underfunds the regulators who remain, puts foxes in charge of various henhouses. Then, when the things the regulations were designed to prevent happen, entrenched lobbies prevent any corrective action.
What ties this together is that only one side of the American political sphere seems to be held accountable for its actions. And I’m not inclined to take the easy route of blaming “the media” – reporters are incredibly easy to manipulate.
I think it has more to do with the fact that the left actually cares about government, so when things go wrong (even if it isn’t their fault) they feel responsible for fixing it. And take the blame when they can’t. The right cares only about power, which means it puts a high priority on spreading and deflecting blame. And usually succeeds.
Still not sure how this all fits together, but this is what I’ve been thinking about lately.
MazeDancer
That sweet child had just been elected to her student council. She was at the mall “because she was interested in government”. Not to shop. Probably going to meet a glowing role model and she gets shot. Everyone on this blog knows what it’s like to be interested in good government, and this child saw the importance early. Seeing her beautiful picture just now on the Today Show is completely heartbreaking.
Seeing the picture of the other suspect, however, is another thing all together. He looks like some kind of Central Casting version of a creep.
It is very easy to manipulate the crazy and alienated. It’s possible the older guy knew exactly how to do that to the shooter.
Manipulating the crazy and the alienated is what Beck, QuitterGov and their ilk do everyday. They’re not likely to admit to that being their methodology anytime soon.
But the Sheriff last night pointed his finger right at them when he talked about “people who make their living” off “vitriol” & “rhetoric”. Two words now linked forever with this insane tragedy.
Dennis G.
@BobS:
Pushing back hard on the false equivalence thing needs to be job one.
These assholes can just fuck themselves
BobS
@bemused: That was it. I would have at least thought he’d of mentioned 1999 in Seattle (which I would have immediately contested) or the sixties SDS, but he didn’t. Several others were sitting by silently until one woman, a somewhat recent immigrant from Europe, commented on the gun culture in America being at least partly responsible, whereupon he took the opportunity to change the subject and lecture her on the Second Amendment and the importance of guns in American history.
JamesD
Such ignorance displayed here by people who are trying to draw a correlation to this tragedy to conservative pundits such as Beck and Rush.
The perp’s rants are across the board ideologically and it’s obvious he was mentally unstable.
When has Beck or Rush EVER suggested violence was a suitable answer?
So just because you don’t agree with their political viewpoints, you spew hate towards them and state they are the cause. Seems to me you should start practicing what you preach.
Rubbish. Don’t try to compare Tea Party folks that want smaller government to people that hate the government and seek to harm others.
@BobS – you sir really need to educate yourself on our history. Conservative Christian people lead the anti-slavery movement, MLK was a Republican with conservative values, and it was the Democrats that were most vocal and anti civil rights during the 50’s and 60’s. These liberals of old just went from out and out trying to keep the black man down to now keeping them down by creating a victimhood mentality and enslaved to entitlements.
Does the KKK member Robert Byrd ring a bell?
AuldBlackJack
@Face:
Ahhh, the irrefutable logic of wife-beater all across this great land. “If you didn’t make me so mad, I wouldn’t have to hit you goddamn it!”
Fuckin’ priceless.
bemused
@BobS:
I’m not surprised. That’s my experience too and not just on violent/hate rhetoric. They will throw out a couple of more or less ridiculous examples feeling quite proud of themselves and when challenged will swiftly change the subject tossing out a few more Faux factoids beaming or snarling with a so there attitude. If people continue to debate them, they eventually run out of steam/Beck-Rush spin and suddenly have somewhere else they need to be.
AuldBlackJack
@Third Eye Open:
I’m not telling you what to do ‘Third Eye’, but your reaction is what makes this ‘a win’ for the Right. If the result of this incident is that people on the Left become more fearful of expressing or acting on their political beliefs (as happened in Israel after Rabin’s assassination) then the whole country will move to the Right. They will have silenced you.
Omnes Omnibus
@JamesD: You, sir, are an idiot.
The Raven
Meantime (well, this is an open threat, er, thread) we have Simon Johnson weighing in on the Daley appointment. He Does Not Like It in an educated way that is pretty damn scary.
The Raven
@Third Eye Open:
Sympathies, guy.
Take care of yourself.
boctaoe
I know where we can start toning down the rhetoric, Stop calling The Affordable Health Care Act, the Job-Killing act. Continue to remove loaded words from public discourse. Call out those who persist.
Dr. Squid
@JamesD: I’m surprised you haven’t shot anyone yet, Bubbles. Glenn Beck tells everyone who will listen to panic at the sight of their government, and whaddya know! Someone panics.
Go to hell, boy.
Lorna
@Dr. Squid:
Dr. Squid now what an intellegent answer to JamesD……..Dr can you refute anything that JamesD posted?
Please do tell, give us some examples of Beck insighting panic at the sight of our government and the websites where we can find the facts for ourselves. You do deal in facts, don’t you?
Hawes
My son was born the day after Christina Green, the nine year old girl. I imagine her parents shared with us the profound mixed emotions of that day. To see so much horror on your television as you simultaneously welcome a new life into yours.
What I can’t imagine is how they are feeling now.
I’m sick of living in a world where parents bury their children.
psychobroad
Does anyone have the energy to school James D and Lorna? Or are we just ignoring fools today? JamesD you are laughably ignorant–but you get points for perfect recall of threadbare right-wing talking points that are demonstrably false.
Zuzu's Petals
@psychobroad:
I don’t even have the interest in schooling her on her spelling.
Lorna
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Oh yes Zuzu, the insults make you look so smart…….oops on my (sp) of incite. No excuse for poor grammar. You must be so smart. Thanks for showing how small you all are……can’t reply with any facts, just insults. You must be a very happy person on the inside to be able to insult perfect strangers………and we wonder what is wrong with society????????Really?? Hope you never misspell a word or two.
As suspected, I asked for facts to back up the accusations being made and none were given, just insults. That’s what I find when I talk to left wing nuts, never any facts, to back up what they are spouting as factual. By the way people your opinions are not considered facts!!!!!!
And psychobroad didn’t your parents ever teach you about calling someone a fool? Again, the same. All you can do when you don’t have facts on your side is name call. Grow up!
Ruckus
I have been trying to answer/speak to Third Eye Open but I don’t have any words. I understand the level of disparagement, the hurt, the depression.
But I have no words of encouragement, I feel the same way. I am tired and I know that means the other side is winning. But I never wanted to play a game that had winners and losers when it was real people who were the losers. When people die just for being. When people who want to help others are killed or made afraid for their lives from their fellow citizens for no good reason, hell no reason at all that any sane person understands. I want to keep fighting because it is necessary, but it is tiring. It is demoralizing. It is demanding. I’d like to live the two, maybe three decades left of my life. I’d like to enjoy my life, but I feel I have to be fighting all the time, for what? To see the rich get richer, to see me and my friends get poorer and sicker? To see people arm themselves for bullshit paranoia?
What I’d really like is for conservatives to grow the fuck up, realize that they live in a world with 6 billion people and they are not so fucking special. Nevagonnahappen.
JamesD
@Omnes Omnibus:
Your only reply is name calling? How very progresive/liberal of you. :P
I’ll compare IQ’s and W2’s with you anytime. :)
@Dr. Squid:
You are surprised I have not shot anyone yet? What did I say to lead you to think that I would take someone’s life?
Typical progressive/liberal trying to paint others as unstable when you can’t intelligently reply with polite discourse.
Back to my post, many of you claim that Rush and Beck are the cause of this tragedy, give me some examples!
Where such radicals as a result of conservative pundits at play in Lincoln’s, Kennedy’s, etc assignations?
lol at the libtards trying in vain to make this a story, somewhat reminds me of the far left wing groups trying to infiltrate Tea Party gatherings shouting “nig***” and other things to make them look bad – YOU FAIL AGAIN.
Jebediah
Lorna and James, you are both low-skill trolls. Please go away.
JamesD
I see not one of the folks that believes this happened due to “right wing” talking points has offered one shred of evidence.
But you’re all good at name calling!
Below is a link to a great article on the left’s hate talk. If just one of you could provide me evidence of similar tactics by the right, I would appreciate it.
http://michellemalkin.com/