I couldn't agree more, but then there was the case today of a U of Victoria prof being contacted by the FBI because of some comments she made in a classroom lecture in the USA. She referred the FBI to her lawyer.
Leahy: 'Seething rhetoric' has gone too far
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/11/leahy.security/index.html
We're Arizona shooting victims too, says Tea Party co-founder
Trent Humphries says killings fallout is evolving into conspiracy to destroy Tea Party and silence criticism of government
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/11/arizona-shootings-tea-party
If Obama handles this well he might be able to revive his troubled presidency, and get re-elected for a second term.
Sarah Palin's presidential hopes surely can't survive this assassin's bullet
She didn't pull the trigger, and she's not the first to use the language of combat. But the Alaskan's career will certainly suffer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/11/sarah-pal...
Encouraging news.
Giffords moves arms, survival odds at '101 pct'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9446544
If Obama handles this well he might be able to revive his troubled presidency, and get re-elected for a second term.
If it gives him a bump in the polls maybe one of his team will take out a couple more pawns to boast his ratings.
Arizona shootings fallout - live blog
• Read Paul Harris's evening summary
The US flag flies at half-mast at the US Capitol to honour the victims of the Arizona shooting. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA 
10.03pm GMT / 5.03pm ET: It has been a busy day as the aftermath of the Tucson shooting has continued to dominate the US domestic news agenda in ways both predictable and unusual. Key developments have been:
No doubt this story will dominate tomorrow too. Until then, goodbye, and thanks for all your comments.
9.55pm GMT / 4.55pm ET: My colleague Jonathan Freedland has written an interesting comment piece explaining the political damage the Arizona shooting has caused to Sarah Palin:
Just imagine how a Palin presidential campaign would now unfold. Her fellow Republicans might steer clear of the Arizona killings in the primary phase of the contest but, if she somehow became her party's nominee, she would be challenged constantly about a single image: the map she posted on her website last autumn dotted with 20 gunsight-style crosshairs over 20 congressional districts occupied by Democrats who had dared to vote for Obama's healthcare reform - among them one Gabrielle Giffords.
Palin might try to argue that she wasn't really targeting Giffords and the others, echoing the absurd attempt by one of her closest aides at the weekend to pretend those rifle sights were really "surveyor's symbols". But that won't wash, not when Palin herself referred via Twitter to the "'bullseye' icon used 2 target the 20 Obamacare-lovin' incumbent seats". More importantly, there would be a potent witness ready to testify against Palin: Giffords herself. The most important 13 seconds of videotape could prove to be the clip, already running on a loop on American television, of Giffords complaining last autumn about that crosshairs ad, warning those behind such violent imagery to "realise there's consequences to that action". That statement, full of poignant prescience, can't help but point a finger at Palin. If, as those around her hope and pray, Giffords survives, she would need to do no more than appear on a platform or in a TV ad in the 2012 campaign to indict Palin.
This is the video that Jonathan is talking about:
9.49pm: It is a truism of political life that legislation passed in a hurry tends to be bad legislation. One would have hoped America might have learned that with the Patriot Act. Or some of the rushed bailouts of Wall Street banks, which saw billions of dollars disappear to who-knows-where. So it is a little disturbing to see this piece from the Hill that catches numerous politicians musing on ways to curb criticism of government officials and somehow pass laws to stifle "incendiary speech". They seem to be Democrats, and Republicans seem to be the ones cautioning against it. On this one the Republicans are right. What is needed now is not laws to prevent idiots on the airwaves, or in politics, from saying stupid, ignorant, damaging things. What is needed is social sanction by the great American public to make it unacceptable. A more robust US media would help too. One that is more willing to point out that people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are deluded, conspiracy-minded fools and not indulge in the "he-said, she-said" nonsense that their opinions do not deserve.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/jan/11/arizona-shootings-fallo...
Arizona shootings fallout - live blog
The US flag flies at half-mast at the US Capitol to honour the victims of the Arizona shooting. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA
9.49pm: It is a truism of political life that legislation passed in a hurry tends to be bad legislation. One would have hoped America might have learned that with the Patriot Act. Or some of the rushed bailouts of Wall Street banks, which saw billions of dollars disappear to who-knows-where. So it is a little disturbing to see this piece from the Hill that catches numerous politicians musing on ways to curb criticism of government officials and somehow pass laws to stifle "incendiary speech". They seem to be Democrats, and Republicans seem to be the ones cautioning against it. On this one the Republicans are right. What is needed now is not laws to prevent idiots on the airwaves, or in politics, from saying stupid, ignorant, damaging things. What is needed is social sanction by the great American public to make it unacceptable. A more robust US media would help too. One that is more willing to point out that people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are deluded, conspiracy-minded fools and not indulge in the "he-said, she-said" nonsense that their opinions do not deserve.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/jan/11/arizona-shootings-fallo...
Anybody else notice how there are calls to restrict free speech - the 1st Amendment - while the 2nd Amendment remains sacrosanct?
Actually there has been some talk about gun control, not likely to pass however.
Gun Control Timeline: 7 Big Events In The Federal Gun Control Debate
Nearly 100,000 people are shot in the U.S. every year, according to the Brady Campaign website.
In the crosshairs of the right
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/919414--mcquaig-...
Fox News and the poisoning of American political debate
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/television/john-doyle/fox-news-...
The bottom line in America is you are free to hate
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2011/01/11/f-vp-macdonald.html
A Scramble To Control Narrative Of Tucson Massacre
The Gun Argument
It says something about the flagging influence of the gun rights lobby that the most forceful response by gun control advocates to the shooting has been a proposal to reduce the legally allowable size of a gun's magazine - the device that stores and feeds ammunition into a firearm.
Loughner on Saturday allegedly used a 31-round magazine with his semi-automatic Glock - the same model used by the disaffected Virginia Tech student who in 2007 shot dead 32 people on campus before killing himself. That size of magazine was illegal for a decade until 2004, when Congress allowed the Clinton-era federal ban on assault weapons to expire.
New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a Democrat whose husband was killed and son wounded in 1993 by a gunman on a Long Island Rail Road train, has said she plans to advance legislation that would limit the sale of "high capacity" magazines.
Even that has been already been branded "radical" by some incoming House Republicans.
Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, says that he sees McCarthy's proposal as the beginning of a "serious push for new gun laws." But he acknowledges that the 2008 Supreme Court decision affirming the constitutional right to keep and bear arms has complicated the control effort.
Horwitz is among gun control advocates who say they have been alarmed at the shift in gun rights rhetoric - from arguments for the right to possess guns for hunting and self-defense to arguments that frame the right as intrinsic to holding a tyrannical government accountable.
That sentiment was off the grid, he says, in 1995 when Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, a militia sympathizer with strong anti-government motivations, bombed a federal building. "The idea back then that you could take up arms against the federal government was a fringy thing," he says. "Now it is more of the core of who we are as Americans."
Not that Palin or others who use gun imagery in their discourse are actually encouraging a taking up of arms, Horwitz says. "But when you motivate the base, you also motivate the weak of mind."
Palin, for her part, has not spoken out in person about her campaign target map but has removed it from her website.
The NRA has refrained from commenting since the shooting, saying in a statement that only prayers "for the victims and their families" are appropriate at this time.
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132839585/a-scramble-to-control-narrative-...
Sarah Palin doesn't get it
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2011/01/sarah_palin_doesnt_get_it.html
Sarah Palin doesn't get it
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2011/01/sarah_palin_doesnt_get_it.html
Hmm.....
Given her usage I wonder if she actually knows what "blood libel" means. Or perhaps she is just using the word for effect because she likes how it sounds.
And if "taking up arms" is just a metaphor for voting, I wonder what "lock and load" means... getting in the car to go to the polling station, perhaps?
I hope someone does a tea party voting skit on the lines of what you wrote. By the way, do they take their guns into the voting booths too? (Openly or concealed)? And do they bring their guns to church? (openly or concealed)? Imagine the sermons. Unless the preacher has his gun locked and loaded beside the BOOK, he has to be pretty careful about what he says. (And his had better be an automatic).
I find guns pretty intimidating myself.
Hmm.....
Given her usage I wonder if she actually knows what "blood libel" means. Or perhaps she is just using the word for effect because she likes how it sounds.
And if "taking up arms" is just a metaphor for voting, I wonder what "lock and load" means... getting in the car to go to the polling station, perhaps?
I hope someone does a tea party voting skit on the lines of what you wrote. By the way, do they take their guns into the voting booths too? (Openly or concealed)? And do they bring their guns to church? (openly or concealed)? Imagine the sermons. Unless the preacher has his gun locked and loaded beside the BOOK, he has to be pretty careful about what he says. (And his had better be an automatic).
This is not particularly funny to me because it is the current bloody reality. I find it too scary to joke about.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/31/george-tiller-killed-abor_n_209...
http://www.benedictionblogson.com/2009/03/08/illinois-minister-shot-in-c...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-02-minister-killed_N.htm
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/digest/index.cfm/2010/10/22/Church...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/30/mormon-bishop-shot-clay-s_n_699...
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/20/us/minister-is-shot-dead-during-church...
@ kropotkin1951
There is a difference between making light of and satirizing.
Nothing is too scary to joke about if it is done right.
I watched the Palin vidoe and indeed want those 8 minutes of my life back. I'm sure she does not know how offensive using the phrase "blood libel" in this instance is. The fact that Gabby Giffords is Jewish adds a perverse irony to it.
Interesting observation Caissa.
It sure looks like the Republicians are running scared over this tragedy and how it might revive the Democrats.
The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel
Those who purport to care about the tenor of political discourse don't help civil debate when they seize on any pretext to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870366790457607191381869696...
Palin slammed for using 'blood libel' term
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/01/12/2742528/palins-use-of-term-bl...
Arizona Shootings Trigger Surge in Glock Sales Amid Fear of Ban
Wolff was right. Instead of hurting sales, the massacre had the $499 semi-automatic pistols -- popular with police, sport shooters and gangsters -- flying out the doors of his Glockmeister stores in Mesa and Phoenix."We're at double our volume over what we usually do," Wolff said two days after the shooting spree that also left 14 wounded, including Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in critical condition.
A national debate over weaknesses in state and federal gun laws stirred by the shooting has stoked fears among gun buyers that stiffer restrictions may be coming from Congress, gun dealers say. The result is that a deadly demonstration of the weapon's effectiveness has also fired up sales of handguns in Arizona and other states, according to federal law enforcement data.
"When something like this happens people get worried that the government is going to ban stuff," Wolff said.
Anyone hear the interview with the gun shop owner on As It Happens last night?
He did evoke the fear of living 45 minutes away from a war zone, as he painted it, but he also made a passing reference to the notoriety the Glock has received because of its use in this slaughter.
On Saturday in Tucson, Jared Lee Loughner allegedly used a Glock 19—a lightweight, $500 semi-automatic commonly carried by law enforcement officials—to kill six people and injure 13 more, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. In 2007, Cho Seung-Hui used the same gun, along with a Walther P22, to kill 32 people at Virginia Tech before committing suicide. And Giffords herself boasted to the New York Times in 2010: "I have a Glock 9 millimeter, and I'm a pretty good shot."
The Glock Spiel: How the company that made Jared Lee Loughner's gun became so successful.
America: Violent To The Bone - by Glen Ford
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/america-violent-bone
"When the rulers of the 'greatest purveyor of violence in the world,' warns folks to tone down the rhetoric, it's both a joke and a threat...So, by all means, let's examine violence in - and from - America. And then let's ratchet up the intensity of struggle against the real culprits who profit from a culture of violence.."
@ kropotkin1951
There is a difference between making light of and satirizing.
Nothing is too scary to joke about if it is done right.
You know jokes about gun toting tea baggers in churches leave me with the same taste in my mouth as jokes about Nazis in synagogues or Israeli settlers in mosques. Just not my idea of humour. Doing it right is far more difficult for some topics.
America: Violent To The Bone - by Glen Ford
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/america-violent-bone
"When the rulers of the 'greatest purveyor of violence in the world,' warns folks to tone down the rhetoric, it's both a joke and a threat...So, by all means, let's examine violence in - and from - America. And then let's ratchet up the intensity of struggle against the real culprits who profit from a culture of violence.."
I really liked this quote. In case anyone has missed it I agree that american history has always been about the triple evils. Dr. King was shot for a reason.
Therefore, when those who have grown rich from organized violence, who are the same people who have made America, in Dr. Martin Luther King's words, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, today,” start talking about ratcheting down the rhetoric so as not to encourage violence, it is time for us to do the opposite. We must become fixated on violence, hyper-conscious of the violence that is inflicted on our own communities and on peoples and nations around the planet, by the people who benefit from what Dr. King called the triple evils: racism, militarism, and materialism. Put in other terms, that's white supremacy, U.S. imperialism, and rule of the rich.
These right-wingers are running for cover wherever they can.
As if we know, or they know, when the shooter actually wrote those comments. For all we know it was only last week.
Instead of addressing the issue of gun control, or vitriolic rhetoric, this is what we are being subjected to in the Washington Post and the other mainstream press.
Jared Loughner's hate came before the Tea Party
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2011/01/jared_loughners_ha...
I see that it has been said enough in this thread allready, but Sarah Palin is surely in denial about the power of her words. Anyone with influence has a responsibility to acknowledge the consequences of their words.
Social science has clearly shown that social conditions can create mental illness in people. Palin is claiming that when those mental illnesses are related to crimes being committed that connection between social conditions and mental illness somehow does not exist.
This shooting spree was definately NOT a random attack on just anyone. Loughner, the shooter, was targetting his victims.
To Wit:
"investigators have said they found a handwritten note among Mr Loughner's effects bearing the words "Die, bitch," which they believe was a reference to Ms Giffords.
Other notes previously disclosed read "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and "Giffords."
Therefore, for Sarah Palin to say in referance to this shooting spree that "Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own"; "They begin and end with the criminals who commit them" just does not hold water. There is a logical disconnect in her thinking.
Social science has clearly shown that social conditions can create mental illness in people. Palin is claiming that when those mental illnesses are related to crimes being committed that connection between social conditions and mental illness somehow does not exist.
An easy response is to say that Sarah Palin and her ilk appeal to the mentally ill.
This is a good article - worth a read.
Beck, Palin, Limbaugh: 3 Stooges of "Peaceful" Insurrection
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/beck-palin-limbaugh-3-stooges-of-peaceful...
but who is giving Sarah Palin so much influence? the mainstream media, and some people on the left who LOVE to hate her and talk about her 24 7 should be responsible too.
An interesting response (sort of) to that from [url=http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2011/01/09/palin-and-clinton-obsessives-...
That Keith Olberman is a piece of work, isn't he? This is the guy who suggested in 2008 that Hillary Clinton be discreetly murdered in order to get her out of the way. Now he has a Special Comment® devoted to the message that "violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in our democracy." I agree, but where were you in 2008, dude?
That's right. He was busy calling for Hillary Clinton's death and then, when Clinton was over, foaming at the mouth about Sarah Palin. Lots of people were foaming at the mouth about Sarah Palin. There was the "art" exhibit in New York inviting people to play at shooting her with a rifle. She was hung in effigy in Los Angeles. Sandra Bernhardt said she should be raped, and not a few other people gleefully called for her death.
...
So I find it somewhat ironic that now, in the wake of the tragic Arizona shooting, Sarah Palin is being held responsible for the violence of our political discourse-which everyone now agrees is a terrible thing. She is specifically being held responsible for what happened in Arizona, and why? Because her PAC's midterm election strategy map from a year ago used crosshairs icons to indicate the targeted districts:
...
But still, people will say, no matter what happened in the past (and watch for folks to backpeddle furiously and claim that they certainly never endorsed or even snickered at the Kill Palin stuff), the issue is that today's wingnut/Tea Party rhetoric is dangerous, and Sarah Palin is responsible for it. She is, according to one overwrought comment I saw on Facebook, the "focus of evil in this country."
To which I say: oh for fuck's sake, people. Get a fucking grip. Climb out of your own asshole, take a course in Feminism 101, and buy a goddamn clue as to what is really going on. Sarah Palin is a Republican. That's all. She's just a silly rightwing Republican. The country's crawling with them. Look, they're all around you! They're your county supervisors, state senators, congresspeople, governors, and former presidents. Remember Bush? Remember Reagan? Sarah Palin didn't invent any of this stuff. She didn't invent any of the ideas or any of the rhetoric. She certainly didn't invent extremist violence, nor does she seem to be in any way connected with that kind of thing. She's just an ordinary idiot Republican who believes ordinary idiot Republican things, like the millions of other ordinary idiot Republicans in this country.
What is it about her that's so special? What could it possibly be that makes this utterly ordinary idiot Republican somehow a billion times worse than all the rest?
but who is giving Sarah Palin so much influence? the mainstream media, and some people on the left who LOVE to hate her and talk about her 24 7 should be responsible too.
The 24 hours new cycle, the professional leftists who love to talk about the Tea party and do everything they can to document all the embarassing moments of Sarah Palin (for example, her cheat notes at a Tea Party convention - Even the Whitehouse spokesman poked fun at Palin for that act)
So many from both the left and the right are responsible for creating the hsyterical media , if its not Sarah Palin, its someone else. People need to just ignore certain individuals and focus on solving problems and being positive and respectful, instead of playing gotcha politics and making fun of those Tea Party people or people with whom they disagree with.
It only serves to tick them off even more. Sarah Palin became famous partly because she is constantly being attacked for being uneducated, ignorant, and dumb. I am not saying she is not all of that, but there is no need to talk shit about someone and make fun of them constantly, that will only encourage some to defend Palin against what they considered to be elitist attacks from the left.
Sensationalizing news every hour of every day will have a negative impact on society. I love how people go on and on about the political ramification of this incident.
Look how much attention a person can get for shooting a politician?
Do you think thats not an attractive deal for some sorry desperate individual out there who want their taste of fame?
Check out the picture.
Glenn Beck Photo FAIL: Fox Host's Site Runs Unfortunate Juxtaposition (PICTURE)
but who is giving Sarah Palin so much influence? the mainstream media, and some people on the left who LOVE to hate her and talk about her 24 7 should be responsible too.
You can't leave out people like this though. Arizona Rep (R) Trent Franks ""If every person in the world was like Sarah Palin, there probably wouldn't even be need for government because no one would be in danger of any kind. If every person were like Sarah Palin, this world would be a peaceful, beautiful world to live in"
It's like tabloid magazine. We don't want to read bout Britney Spears, but lets buy more tabloid magazines and look at pictures of her shaving her head, she is the face of insanity, people! Lets keep talking about her so she can do something stupid again.
Everything is such a big fucking deal. Some people get off on talking about other people. Some like to talk about how stupid and insane a celebrity is, because it makes them feel better about themselves. Its like the audience in a Jerry Springer show, they are there for entertainment. And Sarah Palin is part of that entertainment for both the left and the right.
Entertainers and celebrity pundits, like Olbermann, and Bill Mahar, they make moeny by trashing people, I dont really care what they have to say to be honest, its just political theater. yeah, lets start a culture war on gun control in America! That will reduce violence and tone down rhetoric!
@ kropotkin1951
There is a difference between making light of and satirizing.
Nothing is too scary to joke about if it is done right.
You know jokes about gun toting tea baggers in churches leave me with the same taste in my mouth as jokes about Nazis in synagogues or Israeli settlers in mosques. Just not my idea of humour. Doing it right is far more difficult for some topics.
I agree with you that it's not a game for anyone, and I would add that scary and horrific events are exploited not only by people who want to crack a joke.
By contrast, in the right hands - let's say Swift, Kubrick, and plenty of others, (including SNL writers on a few occasions) humour that makes one cringe can sometimes illustrate things in a way that straight moral outrage doesn't quite get to.
Not meaning to sidetrack, but a situation like this one, which is outrageous to the point of absurdity, is just waiting to be skewered. One thing is for sure, nothing else is going to knock any sense into some of those people.
I realize this is the third thread about the congresswoman, but would it be appropriate to look for just a moment at some of the less high-profile victims?
[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/arizona-shooting/hard-roads-ah... roads ahead for Arizona shooting victims[/url]
One of the six killed, Dorwan Stoddard, 75, threw his 75-year-old wife to the ground and then spread-eagled himself atop her as a human shield.“He heard the shots and covered my mom with his own body,” Penny Wilson said. “It was a beautiful way to say goodbye.” [...]
“My wife Suzie was the parent who took Christina Taylor Green to this event,” said Bill Heilman, referring to the nine-year-old who was the youngest of the victims. Mr. Heilman described how he had to tell his wounded wife, shot three times but expected to recover, that the little girl she treated as a granddaughter had been killed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/politics/
If you look at the headline,With Blood Libel, 2012 campaign begins. It looks like the liberal online paper really enjoy putting a picture of Sarah Palin and her latest quotes of the day on their front page in order to gain traffic.
It's hard to not feel bitter and disappointed when Americans, and to a lesser degree Canadians, are faced with these type of so called political discourse. While the mainstream media continues to encourage us to become useful idiots, many are still looking for real solutions from our politicans. Is this it? The latest breaking news? and all we can hope for is more distraction, faux outrages, and entertainment from both sides of the aisle.
but who is giving Sarah Palin so much influence? the mainstream media, and some people on the left who LOVE to hate her and talk about her 24 7 should be responsible too.
An interesting response (sort of) to that from [url=http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2011/01/09/palin-and-clinton-obsessives-...
That Keith Olberman is a piece of work, isn't he? This is the guy who suggested in 2008 that Hillary Clinton be discreetly murdered in order to get her out of the way. Now he has a Special Comment® devoted to the message that "violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in our democracy." I agree, but where were you in 2008, dude?
That's right. He was busy calling for Hillary Clinton's death and then, when Clinton was over, ...
Actually Snert this blogger is wrong on her facts. Here is a ten minute rant against Hillary's use of the word assassination. Listen to it and get back to me on the part where he calls for her to be murdered. A personal questions Snert. Do you ever check any of the "information" you read on line?
NOTE: My posting of a ten minute rant by Keith does not imply that I agree with any or all of what he says. It clearly shows him making a big deal over inappropriate language and not once in the almost 11 minutes did he call for violence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLNFsl130_Y&feature=player_embedded#!
Listen to it and get back to me on the part where he calls for her to be murdered. A personal questions Snert. Do you ever check any of the "information" you read on line?
My understanding is that he certainly didn't use the "M" word, but instead suggested that she should be taken into a room by someone and not come out.
Let's be charitable: maybe he thought it should be a really nice room that she wouldn't want to leave until she dies of natural causes.
But that wasn't really the part that I found interesting. And if you find none of it interesting, that's OK.
But did you see the picture of Sarah Palin being executed in effigy?
I hope it does end Palin's career.
And of course what is said in the press influences events such as this. To suggest otherwise would go against all the fundamental tenets that Madison Avenue is based on. Advertising works, and it works bigtime, and that's why people with money like to control the news media. And that is why Fox News and the new right-wing media in Canada exist. These folks are playing hardball, they are playing for keeps.
Will Giffords shooting end Palin's career?
Commentary: Palin has exploited subtext of violence
Let's make no mistake about it. The attempts by conservative spin doctors, and some temporizing liberal commentators, to portray this as "just" another deranged gunman in another senseless but unavoidable shooting doesn't wash.
The target was a Democratic congresswoman at a constituent event, not some random victim in a shopping center. This was a planned assassination, not a moment of unreasoning fury.
There are strong indications that the suspected killer, Jared Loughner, is mentally unstable and has no coherent political philosophy. But the fact remains this was not a random shooting.
That Giffords has miraculously survived and six others were killed because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time - making the aftermath a familiar exercise in mourning for victims of senseless violence - does not change that fact.
The alleged killer did not target just any politician, but a Democrat who voted in favor of health-care reform, in favor of financial regulation and in favor of cap-and-trade legislation. She also opposed Arizona's draconian anti-immigration law.
And she was one of 20 politicians in Sarah Palin's crosshairs for removal. It doesn't matter whether there's any evidence that Loughner ever saw Palin's Web page with the U.S. map showing the crosshairs over the offending districts. The map is symptomatic of a climate of political intolerance that afflicts the entire nation and is intense in Arizona.
That's why Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik - who, unlike the cable TV talking heads or Beltway pundits, was actually on the ground in Arizona - immediately made the connection when he blamed political rhetoric for the tragedy.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-giffords-shooting-end-palins-caree...
Across America, Latino Community Sighs With Relief
It's safe to say there was a collective sigh of brown relief when the Tucson killer turned out to be a gringo. Had the shooter been Latino, media pundits wouldn't be discussing the impact of nasty politics on a young man this week - they'd be demanding an even more stringent anti-immigrant policy. The new members of the House would be stepping over each other to propose new legislation for more guns on the border, more mothers to be deported, and more employers to be penalized for hiring brown people. Obama would be attending funerals and telling the nation tonight that he was going to increase security just about everywhere.
In short, the only reason the nation is taking a few days to reflect on the animosity in politics today is precisely that the shooter was not Latino.
Jorge Rivas
Daisy Hernandez is the former editor of ColorLines magazine.
It's painfully ironic that a gay Latino man came to the aid of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the storm of gunfire. Daniel Hernandez, an intern with the congresswoman, ran to Rep. Giffords and helped to stop the bleeding. If a judge hadn't blocked provisions of Arizona's SB 1070 law, the intern's surname would have easily qualified him as a target for police under different circumstances on Saturday. As Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, Ariz., told reporters: "The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous, and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital."
I admit sadly that it was only after I saw the shooter's gringo surname that I was able to go on and read the rest of the news about those who lost their lives on Saturday and those who, like Rep. Giffords, were severely wounded. I admit also that I felt some small relief in knowing that at least this shooting wouldn't be used as a reason for yet another backlash against immigrants, or at least that's what I'm hoping. In this political climate, it's hard to tell.
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132865098/in-tucson-a-sigh-of-relief-from-...
My understanding is that he certainly didn't use the "M" word, but instead suggested that she should be taken into a room by someone and not come out.
Do you channel the ether to get your understanding? If it comes form the internet maybe you can share a link because your understanding seems to be based on thin air. Your understanding is a very very unhelpful source. I notice as well that you posted this right wing bullshit about one of the few "left' leaning broadcasters in america. What is your agenda on this site?
NDPPI watched the Palin vidoe and indeed want those 8 minutes of my life back. I'm sure she does not know how offensive using the phrase "blood libel" in this instance is. The fact that Gabby Giffords is Jewish adds a perverse irony to it.
and I read somewhere so was Loughner - a member of the same Reform synagogue as Gifford - but my only reaction to all this is how revealing it is on the power of the US MSM agenda to capture all our little eyeballs...
and I read somewhere so was Loughner - a member of the same Reform synagogue as Gifford - but my only reaction to all this is how revealing it is on the power of the US MSM agenda to capture all our little eyeballs...
Indeed and reframe the meaning of historic phrases. For instance ground zero is no longer the nuclear bombing of Japan that killed hundreds of of thousands but the twin towers where a couple of thousand of americans were killed. If the media picks up on it blood libel could undergo its own transformation in our post 9/11 newspeak era.
