Pumping Up The Volume
As our faithful readers are aware I have been warning that Somebody Is Going To Be Hurt for quite a while. What happened yesterday didn’t surprise me. I’d been expecting it. The fact that it happened in Arizona… again, not a surprise.
What is surprising is how quickly everyone moved to define the shooter’s politics – which is difficult because mentally imbalanced people rarely have a clear, sensible ideology. What triggers them tends to be the volume of the voices inside and outside their head.
And while the voices inside their head can lead them to violence, the voices outside their head tell them their anger is real and supply them with their insane justification. The volume is pumped up.
Firing up people in politics is an age old practice, but what’s been happening recently is unlike anything I’ve experienced in my lifetime. Words matter.
Phil says: “Normal” people do not do things like this no matter what side of the aisle they lean. Video games, MTV, books, TV personalities… Yeah, they really make sane people go and shoot children in the face. Would it of been better if he was left, and she was a R? Or maybe if it was because he thought it would be a good idea to just shoot people at an unprotected rally.
Let’s skip over the nonsense of that comment to the point that if this rhetoric doesn’t calm down then no one is safe from a crazy person, and the odds that Ds and Rs will be hurt increases when we keep preaching to the crazy.
What’s given is that crazy people will do crazy things. What has to stop is the outside voices that are giving direction (targets) to their craziness.
Tags: Extremists
Spot on, Pandora!
words have consequences, unfortunately there are those that neither care nor understand
and chortle, all the way to the bank
uncaring of the chaos they leave in their wake
The galling part is that Republicans, even smart ones, want to leave it at “he was crazy” and go on… business as usual. There is no desire to trace back the craziness to the roots and fix things that can be fixed.
There is fatalism and denial around gun violence because people are making good money from the existing status quo, in which working people are at each other’s throats.
Read the comments from the poor and working class Republican suckers at Delaware Politics and stare into the abyss of an endless funding stream for anybody who can nurse hate and inflame racial grievances.
The evidence that he was crazy is actually very weak. Before you all dismiss this as just some crazy shooter, how about some good old FBI work.
It’s quite possible that she was targeted by some anti-semetic right wing hate group, in part because of her religion.
Call me crazy, but I think that anyone who would do something like this is crazy. (Maybe not in the legal sense, but crazy in my sense.)
Scene: Right wing camp
Leader: OK. So you’ll be the shooter. OK?
Jared: Yea. I can do it.
Leader: Great, but we don’t want blame coming back to us.
Jared: What should I do?
Leader: How about posting some crazy videos on YouTube?
Jared: Yea. I can do that. I’ve got some great material from the crap I read in the college that kicked me out.
Crazy? Maybe just evil. They aren’t the same thing.
Jared Lee Loughner: School Wanted Mental Evaluation
ABC.com | 1/9/2011 | By LEE FERRAN, JASON RYAN, EMILY FRIEDMAN and RICHARD ESPOSITO
Jared Lee Loughner, the suspect in custody following the murder of six people in an apparent assassination attempt on Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, purchased a semi-automatic handgun two months after his college said he would have to undergo a mental evaluation before returning from suspension, sources told ABC News.
The gun, a Glock 19 9mm, was purchased legally from a sports store in Tucson on Nov. 30, 2010, federal law enforcement officials told ABC News. Two months before, on Oct. 7, Pima Community College sent a letter to Loughner’s parents stating that if Loughner wished to return to the school, he would have to “obtain a mental health clearance indicating, in the opinion of a mental health professional, his presence at the College does not present a danger to himself or others,” the school said in a statement.
The school said Loughner had as many as five run-ins with campus police for “classroom and library disruptions,” and was suspended after college police discovered a YouTube video apparently created by Loughner in which he claimed the college is “illegal.” Rather than return to school, Loughner dropped out, the statement said.
Was it a planned, staged assassination carried out by right wing extremist? Probably. The few facts we have support that.
Will the media bite on the “lone wolf” crazy person narrative that exculpates Republican extremism? What do you think?
Pandora, exactly what “outside voices” are you referring to which influenced Mr. Loughner?
Could the “voices” you are concerned about be some of the books Jared listed on his Myspace page? Jared listed “The Communist Manifesto” and “Mein Kampf” as two of his most influential books (among others).
When you say “ …if this rhetoric doesn’t calm down then no one is safe from a crazy person”, are you referring to Delaware Liberal and its outright glee over Dick Chaney’s heart attack and cheering for his death?
Are you suggesting that we should start book burnings and purge web sites like Delaware Liberal to make the world a safer place?
Interesting perspective:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/jared-loughner-youtube-videos-_n_806370.html
unstable shooter used by right-wing extremists to do their dirty work?
like Islamic extremeists use the menatlly unstable as suicide bombers?
hmmmmm – interesting
Loughner’ has been linked to a rightwing white supremacist group. Apparently there were Tea Party ads running on that website.
According to Facebook, the most common post on Facebook yesterday was whether Sarah Palin was responsible.
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 9 January 2011 at 1:15 pm:
Loughner’ has been linked to a rightwing white supremacist group. Apparently there were Tea Party ads running on that website.
Apparently??
Here is the web site: http://amren.com/
Where “exactly” is the Tea Party ads??
Uhhh, to all the conspiracy theorists who want to condemn the tone of politics today, etc., and apparently want to blame the right on this, where were you when the film “The Assassination of George Bush” was released? Where were your cries then?
What happened in Arizona is utterly despicable and deplorable, it is beyond depravity. But to blame the tone of political discourse misses the point. Everyone in this country is taught (and knows) right from wrong. The suggestion that this was some unstable person who was urged on by folks in a right wing camp (and therebore, by extension, all conservatives) is inexcusable. We’ve had 15-20 years of extreme discourse in this country. Both sides engage in it. It is not the tone of discourse. All are appalled by this.
OK Jason, I’ll play along…
if the “right wing extremists” planned an assasination, why target a blue-dog back bencher? Since the risk and effort involved is the same, why not someone in dem leadership, Hary Reid is next door in Nev.
While we are speculating wildly, Was Giffords the target or was Loughner stalking the Judge? Who was shot first?
“It is not the tone of discourse.”
A conjecture for which you have no evidence. When a mentally disturbed person picks up on the tone of discourse, it does not automatically follow that the tone of discourse plays no role.
“Everyone in this country is taught (and knows) right from wrong.”
What a foolish and inaccurate statement, like most of the simplistic pablum disseminated as a philosophy by your tribe. The mentally ill do not know right from wrong, as the law recognizes.
The discourse is toxic on both sides, but yours is the side that also makes a fetish of gun ownership. Yours is also the side that ritualistically rewards the most extreme promoters of a sky-is-falling, civilization-is-crumbling narrative whenever our tribe dares to take hold of even one rein of power. You have reacted as one would expect of someone who understands his culpability even as he denies it.
I’m on my iPad so I can’t see the ads properly. The Tea Party ad was reported by Politico, it has something to do with a Gasden flag.
liberals are forced to run away from our fringe. anyone who calls for revolution (elf) or dresses up like a moron (code pink) is shunned by the liberal mainstream. but conservatives? they worship the extreme. they lift up their fringe and not only accept them, but follow them.
Good post pandora–just like when someone starts tossing something—somebody’s gonna get hurt……
Meanwhile….poor Arizona is in the doghouse on 2 counts now….violating the adult shooter’s privacy in regards to mental/physical health by sending a school note to his parents? Yee gads. Good for them on the slip-up, albeit to deaf ears—but no doubt the ACLU will just love this one.
Having personal experience w/ adult children and their healthcare/problems we really need to nail down better cleaner lines of reporting etc.. I think it’s just plain wrong I pay for the insurance, pay for the health/doctor bills of adult college kids, but still felt it necessary to catch a next plane out of here because as my child is being wheeled to emergency surgery Dr. So and So doesn’t have the paper that is on every other medical record to discuss said adult child with me. Can’t this “stuff” just be on driver’s licenses or something? I can’t cover every emergency room!!! And if my child was having a meltdown, I sure as heck would want to know and intervene for their sake and YOURS!!
When I left each child at college I took them to the respective campus health area and we both left documentation to allow this flow of information, in an effort to be proactive and pre-emptive. But geez…you can’t be everywhere. Note to those of you preparing kids leaving for college. Believe me, student health didn’t inquire–I did.
Authorities: 2nd man cleared in Giffords shooting
Associated Press Jan.9, 2011
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Arizona authorities say a second man has been cleared of any involvement in Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shooting. Pima County Sheriff’s Deputy Jason Ogan said Sunday that the man, a suspected accomplice in the shooting Saturday, was not involved.
i dont think it is student health’s job to reach out. The point of college is to teach young adults to stand on their own. Not teach them that someone will always be watching over them. I say this as someone who figured that out the hard way. Most parents just drop their kids off and expect the school to be the new parents.
Curt A. Levey
Executive Dir., Committee for Justice
“Claiming that the Arizona gunman Jared Loughner was motivated to kill by heated political rhetoric is about as sensible as saying that David Berkowitz (the “Son of Sam”) was motivated to kill by the barking of his neighbor Sam’s dog. People like Loughner and Berkowitz kill because they are too mentally unbalanced and angry at society to be influenced by even normal considerations of self-preservation, no less by the tone of civil discourse.
Keith Olbermann, Sheriff Dupnik and the others trying to score political points by blaming political rhetoric are going down a very dangerous road both because it absolves violent killers of full responsibility for their actions and because it aims to silence the passions that are an important part of public debate. Martin Luther King and his fellow civil rights activists used passionate and heated rhetoric to rouse the nation against white segregationists. But, surely, that does not make Dr. King and his colleagues partly responsible for the violent crimes of the Black Panthers and James Earl Ray.
Ultimately, the passionate rhetoric of conservatives like Glenn Beck may be vindicated by history or condemned by it. But that is for the American people to decide as the debate plays out in the coming years, not for Keith Olbermann and Sheriff Dupnik to decide by cutting off debate.”
People like Loughner and Berkowitz kill because they are too mentally unbalanced
Palin, Beck, and Hannity are like the people yelling “Jump!” at the guy on the ledge. Not their fault at all…
Everybody buckle up… here comes the demonizing of Sheriff Dupnik. Perhaps he’ll even receive death threats. Wouldn’t that be special.
So what is intended to be debated by calling for a military coup of the Obama Administration? Or by any of the list of items detailed in this thread? Getting geared up to kill the people mentioned in Bernie Goldberg’s book, but killing accessible targets? Where is the debate in that?
I’ll repeat — this is the problem. Belligerence ≠ debate, and the fact that you persist in arguing that it does is exactly where this problem is located. Killing people is not debate. Nor is threatening to kill people. It is *specifically* meant to squash any possibility of debate. Politicians appealing to specific violent action — couched, of course, in pretend last resort language — are not participating in debate. They are appealing to the worst of their supporters and portraying their opponents as not worthy of being treated as fellow citizens.
MLK specifically followed a path of nonviolence and his rhetoric and letters were passionate and heated but never in pointing towards violent acts. His approach (and is in his writings someplace) was not about rhetoric that seeks to humiliate or dominate, but rhetoric that seeks to win people to your side.
So once again you are here arguing for the worst of conservative behavior while not having one whit of an idea of what one of the great liberal heros had in mind. This kind of rhetoric (the hallmark of the Quitta from Wasilla) “Commonsense Conservatives and lovers of America: Don’t retreat, Instead — RELOAD!” would have been rhetoric beneath the dignity and intelligence of MLK.
And isn’t this interesting — HuffPo reporting on a Politico article where a GOP Senator wants folks to step back and tone it down. The interesting thing about it is that this GOP Senator has to do that anonymously.
Pandora,
I think that the recent remarks by Sheriff Dupnik (yesterday and again today) were highly inappropriate, especially for an elected official.
Rarely, if ever, does one see someone of his stature on such a national stage speak his personal opinion. Until he has real investigative proof of what he said regarding the ‘vitriol’ and other political speech issues that he has, and the suppositional effects of those comments, he should stick to the facts of the case.
It does a great diservice to the people of Tucson, the state of Arizona and the rest of the nation to hear innuendo, supposition and personal ideological opinion projected onto others.
I guess since he’s 75-years-old, he doesn’t much care what people think of him or his opinions. It’s actually very sad, especially since this tragedy is less than 36 hours old.
I wish him well in his investigation, however.
anon said:
“Palin, Beck, and Hannity are like the people yelling “Jump!” at the guy on the ledge. Not their fault at all…”
Do you truly believe that? And for the hundreth time, I don’t like any of the aforementioned people. They are political infotainers.
“Martin Luther King and his fellow civil rights activists used passionate and heated rhetoric to rouse the nation against white segregationists.”
What an unintentionally ironic example. Please illustrate your idea of “heated” rhetoric summoning the metaphors of violence that you think Dr. King used. He was, you realize, a practitioner of nonviolence. I realize that it’s a staple of your tribe to claim that King and Gandhi would not have succeeded had there not been people who shared their goals who did threaten violence while they did not. This supposed “logic” is belied by the fact that many, many liberation movements used violent rhetoric without the nonviolence for which King and Gandhi are known, and their violent movements failed utterly.
You people are quite heated in your refusal to accept responsibility. Nobody who actually believes himself innocent would spend nearly this much effort in doing so.
“I think that the recent remarks by Sheriff Dupnik (yesterday and again today) were highly inappropriate, especially for an elected official.”
I call bullshit. If the sheriff had spouted typical conservative pieties about “criminals” (or illegal aliens), you would hold no such view.
Oh, what I would give to meet an honest conservative.
To me, this situation mirrors that of the Texas guy who crashed into the IRS building. People on the left immediately pronounced the nut was a right winger, because an IRS building, a target of scorn of the right, was attacked. Except, that was not true, the pilot was not a right winger.
How about we all take a deep breath and let the investigation and questioning of JL take its course. When we have the facts and statements from him, we all can start assessing the motives and the causes that led up to this.
Because, as James Fallows points out, very few political assassinations fit within a larger narrative, as what you all are trying to do by stating JL was a right wing extremist encouraged by Glenn Beck: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/the-cloudy-logic-of-political-shootings/69147/
Most political assassination attempts seem uncorrelated with the major issues/trends that are occuring at the time. Again, should Palin, Ted Rall, and others stop using violent rhetoric? Yes. But that is a whole separate issue from whether Palin’s rhetoric caused JL to shoot Giffords.
Lastly, do you have proof that he read Beck’s books? Do you have proof that he listened to Limbaugh?
“There is no desire to trace back the craziness to the roots and fix things that can be fixed.”
I am afraid that the “roots” of psychotic paranoia have nothing to do with the rhetoric of even demagogues. The explanation–the root–lies in their particular brain chemistry. I used to work with inpatient psychotics and have seen and dealt with the violent consequences of their transformation from an otherwise benign individual into a raving and dangerous paranoid individual. No one’s words set them off. What set them off was entirely internal.
As time passes it becomes increasingly apparent that this suspect had significant and ongoing psychiatric issues. I’m frankly amazed that the discussion about this tragedy hasn’t centered on how we can better identify people with psychotically paranoid/violent ideation, get them the treatment they need, and keep guns from their possession. While I think that discussions about the largely innuendos violent rhetoric in contemporary political discourse are worthwhile and needed, I see nothing that convinces me that this incident is substantially apropos for that discussion.
My guess: there will be little if any connection between the trigger person and the extremism of the right wing. Yes, it is too early to say, but that is how I’m making my prediction.
But those personalities, larger than life, who aggravate violence for ratings, now have a visual, a reality check, of what they are proposing.
Hopefully this may cause some of them to step away and discuss issues again…. instead of fomenting revolution…
Similarly, it may appear funny to a pre-pubic teen, away from Mommy for the first time, to yell “Fire” in a theater… But when the body count becomes public knowledge, that doesn’t seem funny any more.