As you know, a number of Republicans or conservative bullies have called in death threats to numerous Democratic Representatives and Senators. Some have been arrested. Including a little punk by the name of Gregory Lee Giusti, a 48 year old resident of, get this, a public housing complex in San Francisco. He was so angered by the socialist actions of the socialist Speaker of the House that he was compelled to call up Nancy Pelosi and threaten her life, all the while living in socialist public housing and most likely the beneficiary of other socialist government support.
And guess what happened when he showed up in court for his arraignment today.
Like all bullies called out for their bullying, he cried.
A man accused of threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in phone calls cried Thursday during a court appearance where a magistrate initially refused his request to be released to a halfway house. Gregory Lee Giusti, 48, of San Francisco looked disheveled in a gray T-shirt and khakis as he appeared for the first time before Magistrate Judge Bernard Zimmerman.
“Some of these threats are very serious,” Zimmerman said before denying Giusti’s request to be released to the halfway house. He said Giusti may suffer from bipolar disorder and should be receiving treatment. The magistrate, however, told the U.S. attorney’s office to interview Giusti further to determine if he was mentally competent enough to be released to a halfway house or if he should continue to be detained. A detention hearing was scheduled for Monday. […]
Federal officials have said Giusti made dozens of calls to Pelosi’s homes and to her husband’s business office. The officials said Giusti recited Pelosi’s home address and said if she wanted to see it again, she should not support the health care overhaul bill that since has been enacted.
Giusti has had legal troubles in the past because of threatening behavior. In 2004 he was sentenced to a year in jail for a felony violation of threatening to kill a conductor on a commuter train, authorities said. Last year, Hamilton Square Baptist Church in San Francisco sued Giusti, asking a court to order him to cease a campaign of harassment against people associated with the church, court documents show. During Thursday’s hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Frey said Giusti had other convictions for theft and telephone harassment.
You know, I do feel some compassion for Mr. Giusti, for it is entirely possible that the man is bipolar and down on his luck. What can I say, it is the liberal (i.e. human being) in me. Perhaps he acted in violence on this occasion and in the past because he is not receiving his medication for his bipolar disorder, something ironicaly the new health care law would help him acquire. Given that he has been living in public housing for nine years, it is quite possible he is a man of limited means or income, one of the downtrodden that we liberals and Democrats have strived for decades if not centuries to provide a social safety net for, in pursuit of the notion that society is judged by how we treat the least among us.
But through ignorance and incitement, in this case, the least among us has treated the society that provides for him with contempt, violence, and disdain. Which negates my compassion. And it is also quite possible that this man is just a violent criminal, and I would be a fool to feel any feelings of compassion for him in the first place.
For years now, we Democrats have wondered aloud, after we lost the elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004, about how people can vote against their own interests. Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor of the Atlantic, wrote a short post recently that I think captures part of the problem:
The GOP is, effectively, the party of willfully unlettered Utopians. It is the party of choice for those who believe global warming is a hoax, that humans roamed the earth with dinosaurs, and that homosexuals should work harder at not being gay.
That the party of unadulterated quackery also believes that Birth Of A Nation is more true to the Civil War than Battle Cry Of Freedom, is to be expected. Ignorance does not respect boundaries. It is, at times, qualified and those who know more, often struggle to say more. But people who believe that the Census is actually a covert attempt to put Americans in concentration camps, are also likely to believe that slavery was incidental to the Civil War.
This is who they are–the proud and ignorant. If you believe that if we still had segregation we wouldn’t “have had all these problems,” this is the movement for you. If you believe that your president is a Muslim sleeper agent, this is the movement for you. If you honor a flag raised explicitly to destroy this country then this is the movement for you. If you flirt with secession, even now, then this movement is for you. If you are a “Real American” with no demonstrable interest in “Real America” then, by God, this movement of alchemists and creationists, of anti-science and hair tonic, is for you.
The essence of Coates’ post is that the rank and file of the Republican base are ignorant, willfully or by product of circumstance (i.e. lack of education). The latter are no doubt products of our education system, which, in many areas, is woeful in teaching any more than the basics, which unfortunately does not include actual thinking. And so they grow up, do not go to college, and watch Fox News all day and night, and listen to conservative talk radio, where they are told what to think, and where, recently, they have been incited to anger and violence. It is why they vote against their interests. For they do not know any better, literally.
Those Republicans who are educated yet remain ignorant do so willfully, for they are so married to an ideology that they can listen to any lie, repeat any lie, and make up any lie, so long as it fits into their world view. The educated ignorant are the worse of the bunch, for they give support to those who are just ignorant by circumstance, and they all reinforce either other.
Which is Gregory Lee Giusti? I don’t know. And I really don’t care. For at this point, he will only learn the folly of his ways by being held accountable for his actions. And if we hold all who would threaten and commit violence as a way to achieve their political aims accountable, then maybe, just maybe, those who say they are the party of personal responsibility and accountability will learn personal responsibility and accountability.
We as a nation have always had ignorant (willfully or otherwise) among us. Indeed, college education in our country was a rarity, a privilege available to few, until after World War II. The ignorant have voiced anger and outrage before during times of social change. The ignorant have been incited before. There has been biased media before. Indeed, the norm in the 1800’s and early 1900’s was biased media and yellow journalism. There have been Glenn Becks before, in the form of Father McLaughlin during the 1930’s. There has been violence before. We as a nation got through it, and the ignorance was defeated, eventually. But it was only defeated because the agents of change keep plowing ahead.
And by plowing ahead, we did not stop to feel compassion for those that stand in our way. I feel pity for Mr. Giusti if his possible illness and circumstance led him to violence, or if he was incited to violence by Beck and Hannity and was too stupid or ignorant to know better. But I will not sacrifice reforming our society to appease the ignorant. I will not make exceptions for or concessions to the ignorant. The ignorant do still have the ability to learn, especially by example.