Let Us Not Forget
the names of the six souls who lost their lives yesterday just because they participated in democracy.
Gabe Zimmerman, a 30-year-old aide to the congresswoman who was recently engaged.
Christina Taylor Green, a 9-year-old girl who had just been elected to her school’s student council.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge John Roll
Dorothy Morris, 76
Dorwin Stoddard, 76
Phyllis Scheck, 79.
Sarah Palin’s target scope was just as much on their backs as they were on Giffords.
Gabby Giffords and six others remain in the hospital fighting for their lives, all because of gun violence, all because calls for political violence is our new normal.
You have seen our typical conservative and Republican commentators push back on those facts last night in the comments. David Anderson says the shooter rejected the Bible and loved Communism. Dave Burris demanded that false equivalency rule the day, saying the both sides are equal in their incitements to violence. Well, unfortunately for him and others, and to my utmost chagrin, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann and the countless other right wing officials and media figures have way more power, stature and influence than myself. When that was pointed out to Burris, he danced so fast you would have thought his partner was Bristol Palin on Dancing with the Stars.
But really, the push back misses the point. The right will concentrate on the killer’s motives, which are as clear as mud. An acolyte of active dreaming, which I am told is a right wing notion somehow, although I always thought conservatives couldn’t dream, he lists the Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite books, as he does with Ayn Rand and Mein Kampf, a very divergent reading list politically speaking. His quotes on MySpace and YouTube reveal a radical against the government, debt and the gold standard (right wing notions), as well as the police and religion (left wing notions). So each sides have motives to play with.
If this is game.
Keith reminds us it is not:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
I asked our conservative readers to take that pledge last night. They refused, either directly or by their silence.
It is really a simple pledge: stop inciting violence, and apologize in the past when you have. I have in the past said something that could incite violence. I apologized repeatedly for it, then, now and continuously. Keith Olbermann searched his conscious and discovered that he too had said something that could incite violence, or at the very least employed violent imagery in pursuit of a political point. He apologized in the video.
Using violent imagery is so very easy in politics. We all have done it. It is so easy that I almost used the word “ammunition” above when discussing the motives of the terrorist, in that both sides had enough ammunition to point fingers. So this will be a hard habit to break. Especially when an election was just won by employing violence. Violent imagery, rhetoric and threats were a rallying tool for the Republican Party, a tool used to align itself with the calls for violence from the fringe Teabaggers over the last two years so that they could indicate their staunch opposition to President Obama. And the more violent the rhetoric, the more staunch the opposition.
But it is a habit we must as a society break. If we don’t, the violence will continue. More Democrats will surely be shot at by other killers emboldened by Tuscon. And maybe some Republicans will face gunshots by radicals on the left out for revenge.
To prevent it is very simple. All it requires is the swallowing of some pride. It requires apologies from those who have engaged in violent rhetoric. It requires pledges to never again engage in such rhetoric.
And that is all.
So simple.
So easy.
And yet, I will give you odds that it will not ever happen.
And so down the rabbit hole we go.
It remains, as it has for many years, completely impossible to come here and have a legitimate conversation. Nowhere in my comments did I say what you claim I said. Not only that, but you ignore what I did say to help you make your point. (A point, you might want to acknowledge, that always seems to include a narcissistic mention of yourself.)
A very disappointing reminder of why I stopped blogging. Bye.
I wrote this before I saw your recent two comments on the other two posts this morning, calling for what I am calling for here. That is to be commended Dave. But yesterday you did engage in false equivalency, and that is why I pointed that out.
And I wouldn’t bring up myself if you guys didn’t use me as a constant example of left wing hate and violence. So it is not narcissism. I am blunting your side’s constant attack so that we can see the larger issue here.
But if you have chosen to leave, you will not be missed. Goodbye
So many Republicans this morning, want to continue to pretend that they are not culpable. They want to pretend that this shooter heard the GOP message and then went off in some crazy direction. Or that the crazy people are not real Republicans.
The basic fact is that the shooter heard the GOP message, and acted out what he had been calling to do. It is the Republicans who have not yet killed a Democrat for the crime of being a Democrat who are the traitors to the GOP’s cause as articulated by Beck and Palin.
The problem is the atmosphere. Sarah Palin is in full defensive mode today because she is one of the chief instigators. Palin, Angle and Bachmann have all made statements that they shouldn’t have. I hope they are regretting them. We have a political discourse now where elected officials routinely question the president’s birthplace and right to be president. We have radio full of rightwing hatemongers like Limbaugh and Beck and their many imitators. That is the problem. Do we think there will be some soul searching? I really hope so.
Let us not forget that this happened in Arizona, which has kinda been ground zero for vile rhetoric.
I’m clutching this quote from Sherif Dupnik like a life preserver.
Please let it’s plain spoken truth be the first little bit of water over the damn.
This shooter listened to the words of the new GOP leadership of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Sharon Angle and in them found direction and permission to murder, IMO.
For instance, Glenn Beck riled up his base about gold while he was pulling in a fantastic side profit on it. This kid’s Youtube rants are focused on his debts and doubts about the US currency and gold. Palin quit a governership to collect millions from her book sales appearances augmented by PR stunts including placing this Congresswomen in gunsites.
We should all be praying for a change of heart of these greedy bastards and the tactics they use to enrich their bottom line.
First of all, if everyone on here who is blaming the so-called ‘Right-Wing’ media as the root cause of this shooting, I’d like to see some evidence.
It’s impossible because you employ what is called an ‘Unfalsifiable Hypothesis” that can’t be proven.
Likewise, if the speech of the aforementioned GOP media types is so ‘vitriolic’ and incites ‘violence,’ then disallow their speech to be free; have Congress carve out an exception to the First Amendment. Heck, only allow DE Liberal to voice its prescient, omnipotent and elitist voice on the Internet. Lobby in Dover.
I’ll make sure Senators Carper and Coons, and Representative Carney gets your memo. Perhaps DD can relay this memo to Keith Olbermann and he can use what President Obama once said of MSNBC, and Maddow and Olbermann specifically: [News outlets like MSNBC] are “friends of the White House.”
And here we have one of the usual wingnut apologists deflecting this argument off to a first amendment issue. DD already posted up a list of violent or belligerent acts or incitements by right wingers. No one is making the case that they are not entitled to their speech. The case being made is that this heightened belligerence is not useful speech when trying to discuss the governing of this country. It is speech that makes your opponents your enemies — meaning that you never have to figure out a way to live with people who may have differing policy goals. You just have to figure out how to defeat, dominate or eliminate them — far easier work than trying to occupy a civic space with multiple viewpoints. The rhetoric of defeating, domination and elimination creates nothing except a bunch of people who are invited to let their insecurities, their fears and their hatred stand in for political discussion. THIS is one of the roles of the right wing media — normalizing this kind of rhetoric.
But, of course, you’ll figure out a way to deflect from this too. Because the business of actually thinking about how you present yourself in a political space is not what you do. Or what your right wing media wants you to do. Because there is ALOT of money riding on whether or not buy their schtick lock stock and barrel.
You do realize by now I hope that the Daily Kos used WORSE language than Sarah Palin to attack Congresswoman Giffords just recently.
You should issue an immediate apology to Sarah Palin and to every conservative for the vile and vicious language you have used to attack conservatives at this painful time.
Clearly you are part of the problem, NOT part of the solution.
Shame on you!
Mike, you need to stop believing conservatives. He said she was “dead to me.” Perhaps you have never heard this phrase, but it has nothing to do with violence.
When the republican party finally decides to stand up to these cross burners then I might at least listen.
But the fact is the party either does not want to lose voters, or money.
You really have to read some of the moronic books they have written. You think the entertainers beck and hannity spread the shit, these books are just hate from page one.
I read one book by a US Senator that was incredible. No real facts, just very compartmentalized statistics without any context, and every other word was socialist or socialism ( not kidding ).
The irony is that they are not for any of the people that actually support them. Down here in sussex i have to laugh at these retired people who are holding up signs and supporting them, they are against every type of entitlement. ( they really hate medicare and social security ).
We can continue this blame game, or try to find the actual root of this problem. right, left, backwards, or forwards; it doesn’t matter. What needs to be found and addressed is the fundamental problem and a solution or compromise.
Example if I’m losing some people:
The nazi party would of never gotten a foothold in germany if it wasn’t for the economy because of the treaty of versailles. (not the only factor, but you get my point). People who become so disillusioned, or feel their way of life is threatened will attach to ideals that at any other time they wouldn’t subscribe to.
We are approaching a dangerous divide in this country. what needs to be found is that middle ground that, while not perfect by any means, will ease this tension that is building.
The shooter’s views are obviously libertarian. Ron Paul was just on Colbert last week talking about the gold standard. His anti-government views are clearly the Timothy McVeigh kind, not the Abbie Hoffman kind.
Xstryker, you’re committing a fallacy of composition. You’re falsely extrapolating a person’s whole motive from just one political belief. Beliefs in the gold standard are held by more than just libertarians. So it is wrong to assume this guy was a libertarian based on one belief. For example, JL also read, or at least listed on his facebook, “communist manifesto”. But you don’t see me calling JL a leftist, because readers of “communist manifesto” do not fit into one airtight box. There are more than just leftists.
Furthermore, you have no proof to whether his belief in the gold standard had any effect on him killing Giffords. Was it really the gold standard that was motivating him?
I know you want to score political points from a tragedy, but at least wait for the facts or a statement from the shooter to come out before doing so.
Right the gold standard has nothing to do with being Libertarian or not. So good point Del Libertarian.
Being a crazy wingnut who believes in the gold standard and has not respect for people, that it was clinches him being a Libertarian follower. And not being able to comprehend the US Constitution seals the deal, only a Libertarian is that much of a nut job.
And Del Libertarian you must be joking. You 9/12 Traitors and Teabaggers live in the world of misinformation and propaganda and political opportunism.
By the way I will be the tea bagger and 9/12 Senate candidate in 2012. So thanks for your support. And I will only need 5 or 6 million, so I will be a bargain compared to COD.
Some advice in 2012. Since you are Libertarians are brain dead morons. Don’t insult veterans and call them traitors like you did this past year.
I know exactly 0 liberals who have read the Communist Manifesto. He also listed Ayn Rand and Mein Kampf. His list was meant to push buttons, which it obviously did for DelLibertarian.
del lib, you keep trying like hell to distance libertarianism from this guy’s very libertarian sounding rants. If they sound crazy to you, maybe you should revisit your beliefs.
Libertarian v. Republican is a distinction without a difference.