There is much that we don’t yet know about the circumstances surrounding the terroristic act in Tucson yesterday. However, this we can say with assurance (via Bob Griendling):
If Congresswoman Giffords Were a Republican, and a wacko shot her, and a Democrat had posted this kind of graphic on her website, Fox News and Rush would be all over progressives, blaming them for the shooting.
I’m sorry. It’s simply, unfortunately, true.
..and a tiresome one. My comment is not about Loughner. I clearly stated what it IS about.
had nothing to do with guns, either.
When DailyKos gets daily, national coverage the way that Sarah Palin does, and Markos gets his own show on the Travel Channel, we’ll talk about equivalence of the sources of eliminationist rhetoric.
why did Kos remove “Giffords is DEAD to me!”
of what caused Loughner to show up with a gun?
Including whatever prompted him to be refused a place at school until he could provide proof that he was neither a danger to himself nor others?
What makes you compare him to Army of God? ABC news has someone saying he made jokes about abortion:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/…
“One Pima Community College student, who had a poetry class with Loughner later in his college career, said he would often act “wildly inappropriate.”
“One day [Loughner] started making comments about terrorism and laughing about killing the baby,” classmate Don Coorough told ABC News, referring to a discussion about abortions. “The rest of us were looking at him in shock … I thought this young man was troubled.”
Another classmate, Lydian Ali, recalled the incident as well.
“A girl had written a poem about an abortion. It was very emotional and she was teary eyed and he said something about strapping a bomb to the fetus and making a baby bomber,” Ali said.”
Is there any evidence that he is either pro- or anti-gay?
If the crosshairs are only in context in relation to Giffords, then yes Kos is as relevant as Palin, and so is the Democratic organization that “targeted” potential R pickups in 04, complete with bullseyes.
Are you saying with this remark “The point is, consider the audience to whom such language and imagery is directed, and ask whether there is already evidence that they are likely to act on it” that there is some large amorphous mass of gun-toters who get their marching orders from the internet?
Then it is a wonder we don’t have constant violence by both “left” and “right”.
As to “Did anyone ever show up with a gun?”, I posted a list earlier that contained examples of those who acted out on the other end of the spectrum.
I can no more directly connect them to acting on orders from Kos or Obama than you or anyone else can connect Loughner to acting on orders from the Tea Party or Palin.
I guess I also must ask this: If this sort of violent imagery is not really such a big deal, why this statement from a Palin spokesperson? Why the ridiculous denial?
I read it differently, but no matter.
No, the issue is not just the use of crosshairs imagery separated from any context, although thinking so might make some folks feel better.
The horrifying use of such imagery that I first recall was by a domestic terrorist group called “Army of God.” They are the ones that posted pictures (with sniper crosshairs superimposed over them) and the home addresses of abortion providers, marking them for assassination. We all know the outcome of that.
In another incident, an anti-gay campaign ad in West Virginia took a different approach: It depicted a Bible, a nice heterosexual family with small children, and something else I don’t recall in a sniper’s crosshairs, strongly implying that “homosexual activists” were stalking and targeting these things for assassination. That sort of rhetoric is an invitation to violence against members of my community. We all know that a gay person is 2.6 times more likely to be attacked in a hate crime than a Black person, 4.4 times more likely than a Muslim person, 13.8 times more likely than a Latino person…we do all know that, right?
The point is, consider the audience to whom such language and imagery is directed, and ask whether there is already evidence that they are likely to act on it. Ask that about your instances of “Democratic crosshairs,” and about the use of a line from a movie. Did anyone ever show up with a gun?
I read it as a reply to my comment, but I could be wrong.
I disagree that it is a false equivalency.
The issues seemed to be Palin’s crosshairs, until two instances of Democratic crosshairs surfaced.
More are now appearing on blogs, of ads from previous election cycles even in AZ, of Democratic candidates placing crosshairs over their opponent’s faces.
The issue then became the former governor/candidate’s stature in relation to that of progressive/Democratic users of the image.
Do you honestly attempt to hold that language is only allegorical if Obama says it? We are not his “enemies” any more if we disagree with him?
Or has the issue now become Crabill exclusively?
No one wins making this political (least of all the families that are still in limbo on their loved ones’ conditions, and those who have yet to lay theirs to rest).
And some “news” organizations and talking heads have lost credibility in their rush to politicize.
I challenge the legitmacy of a pavlovian shout of “tea party” or “Palin” before any facts are known in a specific tragedy.
B
No, I categorically do NOT equate those things, and I find the various attempts to do so disingenuous. In context, the phrase “if they bring a knife, we bring a gun,” was clearly allegorical (did someone literally bring a knife, or threaten to?). Pretending otherwise to create a false equivalency just looks foolish. On the other hand, Angle’s “2nd Amendment remedies,” and language like “soap, ballot, jury, ammo” (referring to “boxes” “to be used in that order”) are not intended to be allegorical at all. Quite the opposite.
Could an individual suffering from schizophrenia interpret and respond to both in the same way? Certainly. Such a person could also respond with violence to any random utterance; that’s not the point. This is not exactly an isolated event; Tom Perriello’s district was also in those crosshairs, and the gas line to his brother’s house was cut. Giffords had been targeted with violence before, and she had herself expressed concern about the Palin crosshairs piece. A reasonable question for anyone trying to shut down discussion of these concerns is this: Are all perpetrators of terroristic acts to be dismissed as mentally ill, and if so, does that include those motivated by religious fanaticism?
It’s the behavior of challenging the legitimacy of even raising the issue that I am taking issue with.
Ms. Giffords IS openly and proudly Jewish–I seem to have fallen into the trap of treating her as if she had not survived.
Kos specifically targeted Ms. Giffords as a “Blue Dog” in 2008.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
Granted, he is only a blogger, but the President himself used rhetoric at a fundraiser in Philadelphia, also in 2008, quoting the “Chicago way” from The Untouchables movie. He was a Senator at the time, but he was asking to represent all Americans as President, which he now does.
Was it appropriate to tell supporters that “if they bring a knife, we bring a gun”?
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/…
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes…
In the sense that he was using his Chicago background to strike a pose of fighting for his supporters’ beliefs, maybe, to some.
But he is a much more significant person than Mrs. Palin in terms of offices won and held. And that’s what he said, to raise money for a campaign.
Some evidence seems to indicate that the AZ shooting may have had more to do with the fact that Ms. Giffords was openly and proudly Jewish, as the shooter’s videos seem to have some links to the American Renaissance movement, listed by the SPLC as a white separatist group.
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.c…
(If the Homeland Security doc linked is legitimate, it raises some interesting questions about the guy, and why he was on no one’s radar)
The SPLC fellow on Olberman last night didn’t mention that, to my knowledge.
No side holds the monopoly on heated rhetoric, and to continue to point fingers in one direction, when so little if definitively known about the shooter’s motives –which may never be fully known–is somewhat disingenuous.
As to the legitimacy of even raising it, that may have to do with the unfortunate habit of some in corporate media to immediately point to the right wing/Tea Party before any facts on a crisis are available:
The Kentucky census worker’s fake suicide
Amy Bishop’s nassacre of her university colleagues
The Fort Hood shooter
The IRS plane-crasher
The NYC cabbie-stabbing
The Pentagon shooter
The Holocaust Museum shooter
Maybe enough is enough, both in rhetoric by individuals, AND by supposedly objective media?
Why don’t we all wait and see if we learn what drove him, and in the meantime pray or hold positive thoughts for the recovery of the victims?
B
First, the issue is not whether there is extreme rhetoric on both sides of the political debate — of course there is, and no one agrues otherwise.
But you are equating the ramblings of some idiotic poster at Daily Kos with statements from Sarah Palin and Michele Bachman, both GOP leaders, and numerous other GOP elected officials and candidates for public office, like Sharon Angle?
The problem here is not the heated rhetoric, but where it is coming from.
As for the alleged targets on the Democratic bullseye map, those targets were applicable to states, i.e., states that Democrats could win in 2004, not to specific people like Palin’s gunsight targets. Do you really not see the difference?
What’s more, neither the Tea Party nor the GOP is to blame for this. The only person to blame for this is the guy who perpetrated the crime.
But the Tea Party and the GOP are to blame for the use of violent rhetoric and imagery in pursuit of their political goals that clearly suggests that violence is a justifiable means to a political end. I don;t know any other way you can interpret, say, Sharon Angle’s comments about 2nd Amendment remedies, Michelle Bachman’s statement that she wants citizens “armed and dangerous” over Cap and Trade, or Catherine Crabill’s “ballot box/bullet box” idiocy.
That is the problem. And it is one that, in the wake of this shooting, much of the right wing has refused to acknowledge that this rhetoric from their elected leaders is a problem. Rather, they have sought to either ignore it, draw false equivalencies between it and extremist rhetoric from fringe elements on the left, or challenged the legitimacy of even raising the issue on ground that I have yet to understand.
and will be retracting her early comments on Fox. As will those newscasters who ran with the early association.
I agree there are professional flame fanners on both sides.
B
no doubt about it. That in no way diminishes the truth of the statement, though. The statement is NOT about “blam[ing] a political party or group” for the actions of this individual, but rather an observation of that very tendency on the part of certain professional flame fanners.
As I said, there is much we don’t yet know. The videos indicate a young man suffering from a mental disorder, not a tea party militant, and anyone saying otherwise is being equally irresponsible.
It’s very important to note that the statement I quote specifically names Fox News, et al, and NOT Republicans in general, many of whom have made very appropriate and moving statements.
This must be the turning point at which Americans reject any rhetoric about “Second Amendment solutions” to political differences. We are better than that, and I will also quote LI: “We are one country, remember that, please.”
unfortunately, she was a Democrat targeted by Democrats in the same way as well.
DailyKos, 6/25/08, “targeted” Giffords’ district with a bullseye page and the following text: “Not all of these people will get or even deserve primaries, but this vote certainly puts a bullseye on their districts.”
http://hillbuzz.org/2011/01/08…
(the thread is an evolving one updated many times yesterday, but contains a staggering number of screencaps with references).
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As Cato the Elder points out at LI’s thread, Democrats had a bullseye target map in 2004 as well:
http://american-conservativeva…
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As for your graphic, yes, it was on Palin’s site. And someone shot a Democrat and many others, and lo and behold, before the shooter was even known, it was known he was in the Tea Party?
It isn’t a one way street, and we might all do well to remember that–I’ve seen nothing so explicitly violent as this:
but it was intended as a “joke” and an advocacy piece by the carbon reduction lobby in the UK.
Trying to blame a POLITICAL party or group (and thereby extract advantage from “a good crisis”?) for the actions of what appears to be an insane individual may not be the most approriate choice right now.
I join you in praying for the recovery of Congresswoman Giffords and the other wounded, and for the families of those murdered.
Barbara Munsey
I give him kudos for doing just that.