Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, The loser newspaper NYT. The liberal
Saul Alinsky tactics no longer work . By all factual accounts Loughner
was far liberal and considered Guifford's to moderate for his far left
psychotic mind & ideology.
*********************************************************************************************************************************
On Jan 10, 9:23 pm, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How the Right's Rhetoric Fueled the Actions of Arizona's Mass Murderer
>
> It's too soon to say what motivated the man apprehended for the
> shooting. But the Tea Party culture of political intimidation affirmed
> his violent impulses.
>
> January 8, 2011 |
> Photo Credit: A.M. Stan LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
> Join our mailing list:
> Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email.
> Petitions by Change.org|Get Widget|Start a Petition ? It's too
> soon to say what, exactly, motivated the man apprehended for the
> shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and 18 others outside a
> Tucson supermarket on Saturday. All we really know about Jared Lee
> Loughner, the 22-year-old alleged shooter, is that he is apparently a
> profoundly disturbed young man whose paranoia involves some
> indecipherable notions about the U.S. Constitution.
>
> Some say Loughner regards himself as a leftist, others chart him on
> the right. But the screen shots of his (now deleted) MySpace page and
> the incomprehensible videos he posted on YouTube -- as well as another
> video he named a "favorite" that shows a masked, hooded figure burning
> an American flag to a soundtrack of a chant, "Let the bodies hit the
> floor" -- seem short on coherent ideology and long on violent impulse.
>
> So to those who would like to attribute Loughner's actions to the Tea
> Party, I say, hold up; take a breath. But to those on the far right,
> and to the more mainstream right-wingers who fail to condemn the
> poisonous claims of the far right, I say, you're hardly off the hook.
>
> Had the vitriolic rhetoric that today shapes Arizona's political
> landscape (and, indeed, our national landscape) never come to call,
> Loughner may have found a different reason to go on a killing spree.
> But that vitriol does exist as a powerful prompt to the paranoid, and
> those who publicly deem war on the federal government a patriot's duty
> should today be doing some soul-searching.
>
> On April 19, 2010 -- the 15th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred
> Murrah federal office building in Oklahoma City -- Bill Clinton, who
> was president at the time of the attack, published an op-ed in the New
> York Times, both commemorating the dead and speaking to his fears of
> another such attack in the future. Note that the Oklahoma City attack
> came as right-wing leaders expressed outrage at the actions of federal
> law enforcement at Waco and Ruby Ridge, but also demonized federal
> workers as a class.
>
> "As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our
> supporters," Clinton wrote, "we must all assume responsibility for our
> words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach
> those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged."
>
> On the day that op-ed was published, Clinton joined Janet Napolitano,
> the current secretary of homeland security, at a ceremony at the
> memorial erected on the site of the building.
>
> Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., another sort of commemoration was
> taking place at the foot of the Washington Monument. There, a couple
> of thousand right-wing gun-rights advocates gathered to hear from a
> roster of speakers, several of whom spewed pure venom, including Larry
> Pratt, president of Gun Owners of America, and Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga.
>
> From my original report on the gathering:
>
> Broun, a Republican, sees civil war looming on the horizon. "Fellow
> patriots, we have a lot of domestic enemies of the Constitution, and
> they're right down the Mall, in the Congress of the United States --
> and right down Independence Avenue in the White House that belongs to
> us," Broun told the crowd. "It's not about my ability to hunt, which I
> love to do. It's not about the ability for me to protect my family and
> property against criminals, which we have the right to do. But it's
> all about us protecting ourselves from a tyrannical government of the
> United States."
> Then there's Pratt:
>
> "I look around: it's so good to see all these terrorists out here,"
> Pratt said. "Janet Napolitano, she figured, as governor of Arizona,
> that we didn't have a border problem, but she knows who the real enemy
> is. Ha, ha, ha, ha. And Bill Clinton's been runnin' cover for her,
> too. Watch out how you guys speak out there, you know, words can have
> consequences. Remember Oklahoma City? Yeah, I do. And I also remember
> the Waco barbecue that your attorney general gave us. Thanks a
> lot...We're in a war. The other side knows they're at war, because
> they started it. They're comin' for our freedom, for our money, for
> our kids, for our property. They're comin' for everything because
> they're a bunch of socialists."
> Think words such as those don't matter? Late last week, a package
> addressed to Napolitano burst into flames at a U.S. Postal Service
> facility, as did packages addressed to several other public officials.
>
> "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol
> that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government.
> The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is
> getting to be outrageous," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told
> reporters, according to The Huffington Post. "And unfortunately,
> Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the mecca for
> prejudice and bigotry." Dupnik is a Democrat who is opposed to
> Arizona's controversial law that allows law enforcement to demand
> proof of legal citizenship from anyone at any time. (The law is
> currently stayed, pending a court decision on its constitutionality.)
>
> Saturday was not the first time that Rep. Giffords, or John M. Roll,
> the federal district judge who died in today's attack, faced violence
> in the course of their work. During the battle for health-care reform,
> Giffords faced death threats, and after her vote for the health-care
> bill, her district office was vandalized. Rolls, too, faced death
> threats for his decision to let a law suit go forward brought by a
> group of Mexicans against several Arizona ranchers, and spent a month
> under federal protection by U.S. Marshals.
>
> None of these threats, nor the incendiary packages that combusted in
> the postal facilities on Friday, are attributed to Loughner. In fact,
> the U.S. Marshals identified four separate individuals who made death
> threats against Roll in 2009, according to the Arizona Republic.
>
> Loughner may have severe mental health issues, but his impulses were
> surely affirmed by a right-wing culture that revels in intimidating
> tactics and violent rhetoric. Remember Sarah Palin's mid-term campaign
> map of congressional districts marked with the cross-hairs of rifle
> sights -- districts where, in Palin's view, Democrats needed to be
> taken out (to borrow a term from Harry Reid's Tea Party-branded
> opponent, Sharron Angle)? Gabrielle Giffords was named in the key to
> the map, her district marked as a target. Glenn Beck joked about his
> desire to poison then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
>
> To call Jared Lee Loughner a Tea Partier is not a credible claim. But
> the culture of political intimidation that surrounds Democratic
> politicians is reinforced by more than a few Tea Party-identified
> leaders. It is not enough for leading Republicans such as House
> Speaker John Boehner and John McCain, the senior Arizona senator and
> former presidential candidate, to denounce the attack on Giffords,
> Roll, and 17 other Arizona citizens, six of whom died, including a
> little girl. They must call on media figures like Beck, political
> leaders such as Palin, and figures such as Pratt and Broun, to end the
> gruesome rhetoric. After all, words do have consequences.
>
> More:http://www.alternet.org/story/149460/how_the_right%27s_rhetoric_fuele...
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment