When I read about the shootings at the Arizona Safeway this morning, which killed 6 and critically wounded US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, 40, not only was I saddened and sickened by this latest violence in our gun culture, but I hearkened back to the 1960s when one after another of our great leaders were assassinated for their beliefs - Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, JFK and RFK.
What terrible times those were.
On the Internet, I carefully followed the condition of "Gabby" Giffords. This is something we weren't able to do in the 60s. All we could do was stand by our TV or radio.
False reports came in, even several announcements of Giffords' death, but never by the NY Times who waited until all the facts came in before reporting their quite comprehensive story. Altho listed in "very critical" condition, surgeons are optimistic about a good recovery.
I goggled the name of the shooter - Jared someone, age 22 - who had made a YouTube video. The video was in words, not animation, and it made absolutely no sense whatsoever. The guy was in a world of his own, clearly mentally ill, with a strong flavor of paranoia.
I only went on it for a second, leaving the analysis to other people. His MySpace page had already been removed but noted by some reporters.
Sen. John McCain made an emotional statement condemning the shooter which, to me, is embarrassingly ill-advised, but, then, that is the senator:
“I am horrified by the violent attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and many other innocent people by a wicked person who has no sense of justice or compassion...Whoever did this, whatever their reason, they are a disgrace to Arizona, this country and the human race, and they deserve and will receive the contempt of all decent people and the strongest punishment of the law.”
A more rational statement was made by the local sheriff who took the liberty to do a little philosophizing:
“The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, I think Arizona has become sort of the capital, we have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry. There’s reason to believe that this individual might have a mental issue, and I think that people who are unbalanced might be especially susceptible to vitriol.”
What is America to do? We have no true leaders in America. No Churchills or Roosevelts or Lincolns when we most need them. Obama is an abomination though he did give a thoughtful statement about the shooting.
Let us practice kindness toward everyone. Are we not all brothers and sisters no matter what the color of our skin or the homelands we hail from? Fear and suspicion must bend as we educate ourselves that all men are created equal. If not in America, then where?
Inflaming Vitriol?
Why is Keith Olbermann anchoring MSNBC coverage of the Giffords shooting? He's not a newsman, he's a biased commentator. Could it be they suddenly realized a huge opportunity to ride a "right wing nut" meme for all it's worth? Head of the Southern Poverty Law Center describing shooter's right wing beliefs; Olbermann posting Sarah Palin's target map. Guess he missed the left wing version of that map.
By any objective measure the 'shooter' is flat nuts, pure loony tunes. Such folks are not serious ideologues or partisans, they are nuts. He sounds a lot like the flake who flew into the IRS building in Austin, a confused person who's probably an atheist, something not at all akin to Palin.
As I type this, Olbermann has Eugene Robinson on the air to focus the vitriol where they think it belongs--the right wing. Oh they're being coy about it--Robinson mentioned that the left held the domestic terrorist mantle during the past, even mentioning washed up terrorist Bill Ayers, but moved on to say it's now almost exclusively on the right. This despite absolutely no evidence of increasing violence from the right; actually the evidence shows that the most violent protesters of our day are socialist anarchists.
They're using the Pima County Sheriff's idiotic speculation during his news conference regards TV and radio personalities inflaming the loonies (apparently no speculation is allowed about the shooter but the Sheriff can speculate wildly about who motivated him) to move their political points. Olbermann is right now giving us a "special comment" about how everyone needs to shut the hell up, and that means Sarah Palin, who he says is responsible. Meanwhile Fox has been running basic news coverage with Shep Smith and Bret Baier and their other news team members and trying to paint a fair picture of the suspect.
Mad as hell, Sheriff Dupnik? You bet. As a person leaning right I'm mad that a nut took out his frustrations on a decent and honorable congresswoman and killed others in the process, including a little girl who in attendance to see the political process because she was serving in student council. Mad that said nut is still alive. Mad that said nut is apparently exercising his constitutional rights, using the same constitution he evidently derided in his online activity.
I'm also mad that the very thing that he so passionately interjected--stoking the vitriol--is being practiced at this very minute by opportunistic left wing ideologues on TV who are trying to frame this event as an image of the modern right wing to score cheap political points.
This is NOT to say that we shouldn't all take a step back and think before we post or speak and understand the meaning and impact of our words. We should. We live in turbulent times. I'm troubled about what seems to be a crumbling of our society and a loss of basic feelings for our fellow man; the crushing debt; illegal immigration leading to a breakdown in the rule of law; wars that don't seem winable and corrupt and mindless politicians forcing their will on the public.
But Olbermann's outrageous and shameless vitriolic attempt to blame this on Palin, or Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly--before all the facts are known--and even if he threw himself in the pot as well with a mock apology, is just as dangerous as anything the sheriff was talking about. MSNBC should be ashamed of itself and it's so-called news department.
MORE 1/8/11
Speaking of using the word "target". And that's not a condemnation of Kos, either. It's a condemnation of Olbermann and anyone else trying to make hay with maps and words in an effort to score points off murder.
No comments:
Post a Comment