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silveradeptA gunman shot several people outside a Tuscon Safeway store, including Congresswoman Gabirelle Giffords, on Saturday. The Congresswoman was holding a public event at the store. The Congresswoman may yet recover from having been shot clean through the head. Unfortunately, one of the victims, a nine year old girl born on a different tragedy date, will not.
The shooter's own words reveal a belief that the government was using mind control on the population through grammar, but the writer of related materials scoffed at the idea that his writings might have inspired the violence. There's the possibility of a group association which might have contributed, for which the people in charge say, "ridiculous". The mental illness angle is heavily speculated, but not necessarily confirmable one way or another. It may also be used as a catch-all and a way of sweeping things under the rug without fully investigating the real root causes, keeping in mind that there are also social systems in place meant to push the mentally ill into the "dangerous and violent Other" category so we don't have to think about how to fix that, either. Finally, one can draw serious parallels between how this happened and how all the "isolated incidents" against abortion providers and clinics happens and worry that the track being followed is the same. Because there's evidence that suggests it is. In any case, the evidence suggests the attack was planned out and that the shooter was exhibiting behaviors that isolated him from society, but also that made it sound like he was putting his affairs in order before doing what he did.
The Secretary of State condemned the attack and called on people to drop the extremist rhetoric and ideas. Her plea for sanity, however, will go unheard, as the rhetoric never intends to change. Sarah Palin has relaunched her website with crosshairs on a map indicating where she feels are good targets for political change. In doing so, she has also claimed her opponents are trying to make political points off of a tragedy by pointing out the presence of her crosshairs map. And there was the incident when, even when confronted with the effect of inflamed rhetoric, John Boehner never apologized, but blew off the Senator that was experiencing real consequences. Plus, the leader of the Tuscon Tea Party has said that they're not changing their rhetoric any, either, even as they condemn the person who stepped across the rhetoric line into violence. So, to go against that, we have to speak up and speak out against the use of that rhetoric.
Then, there's the finger-pointing. Whether it's compaining that remarks made about how Arizona has become a haven for bigotry and hatred, trying to claim that the shooter was actually a lunatic leftist, instead of suckling the teat of rightwing eliminationist rhetoric, the right wing doing their very best to distance themselves from any responsibility on the matter at all, often by blaming the left, and claiming leftists jumped to a conclusion about the root inspiration for the attack, claiming that left-wing commentators are playing up the extreme right-wing angle to further their own political agenda, repeatedly and with the consistency of a set of talking points, attempting a small bit of martyrdom and complaining about "media bias" while accusing their opposition of making profit off of a tragedy, blaming the media in general of wanting to demonize right-wingers, or flat-out denying that there's any connection at all between rhetoric and action there's plenty of people trying desperately not to be stuck holding the bag, some of them having to do so after they dug themselves into a giant hole with inflammatory rhetoric.
What is interesting to note, from perspective, is that people who are up in arms about the imagery of modern rap music and how it contributes to a bad culture seem to be remarkably silent about how the imagery of modern political commentary contributes to a bad culture.
And worse, this incident hasn't stopped the tide. A different nutter, also possibly fueled by rhetoric, made threats against a sitting Senator and his office.
So what might be possible solutions? Well, if you believe that the only way that Republicans can convince normal people to vote for them is to use rhetoric strong enough to put people in a hypnotic state of fear, which makes the crazies act on their crazy, then the only working solution would be for the Republicans to give up on the fear rhetoric and take the whomping they deserve. That's not happening. And those asking for a toning down of the rhetoric may be accused of trying to stifle free speech, the reasoning being that asking to turn down the noise because some people take it seriously is asking someone to self-censor, and self-censorship is bad for democracy.
Mr. Kurtz suggests that the solution is for the media to stop trying to blow this up into a giant tragedy fueled entirely by one political side or another, but that the ratings game and the advertising dollars will ensure that this doesn't happen, nor will a waiting period for all the facts to come out and allow for truth stories instead of blame.
The truth of the matter is, though, speech has consequences. It's something that we taught our children in the schoolyard at an early age, if not before. Words are not for hurting, we said. They found out that calling someone a "pootyhead" had consequences. Yet they grow up and see people on the TV machine making all sorts of statements, and then claiming they're not at fault if someone takes them at their word and does something, that the person who took action is solely responsible for all the bad things, and the climate those TV machine people were creating has nothing to do with this "isolated incident". But they are to blame. After all, if the people on the TV machine really believed all the things they were saying, there would not be a series of "isolated incidents" that happen every so often, there would be an active mob and resistance antagonizing, sabotaging, and possibly even killing people on a regular schedule. The fact that the farthest those people go is to beg for money and votes instead of being out on the lines shows they don't believe the crap they're spewing to the point of actually acting on it. (And why should they throw away all that wealth and power because of a cause, after all?)
This thing has happened. What are we going to do to prevent the next thing from happening? It's a good start to say keeping your head and not giving into the fear (fear is the mind-killer, in more ways than just a literary allusion) will help, as it will cut down on the rhetoric's effectiveness if a critical mass of people start saying "We refuse to be ruled by your fearmongering". But then there's also the practical aspects - knowing full well that someone else will decide to act on what they hear and see, how can you make it as difficult as possible for someone to actually be able to do such a thing without putting the representatives in Popemobiles when they go out and see the public?
The shooter's own words reveal a belief that the government was using mind control on the population through grammar, but the writer of related materials scoffed at the idea that his writings might have inspired the violence. There's the possibility of a group association which might have contributed, for which the people in charge say, "ridiculous". The mental illness angle is heavily speculated, but not necessarily confirmable one way or another. It may also be used as a catch-all and a way of sweeping things under the rug without fully investigating the real root causes, keeping in mind that there are also social systems in place meant to push the mentally ill into the "dangerous and violent Other" category so we don't have to think about how to fix that, either. Finally, one can draw serious parallels between how this happened and how all the "isolated incidents" against abortion providers and clinics happens and worry that the track being followed is the same. Because there's evidence that suggests it is. In any case, the evidence suggests the attack was planned out and that the shooter was exhibiting behaviors that isolated him from society, but also that made it sound like he was putting his affairs in order before doing what he did.
The Secretary of State condemned the attack and called on people to drop the extremist rhetoric and ideas. Her plea for sanity, however, will go unheard, as the rhetoric never intends to change. Sarah Palin has relaunched her website with crosshairs on a map indicating where she feels are good targets for political change. In doing so, she has also claimed her opponents are trying to make political points off of a tragedy by pointing out the presence of her crosshairs map. And there was the incident when, even when confronted with the effect of inflamed rhetoric, John Boehner never apologized, but blew off the Senator that was experiencing real consequences. Plus, the leader of the Tuscon Tea Party has said that they're not changing their rhetoric any, either, even as they condemn the person who stepped across the rhetoric line into violence. So, to go against that, we have to speak up and speak out against the use of that rhetoric.
Then, there's the finger-pointing. Whether it's compaining that remarks made about how Arizona has become a haven for bigotry and hatred, trying to claim that the shooter was actually a lunatic leftist, instead of suckling the teat of rightwing eliminationist rhetoric, the right wing doing their very best to distance themselves from any responsibility on the matter at all, often by blaming the left, and claiming leftists jumped to a conclusion about the root inspiration for the attack, claiming that left-wing commentators are playing up the extreme right-wing angle to further their own political agenda, repeatedly and with the consistency of a set of talking points, attempting a small bit of martyrdom and complaining about "media bias" while accusing their opposition of making profit off of a tragedy, blaming the media in general of wanting to demonize right-wingers, or flat-out denying that there's any connection at all between rhetoric and action there's plenty of people trying desperately not to be stuck holding the bag, some of them having to do so after they dug themselves into a giant hole with inflammatory rhetoric.
What is interesting to note, from perspective, is that people who are up in arms about the imagery of modern rap music and how it contributes to a bad culture seem to be remarkably silent about how the imagery of modern political commentary contributes to a bad culture.
And worse, this incident hasn't stopped the tide. A different nutter, also possibly fueled by rhetoric, made threats against a sitting Senator and his office.
So what might be possible solutions? Well, if you believe that the only way that Republicans can convince normal people to vote for them is to use rhetoric strong enough to put people in a hypnotic state of fear, which makes the crazies act on their crazy, then the only working solution would be for the Republicans to give up on the fear rhetoric and take the whomping they deserve. That's not happening. And those asking for a toning down of the rhetoric may be accused of trying to stifle free speech, the reasoning being that asking to turn down the noise because some people take it seriously is asking someone to self-censor, and self-censorship is bad for democracy.
Mr. Kurtz suggests that the solution is for the media to stop trying to blow this up into a giant tragedy fueled entirely by one political side or another, but that the ratings game and the advertising dollars will ensure that this doesn't happen, nor will a waiting period for all the facts to come out and allow for truth stories instead of blame.
The truth of the matter is, though, speech has consequences. It's something that we taught our children in the schoolyard at an early age, if not before. Words are not for hurting, we said. They found out that calling someone a "pootyhead" had consequences. Yet they grow up and see people on the TV machine making all sorts of statements, and then claiming they're not at fault if someone takes them at their word and does something, that the person who took action is solely responsible for all the bad things, and the climate those TV machine people were creating has nothing to do with this "isolated incident". But they are to blame. After all, if the people on the TV machine really believed all the things they were saying, there would not be a series of "isolated incidents" that happen every so often, there would be an active mob and resistance antagonizing, sabotaging, and possibly even killing people on a regular schedule. The fact that the farthest those people go is to beg for money and votes instead of being out on the lines shows they don't believe the crap they're spewing to the point of actually acting on it. (And why should they throw away all that wealth and power because of a cause, after all?)
This thing has happened. What are we going to do to prevent the next thing from happening? It's a good start to say keeping your head and not giving into the fear (fear is the mind-killer, in more ways than just a literary allusion) will help, as it will cut down on the rhetoric's effectiveness if a critical mass of people start saying "We refuse to be ruled by your fearmongering". But then there's also the practical aspects - knowing full well that someone else will decide to act on what they hear and see, how can you make it as difficult as possible for someone to actually be able to do such a thing without putting the representatives in Popemobiles when they go out and see the public?
no subject
Date: 2011-01-12 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 04:11 am (UTC)Most people, then, felt the way I did, when I heard about the Congresswoman. It's made me a lot more sympathetic to the collective reaction of the country back on September 12, 2001.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-17 03:04 am (UTC)