(Considering how many people are affected, this is anything but a side-story. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
The federal trial of three Pennsylvania police officers accused of covering up the murder of an undocumented Mexican immigrant opened last week-reigniting critical discussion about the recent rise of anti-immigrant hate crimes. The officers-former Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer and Patrolman Jason Hayes-allegedly attempted to conceal the racially motivated nature of the 2008 murder of 25-year-old Luis Ramirez, who was brutally beaten to death in a park by a group of teenagers spouting racial slurs. At the time, Ramirez's murder underscored a growing trend of anti-Hispanic violence in the U.S., which some attribute to increasingly anti-immigrant political rhetoric.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in the head at a constituent outreach event in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson on Saturday. In all, the gunman shot 18 people, killing 6, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.
Jamelle Bouie of TAPPED urges President Obama to take up the issue of mental health care in his upcoming speech on the mass shooting. Several people who knew the alleged shooter came forward with stories of bizarre behavior and run-ins with campus police at his community college. College administrators ordered him to seek treatment before he returned to school, but he does not appear to have done so.
H. Clarke Romans of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Southern Arizona explained to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that mental health services in Arizona have been devastated by budget cuts.
In 2008 the state eliminated support services for all non-Medicaid behavioral health patients and stopped covering most brand-name psychiatric drugs. At least 28,000 Arizonans were affected. Arizonans with mental illnesses can expect even more cuts in the future as the state slashes spending in an attempt to address its budget shortfall.
In AlterNet, Adele Stan, argues that, while we don't yet know the gunman's motives, the right wing's intensifying campaign of anti-government hysteria and violent rhetoric may have emboldened an already disturbed person:
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.
Joss Whedon's Dollhouse only has two more episodes to go, alas, but it's not going down without a fight. Last night's episode, "Getting Closer" had so much going on, it was enough to fill half a 22-episode season of a lesser show, but I really just want to talk about one rather amazing thing that happened: The lead character (sort of) in an American TV show self-identified as a terrorist.
Let me say that again: The lead character in an American TV show self-identified as a terrorist.
It wasn't entirely accurate, of course. But in a sense, that only makes it better.
The last two weeks since the Christmas/underpants bomber episode have seen the utter and complete collapse into meaninglessness of "terrorist" discourse. As Rachel Maddow noted, Rudy ("A noun, a verb and 9/11") Guiliani has effectively destroyed his political career once and for all in the process of trying to make 9/11 disappear, and that's pretty much the symbolic crown of the mountain range of stupid that's been trotted out in the past two weeks.
In essence, the post-underpants GOP attacks on Obama can be summarized thus: "You can't fight terrorism, because you're not scared! And you're not scaring us and the American people!" You're not screaming "terrorism" every other word, just like Osama bin Laden wants!
And so now that "terrorism" has been made utterly meaningless as the final reductio absurdum of those who flew so high for more than half a decade based on their own spectacular failures, it's only fitting that a fictional character from Joss Whedon's fevered imagination should turn the ultimate linguistic trick, and--quite impossibly--turn "terrorist" into a Good Thing.
In my ear;ier diary, "Christophobia??? Wait A Second, Fellah! YOU'RE The Christophobe!", a commentator got upset with me for advancing the point that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. I actually think that's a very good argument to make, simply because it puts the other side on the defensive, and disrupts their synapses. That's the underlying reason I brought it up.
An incredible amount of political ink has been spilled in the praise, justification, apologies, and criticism of the Iraq war than. But occasionally a statement breaks through the murk and sticks with me, and enables me to better explain my own thoughts to my friends and foes alike. Today Feingold issued such a statement overt at Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
What I think both misunderstand is Obama's what Obama's focus on post-partisanship means. Both, I think, read it as misunderstanding that the cause of most of the problems is the Republican Party. They think it is a Joe Lieberman like 'pox on both your houses' sort of position, or perhaps a Clintonian triangulation.
The media narratives are out. The Clinton's, once again the Comeback Kids, the race is thrown into disarray. With New Hampshire and Iowa finished, and we have no idea who will be the nominee on either side of the aisle, no clear frontrunner on either side.
So let me take a few of the media narratives and throw in some facts. You know, the basic elements of TRUTH and Reporting?
Even before he said so explicitly, many progressives I know spoke of his ability not to change policies, but to change minds -- to do for progressivism what Reagan did for conservatism.
This catalyzed me to write about something I've been thinking about recently, something I remember my father saying back in the mid-80s: "Say want you want about Reagan, but he's definitely a 'big-picture' guy." My whole family was (and remains) whole-heartedly opposed to Reagan and conservatism in general, but I've often thought this quality was one of the reasons Reagan succeeded. It could also be the key to Obama's success--or failure.
(More after the break.)
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