In President Obama's Tucson memorial speech, he talked about Americans as a family. On a Martin Luther King Jr. Day with our country still in grief over the Tucson shooting, it is appropriate to reflect on this idea -- an idea shared by King himself as well as other great American leaders.
Throughout his career, King's speeches and writing were suffused with the ideas and images of family, community, and interdependence. Images of people holding hands in fellowship and "sitting down at the table of brotherhood together" were woven into many of his most important speeches. Invoking his own children in his most important speech as a metaphor for his dream of an American future -- where we are all judged by "the content of our character", and where one day "little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers" -- was a clarion call for a vision of an American family. In another landmark sermon, King spoke of ingratitude as being one of the worst sins of all because a person "fails to realize his dependence on others". He went on to say that our fates were "inextricably linked in a garment of destiny."
King was a civil rights leader, but he was hardly just a civil rights leader. He had a broader progressive vision for America, a vision rooted in our nation's most sacred American "scriptures": in the Declaration of Independence and its promise of equality and guarantee of the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to a nation "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" and a "government of the people, by the people, for the people". The reason King's "I Have A Dream" speech has joined those two other documents as a sacred American text is because the ideas in it are too compelling to ignore, too fundamental to the American ideal and identity to be anything other than an iconic American text.
This notion of America as one people, one family -- not just a collection of states or special interests -- is core to our identity, and you can see it in response to the tragedy in Tucson. As in other terrible moments of our history like Sept. 11 or the Oklahoma City bombing, Americans have joined together to support each other in our grief and our determination to go forward united. The outpouring of love and compassion for all the victims has been moving beyond words. The stories of heroism during the event, like the amazing stories of heroism during the Sept. 11 tragedy, were reminders of the courage so many people have even when the worst is happening in front of their eyes. We Americans may be rugged individualists, but we also are one people, one family, mutually interdependent.
The question remains, of course, whether this American family will become more dysfunctional or more caring for all its children. Goodness knows there are way too many dysfunctional families, where children go hungry or are abused, where mental health is not nurtured, where disagreements turn violent. But Martin Luther King Jr. and the recent events in Tucson both call on us to build a stronger American family -- a family that takes care of each other through the worst of times and nurtures each other all the time; a family where all children get a good education and are taken care of when they are sick; a family where differences and disagreements are treated with respect; a family where kindness and the Golden Rule of treating everyone as you want to be treated are revered values. That is the kind of America I want to live in, not the kind of society where, as Glenn Beck put it to a conservative audience who responded with laughter and applause, "the lions eat the weak."
We have a long way to go before my dreams of a mutually supportive American family get realized. The lions that want to eat the weak have been roaring and rampaging. But I still have hope that King's dream of an American family that sits down as brothers and sisters, and that Lincoln's Gettysburg vision of an America of the people, by the people, for the people shall come back into fashion.
On Friday, on Democracy Now! Amy interviewed Eric Fuller, a 63-year old disabled veteran who was one of the wounded survivors of the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords. Shot once in the knee and once in the back (with shrapnel), Fuller was obviously not in a forgiving mood, just because Loughner's crazy rightwing views were not precisely the same as everyone else's crazy rightwing views:
ERIC FULLER: Once she walked up to me, she said, "I'll answer your questions, but you have to wait." And there was a line forming up there, so I went over and I sat down and looked over my questions... when I heard the sound of gunshots. And I looked over only about 10 or 15 feet away, where Gabrielle Giffords had been standing, and in her place was a very excited gunman who was athletically pumping out the rounds and pointing the gun at anybody that he could get a bead on.
People around me were being hit. I just dove for the ground. And while I was diving for the ground, a round hit me in the knee. I was conscious of that. And while I was on the ground, I guess another one, another round, hit me in the back. A fragment did; it hit me in the back. A woman went over and knocked the clip out of his hand. He was reloading. He had a Glock 9mm with a 30-round clip in it. And my thought on the ground was that he's going to come and finish us off. But this woman knocked the other clip out of his hand. Then a couple of guys came along, bystanders, and they tackled him, knocked him to the ground.
I was in shock, and I just wandered out into the parking lot. And a woman was pushing a cart full of groceries out there. And I said to her, "I've been shot." And she just looked at me like I was crazy. I was taken to the hospital. And even though I was sedated and everything, I stayed up--I was staying up, stayed most of the night. And I didn't know how to calm myself down, so I wrote down the Declaration of Independence, which I memorized some time ago. And that did help to organize my thoughts. And the first thing that I wrote down and what my reaction was to it was: "How many other people? How many other demented people are out there? It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled--senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls." There was a little girl named Christina Green, nine years old, who is one of the deceased.
Another thing I wrote down was, "Can we have another fundraiser at the target range, Jesse Kelly?" Jesse Kelly ran against her in the election. And I've heard him speak several-a couple of times, and I couldn't believe he was a real candidate. I thought he was just like a fake candidate. It didn't seem like anybody would consider him seriously. He came within 4,000 votes of winning the election. One of his slogans was: "Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." Kind of a very marginal personality and a low mentality.
I had wanted to write a diary about him, but didn't have the time & space Friday, so promised myself I'd write something today, about what a normal reaction he had had, given what he'd been through.
But then, over the weekend, I became aware that he'd been arrested for allegedly mumbling a threat under his breath--a sort of official vindication of the ludicrous claim that both sides are responsible for the climate of violence in today's politics. This occurred at an ABC-news-sponsored "town hall" to "promote healing", in response to a local Tea Party leader saying that any gun legislation should not be considered when people were still upset:
Once again, Americans are up in arms or perchance, better armed and dangerous. Only little more than a week into 2011, citizens have had to confront their fears, feelings, all at gunpoint. It began on a calm, clear Saturday. In a Safeway Store Tucson parking lot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords held one of her customary Congress on the Corner events. It was January 8, 2011. Friends and admirers from each political Party turned out. Suddenly, cordial chatter turned icy cold. gunshots shattered the calm. People were slaughtered. Some survived. However, as a nation, we were all wounded.
Retorts followed. Seemingly, a culture was changed, or was it? Just as has occurred, many times in the recent past, people quickly took sides. Blame was ballied about. Solutions were also presented. Some argued for stricter gun control laws. Others used the occasion to validate a need for less restrictive restraints on gun ownership. Persons who held a position similar to the most prominent victim proposed a need to protect themselves.
I just finished reading "Obama's Tucson speech". I really must go further than Digby and declare it was not only the best speech Obama has given since becoming president, but also one of the greatest speeches given by any sitting president. It was heartfelt, eloquent, beautifully written and paced, and deeply personal while calling all of us to realize a larger purpose: the national goal of establishing a discourse healthy for democracy.
This last issue is important. Among the subtleties of this amazingly subtle speech are the ways Obama denounces the hyper-partisan rhetoric of his opponents without for a moment sounding as if he is making a partisan point. By design, the speech makes it difficult for captial-H History to recapture the specifics of what Obama is talking about, but we know exactly what and who he means - or we think we do, which is one of Obama's greatest and most exasperating oratorical skills.
Needless to say, I don't share this view. I think Debra very well nailed its strengths and weaknesses, and I think tristero gave the game away a bit, writing, "but we know exactly what and who he means - or we think we do". By now, you'd think folks would have caught on to that whole "reading your hopes into Obama's blank slate" routine. But the less he does to actually make us feel politically, socially and economically secure, the more desperately we grasp, I guess.
However, the main focus of tristero's analysis is absolutely spot on:
What I'd like to focus on is something about the speech that probably wont get remarked. I also noticed these things during the campaign, and until I understood what was going on, it drove me (not to mention many other people) almost crazy with despair. But I think it ultimately played a central, if usually unheralded, role in Obama's spectacular victory. I'm talking about Obama's uncanny skill at setting traps for his political opponents, traps in which they themselves - ie, not Obama - act foolishly or so otherwise poorly that they disqualify themselves as serious opponents, who emerges from these fiascos looking not only like the only rational choice but, more emotionally, as the only conceivable choice.
It is hard to talk about this particular tool in Obama's political toolkit because it really does seem that his major opponents, through their own stupid mistakes, have self-destructed. Nor, I admit, can I pin down exactly where Obama's being proactive in his opponents' destruction. But consider for a moment that, when securing his nomination, Obama defeated both Clintons, two of the wiliest politicians alive., In the general election, Obama defeated a war hero and no mean political warrior himself.
All of these opponents made unbelievably bad decisions, seemingly without any involvement from Obama nor did Obama appear to exploit them. Yet... I'll focus on the 2008 general for a moment.
McCain's vice presidential choice of Palin - the day after Obama's Big Night - quickly devolved from a political masterstroke into a major league disaster, both politically and logistically (she was, by many accounts, a distracting nightmare to attend to). Obama sailed above it and McCain looked more and more foolish, and less and less like a serious alternative to Obama. The same thing happened a month later when McCain announced he was suspending his campaign, something he probably thought of as a political masterstroke, putting country about personal ambition and all that. Obama? He seemed to do nothing but shake his head and say he would continue his own campaign. Yet again, McCaain's foolish stunt backfired. And Obama's stature as Serious Presidential Material was enhanced.
Now, I hasten to say that I think Clinton could have beaten McCain every bit as handily as Obama did. There were enormous structural, historical and political advantages going for the Democrats in 2008. (Advantages that Obama has squandered in record time, I might add.) But that doesn't negate the point that tristero is making: Obama's victory, after all, was his victory, not the Democrats', and he accomplished it in part by laying traps, just as tristero said.
It is tragic that it took the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the murder and wounding of 18 others to bring home to most of us the horror of years of rightwing violence, threats of violence, and public murder fantasies.
While the actual views of alleged shooter Jared Loughner are hazy, and whether far rightwing influences on his thinking played any role in his motives for the shooting remains to be seen, we find ourselves nevertheless talking about the climate of hate and violence, as well as the actual violence itself that has been building for a very long time.
Many examples of the uses of violent imagery and open suggestion of violence have been discussed in the past few days, but I have not seen any reference to, let alone discussion of Ann Coulter's repeated (sometimes winking) justification -- before two national Religious Right political conferences, in her syndicated column, and on Fox News -- of the assassination of abortion providers.
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.
Conservatives never take responsibility for anything: slavery, segregation, racism, coddling Hitler, Central American death squads, pollution, mass incarceration, three decades of budget-busting deficits, 9/11, Katrina, the Iraq War, the Wall Street meltdown & the Great Recession--the list goes on and on. So why would their reaction to the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords be any different? And it's not, as the Heritage Foundation whines, "It all started when he hit me back!"
Libel is No Path to a Civil Society
All of us at The Heritage Foundation were profoundly saddened by the tragedy that occurred this past Saturday morning in Tucson, Arizona. We mourn all of those who lost their lives and are praying for a full recovery by all of the surviving victims. As Speaker John Boehner said Saturday, "An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve."
Unfortunately, some have chosen to use this tragedy for political gain. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, the Democrat who refused to enforce SB 1070, told FOX News' Megyn Kelly this weekend that the shooting was caused by an "atmosphere" created when "one party trying to block the attempts of another party to make this country better. " In case there is any doubt in your mind who Sheriff Dupnik was talking about, one veteran Democratic operative, who, like Sheriff Dupnik, blamed overheated rhetoric for the shooting, told Politico that President Barack Obama should "deftly pin this on the tea partiers."
Pressed by Kelly to identify ANY evidence linking the shooter to the tea party, Sheriff Dupnik admitted he had zero: "That is my opinion. Period."
Of course, Dupnik's original claim wasn't that Loughner was a Tea Party member, but that the same incendiary rightwing rhetoric used to fire up the Tea Party--some of which directly targetted Giffords, who had been the target of violence in the past--also played a role in inspiring and directing Loughner's murderous rage. So, the Heritage Foundation is lying, as usual. But that's just the starter lie. The hum-dinger is here:
Americans like Sheriff Dupnik, who claim that they are interested in creating a more civil discourse, ought to think long and hard about pointing their fingers at other peoples' words before making completely unsubstantiated accusations. Those who blame the rhetoric of their political opponents for these heinous crimes, when no such evidence exists, only further coarsen our civil discourse.
Why, heavens! We'd hate to see anyone coarsen a civil discourse characterized by "death panels", "Second Amendment remedies," nooses, swastikas, spitting on congressmen and the like. This is the sort of "civil discourse" the Heritage Foundation wishes to preserve? Where, exactly has Heritage been all these years?
Here's a hint: In the 1990s, Heritage fought tooth and nail against the Democrats' attempt to pass comprehensive health care. Before conservatives siezed on the idea of all-out obstruction, Heritage crafted a conservative alternative. Just over a decade later, their plan became the basis for "RomneyCare" passed in Massachussettes, and a couple of years after that, it became the basis for ObamaCare as well. But in the battle over ObamaCare, Heritage was vehemently opposed to its own abandoned brainchild, and had no problem at all allying with other conservatives who attacked ObamaCare for its non-existent "Death Panels" (actually reimbursements for end-of-life counseling sessions, originally a GOP amendment).
Indeed, the first week of August, as Tea Party mobs raged in what we now know were orchestrated, pre-planned disruptions of townhall meetings (not good-faith participation), which used the mythical, non-existent "death panels" as their center-piece, perhaps the Heritage Foundation's highest-profile op-ed writer, Thomas Sowell, wrote an op-ed, "Utopia Versus Freedom," that didn't use the exact phrase, but expressed the same lie:
do not be surprised when life-and-death decisions about you or your family are taken out of your hands - and out of the hands of your doctor - and transferred to bureaucrats in Washington.
No single political battle was more politically beneficial for conservatives, more mendacious, more incendiary, and more directly responsible for inciting threatening words and actions than the battle over healthcare reform last year. And if Heritage had had any moral and intellectual integrity, it would have stood with Barack Obama, who was, after all, fighting for Heritage's own brainchild. Go ahead, laugh. I agree, it's ludicrous idea that laughter is the only appropriate response. But remember, what you're laughing at is the notion that Heritage has an ounce of moral or intellectual integrity. That's a laughing matter, because Heritage obviously does not. Instead, they were all on board for death panel lies, and whatever else it took to stop Obama and the Democrats cold. They stopped at nothing.
Neither did Jared Loughner. I wonder where he got that idea.
This evening on the Situation Room, Blitzer had on retired Army Colonel Bill Badger, in order to tell the story of his part in the takedown of Jared Loughner. I can't find any video of it, but Badger's composure and recall of detail in retelling the story makes the segment worthwhile on its own. As the interview is wrapping up, the Colonel makes use of his brief moment of fame to actually try and make something good come out of this travesy:
BLITZER: Colonel, do you own or carry a gun?
BADGER: No.
I have got a 21-year-old son. And when he was born, my wife made me get rid of .38. I had one up until that time.
But, you know, if I could say something right now, that something is drastically wrong with what's going on in our United States right now. And when an individual is turned down to get into the military and then can be -- is able to go out and buy a .9-millimeter Glock pistol, and he had one of the -- or his clips were the extended clips that were limited to law enforcement only, and, you know, that -- or somebody has to put a stop to that.
BLITZER: Colonel Bill Badger, retired U.S. Army, thanks so much, not only for joining us. Much more importantly, thanks for doing what you did Saturday morning in Tucson. We appreciate it very much.
BADGER: Wolf, and thank you. And keep up the great work.
Doubtful this will put the whole issue of "maybe doing something to stop this happening again" into serious discussion but having a 74 year old Army veteran cool enough to disarm a maniac even after being shot in the head himself speak out in favour of better gun control is a pretty decent opening for the topic. Between him and the Sherriff, some sterotypically right wing figures have stepped up to speak for sanity.
I don't have too much to add to the Giffords debate, but in case these points haven't been made (probably unlikely) or haven't been made prominently enough, let me raise three issues about the Arizona massacre:
Implicit versus explicit eliminationist rhetoric. There has been much justifiable focus on various forms of explicit, or even slightly veiled but still militant/aggressive rhetoric in the political discourse. I think more attention needs to go the implicit calls for violence, usually in the form of portraying adversaries as the extremes of evil, and even direct equation with history's greatest monsters like Stalin, Mao and of course, that Austrian painter who went on to a bad end. The thing about calling Obama Hitler, or Stalin is, you don't fight Stalin by organizing a petition drive, or a peaceful protest. He liquidates his enemies. You fight him tooth and nail in every alley and from every dark corner. By making such comparisons you foment in your supporters a romantic fantasy of being the French Résistance (perhaps the only time right wingers have anything good to say about France). After all, right wingers have spent a lot of effort comparing anyone who wants to negotiate with anyone considered "bad" to Chamberlain giving away Czechoslovakia to the Nazis. So if the enemy is Hitler, what else is there but violence to stop him? He cannot be appeased, it is either total victory for freedom or totalitarianism.
This debate should have happened years ago. While I support this issue being a major debate as the extremity of the crime certainly warrants the attention, I'm not alone in noting that there have been a frightening number of incidents of politically motivated violence, including numerous murders in recent years. While more people died and were injured this time than at some of the others, I fear that the real distinction here as far as Very Serious People are concerned is that actual Villagers or people the Villagers know were hurt and killed. Why didn't this debate erupt say when Dr. Tiller was murdered, or when 2 were murdered at the Knoxville church for being too liberal by the guy who wanted to get everyone in Bernie Goldberg's book? If in six months another madman kills even more people for political reasons but none of them are "important" people as far as Versailles is concerned, will a similar major discussion happen? I hope so but I think not.
Does the right have any actual policy to handle this? Lest the debate careen off into oblivion, some attempt to suggest any serious ideas for how to prevent this sort of thing from happening should occur. As it's clear the right is not going to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness for their rhetorical extremism, they should be challenged to suggest some actual laws that might have stopped this or the other incidents of political violence. It not enough to provide guards to members of Congress at public events; can the government guard every "liberal" Church or IRS office? There's far too many targets for lone lunatics to go after, so what is the right going to suggest we do about that? My suspicion is that they have no ideas for this. The right wing cupboard is bare. As for the left, it's true that the right has succeeded in making all gun control politically toxic, at least liberalism has ideas that might have either prevented this (such as making it easier to bar the mentally unfit from gun possession) to reducing the harm done (restore restrictions on magazine sizes that lapsed in the AWB) to even helping the mentally unsound before they become violent (say by a program that makes it easier to get people into free psychological help). At the very least, forcing the right to say (in effect) "We have no ideas, so America will just have to live with people going on killing sprees every six months..." is important in exposing the limits of their vision for life and society.
And to the inevitable and highly cynical right wing responses to any policy suggestions to this tragedy, let us only heap scorn. We who survive such tragedies have a responsibility to the living to prevent their recurrence. If that requires "politicizing a tragedy" or a "power grab" then I say politicize and grab while asking the critics "so what are you going to say to the next group of bereaved people to explain what you did to prevent this from taking away someone they love from a known threat?" I think people expect a little more inspiration from the political class than "shit happens, carry a gun."
The Full Story Is What We NeedI am not a conspiracist. But I am an empiricist. So, lone gunman without transportation, and I think, "What's missing?" Report of person of interest being sought, and I think, "Good, it's being investigated. We will know, soon enough." But now this (from Brad DeLong):
I Would Very Much Like an Alternative Explanation of This...
Gabrielle Giffords and Raul Grijalva are both Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Arizona. On Tuesday January 4 the number of hits on the "Gabrielle Giffords" page on Wikipedia began to rise. The number of hits on the "Raul Grijalva" page did not. By Friday January 7 more than three times as many people were looking at Gabrielle Giffords's Wikipedia page than had done so in a normal day in the previous month and a half.
On Saturday January 8, of course, six people were murdered in the course of the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords.
Please give me an explanation of this so that I can stop being a nutbar conspiracy theorist...
20110109 Giffords Grijalva.xls
It's not a huge number of hits, though it's clearly significant. In comments, some plausible explanations--public appearances, media stories, significant entry editing--are explored, and pretty much dismissed, while a few plausible reasons are offered--probably best is her not voting for Pelosi for Speaker raising her profile. But that really doesn't seem to explain a multi-day growing interest.
There very well could be an innocent explanation--or it could be that Loughner's plans leaked out to small group, or were spurred an intensified buzz among folks hostile to her, which this activity also reflects. In short, this is the sort of evidence, in our electronic age, that a competent investigative authority will take a very hard look at, and in doing so, it will sharply reduce the fodder for the further crazification of our civil and political discourse.
Facts, not fantasy. Reason, not violence. That is what we should be about, both individually, and as a society as a whole.
This is not a call to find a conspiracy. This is a call to investigate a very troubling anomaly. It is a call for thoroughness. It is a call for truth. It is a reporter's call for the full story.
A Constructive Alternative You Can Help With
That's also what I'm calling for when I insist on accuracy in identifying the sources of political violence in our country today--who is inciting it, who is promoting it, who is rationalizing it, and who is doing it.
If you're interested in doing something constructive in the midst of this time of tragedy and confusion, there is a project of documenting this record that you can help to advance--something that will involve consolidating hundreds, if not thousands of examples, far beyond the abilities of any "balance" narrative to negate or confuse. I'll tell you a bit more about it on the flip, including how you can get involved. Unlike the issue discussed above, it doesn't require any special expertise, and the outcome isn't uncertain. You will be successful in helping to build the factual record, if you choose to participate.
Below is a piece I wrote for The Huffington Post not long ago, which sums up the situation we knew we were dealing with after a deranged man tried to kill members of a Panama City, Florida School Board (and really well before that).
Clearly, there's a lot of anger in America right now.
Much of it justified, as some can afford shower curtain rings that would dwarf others' weekly wages (and the latter are the ones who are lucky enough to have jobs). When you take this fact, combine it with the Orwellian "Newspeak" so pervasive in our media (which David Neiwert has written so articulately about), and multiply that by the NRA's mission to fight for the rights of criminals, the mentally ill and even terrorists to have access to guns, you have a toxic stew, ready to erupt.
And that does not even begin to discuss the lack of mental health services we provide, which has only gotten worse since the onset of The Great Recession
Scene: Panama City, Florida. A school board meeting is interrupted by a man with a criminal record of assault (with a gun) waving a gun, and furious that his wife lost her job, his benefits have run out and the board members were unwilling to raise sales taxes so she and others like her wouldn't be fired (it should be noted that reports are still sketchy, so not all of what he says about his wife and himself during the five minutes when the board members try and talk him down can be confirmed yet).
We don't yet know where he got his gun -- but we do know his criminal record and history of mental illness made it illegal for him obtain a gun of any kind. We also know that you can walk into a gun show in many states, such as Virginia, and buy any weapon, no background check necessary. The Governor of Virginia thinks that this is a-ok. No matter that everyone from members of Hezbollah to the Columbine killers to the Pentagon shooter got their guns in this manner.
Apparently, to make an omelette, you have to shoot a few eggs.
So the gun lobby marches on: Much harm, no foul.
The NRA has spent years trying to destroy and delegitimize the ATF, such that nobody has been leading this important law enforcement agency for the past 4 years. Why? Because they try and track where guns come from when they kill people. Crazy. right?
And of course we know that we are creating our very own Bonus Army, as millions are filled with despair and anxiety as we give them a pittance while extending tax cuts for people who make Richie Rich look like Oliver Twist.
So is this our future? Videos of killers wielding illegal guns and holding innocent people hostage -- or worse. Reality TV, gone very, very wrong.
Unless/until we decide that gun safety, economic equality, and preventing pundits from inciting riot/slandering whole groups of people on air are reforms worth fighting for. Stay tuned on this one. In the meantime, sadly, I can promise you one thing: Many mini-revolutions such as this will be televised.
And it will be ugly.
One more prediction after yesterday's' evil occurrence. There will be more, sadly, much more, unless we address these issues. A whole lot of mentally unstable & criminal minds just got a new idea from yesterday..
(In light of the shootings in Arizona today, I wanted to provide the Open Left community with the best sort of deep background coverage possible. That's why I invited Frederick Clarkson, co-founder of Talk2Action, to cross-post this diary from his site. NOTE: Idiot Wind Will be delayed to late Sunday afternoon, because of special circumstances - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
In light of the attempted murder of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in a shooting spree resulting in the death of 6 (including federal judge John Roll) and the wounding of 12 others, I want to underscore the culture of violence and threats of violence being furthered by the Religious Right by reprising (a slightly edited) post from 2009 in which I discussed how Arizona pastor Rev. Steven Anderson called on God to kill Barack Obama, and encouraged a member of his congregation to protest an Obama speech by carrying an assault rifle outside the venue.
It is also worth noting that during the election campaign Giffords Opponent, Jesse Kelly, Held June Event to "Shoot a Fully Automatic M16? to "Get on Target" and "Remove Gabrielle Giffords"; and Sarah Palin put Giffords in a crosshair target graphic on her web site. There is no apparent connection between these events and Anderson. However, all are part of the far-right political culture that encourages such ideas and actions. Anderson has continued to promote violent ideas since 2009 and the Southern Poverty Law Center recently listed that Anderson's church as a hate group. We could also discuss the history of how the theology of hate and violence and related rhetoric directed at abortion providers relates to the quarter century of arson, bombings and murders and more that have been directed at abortion providers and how this part of, and not separate from the rest of the far right. But for today, let's recall the words and deeds of Rev. Steven Anderson.
In 2009, I published an essay at Religion Dispatches that discussed the Religious Right back story behind Anderson and his congregation. Here are a few excerpts:
Chris Broughton, 28, made national news when he showed up to protest a speech by President Barack Obama in Phoenix, Arizona with an AR-15 automatic rifle slung over his shoulder and a handgun. While Broughton claims that his (apparently legal) actions were not meant to threaten the president, there was more to the story than a single citizen's dubious actions and pronouncements. Local print and television coverage in Phoenix, and bloggers all over the country, have led the way on an interesting and important story of religion and politics that has been almost entirely ignored by the traditional media.
Here is what they missed.
The night before Broughton's fifteen minutes of fame, he attended a fiery Sunday sermon by his pastor, Rev. Steven L. Anderson, at Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. Rev. Anderson, also 28, explained not only "Why I Hate Barack Obama," but also why he and God both want the president dead. "When I go to bed tonight," Broughton's pastor declared, "Steven L. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell." He even goes so far as to claim that:
"God appointed [Obama] to destroy this country for the wickedness of the United States of America. God appointed him because that's what our country has turned into. That's who we deserve as a president."
[UPDATE 4:33 PM]: Shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner's YouTube channel. Seems pretty crazy at first glance.
[UPDATE 4:25 PM]: From TPM: "Federal Judge John Roll was shot and killed in this morning's attack in Tucson. He had earlier been under protective custody because of threats tied to case tied to the illegal immigration issue in the state."
[UPDATE 4:04 PM]: Hospital spokesman "optimistic" about Giffords, who has left surgery and is in the ICU. She was shot in the head "through and through" off to the side. No word on long-term prognosis.
[UPDATE 3:50 PM]: MSNBC reports assistant city manager deputy mayor says Giffords is expected to pull through.
[UPDATE 3:11 PM]: Giffords was apparently talking as she was wheeled into surgery, according to a producer for the local NBC affilieate.
[UPDATE 3PM]: Giffords' opponent held incendiary event "Get on target" to "remove Gabrielle Giffords". Details below.
[UPDATE 2:37 PM EST]: Giffords is in surgery--Hospital spokesperson tells MSNBC
Giffords was shot in the head at close range at a routine public meeting in Tuscon. NPR had reported she was dead, but a sheriff in contact with hospital just told MSNBC/NBC news that she was still alive. MSNBC reports that 5 other people were killed and CNN reported 12 shot in all. From the NY Times:
A congresswoman from Arizona was shot on Saturday along with several others during at public event at a grocery store in Tuscon, according to her spokesman, C.J. Karamargin. The Tucson Citizen reported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, had been shot at close range in the head...
The shooting occurred at a Safeway supermarket in northwest Tuscon as Ms. Giffords hosted an event, called "Congress on Your Corner," to allow members of the 8th Congressional District to meet her individually. She has held several events since first taking office in January 2007. At one such event in 2009, a protester was removed by police when his pistol fell on the supermarket floor. This was her first event since her re-election to a third term in November.
Last March, her Tucson office was vandalized a few hours after the House vote overhauling the nation's health care system, the authorities said.
Earlier events in Tucson, Oro Valley, Green Valley, Sierra Vista, and Douglas had attracted between 75 and 150 people, according to a statement announcing the event.
Ms. Giffords was interviewed on Fox news on Friday to talk about a bill to cut to congressional salaries by five percent.
Nothing firm has been reported about the gunman, but Gifford was on the congressmembers on Sarah Palin's infamous "target list":
[UPDATE 3PM]: From Blog for Arizona last June:
A friend sent me a link to the Pima County Republican website, spotlighting a Jesse Kelly event.
I find the wording for the event (the part I circled) chilling.
There's nothing wrong with having a gun-themed event, if that's what you want to do. Count me out, but if you want to meet at a shooting range instead of a bowling alley or a baseball stadium, that's your right and your privilege.
There's also nothing wrong with having a "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords" event. That's what the R candidates in CD-8 are trying to do.
But to put it all together, starting with "Get on Target," moving to "remove Gabrielle Giffords," then finishing with "Shoot a fully automatic M16" . . .
That goes way beyond cute and clever and moves into a frightening linkage between shooting guns and removing Giffords.
I for one am not surprised at the reports surfacing over the last twenty four hours that there have been attacks, threats and vandalism aimed at Democrats who voted in favor of health care reform. As of this morning there are ten such reported cases, including one that suggested Congressmen (D-MI) should drown himself. Congresswoman Giffords (D-AZ) had the windows of her hometown office broken by some unidentified projectile. There has also been a report of an attack on a Congressman's family member that if accurate, would constitute a federal crime. Having witnessed Congressmen and Senators being spit upon and subject to racial and homosexual slurs by anti-government fanatics this past weekend, why would anyone be surprised by this latest display of incivility?
Shortly after the inauguration of Barack Obama the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning that an increase in domestic anti-government violence was a distinct possibility. This report was the subject of much derision from the Right at the time but consider what has happened since then. Since the election of Barack Obama we have had a guy in Pittsburg kill policemen because he was angry that the government was now "Run by Jews" and that it would "take his guns away". We had a guy kill a doctor who performed abortions and then try to frame himself as a patriot in so doing. Sorry but murder is not patriotic. We had a murder at the Holocaust Museum by an individual who when captured said: "This is how you'll get my guns from me". Another anti-government zealot crashed his plane into the IRS building in Austin Texas as if that would in some way actually contribute to the abolition of the agency. In reality, all that this action accomplished was the killing of an innocent man. Only the Pentagon subway stop shooting can legitimately be classified as the work of a mentally incapacitated person, regardless of his anti-government rant. All summer long we had to watch the farcical spectacle of Tea Party patriots playing minuteman by bringing loaded weapons to rallies while holding signs that suggested it was time for a second American Revolution. There are many who will read this and try to make an argument that political violence is now somehow justified, alluding to some sort of Revolutionary War fantasy. There has been all manner of infatuation with ideas of an armed "citizens revolt"; a military coup, even talk of an attempt on the life of the President, all of it being nothing more than the pipe dream of people who have now become political dead enders. It is to be noted by all that these far right fanatics have been aided and abetted in their dangerous fantasies by the reckless rhetoric of Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the professional political entertainers on the far right who masquerade as legitimate political commentators.
The Republican Minority Leader, John Boehner (R-OH) has already issued a statement condemning violence on the floor of the House of Representatives. That is surely commendable as no informed observer of American politics would for a moment believe that the G.O.P. is in favor of such a thing. But I would also urge Congressman Boehner to direct his comments to some in his own party, like Michele Bachmann (R-MN) or those like her who have a history of incendiary anti-government rhetoric in their political track record. When an elected official engages in blatantly reckless and inflammatory behavior it only serves to stoke up the sentiments of those on the far right fringe and can serve, in their minds, as a "call to action." In his assessment of the Republican debacle that has arisen from the passage of health care reform, the veteran conservative commentator David Frum observed: "We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible... So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, its mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, its Waterloo all right: ours." The degree to which increasing levels of political violence detracts or derails the message of the Republican Party in the future is unknowable at this time. But for an organization that is polling the lowest favorability numbers in its history, it is just one more reason for people to disregard the G.O.P. message on Election Day and one more problem the Republican Party can do without.
There will be those on the Right who will issue the counter argument that all one need do is to look back to the sixties and you will find plenty of violence perpetrated by the left. Some will conjure up the various red scares of the past and say that there has been more than on instance in American history where Communists in labor unions and among university professors sought to overthrow or subvert the American way of life. But you can tally up all of the left wing violence in the history of this country and you won't put a dent in the death toll from the Oklahoma City Bombing, an act perpetrated by a violently anti-government fanatic. It is for that reason that it is now the patriotic duty of every American to stand up to the fanatics on the far right, be it at political rallies, on the streets, in the blogs, by calling in to talk radio, by text messaging the Glenn Beck show, etc., or by writing to the media organizations that sanction such programming and registering you opposition to this virulent rhetoric that only serves to fuel politically driven violence and intolerance. The next time some right wing crackpot tells you that he and his compatriots are going to "take back their country" ask them from whom, the people who voted in the majority for change. It is time for Progressives to stand up to thugs and fanatics of any stripe, be they far to either the left or right, and to no longer tolerate threats of violence on the part of those who having lost out in the political arena, have chosen to attempt change through extra legal means.
In an interview following the attack on her office, Congresswoman Giffords said that America was a beacon around the world because we create change via the ballot box and not through political violence and intimidation. In thinking back upon much of the rhetoric from the right that has surrounded the advent of the Obama Administration, I can not help but to recall the warning that Sinclair Lewis made back in the 1930s: "If Fascism ever comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the flag and borne upon a crucifix". In spite of the fact that the country was in a far more perilous position then than it is now, Lewis' words were as relevant today as they were in the midst of the Great Depression and they should be on the minds of every true American patriot.
STATE BLOGS
[UPDATE 3PM]: From Blog for Arizona last June:
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