TUCSON — Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, and 18 other people were shot just north of Tucson on Saturday morning when a gunman opened fire outside a supermarket where Ms. Giffords was meeting with constituents for a “Congress on Your Corner” event.
Ms. Giffords, 40, was described as being in very critical condition at the University Medical Center in Tucson, where she was operated on by a team of neurosurgeons. Dr. Peter Rhee, medical director of the hospital’s trauma and critical care unit, said that she had been shot once in the head, “through and through,” with the bullet going through her brain.
“I can tell you at this time, I am very optimistic about her recovery,” Dr. Rhee said in a news conference. “We cannot tell what kind of recovery but I’m as optimistic as it can get in this kind of situation.”
Truly shocking; a tragedy; a nine-year-old girl and a Federal Judge killed. Which, of course, the floating scum of the Rightist echo chamber will remind us, could not have been foreseen, and for which no one (aside from the gunman and any co-conspirators) can be blamed.
Commentary By Gummo At The Great Curmudgeon
At a press conference, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said that
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. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the Capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry... vitriol might be free speech, but it's not without consequences.
(NOTE: I originally thought ABC had reported that Gifford's husband, U.S. Navy Captain and Astronaut, Mark Kelley, had replied to a reporter's question that the Tea Party was to blame for the attack on his wife. That's what I believed I'd heard; I tried to find transcripts for both the ABC World News and CBS Evening News, but they haven't yet been released for today's broadcasts. After watching clips of both programs, I believe the reference was actually to the Pima County Sheriff.)
Unfortunately, Speaker Boner, President Sessions and President Cantor won't blame any of this, or of the increasingly violent rhetoric and acts in America, on the Rethug hate machine: Like Little Glenny Beck, Lard Boy; Bill-O; Little Mikey Weiner; Little Rupert, and Little Annie Coulter; I've written about it before.
Individually and collectively, for nearly twenty years, they and others who mimic them have all made a great deal of money by demonizing the Left, creating a public vomatorium of hatred -- because it sells (Lard Boy himself admitted that the controversy he creates with his hate speech "allows me to charge confiscatory ad[vertising] rates").
"Second Amendment solutions" "Tea Party Justice" "We didn't bring guns -- this time" [Handmade signs from photos of tea party rallies]; "Why don't [terrorists car-bomb] the New York Times" [Coulter]; "We are at war with this president" [Limbaugh]; "The Revolution is Now" [Beck]; "You fags should get AIDS and die" "Only ...resistance to this baby dictator, Barack Hussein Obama, can prevent the Khmer Rouge from appearing in this country" [Weiner]; "At what point do the people march down to their state legislator's house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp?" [Erik Erikson, Red State]
Map Of Democratic 'Targets', From SARAHPAC Website, 2010
(Giffords' is third in the Arizona map, on the lower right)
Like the crosshairs on Little Sarah Palin's website map of Democrats "targeted" in the midterm elections. Giffords herself told CBS News in an interview (replayed on the CBS Evening News tonight) during the 2010 elections that Palin's use of "crosshairs... looks harmless, but can have real consequences".
Little Sarah, Plain and Tall, posted a brief comment on her Facebook site, My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona... we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.
Peace? No. Like a person who provides the weapon, The Little Sarahs of the world thrive on fear and conflict to make a profit. When someone uses the weapon for a violent attack, the Little Sarahs and Glennys, Lard Boys and Mikey Weiners say Hey; we're not responsible for what some nut case does!
Justice? No. They won't be blamed.
A commentator at The Great Curmudgeon's site noted that in Weimar Germany, violent right-wing rhetoric, and actual violence including political assassination defined that pre-Hitler era, adding, "What we're seeing is nothing new".
The Right in this country -- like the Right in Europe of the 20's and 30's -- can't be divorced from its pustulent rhetoric. They rely on it to define themselves; by contrast, the Left in America doesn't respond in kind. And violent words lead to progressively more violent acts. Only a fool will refuse to see that.
Only a fool believes that currents in history never repeat themselves. But the Right, which eagerly laps up the vomit of the Becks and Limbaughs and O'Reillys, aren't much concerned with History. And ignoring the past is to walk down an incline which is almost impossible to climb up again, without paying a heavy price. Ask the Germans. Ask the Spanish.
But, I'm only a Dog, and no one listens to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment