Rep. Gabrielle Giffords: Culture War Casualty

[Prolescum]

Wow.

America: My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...*








*gag courtesy of Malcolm Reynolds

 

[Giliell]

Well, Sarah Palin feels like she's the real victim and that now they're fabricating a "blood libel" on her:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/12/sarah-palin-response-arizona-shooting
I couldn't stand to make it through the whole video, my supper tried to get out when after speaking about the victims for about 30 seconds she becomes so cheerful :roll:

 

[Aught3]

Blood libel? Maybe the reason for all the violent rhetoric is that the politicians are just clueless...

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Blood libel? Maybe the reason for all the violent rhetoric is that the politicians are just clueless...

Clueless? Palin, maybe. Not Glenn Reynolds, the one who came up with it first.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703667904576071913818696964.html

Isn't this really just an extension of the rhetoric that compares anyone to the left of center to Nazis and Hitler? After all, if criticizing Sarah Palin is just like the centuries of persecution that the Jews suffered and that led to the Holocaust, what does that make her critics?

 

[Pennies for Thoughts]

Days later and I can't shake the idea of Giffords as a casualty of war: the Culture War of which the right-wing vitriol and climate of fear is just a part. Yet no one has had much to say here about the Culture War. Is it just too vague to get our minds around? Is its magnitude and complicity in the Giffords' shoot-up too awful to contemplate? Is it even a "cold" civil war as proposed in my original post?

I re-watched The Power of Nightmares, a documentary about the politics of fear. I recommend it to all, but particularly to those holding the position that Loughner thought this up all by himself. Here's a taste.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

While Palin whines about how she's the true victim in this situation, more Democrats get death threats.

STILL waiting for the equivalent list of left-wing violence, violent rhetoric, and death threats.

 

[Gnomesmusher]

More evidence of Right wing violence but all for nothing because as we've seen here, those that really need to listen to reason will just deny, fabricate lies, shirk responsibility and keep on going their merry way. They can afford to do that because it's not them that are getting threatened, bullied and shot at, and still they claim to be the victim.

 

[RestrictedAccess]

No it's not coming from both sides.

I guess if a lie is repeated often enough, people really do start to believe it.

Nina Totenberg: ]"I hope he's not long for this world." http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20031020.asp#1

And just a few more, since people will just shrug it off as "just one incident."

Kill Sarah Palin Dead : http://consumeractivism.blogspot.com/2010/06/someone-shoot-sarah-palin-dead.html

Cheney's in the hospital - the first good news all day : http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-s...cheneys-hospital-hopes-miserable-bastard-dies

Maybe Beck will do the honorable thing and blow his brains out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmXQpdB4xpk&feature=player_embedded#!

Bricks thrown through Albemarle country GOP office: http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/...es_albemarle_county_gop_headquarter-ar-74941/

"Stop the right wing" brick thrown through GOP headquarters window: http://www.libertyscout.com/2010/04...hrough-another-gop-headquarters-or-something/

Arrest made in Congressional threats to Ginny Brown-Waite: http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=130179


Those were just the ones from 2010 that I cross-checked. That was half the list for offenses last year. There are lists out there with hundreds of incidents dating all the way back to the 70's.

Finally, I have to ask - how often do you find yourself in political discussions? I find myself neck deep in conservative and liberal ire rather frequently, since I toe the line of the moderate. I KNOW it comes from both sides because it's been directed at me from both sides. I can recount several incidents of political attacks over the past five years from memory, and, yeah, political violence is usually the only thing that ever politically bipartisan in this country.

That said, I'll end with this.

Conservatives do it.

Liberals do it.

It's wrong no matter who does it.

No one is excused from it just because "the other side" does it, too. Focusing on one side and ignoring the other is just going to make things worse.

 

[Gnomesmusher]

First I'll give you credit for actually trying to post something to back your claims.

Second, I'll give you credit for pointing out that I was wrong in saying "It's not coming from both sides", I think you're being nitpicky though because throughout this whole thread I've actually been saying that the left wing rhetoric is nowhere near the scale coming from the right wing. You knew very well that's what I meant when I said "It's not coming from both sides" and not that there's NO violent rhetoric from the Left at all. Especially when I've said I didn't doubt that there were a few cases of lefty hatred TWICE. But hey, you pointed out my laziness in that one sentence where I didn't completely clarify.

But in response to what you've just posted, I'll quote Joe:

You need to add that an unknown/anonymous blogger isn't the same as an elected politician, a TV show host, or the former governor of Alaska... and one off-hand comment is not the same as a long history of incendiary comments. You can't compare a comment made by one of the thousands of people with Daily Kos diaries to a book on the NY Times bestseller list. You can't compare a YouTube video to a TV show with millions of daily viewers.

RestrictedAccess, you've pretty much listed a bunch of anonymous lefties. Not that I'm dismissing it nor condoning what they've said. But that's not nearly comparable to the scale of the Right wing. Who the hell has heard of Totenberg? Or Noel Sheppard? Or some blogger named UnityGeorgia? And you seriously linked to some random Youtube user? Seriously?

But again, at least this time you had some sort of evidence. But still my point that the claim that "it's coming from both sides" is bullshit still holds. Because you make it sound like it's equal in scale and reach.

 

[televator]

An old quote from a few years back from some lady (that frankly, I've never heard of) and some independent bloggers Vs. Fox News and conservative radio. Hmmm.....

 

[Aught3]

An old quote from a few years back from some lady (that frankly, I've never heard of)

She's a reporter for NPR, I think it's a fair example. On the other hand, according to the link when she makes the comment on NPR she is called on it by the host and other guests.

Totenberg: "Well, I hope he's not long for this world because you can imagine-"
Several voices reacted in unison, drowning her out, including Peterson: "You putting a hit out on this guy or what?"
King: "Are you Reverend Pat Robertson?"
Totenberg: "No, no, no, no, no, no!"
Peterson: "What is this, the Sopranos?"
Totenberg: "In his job, in his job, in his job, please, please, in his job."

 

[televator]

She's a reporter for NPR, I think it's a fair example. On the other hand, according to the link when she makes the comment on NPR she is called on it by the host and other guests.

Yeah, it is fair, and it's especially unbecoming for anyone on NPR, but she hardly has the same weight as anyone on Fox.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

More evidence of Right wing violence but all for nothing because as we've seen here, those that really need to listen to reason will just deny, fabricate lies, shirk responsibility and keep on going their merry way. They can afford to do that because it's not them that are getting threatened, bullied and shot at, and still they claim to be the victim.

The worst of it is that they are responsible for a toxic atmosphere in this country that they knowingly created because it scores political points. All they have to lose by stopping it is... what, some money? They lose a few seats in Congress, and some donations? For a little while, and then the center settles down in a place that excludes the crazy, and the Republicans probably gain back in independents and moderates what they lose in batshit crazy.

If they had any confidence in their political positions, they would do it. Unfortunately, they've gone so far to the crazy that Arizona Republicans are resigning their positions out of fear of the tea party.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

An old quote from a few years back from some lady (that frankly, I've never heard of)

She's a reporter for NPR, I think it's a fair example. On the other hand, according to the link when she makes the comment on NPR she is called on it by the host and other guests.

Totenberg: "Well, I hope he's not long for this world because you can imagine-"
Several voices reacted in unison, drowning her out, including Peterson: "You putting a hit out on this guy or what?"
King: "Are you Reverend Pat Robertson?"
Totenberg: "No, no, no, no, no, no!"
Peterson: "What is this, the Sopranos?"
Totenberg: "In his job, in his job, in his job, please, please, in his job."

And she backpedals, clarifies, and doesn't make that sort of rhetoric her bread and butter. There's no pattern of comments like that, the way there are LONG lists of comments worse than that from Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin and the Tea Party folk... or Pat Robertson, and it isn't a coincidence that he's mentioned, since he's called for the assassination of at least one person.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Yeah, it is fair, and it's especially unbecoming for anyone on NPR, but she hardly has the same weight as anyone on Fox.

What, you've never donated $50 to NPR and gotten the tote bag? The Nina Toten-Bag? Shame on you!

 

[televator]

Yeah, it is fair, and it's especially unbecoming for anyone on NPR, but she hardly has the same weight as anyone on Fox.

What, you've never donated $50 to NPR and gotten the tote bag? The Nina Toten-Bag? Shame on you!

A tote bag?! Srsly?! Aw man! I'd totally kill whoever she was talking about for a tote bag!

 

[ImprobableJoe]

A tote bag?! Srsly?! Aw man! I'd totally kill whoever she was talking about for a tote bag!

You kid, but you'll be quoted on Rush Limbaugh tomorrow as representative of the leftist violent rhetoric... or at least in this thread. Because a lame "I'd kill for a tote bag" joke from you is the same as 20 hours a week of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories about liberals and calls for armed revolution.

 

[Aught3]

Days later and I can't shake the idea of Giffords as a casualty of war: the Culture War of which the right-wing vitriol and climate of fear is just a part. Yet no one has had much to say here about the Culture War. Is it just too vague to get our minds around? Is its magnitude and complicity in the Giffords' shoot-up too awful to contemplate? Is it even a "cold" civil war as proposed in my original post?

Is referring to it as a culture war part of the same problem?

 

[televator]

You kid, but you'll be quoted on Rush Limbaugh tomorrow as representative of the leftist violent rhetoric... or at least in this thread. Because a lame "I'd kill for a tote bag" joke from you is the same as 20 hours a week of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories about liberals and calls for armed revolution.

Lame? :cry:

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Lame? :cry:

Compared to the Nina Toten-Bag thing? Yeah.

Not my joke, BTW... that's how they advertised it.