Congresswoman Gabby Giffords had a bullet pass through her brain last weekend, and is not dead. I guess she was one of the 14 "lucky" wounded ones, because six others died when Jared Loughner shot them at Giffords' political event. One of the dead, a federal judge. Another, a nine year old girl, born on 911. Yet it appears that Giffords was the main target.
This perhaps should not be surprising, as Giffords was the main implied target of bullets twice before. Once, by Republican operative and all-around nincompoop Sarah Palin, who had gunsight cross-hairs over Giffords' district, with the imperative to "reload." Giffords' Republican opponent this last fall hosted a fundraiser where cash money let you fire an automatic assault rifle into an effigy of Giffords. He said that she needed to be "taken out." These may be metaphors, but the imagery is not ambiguous.
Rush Limburger said "don't kill ALL the liberals, leave a couple on college campuses as fossils to remind us..." Glenn Beck has flat out called for the killing of Nancy Pelosi, and implied violence towards Democrats many, many times. Sharon Angle called for "Second Amendment remedies" and encouraged a start with Harry Reid.
So, when LOGIC sets in, and a few commentators began criticizing conservatives for their violent rhetoric - putting two and two together and coming up with four - and saying that such rhetoric in part led to this shooting, the conservatives lost their shit.
In truth, their shit is probably fully in tact, as they are again besting the liberals at the media spin game.
"There's heated rhetoric on BOTH sides" whine Republicans all over the news. And CNN and network newsies are only too happy to call it even. But facts fly in the face of this. Two and two do NOT equal three, or five, or anything but four.
There IS heated rhetoric on both sides. There is supposed to be...that's politics goddammit! But what is NOT happening is liberals publicly asking for people to kill conservatives. It's just not, and that's the difference.
And if you haven't noticed, it is the targets, or perceived targets, of the right wing that are getting killed. Take Dr. Tiller, for example. Shot to death in church, next to his family, after Bill O'Reilly spent months referring to him as "Tiller the baby killer." The police in Indiana and Florida who got shot by dudes with Beck and Hannity book collections who were convinced that the "government" was coming for their guns. Around that time, right wing radio hosts were saying that if the "government" wants our guns, we should give them to them "one bullet at a time." Think back on all of the "town hall" protesters that were showing up armed to health care protests when their representatives spoke.
Were these militants showing up to politically intimidate with weaponry at Republican town halls? No, of course not. Are conservatives being shot by lunatics at the behest of liberals? No. At least, not since John Hinkly shot Ronald Reagan (that was 40 years ago).
So no, conservatives, it is not the same on both sides. It is LIBERALS being threatened and killed by psychos over the last few years. As change has hit the country, conservatives freaked out and threatened violence. Some lunatics have taken those threats to heart. Now you fuckers need to own up.
See, I called you "fuckers." That's partisan, even "heated" rhetoric. (Actually, it's juvenile rudeness and divisive name-calling!) But I never threatened to kill anyone, nor even implied it. Hundreds of liberal bloggers, authors, pundits and politicians have called Sarah Palin stupid. But nobody has said that there should be a Second Amendment tutorial to address her stupidity. No one has even suggested that the tree of liberty need be watered with the blood of idiots from time to time. Nowhere. None. Nada.
No, we on the left don't need to tone down anything. If we do, we are stupid.
The Republicans are playing the game expertly right now. Debbie Wasserman Shultz, Dem from Florida, was being pitched softballs by Stephanie Miller about Republican culpability in the violence. But she said "there has been inflametory language on both sides." She said BOTH sides need to settle down and become more civil. Because of Republican crying and browbeating, this is now the common wisdom in the main stream media. Even Huffington Post is deleting blogs that don't even go as far as what I am saying here. But this makes NO SENSE!
If the newly created conventional wisdom is allowed to stand, then Republicans get to call for liberals to be killed, and have it happen on multiple occasions. Democrats and liberal mouthpieces complain a little about Republicans having them killed, and have to calm down. If I followed this logic, I never got anyone hurt, but I don't get to say "fuck" or "idiot" anymore (referring to my biting, repartee above), but my life may be threatened at any minute. The way it is shaping up, Republicans get people killed - Democrats get muzzled. Un fucking believable.
Why, oh why would we, on the left, join in disarmament when we did NOT have heavy weapons in the first place? I understand that conservatives don't like our policy, and don't like what Keith Olbermann says. I understand how it sucks to lose elections. Tough shit! You don't get to kill liberals in America because you don't like what we say or vote on. And if you bring the gas, and the lunatic has a lighter, when our house burns down you bear some of the blame. In the case of Tucson, you abetted murder!
The left, the liberals, the progressives - whatever - don't have to tone down shit! We need to speak up and demand accountability from politicians and pundits who have caused harm to so many. They get to criticize us, call us names and counter our arguments. But they don't get to call for our murders. C'mon media, well...that's probably a lost cause. But c'mon Democratic leaders...ah, geez...but for Christ's sake stand up for one of your own! She took a bullet in the head, so fight back on this one. C'mon, say what you know needs sayin'.
Say it: Sarah, Rush, Glenn, Angle and dozens of other pundits and elected representatives, you helped cause the murder of six people in Tucson, Arizona. This makes you bad people unless you renounce the hate-speech you have vomited onto the body politic. Say it, or be victimized yet again by those who have caused this tragedy. Say it, because if left unsaid, their speech will kill again.
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