Bret Cahill
I know you're a slow larner, but think hard before you post your hateful rhetoric.
Irony. It's not just for hipsters anymore.
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. unfortunately Arizona has become the capital:We have
become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_congresswoman_shot
AZ shooting targets US congresswoman, kills 6
By AMANDA LEE MYERS and DAVID ESPO, Associated Press – 36 mins ago
TUCSON, Ariz. – A gunman nearly unloaded a semiautomatic weapon at a
busy supermarket Saturday during a public gathering for Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords, wounding the Democrat and killing Arizona's chief federal
judge and five others in an attempted assassination that left
Americans questioning whether divisive politics had pushed the suspect
over the edge.
The shooting targeted Giffords and left the three-term congresswoman
in critical condition after a bullet passed through her head. A shaken
President Barack Obama called the attack "a tragedy for our entire
country."
Giffords, 40, is a moderate Democrat who narrowly won re-election in
November against a tea party candidate who sought to throw her from
office over her support of the health care law. Anger over her
position became violent at times, with her Tucson office vandalized
after the House passed the overhaul last March and someone showing up
at a recent gathering with a weapon.
Police say the shooter was in custody, and was identified by people
familiar with the investigation as Jared Loughner, 22. U.S. officials
who provided his name to the AP spoke on condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized to release it publicly.
His motivation was not immediately known, but Pima County Sheriff
Clarence Dupnik described him as mentally unstable and possibly acting
with an accomplice.
Dupnik said Giffords was among 13 people wounded in the melee that
killed six people — including 9-year-old Christina Greene, 30-year-old
Gifford aide Gabe Zimmerman, and U.S. District Judge John Roll. The 63-
year-old judge had just stopped by to see his friend Giffords after
attending Mass. Dupnik said the rampage ended only after two people
tackled the gunman. Also killed were 76-year-old Dorthy Murray, 76-
year-old Dorwin Stoddard, and 79-year-old Phyllis Scheck,
investigators said.
The sheriff blamed the vitriolic political rhetoric that has consumed
the country, much of it occurring in Arizona.
"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," he said. "And unfortunately, Arizona, I
think, has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice
and bigotry."
Giffords expressed similar concern, even before the shooting. In an
interview after her office was vandalized, she referred to the
animosity against her by conservatives, including Sarah Palin's
decision to list Giffords' seat as one of the top "targets" in the
midterm elections.
"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is,
that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun
sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize
that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said in an
interview with MSNBC.
In the hours after the shooting, Palin issued a statement in which she
expressed her "sincere condolences" to the family of Giffords and the
other victims.
During his campaign effort to unseat Giffords in November, Republican
challenger Jesse Kelly held fundraisers where he urged supporters to
help remove Giffords from office by joining him to shoot a fully
loaded M-16 rifle. Kelly is a former Marine who served in Iraq and was
pictured on his website in military gear holding his automatic weapon
and promoting the event.
"I don't see the connection," between the fundraisers featuring
weapons and Saturday's shooting, said John Ellinwood, Kelly's
spokesman. "I don't know this person, we cannot find any records that
he was associated with the campaign in any way. I just don't see the
connection.
"Arizona is a state where people are firearms owners — this was just a
deranged individual."
Law enforcement officials said members of Congress reported 42 cases
of threats or violence in the first three months of 2010, nearly three
times the 15 cases reported during the same period a year earlier.
Nearly all dealt with the health care bill, and Giffords was among the
targets.
The shooting cast a pall over the Capitol as politicians of all
stripes denounced the attack as a horrific. Capitol police asked
members of Congress to be more vigilant about security in the wake of
the shooting. Obama dispatched his FBI chief to Arizona.
Giffords, known as "Gabby," tweeted shortly before the shooting,
describing her "Congress on Your Corner" event: "My 1st Congress on
Your Corner starts now. Please stop by to let me know what is on your
mind or tweet me later."
"It's not surprising that today Gabby was doing what she always does,
listening to the hopes and concerns of her neighbors," Obama said.
"That is the essence of what our democracy is about."
Mark Kimball, a communications staffer for Giffords, described the
scene as "just complete chaos, people screaming, crying." The gunman
fired at Giffords and her district director and started shooting
indiscriminately at staffers and others standing in line to talk to
the congresswoman, Kimball said.
"He was not more than three or four feet from the congresswoman and
the district director," he said.
Doctors were optimistic about Giffords surviving as she was responding
to commands from doctors. "With guarded optimism, I hope she will
survive, but this is a very devastating wound," said Dr. Richard
Carmona, the former surgeon general who lives in Tucson.
Giffords spokesman C.J. Karamargin said three Giffords staffers were
shot. One died, and the other two are expected to survive. Gabe
Zimmerman, a former social worker who served as Giffords' director of
community outreach, died. Giffords had worked with the judge in the
past to line up funding to build a new courthouse in Yuma, and Obama
hailed him for his nearly 40 years of service.
An uncle of the 9-year-old girl told the Arizona Republic that a
neighbor was going to the event and invited her along because she had
just been elected to the student council and was interested in
government.
A former classmate described Loughner as a pot-smoking loner, and the
Army said he tried to enlist in December 2008 but was rejected for
reasons not disclosed.
Federal law enforcement officials were poring over versions of a
MySpace page that included a mysterious "Goodbye friends" message
published hours before the shooting and exhorted his friends to
"Please don't be mad at me."
In one of several Youtube videos, which featured text against a dark
background, Loughner described inventing a new U.S. currency and
complained about the illiteracy rate among people living in Giffords'
congressional district in Arizona.
"I know who's listening: Government Officials, and the People,"
Loughner wrote. "Nearly all the people, who don't know this accurate
information of a new currency, aren't aware of mind control and
brainwash methods. If I have my civil rights, then this message
wouldn't have happen (sic)."
In Loughner's middle-class neighborhood — about a five-minute drive
from the scene — sheriff's deputies had much of the street blocked
off. The neighborhood sits just off a bustling Tucson street and is
lined with desert landscaping and palm trees.
Neighbors said Loughner lived with his parents and kept to himself. He
was often seen walking his dog, almost always wearing a hooded sweat
shirt and listening to his iPod.
Loughner's MySpace profile indicates he attended and graduated from
school in Tucson and had taken college classes. He did not say if he
was employed.
"We're getting out of here. We are freaked out," 33-year-old David
Cleveland, who lives a few doors down from Loughner's house, told The
Associated Press.
Cleveland said he was taking his wife and children, ages 5 and 7, to
her parent's home when they heard about the shooting.
"When we heard about it, we just got sick to our stomachs," Cleveland
said. "We just wanted to hold our kids tight."
High school classmate Grant Wiens, 22, said Loughner seemed to be
"floating through life" and "doing his own thing."
"Sometimes religion was brought up or drugs. He smoked pot, I don't
know how regularly. And he wasn't too keen on religion, from what I
could tell," Wiens said.
Lynda Sorenson said she took a math class with Loughner last summer at
Pima Community College's Northwest campus and told the Arizona Daily
Star he was "obviously very disturbed." "He disrupted class frequently
with nonsensical outbursts," she said.
In October 2007, Loughner was cited in Pima County for possession of
drug paraphernalia, which was dismissed after he completed a diversion
program, according to online records.
"He has kind of a troubled past, I can tell you that," Dupnik said.
Giffords was first elected to Congress amid a wave of Democratic
victories in the 2006 election, and has been mentioned as a possible
Senate candidate in 2012 and a gubernatorial prospect in 2014.
She is married to astronaut Mark E. Kelly, who has piloted space
shuttles Endeavour and Discovery. The two met in China in 2003 while
they were serving on a committee there, and were married in January
2007. Sen. Bill Nelson, chairman of the Senate Commerce Space and
Science Subcommittee, said Kelly is training to be the next commander
of the space shuttle mission slated for April. His brother is
currently serving aboard the International Space Station, Nelson said.
Giffords is known in her southern Arizona district for her numerous
public outreach meetings, which she acknowledged in an October
interview with The Associated Press can sometimes be challenging.
"You know, the crazies on all sides, the people who come out, the
planet earth people," she said with a following an appearance with
Adm. Mike Mullen in which the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
was peppered with bizarre questions from an audience member. "I'm glad
this just doesn't happen to me."
___----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think you need to look no farther than Obama "the great communicator"
to see who's rhetoric was over the top.
Christ, you will *never* grow up.
Jim
Yea, but couldn"t you predict this response from lefty loonies? I've
been listening to attempts at tying in the Tea Party to this nut in
Arizona for last 30 min on MSNBC news commentary? And wagon wheels
rolling westward hath no flavor of vanilla...or some such nonsense.
It is unbelievable what the left gets away with. I'm reminded of
Daffy Duck cartoons for some reason...
That a confused anti-gummint gun nutter tried to check them evil feds?
Bret Cahill
So you are still in denial. That's okay, aside from being too fucking funny.
Anyway, you need to stop the hate-filled rhetoric, before more crazy lefties kill someone.
"Bret Cahill" <BretC...@peoplepc.com> wrote in message
news:99bac0c7-62a6-4f3c...@q8g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
>
Of Course the Daily k00ks Scrubbed their website so they could blame Tea
party members of hate speech. Too bad the Daily k00ks are too stupid to know
GOOGLE caches its websites.
Fucking Imbeciles.
Look who else put 'bull's-eye' on Giffords
Leftist blog points finger at Palin, while scrubbing 'dead to me' rant
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: January 09, 2011
3:13 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn
Š 2011 WorldNetDaily
Shortly after news broke of the attempted murder of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords,
D-Ariz., the left-leaning blog Daily Kos was swift to scrub its post from a
Tucson writer explaining how the congresswoman was now "dead to me."
One of the blog's diary writers, identifying himself as BoyBlue, had written
a post only two days before the shooting titled "My CongressWOMAN voted
against Nancy Pelosi! And is now DEAD to me!"
Partial screenshot of Daily Kos diary post before it was scrubbed
"I am from the Tucson area and live in Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords'
district," BoyBlue wrote. "Today, just a little while ago, I saw on Andrea
Mitchell Reports that Giffords voted against Nancy Pelosi as our minority
leader. . Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is dead to me now."
Several news sources and commentators have sought to analyze yesterday's
mass shooting in Tucson that left six dead and Giffords in critical
condition, while many blogs and columns have blamed the nation's heated
political "rhetoric" for inspiring people toward violence against their
elected officials.
Understand what's happening to America's culture and what you can do to
fight it with "How Evil Works," autographed, from the WND Superstore.
Sarah Palin in particular has been singled out for criticism by CBS News,
the Guardian and others for publishing a "target map" on her website using
images of gun sights to identify the districts of 20 House Democrats up for
election in last year's mid-terms, including Giffords.
Daily Kos joined in the criticism, and the blog's founder, Markos Moulitsas,
tweeted early yesterday, "Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin," with a link to
Palin's map.
Moulitsas, however, had also posted what he called a "target list"
identifying Giffords. In a 2008 Daily Kos post, Moulitsas listed Giffords as
one of dozens of representatives with "a bull's-eye on their district" for
being a "bad apple" Democrat.
The "dead to me" diary has since been deleted from Daily Kos, while
Moulitsas' "target list" is still viewable.
(Story continues below)
Police have named and apprehended 22-year-old Tucson resident Jared L.
Loughner as the perpetrator of yesterday's massacre, making it highly
unlikely that "BoyBlue" is also the shooter.
The Daily Kos diary writer identifies himself as a "gay" man whose wife left
him last year and who suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the face.
BoyBlue also appeared on the blog again today, issuing an apology to "this
site, the victims and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords."
"Most of you know by now my diary bemoaning Rep. Giffords' voting against
Nancy Pelosi has been taken by the far right to preemptively protect
themselves," Boy Blue writes of his now-scrubbed, previous post.
"I made a VERY poor choice of words when I partially titled the diary, 'now
dead to me,'" he continues. "Of course I wished no harm to Gabby."
He continues, "I fully apologize to all the victims in this shooting,
including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, for my poor choice of words in
that diary. I fully and respectfully apologize to this blog and to Markos
himself for the bad publicity amongst the right wing this has caused. . I
apologize to the DailyKos membership and readership for being maligned by
the far right blogs.
"However, I have to offer a heartfelt 'f--- you' to the right-wing blogs,"
he writes, "for even mentioning my username here in any connection to that
unspeakable and unthinkable horror."
In his "apology" post, BoyBlue twice states that he suspects the shooting is
instead best blamed on supporters of Giffords' opponent in the 2010
mid-terms, Republican Jesse Kelly.
"I would bet my house that it will come out that some disgruntled former
Jesse Kelly right-wing supporters did this," BoyBlue writes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsored Link: The Most Important Day in America in 50 Years... It's Coming
in 2011. This day will change everything about our nation and your
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Related Offer:
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Previous story:
Assassin's politics lean 'left wing, quite liberal'
Read more: Look who else put 'bull's-eye' on Giffords
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=249273#ixzz1AgUgAbQN
its began already:conservatives are attacking az. sheriff for telling
the truth, deflecting the blame onto others:conservatives urged tea
party supporters to blame liberals for the attack on centrist
Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona who was shot through the
head and is now fighting for her life
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/clarence-dupnik-arizona-sheriff_n_806440.html
Amanda Terkel
ate...@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting
Clarence Dupnik, Arizona Sheriff, Criticized By Sen. Jon Kyl Over
Shooting Comments (VIDEO)
First Posted: 01- 9-11 03:20 PM | Updated: 01- 9-11 04:27 PM
WASHINGTON -- Some of the most pointed comments in the wake of
Saturday's tragic shooting in Arizona regarding the dangers of
vitriolic political discourse have come from Pima County Sheriff
Clarence Dupnik, who said his state has "become the mecca for
prejudice and bigotry." As a consequence of speaking out, Dupnik is
now coming under attack, with a talk radio host even calling for his
resignation.
"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol
that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government,"
said Dupnik at a press conference Saturday. "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."
Although Dupnik has since been embraced by many observers -- there's a
"Clarence Dupnik is My Hero" Facebook page, and MSNBC's Keith
Olbermann called his comments "extraordinary" -- others are not so
pleased.
In an interview with CBS's "Face the Nation," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)
said Dupnik's comments were inappropriate and nothing more than
"speculation."
First, I didn't really think that that had any part in a law
enforcement briefing last night. It was speculation. I don't think we
should rush to speculate. I thought that the report that we just saw
from Tucson seems to have it about right: We really don't know what
motivated this young person except to know he was very mentally
unstable as was pointed out in the piece.
It's probably giving him too much credit to ascribe a coherent
political philosophy to him. We just have to acknowledge that there
are mentally unstable people in this country. Who knows what motivates
them to do what they do? Then they commit terrible crimes like this. I
would just note Gabrielle Giffords, a fine representative from Tucson,
I think would be the first to say don't rush to judgment here.
Right-wing radio host Jon Justice, who is on KQTH FM 104.1 in Arizona,
has called for Dupnik's resignation and taken issue with the sheriff's
singling-out of talk radio.
"To say, as Dupnik did, that comments made on the airwaves essentially
motivated this person to commit this crime is exactly what he blamed
talk radio of doing, inciting through pure rhetoric," Justice said in
a statement to Tucson Weekly. "It was complete misuse of his power and
he owes the media in town, TV and radio, an apology for his horrible
comments in the middle of such a tragic day. He should step down
immediately from his position as Pima County Sheriff."
Dupnik has been the sheriff of Pima County, which sits right along
Arizona's border with Mexico, since 1980. Last April, he forcefully
denounced the state's controversial immigration law, stating, "This
law is unwise, this law is stupid, and it's racist. It's a national
embarrassment. ... If I were a Hispanic person in the state, I would
be humiliated and angered. From that point of view, I think it's
morally wrong."
In a press conference Sunday, Dupnik stood by his remarks about
dangerous political rhetoric. When asked about his comments from the
day before, he replied, "I think that when the rhetoric about hatred,
about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government
operates and to try to inflame the public on a daily basis, 24 hours a
day, seven days a week, has impact on people especially who are
unbalanced personalities to begin with."
Dupnik also had harsh words on his state's gun laws, which allow
individuals to carry concealed weapons without a permit. (Gov. Jan
Brewer signed the legislation into law in April.)
"Well, I think we're the tombstone of the United States of America,"
he said, adding, "I have never been a proponent of letting everybody
in this state carry weapons under any circumstances that they want,
and that's almost where we are."
UPDATE, 4:26 p.m.: The Atlantic reports that Tea Party Nation, led by
Judson Phillips, is joining in the criticism: "TPN founder Judson
Phillips, in an article linked off the e-mail 'The shooting of
Gabrielle Giffords and the left's attack on the Tea Party movement,'
described the shooter as 'a leftist lunatic' and Pima County Sheriff
Clarence Dupnik as a 'leftist sheriff' who 'was one of the first to
start in on the liberal attack.' Phillips urged tea party supporters
to blame liberals for the attack on centrist Democratic Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords of Arizona, who was shot through the head and is now fighting
for her life, as a means of defending the tea party movement's recent
electoral gains."
"Nickname unavailable" <Vid...@tcq.net> wrote in message
news:6137ba3d-9744-4585...@f35g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...
Of Course the Daily k00ks Scrubbed their website so they could blame Tea
party members of hate speech. Too bad the Daily k00ks are too stupid to know
GOOGLE caches its websites.
Fucking Imbeciles.
Look who else put 'bull's-eye' on Giffords
Leftist blog points finger at Palin, while scrubbing 'dead to me' rant
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: January 09, 2011
3:13 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
The page in question was written by a diarist, not anyone from the Kos
website. He pulled the diary pages himself and apologized for using
inflammatory rhetoric.
So let's see --
1) VP candidate and continuing high-profile GOP leader and media personality
puts crosshairs on Democratic Representative's district and tweets "Don't
retreat, instead RELOAD!", then denies that the imagery had anything to do
with firearms.
2) Utter nobody on left-wing web site posts very popular metaphor regarding
same Representative which happens to contain the word "dead", retracts said
post and apologizes.
Yeah, they're exactly the same thing.
Idiot.
"Clave" <claviusd...@cablespeed.com> wrote in message
news:igdtuo$hh1$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
Shooter a Pro Abortion, Pot Smoking, Commie Loving Democrat
One day he started making comments about terrorism and laughing about
killing the baby," classmate Don Coorough told ABC News, referring to a
discussion about abortions. "The rest of us were looking at him in shock. I
thought this young man was troubled."
Another classmate, Lydian Ali, recalled the incident as well.
"A girl had written a poem about an abortion. It was very emotional and she
was teary eyed and he said something about strapping a bomb to the fetus and
making a baby bomber," Ali told ABC News.
Which makes all your hate talk perfectly OK, right?
Idiot.
"Clave" <claviusd...@cablespeed.com> wrote in message
news:ige11v$h38$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
======================
You mean Hate talk like this we heard for 8 years unde rBush from Obamaggots
like you?
June 14, 2008, 1:29 PM ET.Obama: 'If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We
Bring a Gun'.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/06/14/obama-if-they-bring-a-knife-to-the-fight-we-bring-a-gun/
"Death of a President" Bush Assassination Movie Debuts in Toronto
variety.com - "Death of a President" seemed to cause more of a stir before
its world premiere on Sunday night at the Toronto International Film
Festival than afterwards. It begins on the day that Bush is assassinated,
follows through the forensic investigation of the crime scene, ascension of
President Dick Cheney and the ultimate discovery of the true assassin. Sep
11, 2006
http://digg.com/news/entertainment/Death_of_a_President_Bush_Assassination_Movie_Debuts_in_Toronto
You did no such thing.
> June 14, 2008, 1:29 PM ET.Obama: 'If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We
> Bring a Gun'.
I'm sorry you have such a poor grasp of decades-old idiom.
But OK, you win the Stupid False Equivalence contest hands down.
Jim
"Clave" <claviusd...@cablespeed.com> wrote in message
news:iggd0r$e35$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
> "Nasty Piglosi ; Evicted Speaker Skank" <Obama Debacle @ Whitehouse.org>
> wrote in message news:igfg6q$uu0$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>
>>
>> "Clave" <claviusd...@cablespeed.com> wrote in message
>> news:ige11v$h38$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>>
>>> "Nasty Piglosi ; Evicted Speaker Skank" <Obama Debacle @ Whitehouse.org>
>>> wrote in message news:igdvdk$j5c$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>>>>
>>>> Shooter a nut
>>>
>>> Which makes all your hate talk perfectly OK, right?
>>>
>>> Idiot.
>>>
>> ======================
>>
>> You mean Hate talk like this we heard for 8 years unde rBush from
>> Obamaggots like you?
>
> You did no such thing.
> ==============
I know I didn't. I was not a Bush hating leftist Obamaggot like you ,
fucking Imbecile.
YOu obviously have a reading comprehension problem. You should not have
dropped out of 3rd grade to sell crack.
we cannot let the type who feign ignorance, or try to deflect the
blame for their movement onto others.
don't let them win. its what conservatives/libertarians/fascists do,
shout down any decent. we know that they wear t-shirts such as , this
time we are not armed(gee, does that sound like a implied threat?,
yep!) you will find cross hairs on any map, sure you will. or, rant
endlessly about being armed and dangerous, or obama is from kenya,
inciting racism and bigotry which is a form of violence. then of
course come and target giffords with me, shoot off a fully automatic
while we are at it.
i am looking right now for the republican(conservative/libertarian/
fascist)that proudly proclaimed he is a right wing terrorist. i am
also looking for when the prominent conservatives/libertarians/
fascists(john birch society)that the day before JFK came to dallas,
ran adds in the news paper against JFK, and the adds were crafted as
such as obituaries are, they were encased in a thick black outline
around the add. the next day the president lay dead. once i find it, i
will post it. hitler, mussolini, and freidman simply shouted down
their opponents till they caved in. later on when they gained power,
they used murder. these guys would do the same.
lets not forget, that also right after the election, the
conservatives/libertarians/fascists created such a hysteria over
black
rule, that there was a frenzy in ammunition sales, which created a
shortage of ammunition in america
if only the german liberals had pushed back against the conservative/
libertarian/fascists before they could have installed hitler, the
conservatives/libertarians/fascists would not have been able to murder
tens of millions of people, and ransacked europe for its wealth. which
is what all conservatives/libertarians/fascist pine for, rape and
murder.
Good lord.
Coherent much?
Jim
You bring assault rifles to political rallies:you hack politicians/
media personalities who lied through your stinking teeth about death
panels/Obama is coming for your guns/He isn't a citizen/He's a secret
Muslim/Sharia Law is coming to America:The poison you injected into
our culture is deeply culpable for this carnage
http://www.truth-out.org/the-wrath-fools-an-open-letter-to-far-right66686
The Wrath of Fools: An Open Letter to the Far Right
Monday 10 January 2011
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
To: Palin-lovers, Fox "News," the "mainstream" media, and the
Far Right, et al.
From: William Rivers Pitt
Date: Monday 10 January 2011
Re: The blood on your hands
Dear “Patriots,”
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords isn't much older than I am. She served in the
Arizona State House of Representatives, and the Arizona State Senate,
before being elected to three successive terms in the U.S. House of
Representatives. She once described herself as a "former Republican,"
and is today considered a "Blue Dog" Democrat, meaning she holds a
number of conservative political positions. This is not terribly
surprising, given the generally conservative political bent of the
state she has served for the last ten years. She was married four
years ago to a space shuttle commander who had served as a Naval
aviator, and who flew 39 combat missions in Desert Storm, before
volunteering for astronaut training.
Last Wednesday, she was sworn in to her third term as the
Representative for Arizona's 8th congressional district. One of her
first acts in the newly-minted 112th Congress was to read aloud from
the House floor, in response to the Republican Party's recitation of
the Constitution, the following lines: "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
Government for a redress of grievances."
She returned to Arizona not long after to assist in the implementation
of that most vital of Constitutional principles, calling together a
meeting of her constituents in a peaceable assembly so the citizens
she represents could petition the government for a redress of
grievances. Among the gathered crowd were a number of her staffers, a
judge, and a nine-year-old girl named Christina-Taylor Green who was
born on September 11, 2001.
And then all Hell broke loose.
A man named Jared Lee Loughner waded into the group and fired a bullet
into Rep. Giffords' skull at point-blank range, before turning his
weapon on others in the crowd. Christina-Taylor Greene, who would have
celebrated her tenth birthday on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, was
shot in the chest and killed. The woman who brought her to the event
was also shot. Gabriel Zimmerman, who served as Rep. Giffords'
director of community outreach, was also killed. He was 30 years old,
and was recently engaged to be married. U.S. District Judge John Roll,
who had served on the bench for twenty years, was also killed. Dorwin
Stoddard, a church volunteer, died after putting his body between his
wife and the hail of bullets. His wife was also shot. Two of Rep.
Giffords' constituents, Dorothy Morris and Phyllis Scheck, were also
killed. All in all, 31 shots were fired before several brave souls
tackled Loughner, disarmed him, and wrestled him to the ground.
At the time of this writing, Rep. Giffords is lying in a hospital bed
in critical condition. The God you Bible-spewing frauds love to flog
the rest of us with must have been in that supermarket crowd with her
on Saturday, with His hand on her shoulder, because it is nothing
short of a full-fledged miracle she survived at all. Doctors are
actually cautiously optimistic that she will survive, though the
degree to which she will ultimately recover is still sorely in doubt.
She can respond to simple commands, according to her doctors, and is
marginally able to communicate. If she survives her wound, it is
wretchedly certain her life will never, ever be the same.
I just thought you should know a few things about the people you
helped into their graves and hospital beds this weekend.
Yes, you.
You false patriots who bring assault rifles to political rallies, you
hack politicians and media personalities who lied through your
stinking teeth about "death panels" and "Obama is coming for your
guns" and "He isn't a citizen" and "He's a secret Muslim" and "Sharia
Law is coming to America," you who spread this bastard gospel and you
who swallowed it whole, I am talking to you, because this was your
doing just as surely as it was the doing of the deranged damned soul
who pulled the trigger. The poison you injected into our culture is
deeply culpable for this carnage.
You who worship Jesus at the top of your lungs (in defiance of
Christ's own teachings on the matter of worship, by the way) helped
put several churchgoers into their graves and into the hospital. You
who shriek about the sanctity of marriage helped cut down a man who
was about to be married. You who crow with ceaseless abandon about
military service and the nobility of our fighting forces helped to
critically wound the wife of a Naval aviator who fought for you in a
war. You who hold September 11 as your sword and shield helped put a
little girl born on that day into the ground.
You helped. Yes, damn you, you helped.
The "mainstream" media is already working overtime playing up the
"Disturbed loner" angle with all their might. There is no doubt, from
the available evidence, of Mr. Loughner's transformation into a
disturbed individual. But here's the funny part: all the crazy crap he
spewed, about the gold standard (a favorite of Glenn Beck, the master
of Fox "News" fearmongering...so he can sell his gold scam to suckers)
and government mind control and everything else before going on his
rampage, is straight out of the Right-Wing Insanity Handbook. His
personal YouTube ramblings were a mishmash of right-wing anti-
government nonsense...the kind that attracts sick minds like Loughner,
the kind that only reinforces their paranoia, the kind that finally
pushes them over the brink and into the frenzy of violence that took
place on Saturday. The kind that the likes of you have been happily
spreading by the day.
He did not act alone. You were right there with him. You helped.
I'm talking to you, "mainstream" media people, who created this
atmosphere of desperate rage and total paranoia out of whole cloth
because of your unstoppable adoration for spectacle, and ratings, and
because the companies that own your sorry asses agree with the
deranged cretins you helped make so famous and powerful. It was
sickeningly amusing on Sunday to watch Wolf Blitzer bluster and bluff
on CNN about how the media owns no responsibility for this disaster.
It was like watching a ten-year-old try to explain how a lamp got
broken while he was running through the living room, but no, it wasn't
him. It was, in reality, a pathetic display...but that is what you
generally get whenever Wolf is on your screen.
"Mainstream" news personalities like David Gergen and John King bent
over backwards warning people not to blame Sarah Palin and her ilk for
this calamity. It was a sick man who did this, they said. Bollocks to
that. I hate to break this to the "mainstream" media know-betters,
but words matter. When people like Palin spray the airwaves with
calls to violence and incantations of imminent doom, people like
Loughner are listening, and prepared to act. The "mainstream" media
lets it fly without any questions or rebuttal, because it's good for
ratings, and here we are. Words matter. Play Russian Roulette long
enough, and someone inevitably winds up dead.
Remember the run-up to the Iraq invasion, and the subsequent
occupation? "WMD everywhere, al Qaeda connections to 9/11, plastic
sheeting and duct tape because we're all gonna die!" was the central
theme of the majority of your broadcast schedule for years...until it
was all proven to be a lie. You helped the liars, you were the liars,
but you knew that. You also got your spectacle, and the corporations
that own you got paid a king's ransom, so everyone was happy, except
the dead.
Tell me this is any different, I dare you. For the spectacle, the
ratings and the pleasure of your owners, you ran names like "Sarah
Palin" across the sky in lights, even after she should have faded into
well-deserved obscurity, and helped this blister of right-wing rage
fester until it finally burst. This was your show, and in perhaps the
most wretched irony of all, I would bet all my worldly possessions
that your ratings are through the roof right now. You got what you
wanted. I hope you are pleased.
And yes, I'm talking to you, Sarah Palin, you unutterably disgusting
fraud. You pulled it off your ridiculous website, but it's out there:
you put cross-hairs - literally, cross-hairs - on Rep. Giffords, you
blithered about "reloading" instead of "retreating," and you made this
country more stupid and violent with every breath you took. Well,
congratulations, you failure, you quitter, you inciter of mobs. You
put the cross-hairs on her, and someone finally pulled the trigger.
Run from it all you like, Lady MacBeth, but this blood will never be
washed from your hands.
I'm talking to you, Sharron Angle, you walking punch-line, who talked
about "Second Amendment remedies" being necessary if you didn't get
your way on health care reform during your failed Senate campaign.
I'm talking to you, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity, and Bill
O'Reilly, and Michael Savage, and Ann Coulter, and Laura Ingraham, and
to every other right-wing tripe-spewing blowhard blogger and Fox News
broadcaster. I hope you are proud of yourselves, because this is the
day you get to reap what you have been relentlessly sowing since you
were forced to encompass the unmitigated outrage of a Black man
winning the office of President of the United States.
That's right, I said it. Anyone who thinks good old-fashioned American
bigotry and racism are not the core motivation for a vast majority of
these so-called "revolutionaries" should get their heads examined.
You've heard of the "elephant in the middle of the room?" Well, this
is the burning cross in the middle of the room, and no amount of spin
will douse those flames.
I'm talking to you, Koch Brothers. Your money to create and spread
this disease was well-spent; you now have one less Democrat in the
House to worry about, at least for the foreseeable future.
Congratulations, you un-American sacks of filth.
And I'm talking to each and every one of you who listened to these
traitors and believed the nonsense they spewed at you for no other
reason than to pick your pockets for campaign/organization
contributions. I'm talking to you who wore your silly fatigues and
carried your badly-spelled fact-deprived signs to protests with
pistols on your hips and rifles on your shoulders. You who threw
bricks through the windows of politicians you disagreed with. You who
shot out the windows of Rep. Giffords' office not even a year ago.
You worked very hard to create exactly this atmosphere in America, and
now it has come to be. We have entered the age of the Wrath of Fools,
and we now must again exist in an America where the word
"assassination" has become all too relevant.
You helped this happen. You.
You know it. I know it. Have the guts to admit it, even if only to
yourselves.
I know many Republicans and conservatives, and consider them to be
dear friends. The single most influential person in my life (aside
from my mother) was a rock-ribbed conservative Republican, and there
is no person I respected more than him. I do not count these people,
and those like them, among those whom I address here. They are as
sickened and repulsed by you as I am.
This is not the end of the story, but is just the beginning. The good
people of the United States of America, the true patriots, have
finally seen you with your media-painted masks ripped off. They have
seen what comes to pass when hate, venom, ignorance and violence goes
unchecked and unanswered. You have been exposed, and the fact that it
took such an unimaginably horrific act for that exposure to take place
only increases the fierceness with which you will be answered. You
will be repudiated, not with violence, but with the scorn and
rejection you so richly deserve. Spin it as you will, scramble all
you like. You are found out, and you have nowhere to hide.
Oh, P.S., if anyone reading this is operating under the delusion that
the overheated right-wing rhetoric that went a long way towards almost
getting Rep. Giffords killed, and had a strong hand in putting six
people in the ground, is some sort of new Obama-era phenomenon,
well...
"I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can
have two on every campus - living fossils - so we will never forget
what these people stood for."
- Rush Limbaugh, Denver Post, 12-29-95
"Get rid of the guy. Impeach him, censure him, assassinate him."
- Rep. James Hansen (R-UT), talking about President Clinton
"We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats
with dogs."
- Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), Mother Jones, 08-95
"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York
Times building."
- Ann Coulter, New York Observer, 08-26-02
"We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically
intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed,
too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."
- Ann Coulter, at the Conservative Political Action Conference,
02-26-02
"Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not
prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored.
All the great despotisms of the past - I'm not arguing for despotism
as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble
- recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a
continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the
wife or child of an 'enemy of the people.' The Nazis used the same
principle, which they called Sippenhaft, 'clan liability.' In Imperial
China, enemies of the state were punished 'to the ninth degree': that
is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed and
everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-
grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-
grandchildren, would also be killed."
- John Derbyshire, National Review, 02-15-01
"Two things made this country great: White men & Christianity. The
degree these two have diminished is in direct proportion to the
corruption and fall of the nation. Every problem that has arisen (sic)
can be directly traced back to our departure from God's Law and the
disenfranchisement of White men."
- State Rep. Don Davis (R-NC), emailed to every member of the North
Carolina House and Senate, reported by the Fayetteville Observer,
08-22-01
I could go on, and on, and on, and on, but you get the gist.
Most Disrespectfully Yours,
Are you feeling okay?
Maybe you should get a tranquilizer there.
And, above all, don't go postal, but if you must go postal, go Fed Ex, when you want your payload to actually get there.