No doubt you have all heard of the US Congresswoman, Gabriella Giffords (D-AZ) who was shot yesterday, 8 January 2011. Six others who were shot at her meeting with her constituents have died. The last I read, as many as 19 people were shot. Among the dead are a 9 year old girl and a Federal judge.
Funny, the reactions of people on the web. At many "left" leaning web sites, the "story" is that the shooter, who is in custody, was a Nazi who had read Mien Kampf. Some have even suggested that he was a member, or at least a follower, of the "tea party".
On the "right" leaning sites, they say he was a communist, or at "best" a socialist. They claim he read Karl Marx.
Well, I have read both Marx and Mien Kampf. What does that make me? Back when I read them, I thought it made me curious. Yeah, imagine that, being curious about things and then getting a book or two to read. Yes, to satisfy my curiosity I read. I still do, though now, my reading includes many web sites. You could say that I am still curious, and that is very true. In fact, I hope I never lose that curiosity. It makes for a more interesting life, just my opinion of course.
What really bothers me is that only now, with the shooting of a Congresswoman and the deaths of a child and a judge, do Americans come out to protest.
Yes, we have seen "political" killings in the recent past here in America. In just my own life time I have seen the killing of the Kennedy brothers, John and Robert. Also the killing of Malcolm X and Dr. King. At least four very high profile political killings, right here in America.
The question here is why aren't the people who are so upset about this shooting yesterday protesting the day in and day out killings of innocent children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan? Where are the protests and outrage over those killings? Or, is it that "we" do not protest the killing of innocent children when those children are killed by the US military? Yes, the death of the young girl from the shooting in Tucson yesterday is terrible. But, is her death that much more different from the deaths of children in the above named countries? How many children do "our" troops kill every day in the current idiotic, useless, damn fool wars of choice that "we" are fighting?
These are very valid questions. It IS fair to make this comparison. The "excuse" that there is a war going on in Afghanistan and the border area of Pakistan/Afghanistan is not valid. Why is there a war there? Because America invaded Afghanistan as a reaction to the terrorist attack of 9/11. The people who planned and carried out that attack were not in Afghanistan. None of them were Afghans. They were mostly Saudis.
Yes, the shooting yesterday is very sad. Consider though, America IS a very violent society. I don't have the statistics, but I would bet that America is either number one, or very close to it, for the number of shooting deaths per year. Our major cities are very violent places. The murder rate for New York city, Detroit, Los Angeles, and other major cities is high. The most popular video games and movies are violent. Death, and in particular, shooting is very popular in the USA.
The president said in response to the shooting yesterday that violence has no place in a free society. OK, I agree, then when is he going to call and end to the damn fool wars of choice? When will the elephant gang call out the likes of Rush, Beck, O"Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, etc and Fox News and "talk"(hate) radio? And I DO lay those folks at the door step of the Republican party as the just mentioned gang are very much right wing/Republican. Of true, the Democrats are also to blame. They should have called for a halt to the hate long ago. Where has our president been since he took office? Why has he not used the bully pulpit of the presidency to call for and end to the hate? The "idea" that it will go away if you ignore it is totally wrong.
BOTH major political parties share the blame for the hate and violence that is rampant in our country. We all need to demand more of our "leaders". Our elected officials need to demand an end to all the hate. NOT with any new laws, we have more than enough laws as it is. What is needed is some honest enforcement of the laws we already do have. The same goes for any new gun control laws. We don't need any, just enforce the existing laws.
We should all email, phone, communicate in some means to our elected officials and tell them that we want an end to the hate and violence that has swept over our country. Remember, these elected officials work for us. If we all let them know that we are sick of the hate and violence, they will have to take notice. When communicating with theses officials, make sure to let them know that we want an end to the damn fool wars also. Killing is against most every religion in the world. America claims to be a "Christian" nation, well, killing is against that religion. It is time for the people of this country who keep telling us all that America is a "Christian" nation to stop the killing. Live up to their own religion or stop telling me that "we" are a "Christian" nation. This goes double for the Congress critters who most all of them make some claim or other to being so religious. Put up or shut up.
We will not end the killing and other violence in America until we stop the damn fool wars of choice. It is time for this country to end the senseless violence that we do around the world. It is time to treat ALL people the way we want to be treated ourselves. Stop the killing. Stop the wars. It is time for all decent people to stand up and shout ENOUGH!!!!!
semper fi
13 comments:
This was an assassination.
Plain and simple.
The MSM and the political spinners will not acknowledge this.
Why??
Because then we would have to admit that we have home grown terrorists here in our own country.
If this happened say in Iraq, Afghanica, Pakistan, or any other country where our military is involved.
It would be labeled as a political assassination.
I "exist" in Az.
And I am ashamed to live in this state.
RZ,
I agree with you on that. it IS an assassination. We can even call it terrorism. No doubt the people who were there to meet the Congresswoman were terrorized.
Yes, the media, Palin, Beck, Limpburger, etc will disavow any responsibility. Well, the words they spout DO have consequences. Maybe this will come back to bite them all, big time.
I read that Palin has scrubbed that "gun sight" map from her web sites. Too late, there are saved screen shots of it. Just as there are Wikileaks mirror sites. Once something is on the web, it never goes away.
RealityZone nailed it -- calling it what it was would be an admission we have homegrown terrorists, and almost everyone in the establishment, both media and political, is too gutless to do that.
Charlie, I'm pretty sure the US has one of the highest gun death rates in the world, but it's hard to know for sure because everytime tries to do a serious study to get actual numbers, the NRA and the gun nuts scream bloody murder and try to shut the research down. If they're that afraid of the possible findings, you know things are probably worse than most of us would imagine.
Nan,
Yes, and how very sad that we still continue our history of political assassinations. This is domestic terrorism also.
For a nation that supposedly follows Christ, we seem to be very good at killing each other rather than caring for each other. The hypocrisy is really amazing.
A great tragedy for our Democracy in that the Congresswoman was actually making herself available to everyday people. Anybody could walk up and tell her what was on their minds! Where the H#ll is my Congressperson?? Not down at my Safeway to hear what is on my mind!
Both the Congresswoman of the Crosshairs and the Federal Judge - in the way of local racist politcs, it sure does look like an assasination to me.
All this killing is endimic to the American experience. It is currently out of control. We now, just kill, kill, kill.
It does start at the top! People are grestly affected by decisions made at the highest levels.
We must gather ourselves, our sanity.
Charlie, your idea of as a people, if we could demand in one voice, "No Violence." I think that could really cut through. I mean, people owned guns when I was a kid, but we didn't have this level of violence in our own society and inflicted on the World.
Grace
Sorry, I don't know how not to be anonymous when I sign in.
People haven't changed. I don't think there are a greater number of intolerant, bigoted people in our land than in past years. What has changed is that these people are being scared out of the few wits they possess by inflammatory media controlled by a few large corporations that have good reasons to promote and encourage hate and fear. The more we distrust each other, the less likely it is that we will be able to stand together against any of the destructive policies being pursued by our government.
Grace,
Yes, America is very good at killing. Both at home, as this incident proves and abroad, as our current idiotic wars prove.
Yes, here was a member of congress who was making herself available to those in her district and along comes a fool with a loaded gun. How many more public meetings will our members of congress hold now? If they do continue to have public meetings, no doubt all will have to go through some screening. Metal detectors and such will become the norm for any such meeting and armed guards also no doubt.
We are well on the way to being a total police state.
I agree, this violence does start at the top. When we have a "war president" well, what do we expect? Gobomber is as much a "war president" as Shrubbie was. Iraq is still a war zone regardless of the "combat" troops being pulled out.
America, what a country.
Gesneri,
Actually, I think that some people HAVE changed. We are bombarded by hate radio and Faux Noise no matter where we go. I did notice that one of my doctors has quit having Faux on the TV in the waiting room though. A nice start at least.
People are being made to be fearful by the rants of the nut balls on Faux and hate radio. The schools no longer teach students to be critical thinkers, so people are more easily manipulated by the fear mongers.
The goal has always been to divide us into smaller groups. Yes, that way we will never realize that the working class has more in common with each other, no matter skin color or religion, than we do with the rich people. Divide and conquer. Yes, just like a military operation. All the better to rule over us.
There's a management consultant who repackages truisms in a snappy format and rakes in the big bucks for his delivery. One of his lines is "Every organization is optimized to get the results it does get."
So the US is optimized to assassinate politicians? enemies of all sorts real and imagined world wide?
Yeah it is.
Our politicians represent interests diametrically opposed to our own but have set up the system so there are/can be no alternatives.
The NRA/Weapons manufacturers have hired a 2nd Amendment chorus to stand up immediately to defend everyone's right, including psychotics, to buy automatic weapons and ammunition.
The right-wing megaphones whip-up hate and fear 24/7 and to recommend oiling the political machinery with blood.
The question is not why this congresswoman and her entourage were assassinated.
The question is who's next?
This is off-topic, Charlie, but I came upon this post, Former Commander of Headquarters Company at Quantico Objects to Treatment of Bradley Manning, and thought you'd be happy to hear from another good man and Marine. Semper Fi... if its OK for a non-marine to quote the motto.
Who's next? Rush Limbaugh has apparently nominated California State Sen. Leland Yee for assassination.
John,
Yes, I read that article. Notice it is the "former" commander.
Stand up for justice and you get fired. America, what a country.
You can use "semper fi" any time you wish.
As to Limburger, notice how he, Beck and others on the reich wing can get away with anything. If any from the center, let alone the left, say something like that, they would be jumped on and shouted down. Faux Noise seems to be the new "norm" here.
I looked for the thread wherein we discussed 9/11, but didn't find it.
I ran across The FBI “Kamikaze Pilots” this morning and thought I'd bring it to your attention.
I don't know, of course, but I am very suspicious of the handling of 9/11. I think Mossad certainly knew what was coming, that the CIA knew... and that the information was buried and what turned out to be the mass-murders were purposefully allowed to go forward in order to create a "new Pearl Harbor' in the words of the Plan for a New American Century.
They've made a New American Century all right.
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