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Show AllThis commentary couldn't have been better written, more timely, or more eloquently articulated. Bravo Keith.
Keith was great! However, his belief that we have democracy is sadly mistaken.
Bad people in our government WILL use this crisis as an opportunity (see Rahm, Rove and Machiavelli).
Most Americans don't have to 'unite' on this issue. We are already overwhelmingly against violence and war. It is our government that is the main culprit in fostering violence. Obama WILL do the superbowl gig. He is paid by corporations (albeit indirectly) to foster more and more violence which begets more and more security (gestapo) agents which we are further taxed to pay for.
Our government is secretly celebrating this tragedy!
I wish it weren't so but there is no integrity, no honesty and no popular representation in the US government. We do not live in a democracy. The politicians now have the perfect excuse to cut off ALL access to them by the increasingly restive voting public.
How f__king convenient.
Nor should there exist a place for politically biased commentators who jump to hasty conclusions which falsely blame their political adversaries for acts of violence. This killer is an unhinged lefty, and the politically biased commentators would have undoubtedly rejoiced had the killer been a tea party supporter.
Yes, I am soliciting quotations as to his location on the political spectrum, but he seems basically to be a constitutionalist, with incoherant episodes, and obviously violent ones.
The little publicized fact (todays CD Amster article) that the Ethnics Studies Program was vandalized simultaneously with the shooting of the judge handling the Ethnics study law, cries conspiracy,
My guess oil and right ideologes.
I say Rove.
Where is "John Ellis"?
Is the Olbermann byline referring to USA threats to Iran?
Olbermann was great but we need to keep our focus on the whole world.
Joy stick wars prepped by hyper-violent video games.
Trickle Down violence.
Judge Roll was not being targeted by the shooter because it was a fluke that he was even there. The sheriff of Pima County, Clarence Dupnik, who is a good friend of the judge, said that the judge made a last minute decision to be there, had not even planned to be there. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time as were 19 other people; the latest is that 20 people were shot and 6 died, so far. It's way too early to tell if this is a conspiracy. The shooter was certainly not a liberal, leftist or Democrat but he was certainly anti-government and he was demented, irrational and all over the map ideologically. Sadly, he was cogent enough to buy a semi-automatic glock with an extra clip so that he could spray many bullets in a few seconds. Not only was he rejected by the army but he was also kicked out of the community college because of his very obvious mental problems. Arizona has relatively very lax and very "liberal" gun laws. You are allowed to carry concealed guns without a permit.
The right wingers are already painting Loughner as a liberal lefty.
Thanks JJ for the accurrate info about the Judge. Then a conspiracy could only involve Giffords anti oil/ pro stem cell stance. But the simultaneous vandalism could still point to an organized attack.
I think he was ill and was used.
What is the evidence that Loughner was "an unhinged lefty"?
Who's rejoicing?
Er, the unhinged adjective should not be in dispute obviously. And "lefty" is confirmed by none other than the NYT that quotes the killer's friend who described him “As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy,” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/politics/09shooter.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2. But you knew this.
Nobody in punditry is rejoicing because the killer has not been linked to or known as a tea party supporter. But you knew this too.
Ah yes, hearsay is really a solid basis for an attack. A friend describing another person's political philosophy. Isn't it all relative? I can have one person on my left who describes me as a right winger and one on the right saying I am a liberal. Who is correct?
So, that's your evidence: he says, she says, they say... Compelling... Might as well tell us that your grand-mother said he was a socialist.
Please don't tell me what I know: you don't know me, and I have not seen you around this site before.
At any rate, your only concern is whether or not the killer was connnected to the Tea Party. That should tell us where your allegiances lie.
Given that the overwhelming majority of Americans has not the foggiest idea of what a "leftist" is, chances are that the friend does not know either. Genuine leftists are not obsessed with the 2012 prophecy because they know that it is garbage produced by another hugely unhinged mind of the past. Apparently the person in custody wants to return our country to the monetary gold standard something no true leftist espouses. Apparently the person in custody has read works by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Does that make him a 'leftist'? I have read 'Mein Kampf' by Adolf Hitler in German. Does that make me a NAZI?
It seems as though you are the one who jumped to conclusions, and perhaps you didn't bother to watch this clip all the way through, if at all.
Olbermann simply stated what many, many of us have been saying for months: that the gun and violence metaphors when applied to political adversaries are dangerous. As a high school English teacher, I can tell you positively that a certain, albeit small, percentage of students cannot differentiate the figurative from the literal, and what to you or me may be just political hyperbole, however tasteless, many others cannot make that leap. They cannot understand metaphors; to them, a crosshairs drawn over the picture or name of a person indicates that someone wants to "take out" that person. Couple that with all the other "lock and reload" references on the page, and they then become truly convinced of the evil intent. That's reality, my friend, as scary as it may sound.
I applaud Keith Olbermann for his editorial comment here, and for admitting that even he, too, is guilty of inadvertent violent references in the political discourse. But 90 percent of the gun and shoot-em-up references have been coming from the right, and that you can't hide from, now, can you? And there's no way to know if this kid was a "lefty," although his murky references on his YouTube postings would indicate otherwise. But who knows what may have motivated him?
Your response is the typical, right-wing tactic of deflecting responsibility from yourselves. A sincere acknowledgement that maybe those on your team crossed the line once too many times and ramped up the rhetoric into very dangerous, violent-sounding territory would be most welcome. You should try and take a page from Olbermann's book.
You are correct, sir.
One textbook example of your thesis is the murder of Mr. Rice, the 'founder' of Rice University in Houston. Mr. Rice's lawyer succeeded in convincing Mr. Rice's young and slightly retarded butler that Mr. Rice was an evil devil who had to be and was killed with arsenic for the sake of saving mankind. The lawyer made a crucial mistake by falsifying Mr. Rice's last will in which this wealthy man gave all his possessions to the lawyer. The falsification was proven by a graphologist.
You have jumped to a hasty conclusion. How do you know without a doubt that the killer was an "unhinged lefty?" Got a crystal ball?
"...the politically biased commentators would have undoubtedly rejoiced had the killer been a tea party supporter."
What makes you so sure of this? This is where you completely mis-judge the left. We settle arguments with reasonable discussion, not violence. This terrorist was an unhinged human being, I don't know how you assess that he was a lefty. The rhetoric came from the right. Absent from the discussion are all of those innocent people who have been targeted as well because of this hateful right-wing rhetoric - the taxi driver in NYC who was perceived to be Muslim, the Mexican-American in Arizona and countless others. Olbermann is right, Palin, Angle, Beck, O'Reilly, and anyone else who has used the rhetoric of violence is responsible for this act. Based on your comment, I wonder if you were rejoicing.
Funny, not really, how, except for Malcolm and small plane "accidents"
its always,
"Lone Crazed Gunman" RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRightTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT !!!!!!!!!
Clarence, who do you think you are fooling? Are you going try to deny, with your bare face hanging out, that the teaparty/Beck and McCain/Palin were/are deliberately trying to create an atmosphere of violent intimidation? Beck and Palin are psychopathic demagogues, rabble-rousers of the worst kind who would love to create an army of Brownshirts/supporters, all of whom are too stupid to see how they are being used by the corporate elite.
These demagogues along with Fox News have created a sick toxic media environment.
It doesnt matter whether he was right or left Her's why:
I think we can say that this guy is a product of a very sick, violently egomaniacal, dumbed-down American culture. He is a product of the Dark Side of America, a Dark Side that has just about totally taken control of this country.
We are a country dominated by fundamentalist capitalism, fundamentalist christianity, imperialism and militarism, a junk food diet and a broken education system, the whole thing mainlined directly into peoples brains by a media-marketing propaganda delivery system that spews nothing but toxic mental slime.
America is a sick sick country, Clarence, and Beck and Palin are blatant examples of that sickness.
Nothing like a leftist.
In fact, Homeland Security said the opposite:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/ariz-j10.shtml
Arizona assassination spree tied to political right
By Bill Van Auken
10 January 2011
Mounting evidence has linked the 22-year-old gunman who severely wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, killed a federal judge and killed or wounded 18 others in Tucson, Arizona to the political right.
According to a memo issued by the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of the shooting spree at a Tucson, Arizona strip mall Saturday, Internet activity by the gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, linked him to American Renaissance, which DHS described as an “anti-government, anti-immigration, anti-ZOG [Zionist Occupation Government], anti-Semitic.” The online publication of the organization advocates white supremacy and racial separation.
[...]
The US is no longer a Democracy...and has not been one for decades, maybe more.
This country was founded on the right of Citizens to protest unfair and immoral acts of government and, if not listened to, to bear arms and force change, as the British found out to their surprise and loss.
That war was over unfair taxation. We are way past unfair taxation in the US. We are into the indentured servant or even slavery class now. The Government is owned by the wealthy few who are plundering the rest of us to feed their lust for wealth and power. They are Empire building on the backs of the rest of the world and the US Citizens are being taxed into a 3rd world life-style to pay for it.
I may be wrong, but...having lived in the days of the Civil Rights Movement, and serving in the National Guard at that time, I know that it sometimes takes violence to cause positive change; even to enforce the idea of equality when the masters don't want to relinquish the whip.
What is coming? We shall see...
"I know that it sometimes takes violence to cause positive change..."
Makati1, Just what kind of "positive change" did Jared Lee Loughner have in mind? It's also kind of a stretch to equate the tea-baggers with the civil rights movenent, regardless of Glenn Beck's publicity stunt.
"The US is no longer a Democracy...and has not been one for decades, maybe more."
Thanks for writing that as I'm quite tired of doing so . It could be argued that the shooting occured because we are *not* a democracy, with your description being much closer to reality. Jefferson wrote that Liberty must be irrigated with blood every generation or so, but not the blood of Others. It's a good bet his computer will yield some clues about his nature that we'll never learn. It's now admitted that a security video camera captured the shooter with his alleged accomplice inside the Safeway prior to the shooting, an older male, but not the father, which seems very odd given the shooter's reclusiveness. *Just In* Police have issued a statement that the man cuaught in the video was the cabbie that drove him to the scene, http://www.kvoa.com/news/person-of-interest-drove-loughner-s-cab-unaware/
It is, and always has been right from the start, a "representative democracy" only in the sense that each and every dollar counts equally, is represented equally and buys the exact same amount of power.
What democracy? What does that have to do with the United States? It is common in a oligarchy for assassinations to take place: the Kennedy brothers, MLK, Harvey Milk, Malcolm X---to name a few.
"Violence and Threats Have No Place in (US)"
they are for export only.
"Nor should there exist a place for politically biased commentators who jump to hasty conclusions.... This killer is an unhinged lefty..."
Yeah right, Clarence Beeks. No place for hasty conclusions, except for your own.
Olbermann gave a good speech.
But he forgot Malcom X.
And he forgot the most important thing: that the United States is in the business of hyperviolence with its hundreds of military bases all over the planet, its endless wars, its standing armies, its nuclear weapons, its huge armament industry, and that the violence and the bullying the United States exports on a daily basis to foreign lands blows back to the motherland, like the lethal gases' unpredictable behavior on a battle field.
Violence begets violence, and, unfortunately, Olbermann's speech, no matter how potent and well crafted it may be, will not make much of a difference. The United States must stop being a force for violence and war in the world first, for the world includes the United States.
Sorry Keith: That is a fairy tale. The U.S. Government has been and is an oligarchy based on violence. While I agree that violence has no place in a Democracy that is, in my view, not realistic, because we are a Democracy in name only. This countries genre and modus operandi is violence to protect its corportocracy. MLK had it right when he said: " My country is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world ".
It has not just been words that caused this. Look at how quickly routine police encounters end in brutal violence. Our entire country has been brainwashed into thinking that this kind of violence is righteous and necessary to protect our liberties. So many people yawn and ho hum when "officials" dispense obscene levels of violence against an individual or other country. Victims are often dismissed as having "gotten what they deserved". Now that the violence is reaching the door steps of the ruling class, whoa pardner, this has gone far enough! I abhor violence, but I agree with ealier posters, you will never get the whip out of master's hand by using words. Only when they feel the fear of the sting of their own whip will they consider the morality of its use.
Well said Olbermann, I agree.
Hopefully some criminal charges can be made against those who have openly called for the assassination of Julian Assange & Ms. Palin, that would help put them in their place and discourage insane incitements to needless violence.
Palin is the assassin by proxy, or very likely Rove, or would this be Cheney, is the mastermind. Keep in mind the simultaneous, as the shooting , vandalizing of the Ethnics Studies department in Tucson.(see Amsters CD article today)
Sure, while we're at it, lets levy charges against Bushco, Obama, and darn it, ourselves for illegal wars of aggression and the complicity therein. To say that Democracy has no place for threats and violence is a laughable concept when this 'civilization' commits genocide (Iraq) in the name of Democracy. I'm sure we will see many more instances like Arizona while the power elite put us squarely in their sights for extermination through measures they call Austerity as they call for 'order' as seen in Greece and now Algeria as well as many other places around the globe.
It would seem they are making our choice to go quietly through starvation and sickness or via violent revolution.
You hit an interesting and serious button. If threatening to kill our President is a crime does not the equal protection clause of the constitution demand that a threat to kill any US citizen or legal resident should be legally treated as a crime?
Noble thoughts. What you leave out is what the msm is being used for in the disturbance of this country and the world. That is real and in use daily.
As others have rightly stated: The USA is not a democracy. I like to call it a Kelptocratic Oligarchy. One could also call it a neo-Feudal or a neo-Fascist state where the 5 families of the Corporate/Bankster Mafia are pulling the puppet strings behind the curtain.
Of course the Banksters are the most powerful of the 5 families, they got the politicians and judges in their back pocket.
Hey, but don't take it personally, it's just business.
To be fair, the US has the most sophisticated and expensive public relations (propaganda) machine in the history of the world. Just look how many otherwise intelligent folks, like Olbermann, who still believe the PR and phony narratives.
"Hey, but don't take it personally, it's just business."
I've always thought of the "just biz" concept as being on a par with "just war".
Olbermann, US politicans, and the M$M are calling for a rethinking of political rhetoric that is inciteful, but they appear to be limiting the rethinking to incitement against US politicians.
Where is the outrage of?
"A dead man (Julian Assange) can't leak stuff," Beckel said. "This guy's a traitor, he's treasonous, and he has broken every law of the United States. And I'm not for the death penalty, so...there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch." - Bob Beckel (Fox Commentator)
Assange is like a "high-tech terrorist" - Vice President Biden
"Bomb, Bomb, Bomb - Bomb, Bomb, Iran" McCain
"Tiller the Baby Killer" - Bill O'Reilly (prior to the murder of George Tiller, Abortion Doctor)
The whole Iraq war was based on lies and political rhetoric that incited Americans into supporting the invasion of Iraq.
The whole US occupation of Afghanistan and drone killings in Pakistan is inciting huge populations against the US.
The US support of the Israel's occupation the West Bank, external control of Gaza and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians into open air prisons incites violence.
Yeah, totally on the money!
Olbermann left all of that out. Why?
Thank you for stating that which the media are selectively oblivious.
violence and threat of violence has been our modus operandi all along.
George Markley
I am glad that you brought up Harvey Milk because his murder was a consequence of the relentless religious vilification of homosexuals which is still going on albeit fortunately by an increasingly smaller fraction of the population. Let's face it, far more homosexuals have been injured or murdered in our country than politicians yet the assassination or attempted assassination of politicians always spawns a much huger and longer during 'mea culpa' or 'nostra culpa' response. There is at least a tad of hypocrisy in the current outpouring of 'what the nation must do'. Given past history as a guidance the nation will mute its bile for a little while but return to normal for the 2012 elections albeit with much more sophisticated slogans and methods than during the 2010 elections. Does anyone really believe that homo-haters will change their view because of what happened in Tucson? I do not.
(had shared this elsewhere... and would like to share it here too)...
my heart goes out to everyone hurt or killed by senseless acts of violence!... it saddens me to see mentalities that don't know any better do harm or call for harm to be done to others... wherever or whoever they may be... there's never a decent reason for inhumane treatment!...
for the sake of all human beings and their futures we need more awareness!...
mindsets sit full of illusion... yet other than optical or theatrical illusion... so few people know what it is... and those who don't think people need to know about illusion are already under its influence more than they realize...
schools need to teach students about illusion... so they can learn how everyone's standard human perception uses illusion... which can distort something from being seen "as it actually is"... into something else much different... when thoughts (already in the mind) substitute their own 'pictures' (or connotations etc) instead...
with this learning in mind... then mental pictures that resurface as ignorant social or racial or extremist or manipulative bias etc are less apt to make bigger impacts... as they’ll have awareness of many alternatives available... and they'll have advantages of being more prone to use added consideration as they live with themselves and others in our world here!...
(this isn't a cure or a fix... but at least it's a beginning)...
my thoughts and prayers go out to everyone everywhere!...
a heartfelt wishingwell to each'n'all!... :)
Whatever Malcolm X has to do w/this is any1's guess. & is a person considered for a single aspect of their life or the totality of his/her being? By the same token, are we to believe the Right wing psychopathy that has inundated OUR-YES, OUR DEMOCRACY, by virtue of the dirty, filthy payoff, bribery cash Progressives & Liberals have tried to keep from tidal-waving over Washington, has nothing to do w/this? There is a big picture here & voters have completely MISSED IT, in 3 of the last 6 elections. The big picture being will we survive as a species, beyond 100 years forward? Will we allow corp's to dictate those terms of survival? Will we take hold of our entitlement as owners, managers and responsible stewards of this Democracy, collectively, intelligently, to correct ALL that is wrong w/this Democracy, since we supposedly are bright, creative, driven and community-oriented enuff to do so? This isn't just a moral, economic or political question. It's a question of the survival life on Earth... Get it... YET?...
Astonishing that the person who advocated on national television taking Hillary Clinton into a room and being sure she didn't come out would have the nerve? self-delusion? to criticize violent speech.
What I see everywhere, right and left, especially on the blogs, is ugly, vicious speech. Unfortunately the list moderators do not moderate, and I am quickly ceasing to read blogs at all.
Did you watch his commentary? Did you not hear Olbermann admitting to that, and then, apologizing, once again, for that? It's right there at the top of this page. You might want to check it out before adding your two cents.
Olbermann admitted he was off-base. But, where are the apologies from the crowd that has made a national brand of violent rhetoric...you know, Ms Sarah, Glenn, Sharon Angle, et al?
This is part of the reason why we can't have reasonable discussions in this country. No one is willing to read anything first, or even think first, before shooting off the mouth.
Probably a good thing you're going to stop "reading" blogs.
If you want to read some scary stuff, go to Palin's Facebook page. Her rabid followers are applauding her and saying she has nothing to apologize for. There's a lot of Palin-as-victim commentary.
The difference between someone like Keith and Palin. He knows how to apologize when he's gone too far, or just plain been wrong. Palin and her followers, Beck and his followers -- and others in that ilk -- I don't know if you can reach them. Palin will be back. I always thought it was a miracle that nobody got killed at a McCain-Palin rally in 2008. The Palin phenom really put the pedal to the metal in upping the viciousness, and so here we are today. We're not going to get apologies from this crowd.
Check this story out on HuffPo over Sheriff Dupnik's words:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/clarence-dupnik-arizona-sheriff_n_806440.html
Yep, a lot of the usual bluster from the righties over there. Wonder how they feel finally being on the defensive for a change? There's a crowd on Palin's page that is shaming her for her rhetoric and telling her to get out of politics. Meanwhile, all the Palin and Beck apologists over on Fox can't spin this fast enough to make it seem that the kid was a either totally deranged or a Communist sympathizer.
When I heard Sheriff Dupnik's words yesterday, my first thought was, "Well, all the sheriffs in Arizona aren't crazy like Joe Arpaio." This guy is my new hero. He really gets it.
Thanks for the link.
Ever make popcorn? You turn on the heat, and first one, then two kernals explode, then a few more -- and if the heat is kept on most kernals will explode. It isn't that the first to explde is all that different from the rest or 'mentally deranged', but that the heat is on, and some will always pop before the others.
I just reported Sarah Palin's page on Facebook as a "credible threat of violence". Maybe if a few million more do this they will remove her page?
Violence and Threats Have No Place in Democracy
But then this is a Corporate Police State now...