Tuscon terrorist attack: vague platitudes of regret aren't enough

After Saturday's Tucson terrorist attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords took us a bit closer to becoming the Weimar Republic, the Chicago Sun-Times decided to break with one of the brain-dead clichees of recent years and say what is plainly true: that the incitement to violence and the venomous hate rhetoric in American politics is coming almost exclusively from the right (We can't say we weren't warned about Arizona shooting tragedy 01/09/2011):

Only in time will we know if the killer was among those who threatened Giffords with physical harm last year when she voted in favor of President Obama’s health-care reforms. We may never know whether he was the one who shattered the windows of her Tucson office. And it’s entirely possible that he was not among those — the many — who threatened her with death after she spoke out against Arizona’s harsh new immigration law.

But would any intelligent person be surprised to learn otherwise?

The safe observation for us to make now — you will hear it from others all week — is that the angry and irresponsible talk that might lead an unhinged person to pick up a gun is common across the political landscape, from right to left.

But that simply is not true.

Overwhelmingly today, the fear-mongering and demonizing flow from the right, aided and abetted by cable TV and talk-radio hosts. They may represent only the irresponsible fringe of conservatism in America, but they are drowning out the thoughtful voices of the vast majority of conservatives. [my emphasis]

Only in that last bit would I have to disagree with that statement. Today's Republican Party is not "thoughtful". Its leading spokespeople include people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Its Party TV channel is FOX News, which cranks out fabrications, distortions and shameless fear-mongering constantly. If the Republican Party represents what passes for conservatism in the US today, then conservatism in the US is not speaking with "thoughtful voices."

Presuming there are such "thoughtful voices" in the Republican Party, now would be the time for them to come out publicly and unambiguously against the hate-mongering generated by their own Party and its de facto ideologists like the junkie bigot Rush Limbaugh. Denouncing the shooting itself and not addressing the larger context doesn't cut it. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik gave an example on Saturday of how it can be done.

But if Republican leaders are serious about dialing this back, they will have to do more than talk in general terms. They will have to name names, including Rush Limbaugh's and Glenn Beck's. And they will have to be specific about condemning things like Sarah Palin's crosshairs map that identified Gabrielle Giffords' district as a target, and which she promoted with slogans like "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" McCain biographer Danny Schechter provides screen captures in Breaking: Targeted by Palin, AZ Congresswoman Shot The News Dissector 01/08/2011.

Tags: domestic terrorism, gabrielle giffords, christian terrorism, radical right, republican party

Domestic terrorist attack targets Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords

Jared Loughner, the accused shooter of Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson Arizona and accused murderer of a federal judge and several others, posted a YouTube video which the Arizona Republic site captured. It includes far-right rhetoric, including some weird-sounding stuff about currencies. Chip Berlet explains how such talk is used by crackpot rightwing groups in Alleged Giffords Shooter Shares Currency Plot Obsession with Anti-Abortion Killer Talk to Action 01/08/2011. The "shares" in the title doesn't mean the two personally communicated, it means that they had some common ideas drawn from the far-right gutter.

Karoli in Pima Sheriff Clarence Dupnik Calls Out Vitriolic, Hateful Rhetoric C&L 01/08/2011 has a good video with the Pima County Sheriff who has jurisdiction over the case talking about the hate rhetoric from rightwing media. For better or worse, he doesn't actually say rightwing, though that is clearly what he's talking about. If recent history holds, they will not only cheerfully ignore his words but self-righteously attack anyone who suggests they take some moral responsibility for the bile that characters like Limbaugh and Beck broadcast over mass media.

Dave Neiwert writes in an early piece on the shooter, January 08, 2011 01:30 PM
Eliminationist rhetoric and the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords: There were plenty of precursors C&L 01/08/2011:

There will be a lot of hand-wringing in the coming days over the shooting of Rep. Giffords this morning at a constituent event -- some of it, almost certainly, from the folks at Fox, who will wonder aloud how this kind of thing could happen.

It can happen, in fact, because conservatives so thoughtlessly and readily use violent eliminationist rhetoric when talking about "liberals" (to wit: anyone who is not a conservative). They will adamantly deny it, of course, but the cold reality is that this kind of talk creates permission for angry and violent people to act it out.

Dave is careful in his analysis of these things and avoids any simplistic assumption of direct causation between hate propaganda and individual acts of violence. But he's also good at cutting through the rightwing excuse-making that conflates legal responsibility for individual acts with moral responsibility for rhetoric promoting violence and encouraging irrational fears.

Dave includes a video clip of Congresswoman Giffords from last March talking about violent rhetoric and vandalism directed against her, a recording that takes on particular poignancy now. I would point out what is now a bitter irony, though, that she frames her criticism of extreme rhetoric as coming from "both sides", even though what she's talking about there is rightwing extremism. And the guy who allegedly tried to assassinate her on Saturday was also influenced in some significant part for far-right political hate propaganda.

You should be careful about drawing conclusions from things like reading lists. For what it's worth, the following is what Loughner gave as his favorite books, apparently on YouTube, according to Robert Anglen and Brennan Smith, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot: Suspect posted anti-government messages on YouTube, Arizona Republic 01/08/2011.

He listed his favorite books as "Animal Farm," "Brave New World," "The Wizard of OZ," "Aesop's Fables," "The Odyssey," "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," "Fahrenheit 451," "Peter Pan," "To Kill A Mockingbird," "We The Living," "Phantom Toll Booth," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Pulp," "Through The Looking Glass," "The Communist Manifesto," "Siddhartha," "The Old Man and the Sea," "Gulliver's Travels," "Mein Kampf," "The Republic" and "Meno."

Tags: domestic terrorism, gabrielle giffords, terrorism