Getting on target:
The Right and the shooting in Tucson
By Tom Hayden / The Rag Blog / January 12, 2010
It appears that Arizona is ground zero in a right-wing war against the democratic process.
Rep. Giffords was on Sarah Palin’s “target list” of 20 2010 incumbents, a list which featured a graphic showing the crosshairs of a gun. Giffords’ office was was one of those vandalized by the right-wing in March 2009 in a protest against national health care bill. [Judge John Roll, killed in the incident, also was subject to significant threats due to his positions on immigration.]
As recently as June 12, 2010, leaflets appeared in Giffords’ district proclaiming: “Get on Target” and help remove Gabrielle Giffords. “Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”
Jesse Kelly is a Marine veteran, and right-wing Republican who lost to Gifford November 4, by 48.8%-47%. Kelly was strongly supported by the Tea Party.
Salon.com named Kelly the Number 1 “most terrifying candidate” in the 2010 Congressional elections. He was criticized for taking funds and support from Americans for Legal Immigration [ALIPAC], an anti-immigrant group once denounced by Sen. John McCain’s office as “white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and anti-semites.” [The Hill, campaign blog, Oct. 26, 2010]. The Anti-Defamation League shared McCain’s office view of ALIPAC.
Kelly’s campaign site favored 10,000 U.S. troops being sent to the Arizona-Mexico border “in an active enforcement mode.” Gifford supported the president’s overall immigration reform legislation.
The anti-Gifford campaign generated a climate infected by hate and violent rhetoric. But who pulled the trigger? Little has been released about Jared Lee Loughner, but at first look he seems to fit the profile of an individual prone to far-right rhetoric. Here is an apparent excerpt from Loughner’s diary:
You don’t have to accept the federalist laws.
Nonetheless, read the United States of America’s Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws.
You’re literate, listener?
If the property owners and government officials are no longer in ownership of their land and laws from a revolution then the revolutionary’s from the revolution are in control of the land and laws.
The property owners and government officials are no longer in ownership of their land and laws from a revolution. Thus, the revolutionary’s from the revolution are in control of the land and laws.
In conclusion, reading the second United States Constitution, I can’t trust the current government because of the ratifications: The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.
No! I won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver!
On the evidence so far, this is not a case of an “isolated psychopath.” Nor can Sarah Palin and the Tea Party excuse themselves from responsibility by expressing best wishes for Giffords’ recovery. There is a connection between the politics of vitriolic hate, symbolized by crosshairs and calls to “lock and load” or “shoot an automatic M16,” and the outcome in Tucson Saturday morning.
[Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and leader of Sixties peace, justice, and environmental movements. He currently teaches at Pitzer College in Los Angeles. His latest book is The Long Sixties. This article was also published at Progressive America Rising.]
Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog
When they say to their listeners and potential voters that it’s time to make war on (kill) people who they don’t consider Americans, they distribute bumper stickers and tee shirts saying that we aren’t Americans, tell their followers that it’s OK to rule by violence, hang and burn in effigy any they consider non-American,use threats and incidents of actual violence to get the “un-American” liberals into compliance, seals the deal. Congratulations, Right Wing Extremists, you’ve met all the definition Terrorism.
Then when one of their un”man”ned drones goes off course and kills “without permission” they turn on him and call him crazy.
They made a pattern of doing it. They did the same to their pets, Minutemen Jason Bush and Shawna Ford. Got them to kill another 9 year old girl, Brisenia Flores. Then denied they ever knew them.
Same with Adkisson when he opened fire at the Unitarian Church in Knoxville, aiming, as right wingers often do, for the children of the church. Don’t know WHAT, exactly, they have against kids in general and American kids in particular, they just do.
that they’ve saved.
But spending public funds to kill other people is, somehow, moral – in their estimation. And allowing and assisting Life is somehow Immoral. And the wasteful and destructive economic choices will wind up depriving THEIR children as well as ours. Again with them hating kids.
They talk to us at gunpoint but if we respond in any way they consider uncivil, we’re told we’re not being “bipartisan” enough. Bipartisan to a TeaBag must mean “By Partisan Rule, you must accept our (white) Supremacy”
…or else.
And the “or else” apparently means they convince one of their Human Drones to attack you.
Amazingly, with all that, I think there’s actually a chance to turn America onto a path of righteousness, one which doesn’t turn us into non-human targets for their formerly human Drones.
Their rhetoric also assumes that the liberals they’re sent out to hunt down, are somehow weaklings who won’t ever fight back. Two “weaklings” lost their lives at the Unitarian Church in Knoxville, subduing the only person in the building who was armed.
Two more unarmed liberal “weaklings” subdued the Human Drone in Tucson. There’s a lesson there, if the Extremists want to actually learn it.
I was going to change my signature to Cochapuercos, but, nahhhh…
I’ll still be Jonah.
..as for right wing extremists, ask yourselves, were you lying when you told your followers that it’s ok to Kill, or were you lying when saying that you didn’t actually mean for them to kill?
Wow Tom. Using quotes from mentally unstable people to advance your political agenda? I dont see how anyone could think it makes you look small and opportunistic.
Perhaps you should keep your eye on Thorne too. If you can twist logic enough to present Jared Loughner as a closet tea partier, then you can surely see how Thorne is a closet conservative 🙂 No?
But then again it is not surprising to here claims that the West Baptist Church Is really a Tea Party group.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/210649
Also not to mention what has been passed around for the past ten years, may want people to rethink who is accusing who of inciting violence.
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/