REALITY, by Bob.
It is easy to forget how inundated we are with media manifestations of American self-reflection. After the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, as America tries to identify itself as a country whose nature does not contain violence as an integral part, it is a good time to take a step outside of the information continuum and look at our neighbours to the south.
Bob Kismet
As mourners bring flowers to the hospital in which Giffords struggles for her life, the American gun lobby is shouting about how this crime was committed by a person and not a gun. They will defy anyone who dares to say that if this psychopath couldn’t buy a semi-automatic weapon with an extra large ammunition magazine, this slaughter would have been less extensive, or perhaps would not have happened at all. They will bend politicians to their will. If history is any kind of teacher, there will be no gun control laws passed as a result of this.
The Republicans and Tea Party, are on a war footing, denying that their violence-tinged rhetoric directed towards Giffords, has anything to do with the violence against Giffords. The extremist looney-tunes that always seem to adhere to the right wing ideology feed off the malice that the Teapublicans perpetuate, so it is no wonder that, when there is a threat or a letter bomb received it is received by a Democrat. It is hardly surprising that when an American politician is assassinated, it is a Democrat. I wonder why this is rarely mentioned in the corporate media?
The Democrats are wearing their tender hearts on their sleeves, extending an olive branch of conciliation to their seething, hate-filled counterparts, while denying that the veiled threats of violence directed at Giffords, had anything to do with the violence done to Giffords. Well, in an event that gets a lot less attention than the well-known reloading instructions of Sarah Palin, Giffords opponent Jesse Kelly had an event to raise funds. This event was called: “Get On Target for Victory in November. Help Remove Gabrielle Giffords from Office. Shoot a Fully Automatic Rifle with Jesse Kelly”. Hmmm… ya… it sure is hard to connect the idea of removing Gifford from office by shooting a rifle, with the fact that she has been removed from office by someone that shot a rifle at her head. Just… can’t… make… the… connection…
Led by their President, who, in the spirit of compromise, cannot conform to the Republican agenda quickly, or completely enough, the Democrats are calling for the country to unite. That is the central thrust of their message; Democrats want unity,… as opposed to change. In the aftermath of this carnage, if Democrats are not willing to look at why it happened, and what could have been done to prevent it, then what is to prevent it from happening again? If you aren’t intending to prevent it from happening again, then is that not an insult to the victims? Would not the out-pouring of emotion be worthless?
Speaking of the media, I find the right wing punditocracy’s defence of politically motivated speech filled with hate and violence, to be the most interesting thing that is happening here. People like Rush Limbaugh have asserted that the government is going to use these shootings as an excuse to ban free speech. They are confusing the fact that saying some kinds of stuff just ain’t cool, with the fantasy that the people want them not to have the right to say it. The effect is to turn hate speakers into the champions of free speech. No one wants to take away their rights to, in their speech, be ugly, but we’d sure like them to try to be less ugly. Somehow the right wing turns that reasonable sentiment into an aggressive celebration of ugliness.
It sure is interesting to watch America try to absorb this tragedy while not letting it create some sort of self-awareness of the violence that is essential to the nature of the country. They feign surprise that something like this could happen in America, while most of the rest of the civilized world looks at America as a country that is filled with religious fundamentalist gun freaks who do not value such things as education and health care nearly as much as they value their armed forces. I really hope that Gabrielle Giffords recovers enough of her faculties to set them all straight. They’d have to listen to her, because apparently, while they trip over themselves in the attempt to deny the root causes of this tragedy, they all have her in their hearts.
Bob Kismet
