Politically Charged Violence - Who's Responsible?

[Novelafemme]

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW9gwhJ6YJQ"]YouTube - Mindless Menace of Violence[/nomedia]

RFK's Mindless Menace of Violence Speech. Please listen to these powerful words.

[RockOn]

First off, I would like to thank Medusa for this topic.

Here is a link to a video from some time back, entitled "Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Talks Palin Cross Hairs." In this video, Giffords specifically says "there are consequences ... "

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7046bo92a4"]YouTube - Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Talks Palin Cross Hairs[/nomedia]


Here is an additional link. It points to Jared Lee Loughner's youtube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10#p/u

I find these videos of Loughner's extremely disturbing. I have concluded Loughner's just another unhappy, angry punk with mental issues and no regard for others and no conscience. He is angry and wants to do something - do something big. He decided to use Giffords as his target as a means of releasing his anger. Appears to me he possesses very complicated ideas regarding his self-assigned privileged special powers and importance.

This incident is really bothering me. I could write volumes of chapters on personal speculations about how "this may have caused that" ... etc. but I won't. Instead, here are my comments. Nuts have always existed. There is no way every one of them can be monitored and removed.

Prayers to the Good Spirit for the deceased and injured ... as well as all their loved ones and friends. I find it heartbreaking.

I'll never understand how anyone can be so mean.

Sidenote: Please overlook this post if someone has already posted these links. Most times, I do not read entire threads because it is entirely too time consuming. I won't give that much to online so I do miss a lot of key points. I even break the rules unknowingly of a particular topic because of this. Oh well ...

[Hack]

I don't think Sarah Palin's website or her rhetoric are specifically what drove this individual to do what he did. But things like that certainly don't help. Neither does Fox News or Rush Limbaugh.

I've worked in politics for more than 20 years for legislators and a governor. In the last few years, especially, I've grown a pretty thick skin. I am a press spokesperson for a department of state government here in Michigan, which has been Ground Zero for the economic meltdown in the manufacturing sector. We have a lot of pissed off people here, simply put. I don't think a week goes by where I don't get a phone call that is threatening or kinda creepy. In fact, right now, I have a message stored in my voicemail awaiting investigation because some would perceive it as a death threat. I have a radio show host in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who routinely mentions by name law enforcement officers and other high-ranking officials who work in my department and says things like they should be "shot on sight" or "strung up in the tallest tree." I have one of my staff listen to a recording of his show each week and catalog the threats just in case something happens. We've tried to file a complaint with him, but he's apparently covered under "freedom of speech." Welcome to public service in the 21st Century.

You know, I hate to sound cynical, but we all know what will happen here. There will be a few weeks of discussion about how we have to have more civil discourse in politics, but by summertime, I predict, it will be back to business as usual. And certainly, as we approach the election season in 2012, with a Republican Party relishing the chance to knock Obama out of office, it will be ratcheted up even further.

We're all taught to speak up when we think something is wrong. Some of us do, and some folks don't. But then I think some people take the action too far. I also think we have lost the value of statesmanship in politics. It used to be that politicians would strive to be statesmen or stateswomen, but those folks sadly tend to be few and far between these days.

Jake