Jon Stewart's Reaction to the Arizona Shooting

The entry venting all of my initial reactions to the shooting on Saturday was written as it was all happening. Everyone was getting information for the first time, and seeing so much of it in such a short amount of time made me really fucking angry. It's interesting reading it again. I've had time to calm down and process things since then, and I don't necessarily agree with all of it anymore. I really make an effort not to do that, but with emotions running so high, I'm not the least bit surprised by the things I said. As always, however, the voices of logic are right. It doesn't matter how much we're annoyed by the right wing unknowingly egging on potential maniacs, we still have no idea what this guy's motives were. And thank god he was caught alive, or else we'd be speculating forever.

But I'm not going to apologize for anything I said. I will not stop ridiculing people like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck for potentially sparking things like this, because we should've put this much ferocity into ridiculing their violent language years ago. And while we may not know what the motives are yet for this particular attack, we do know that there has been instances in the past where the language used by Republicans and Tea Partiers have sparked maniacs into acting maniacal. Here, read the top post if you want a list.

Liberals might be acting a little over the top right now, but we need to understand why. We didn't jump to such dramatic conclusions for no reason. We have been expecting something like this to happen for a very long time, and it is extremely important to realize that. When you make maps that use gun sights to pinpoint the locations of Democrats, don't be surprised if we freak out when a Democratic politician is fucking shot.

Jon Stewart was good tonight.

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Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on today's events

Edit: Embedded the wrong video. This is the right one.

Gabrielle Giffords last year discussing the violent rhetoric of the right wing

The Republican party sparks more terrorism

This is Gabrielle Giffords. She recently won an extremely close race in Arizona against Tea Party candidate Jesse Kelly. She's married to a U.S. Navy captain and astronaut. She ran a tire business before getting into politics. She loves to read, and has been featured on NPR's Weekend Edition. Today, she was shot in the head at point blank. At least five people lost their lives, and at least eighteen others are wounded. A nine year old girl is dead. After some rumors that Giffords was killed, it's now confirmed that she's still alive, but in extremely critical condition. The surgeon is as optimistic "as he can be" in a situation like this. She's forty years old. The shooter is a twenty-two year old male. He's in custody.

This is a surprise to everyone except progressives. We've been warning against the consequences of right wing rhetoric for three years, but I guess it takes a god damn massacre for people to start paying attention.

Her opponent Jesse Kelly held target shooting events to "help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office."



A progressive reporter was assaulted by a mob

Sharron Angle thinks that if Republicans don't win, we should start shooting Democrats

Stephen Broden believes violent revolution is "on the table" if Republicans don't win

This Republican politician dresses up like a Nazi in his free time

Democrat Anthony Weiner was mailed some white powder with a letter telling him to "drop dead."

The right wing is calling for the deaths of gays and lesbians

Claiming in his own words to be inspired by Glenn Beck, a man got into a shootout with the cops on his way to California so he could murder members of Tides Foundation and the ACLU

Here's a letter from the Tea Party called "Why liberalism must be destroyed," which claims that "liberalism is the antithesis of freedom," and that "liberals do not want something like the will of the people interfering with their plans, so they have to make sure elections are in fact rigged."



Here's something that in retrospect can be considered nothing less than a hit list, which Sarah Palin put up on her website. The targets are pointing at Democratic politicians. One of the crosshairs on Arizona is pointing at Giffords.



Here's Palin's twitter



And here she is being a complete sociopath



Can you imagine what the reaction would be if this happened to a Republican politician during a Republican presidency? The entire Democratic party would probably be outlawed as a terrorist organization. The media is going to downplay the right wing's role in this. They'll be wrong. A nine year old girl was shot to death because of the actions and words of the Republican party.

Domestic Terrorism Directly Sparked by Glenn Beck

Oh wait, he's white. He's not a terrorist, he's only a crazy person.

Back in July, a man named Byron Williams got into a shootout with cops on a highway, and eventually gave up and turned himself in. Thankfully, only two officers were injured, and no one was killed. Williams didn't want it to end like that. He wanted to go to San Francisco so he could murder members of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU. And as Media Matters has uncovered, Glenn Beck inspired all of it.

"I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind."

[...]

In an affidavit, an Oakland police investigator reported that during an interview at the hospital, Williams "stated that his intention was to start a revolution by traveling to San Francisco and killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU."

[...]

Now, in exclusive interviews and written correspondence with journalist John Hamilton, Williams speaks for himself. He asks Hamilton to be his "media advocate" and repeatedly instructs him to watch specific broadcasts of Beck's show for information on the conspiracy theory that drove him over the edge: an intricate plot involving Barack Obama, philanthropist George Soros, a Brazilian oil company, and the BP disaster.

Williams also points to other media figures -- right-wing propagandist David Horowitz, and Internet conspiracist and repeated Fox News guest Alex Jones -- as key sources of information to inspire his "revolution."

In a separate exchange with Examiner.com's Ed Walsh, Williams sought to defend Beck from "Obama and the liberals," whom he said are afraid of Beck "because he often exposes things that are simply forbidden in news." Williams said that Beck advocates non-violence and that he had already researched the conspiracy theories that informed his alleged plot -- before seeing them "confirm[ed]" on Beck's show.

Similarly, Williams tells Hamilton that "Beck would never say anything about a conspiracy, would never advocate violence. He'll never do anything ... of this nature. But he'll give you every ounce of evidence that you could possibly need."

[...]

Beck, in particular, he says, is "like a schoolteacher on TV." Williams tells Hamilton, "You need to go back to June -- June of this year, 2010 -- and look at all his programs from June, and you'll see he's been breaking open some of the most hideous corruption."

This is a perfect example of why the American media is such an enormous failure. It was not a corporate-owned 24-hour news station that did this. It was Media Matters. More than anything, I think this shows that independent news organizations are the future.

The average age of Fox News' audience is over 65 and the average age of right wing talk radio listeners is 67. Most of the people who buy into this bullshit were the same people who opposed civil rights, and thought communists had infiltrated every corner of our society. When they say they 'want their country back,' they're talking about the country that was consumed in paranoia and fear. It's a good thing that they're so old. We can be assured that the only terrorist attacks we have to worry about will be coming from the dumbfuck children they abused, such as Byron Williams.