[stylist] The Tragic Shooting of Gabrielle Giffords

[Barbara Hammel]

Oh, boy!  Let's not even start on the politics of things.  That's not what 
this list is for.  She just wanted to know what we thought of the piece not 
whether we believed it to be correct.
It depends on which side of the fence you stand on when deciding who's 
speech is vitriolic so let's just agree to disagree on that.
Barbara
P.S. Rush's last name is Limbaugh.

Through the sunny fields of yesterday
Echo voices of children now grown,
Their golden peals of laughter
Ring upon the ivied stone.
-----Original Message----- 
From: Chris Kuell
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2011 3:15 PM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] The Tragic Shooting of Gabrielle Giffords

Judith,

As an opinion piece, this reads okay. As a persuasive essay, I think it
falls short. Your theme appears to be 'don't blame the tea partiers', which
is your opinion. You say that the killer (and I greatly prefer President
Obama's position of never mentioning his name) was deranged, mentally ill, a
hater, etcetera. I would say these things are likely true, but I (and you)
don't know that for a fact. Although I find murder reprehensible, not every
murderer is insane or full of hate. Similarly, you write 'Reading Loughner's
sketchy biography the hatred that possessed him to pull that trigger didn't
come from Tea Parties, Conservatives or Republicans, but from an inner demon
that could control the mind of a person, lead him to a place where he could
buy a weapon, accompany him on his trip to the mall where Ms. Giffords was
meeting constituents and the same inner voice compelling him to pull the
trigger that severely wounded Ms. Giffords and countless others while
murdering others gathered for the meeting with their Congresswoman.' This
sentence is rather long and clunky, but more importantly, you have no idea
whether tea party and right wing rhetoric contributed to his actions or not.
You say that he read hate filled texts like Mein Kompf and Communist
Manifesto, but is Sarah Palin putting cross-hairs on democratic districts
not another, less subtle form of hate? Have you ever listened to Sean
Hannity or Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly or Rush Lintball? I would say their
daily vitriol is laced with hate. In a Newsweek poll, greater than 30% of
tea partiers still believe Obama is a Muslim. People like Palin have
propagated this idea, using the same tactic Hitler did (ignorance) to turn
Germans against the Jews.

Judith, I'm sorry to sound harsh, but you are the one pointing fingers when
you write, 'While in the process of blaming the Tea Party movement ask
yourself these questions.' And I apologize again, but your
questions/analogies don't work for me. Did anyone really blame dishonorably
discharged veterans in Kennedy's death? Did people blame all whites for 
MLK's
assassination? Or all Arabs in Robert Kennedy's death? Of course not-these
questions are ridiculous. But as a nation we did consider how whites
interacted with blacks, and notice the inequities. We did question the
wisdom of our gun laws, of the political polarization of the times, and took
a step back to question where do we go from here.

Obviously, the tea partiers and right wingers didn't pull the trigger last
Saturday, and I am praying that all Americans reflect on their hate-speech
and tactics. But when I read opinion pieces like yours, I don't feel
hopeful.

Chris


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