Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) was shot point blank during a constituent meeting at a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, Arizona today. 40 year-old Giffords is Arizona's first Jewish Congresswomen, and reports have been unclear as to whether she has expired, or is still undergoing surgery. This is a national tragedy and unprecedented as there has only been one member of Congress killed in the line of duty, Rep. Leo Ryan during the Jonestown mass-suicide and massacre in 1978.
As the details emerge from what was clearly a horrific scene in Tucson with many wounded, some interesting aspects regarding her most recent political opponent have surfaced.
Jane Hamsher, of FireDogLake blog wrote:
Giffords’ 2010 Congressional opponent Jesse Kelly held a June 12 gun event that was billed as follows on the Pima County Republican website:
"Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office, Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly"
Like some other staunch tea party activists (Sarah Palin put a bulls-eye "logo" right on Giffords during the 2010 campaign), candidate Kelly utilized colorful political metaphors, like, "Get on Target...remove Gabrielle Giffords...shoot a fully automatic M16" -- many cognitive linguists will tell you that connecting these words with the emotional intent to defeat, ruin, or destroy a political opponent can result in effectively communicating a violent call to arms.
As Drew Westen explains in his seminal work, "The Political Brain",
"...when data clashed with desire, the political brain would somehow “reason” its way to the desired conclusions...Our hunch was that what passes for reasoning in politics is more often rationalization, motivated by efforts to reason to emotionally satisfying conclusions."
In other words, people will morph, mangle, and manipulate sound data or facts right in front of their eyes, in order to reach the emotional high of "being right".
With a fervor whipped up in a particular borderline individual, they might just as well transform candidate Jesse Kelly's "M16 target shooting" message into something far more macabre.
This is why it is absolutely essential for candidates, elected officials, corporate officers -- anyone in positions of leadership -- to be absolutely resolute in communicating responsibly, and not playing upon the potentially fragile emotions of certain people in their audience.
My prayers are with Gabrielle, her NASA astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, and the rest of her family and friends.
Comments
Nice attempt to stretch a tragic shooting into an irrational, anti- Republican rant.
How is it an anti-Republican rant?
Or are you saying that *only Republicans utilize violent messaging* -- and since this piece clearly advocates for caution, responsibility, and not to use violent metaphors in messaging, you've concluded it's an anti-Republican rant?
Hmmm.
The Tea Party and their candidates (Jesse Kelly, Sarah Palin, and others) are done. They can't hide the damage they have done with their political methophors by removing them from their website. This is a sad day in history for America.
Well, I for one don't think that this author ranted irrationally.
I agree with Mr. Kersey in his conclusion that many prominent
leaders in the GOP (McCain, Palin, and Kelly) have promoted the violence that we saw today by their rhetoric. The gunman had
Palin's "targets map" on his Facebook page.
Clearly, these GOP leaders are partly responsible for this
tragedy, that included the death of a 9 year old child.
But, will acknowledge their responsibility? Let's hope that they
have the decency.
Hate speech is the norm, especially on the Right. I hope Rep. Giffords makes a full recovery. Neil Steinberg had a great column today, which the following excerpt is from, and it certainly applies:
"Assuming, of course, you are the rare sort who processes information and then forms opinions, as opposed to the multitude who use opinion as a filter to keep away any information that might challenge your beliefs".
Good quote Michael -- with the recent studies showing how checking your cell phone for the next new text message gives you a little dopamine hit -- its clear with all the choices out there for news and info, people are gravitating towards the most pleasing echo chambers -- that's why we have Fox/RedTeam, and CNN/Blue team, etc.
If, as the cognitive and neural experts state, people can bend space and time (ie, facts) to comport to their lens and worldview, so they get that hit, its only been natural that they've now learned how to change the channel to get their info-fix. All the profit oriented venues have accordingly, accomodated their audience's wishes. Pushers.
Critical thinking and education will save us, if anyone's interested.
This story is being used by liberals to boost themselves. One wonders what Gabby would think of that. I know what I think of that: not much.
RAB ~ I think a more accurate depiction would be that many see this as an indictment on how excessive violent metaphor and hateful political expression sets up an environment where a Congressperson like Giffords is targeted. People who responsibly steer clear from browbeating demogoguery see this as evidence of why they bothered to care.
i live in CO so i will again bring up Columbine
Also because i just watched Bowling for Columbine
People were more that happy to blame Marylin Manson but he never placed a target on anybody - you do the math
WHERE are the pictures from Jesse Kelly's June 12 target practice with M16. Is he feeling guilty or ashamed of what he did?
Look for yourself by clicking on this twitpic link:
"Today's campaign event was a great success.
http://twitpic.com/1w7ppz
11:19 AM Jun 12th, 2010 via Twitpic"
Is is true that the "target" was a cut-out of Congresswoman Giffords? Shouldn't Tea Party candidate Kelly be held accountable?
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