words are failing me, but not them, thankfully

I don't get to say this very often, but I'm at a loss for words.  Well, no.  No, I'm not.  (Ask my husband.)  I guess it's more appropriate to say that I'm at a loss for coherent words.  I'm doing a whole lot of thinking and talking about yesterday's shooting in Arizona, but most sentences end with nonsense jabbering.  My heart aches for all the families of the shooting victims, and as a mother, the death of nine year old Christina Taylor Green hurts in a way that I simply cannot explain.

I'm reading lots of back and forth about the reasons why we should or shouldn't associate the language and vitriolic political atmosphere created by the likes of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and others with this horrific crime.  I've posted short thoughts on Facebook, and I've engaged in discussion on this very topic with folks who may not have had the same instant reaction to the news as I did.  I've concluded that while there is no evidence that the shooting can, at this point, be directly tied to the crosshairs on Sarah Palin's website, or the shooting M16s event with Representative Gifford's previous Tea Party opponent, or the "second amendment remedies" talk by other politicians, there's simply no logical way that these factors don't weigh into a discussion about the occurrence of a political figure being physically targeted by a gunman.  It's all a part of this increasingly violent atmosphere of political rhetoric that is being spouted too frequently by the supposedly "religious" factions of our political scene.

Okay, this is what I was talking about.  I start thinking and talking (and now blogging), and then I get too fired up to be able to critique if what I'm saying even makes sense, and I don't have the instant recall of the correct names and links to the stories.  I've been checking in online intermittently since yesterday evening, and I've been impressed with how well-spoken others have been, expressing what I want to say in much better form than I've been capable of doing.  A few examples via Twitter, although I'm sadly not Twitter-savvy enough to be able to link to the individual tweets:


@The_Gambit: "#giffords 1 of 20 House Dems targeted with bullseye on @SarahPalinUSA site "Help us prescribe the solution""

@ebertchicago: "Sarah Palin rummages online frantically erasing her rabble-rousing Tweets like a Stalinist trimming non-persons out of photos."

@jazayerli: "If Jared Loughner is Christian, I promise not to blame an entire religion for his actions. If he's Muslim I'm sure you'd do the same for me."

@PunditMom: "With shooting of Ariz. Congresswoman, how is Sharron Angle feeling about her "Second Amendment remedies" campaign comment?"


Told in 140 characters or less, those were just some of the tweets that I was shaking my head in agreement with.  Then came the posts, and there were several, that very eloquently pointed out the very issues I was (and still am) grappling with in my head as my thoughts are swirling around this whole tragedy.

Rebekah, aka Mom-In-A-Million, has been the most prolific of my tweeting friends, and she is the reason I saw several of the tweets and articles linked here.  Her post, entitled "Don't Reload.  Don't." definitely touched me.  We all need to take her words to heart:

"Words…images…they have power. Words and images incited this man to violence and someday we may know which words and images were the ones to blame. But that won’t matter. ... Vile words have already taken their toll. Those words need to stop.  Stop. Talking. Hate."

Then there's Pundit Mom, Joanne, who has perfectly stated precisely what I feel about how some public figures' public condelences fall short without a vow to change their own violent language:

"Those who feel free to use the imagery of violence to achieve their political goals are saying how sad they are about what happened at Giffords’ town hall meeting, yet they aren’t apologizing for their reckless and careless use of gun imagery nor are they calling on their supporters to reflect after this horrible attack and to rethink how they approach the language they use to foment their purported “revolution.”"

Like him or not, Keith Olbermann's clip here hits these same notes, and he even goes the step further to cite his own blustery language in the past, and he makes an apology for it.  I don't watch him regularly to be able to comment on his track record, but from what I have seen, I personally would hesitate to put him in the same level as Glenn Beck, but I know some do and that perception would color some people's response to his statements here.  I happened to find it quite powerful stuff.

A link was shared via Facebook that I'd like to pass along here, as well.  Common Dreams.org posted a piece written by Karen Dolan entitled "No Ordinary Crosshairs" that reiterates these same points again.  The final segment of the piece sums it up nicely for me:

"Incendiary rhetoric has ballooned in the past two years and has crafted the cruelest of cross hairs. This climate of hate threatens us all. "

And finally, the Washington Post's Greg Sargent takes this point one step further in his column, The Plum Line.  While he states that it would be crass to assign blame for this incident on people not directly involved, he makes the argument that this is an opportunity for everyone involved in politics to engage in some self-reflection.

"But it's fair to ask lawmakers and commentators to use this tragedy as a jumping off point for some serious reflection about what has become of our political discourse. Even if there's no clear connection between the shooting and the incendiary political rhetoric that has now become perilously close to the norm in American politics, that doesn't mean the shooting can't serve as a reminder to those who are inclined towards over-the-top rhetoric that words matter and risk having consequences that are somewhat more important than whether they earn their purveyors cable and Internet play."

These are just a few of the blog posts and opinion pieces that I've read online that have had me thinking about the state of our country's politics today, and I urge you to click over to read them in their entirety.

Our advances in technology and communication have enabled us all with a voice to the world, and with it, the people behind those voices should bear a responsibility about what they have to say, especially those in positions of power, influence and public office. 

My thoughts and wishes for peace and love are with everyone affected by yesterday's tragedy.