I lost my breath when I clicked refresh on my browser after a long day of work. I was afraid of this, angered by the fear and what I felt was the probability of escalation from the hateful rhetoric and, more critically, the unexamined, unchallenged, unstoppable entitlement of the past two years. I am writing to get it out. I will breathe when I finish.
Rambling. I'd been researching all day, then flipped to HuffPo, a still-open tab from the early a.m. Saw the headline "Unspeakable Tragedy." The font, I thought, is too small for such words. I read the sub-headlines then left to get the details from a new comfort zone.
I grabbed the iPad and went to Flipboard, to my Political blogs feed. Started with BWD, where I knew there'd be kindred spirits. Read through, checked some links. Came to Kos to read the left column. I've grown wary of the diaries to the right of late, even as I venture to write one again. I didn't want spin or hypocritical outrage or planted comments. I wanted consistent facts so I could know for sure what had happened. Was this Congressmember alive? Had a federal judge really been assassinated? Read here, read my Flipboard major paper feeds. The story became consistent about an hour later. I talked to a friend, breathed a bit more.
Went back to BWD, felt community, felt calmer.
Then I decided to try reading the response from Republicans, right-wingers, Tea Party members, conservatives. I wanted to know, no, I wanted to see that they felt as awful as I did that elected officials, aids, children, citizens, had been gunned down.
And what I saw made me sad. The talking points were already up; the catch-phrase so far being "blame game." The list of reasons why this person sounded like a "left-winger" a "CosKid" (I think they mean Kos, but who knows?). The feigned bewilderment over why people would conflate citing the Constitution and the gold standard (also gold standard, gold standard) with Republican rhetoric (UPDATE: link to the assassin's discussion of these and other TP memes). And I thought...
How dare you?
At RedState, there was a "Caption Contest" this morning featuring a target practice kit with a poster of a person. On their home page, they claim to have taken the contest down out of respect, because it was "too close" to real events today.
Due to the events that took place today (Jan 8, 2010) in Tucson, Arizona - details here - with Representative Gabrielle Giffords, I've decided to discontinue this week's caption contest. The subject matter is too close to the reality of what happened, and I don't want to come across as making fun of such a stupid and senseless tragedy.
The Giffords family, and all others involved, are in our prayers.
-Toby
Lines later, the commenters are absolutely maintaining that the left is actually inventing connections to their firing flames of hate, like that caption contest, and watching someone be consumed, as the young assassin was today.
I am calling this man an assassin because that is what he is. He is not a "murderer" (too many links to provide; current meme). What an odd word to use for someone who has surprised and killed a federal official and aide for political reasons and attempted to kill another. Why would one mask or reframe that?
RedState posted a mea culpa link, as if they were owning the cartoon they had posted, but the link goes elsewhere. Because of the Internet, of course, and the trending of the caption earlier today, it is easy enough to see RedState's inflammatory, hateful cartoon. And in the event they also scrub the page where they pretend to own the image they'd posted, there is a photo of that, as well. On second thought, too tired and don't want to give them the backlink even. It's on the home page of RedState, the "Blame Game" post, where they hyperlink the words "this cartoon," but the link does not take you to that cartoon. Of course not.
Scrub, scrub, scrub. I played Lady MacBeth years ago. I think of her now, as Sarah Palin tries to clean her latest "spot" by removing the horrific crosshairs map she posted and preened to during her last hate-filled barnstorming of susceptible America.
And I am struck by the cowardice of it all. I walked my dog this morning in such a pensive state, thinking of the irony of a community who would read a "scrubbed" version of the Constitution, in which slavery and its hideousness did not exist, pretending to find that instrument sacred...then try to dismantle that same sacred Constitution to prevent people from enjoying the citizenship their own ancestors inherited. So...cowardly. So entitled. From a demographic who is entitled only in spirit, who has not enjoyed privilege but feels so deserving of it, so on the brink of it, so one lottery ticket of the right vote or rally away, so much that they they are singularly worthy of it, that they will destroy the fabric of a nation in order to "Star-Belly Sneetch" themselves apart from others who are equally hurting, un/underemployed, marginalized, without hope, without opportunity, without past, without future...I don't know how to describe it. Except for...
The entitlement of it all. The thought that how you want to live and policies you personally endorse should and must dictate what others do and value. Sadly (again), that energy, albeit from the left, is what shifted this site down on my bookmarks. I don't expect to agree with what everyone is saying. I deeply want to respect what they are saying, to see that some thought and some compassion and some research went into it and even to learn something from it. Today's events remind me of how little introspection we see on the blogs. How little analysis of information occurs at times. How loud the chorus of Me! My! Mine! is in the comments, in the fake outrage, in the accusatory posts that primarily self-promote. How much fight, how much resistance there is to suggestions or outright charges of myopia, of bigotry, of hate, of ignorance, of sloth, of expecting others to sweat and fight and expend for rights you only type about and never sacrifice personally for. No introspection. Just the big No of entitled narcissism.
So, so tired. I wonder what it would cost someone on RedState, someone in the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Fox, John Boehner...anyone who has stoked and been served by the faux hate...to say...whoa. From today, no more. America first. No, not the bumpersticker. The belief.
Not breathing any better. This may not be the place for this. But for me, it is the time. I thank anyone for reading, Kos for the real estate and God for sparing the life of this Congresswoman, and for taking the other children home today. And you, for your thoughts, whatever they may be.
UPDATE #2: I just refreshed the poll - many quiet thank yous for the "welcome back" clicks.