Originally posted @ 1:51 am, Sun 9th Jan 2011
Gabrielle Giffords, a 40-year-old Democratic member of the House of Representatives, was shot in the head at very close range by a man who went on to shot 13 others, six of whom have died. At this stage, it seems Giffords has survived surgery. More would have been injured if 2 people had not tackled the gunman despite being unarmed themselves.
In a press conference, the Sheriff made it clear that the kind of vitriol and bigotry being generated in the media was a significant contributory factor in the shootings, despite the incident having taken place less than 10 hours ago.
The Guardian reports that Giffords was named as a political campaign target for conservatives in last November's mid-term elections by former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin because of her strong support for Obama's reforms. Palin had published a "target map" on her website using images of gun sights to identify 20 House Democrats, including Giffords, for backing the new healthcare law. The images were not changed, even though protests were made.
It turns out her HQ has been attacked in the past and one man attended one of her rallies recently, carrying a gun (which he happened to drop).
Tempting to say it can't happen in Britain except of course one of our MPs, Stephen Timms, was knifed only this summer.
A free society needs a better politics both in the USA and in Britain, where the media need to move on from the mantra of "why is this person lying to me"; (a style of journalism which incidentally was hugely unsuccessful in exposing the real intentions of the politicians who actually got into power).
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Heartbreaking that one of the dead, Christina Taylor Greene, is a nine year old girl, born on September 11th, 2001 and featured in a book Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11. Interested in politics, and playing a role in her school, a neighbour had taken her down to the "town hall" event because she'd wanted to learn more about the political process.
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