Greetings from the land of the progressives. This is the Adirondack Howler for Sunday, January 9th, 2011. This week I was planning to talk about the antics of the upcoming 112th Congress which opened this past Wednesday. It has taken a backseat to a tragedy that happened in a parking lot of a Safeway supermarket on Saturday. Six people died in a shooting and nineteen were injured. One of the injured was Congressmember Gabrielle Giffords of the 8th Congressional District who was shot in the head. She survived after hours of surgery and was able to communicate. However, her recovery is expected to be long and arduous. After hearing this, I was thinking and then asking myself why someone would resort to violence to solve the problems that beset this nation, especially the economic troubles facing the weakening middle class.
I want to say that I have no respect for anyone on the right but I do not resort to violence because I regard these people as human beings. I wish there was a way to massage and alleviate the pain and suffering and building bridges to people who may not agree with them on the issues of the world.
This weekend I started to come to terms with this tragedy by reading various articles. Three of them were carved indelibly in my mind. The first from today's Commondreams.org deals with the tragedy in terms of a contiuance of a dark era for the Grand Canyon State that started with the issue with immigration and Arizona's SB1070 anti-immigration legislation. The piece by Randall Amster is found at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/09-1 .
The second story by Karen Dolan talks about how the violence killed an innocent bystander, a nine year old by the name of Christina Taylor Green who was born on September 11, 2001. She had dreams of going into the world of politics when she becomes an adult. A neighbor brought her to the event at the supermarket but Miss Green will never return home thanks to the killer, 22-year old Jared Lee Loughner. Dolan's article is found in today's Commondreams.org at the following location : http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/09-0 .
The third article is how Sarah Palin needs to feel some responsibility for this tragedy by setting up violent imagery on her SarahPAC.com website. This consisted of crosshairs on a map of the United States. Each crosshair is a Congressional District "targeted" for some kind of defeat. Giffords' district was one of 20 Congressional Districts that were on that map. According to the piece, fellow Congressmember Raul Grijalva says Palin needs to look at her own behavior. The story appears in today's Commondreams.org by The Nation's John Nichols and is found at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/01/09-0 .
I will return shortly with my choice for Video of the Week.
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