Despite all the heroic attempts to blame the attack on the Planned Parenthood on anything but prolife ideology, that's what it was.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/planned-parenthood-shooting-this-was.html
It's been interesting to watch the media squirm around motive the last few days. They feel we should be 'methodical' about this and not claim a motive. This is because admitting the obvious motive would be to take sides in the abortion fight and the media has convinced itself that they're job is to be neutral and just call balls and strikes.
The trouble is that the debate over abortion is very fraught. Anti abortion activists pulled of a coup in the early 80s by calling themselves prolife. . This is already an incitement to violence.
When you call your political opponents murderers and baby killers how do you then say that folks like Richard Dear are wrong to do what he did Friday night? While I appreciate the many prolife groups that condemned the attack, it begs the question why?
"The anti-abortion activists, part of a group called the Center for Medical Progress, denounced the "barbaric killing spree in Colorado Springs by a violent madman" and offered prayers for the dead and wounded and for their families."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/planned-parenthood-shooting-appears-to-have-been-politically-motivated_565a60cfe4b079b2818a98ab?s5g66r
Ok, give them credit for that-though they have to cover their asses. But why was Dear a madman-if abortion is really murder? This is why I think the media has been so ginger about motivation-to even admit that Dear was a prolife fanatic then makes you admit that abortion isn't really murder. If it were then, Dear is a hero or martyr.
As US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, says this was a crime against women. Thank you. Finally some honesty.
"Attorney General Loretta Lynch released a statement on Saturday evening, describing the attack as "not only a crime against the Colorado Springs community, but a crime against women receiving healthcare services at Planned Parenthood, law enforcement seeking to protect and serve, and other innocent people."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/planned-parenthood-shooting-appears-to-have-been-politically-motivated_565a60cfe4b079b2818a98ab?s5g66r
What's very interesting here is that we have the cross section of two very fraught political issues-gun control and abortion.
What we have learned is that while gun control is divisive, it can at least be discussed. Abortion is so polarizing, it can't even be openly discussed. The media pretends to sweep the very subject under the rug.
Again, regarding prolife the very term is one of extreme aggression and you can plausibly argue it represents an incitement to violence.
For this reason, I think that we should refer to them not as prolife but what they are-anti abortion activists. Hopefully some news organizations will consider this.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/planned-parenthood-shooting-this-was.html
It's been interesting to watch the media squirm around motive the last few days. They feel we should be 'methodical' about this and not claim a motive. This is because admitting the obvious motive would be to take sides in the abortion fight and the media has convinced itself that they're job is to be neutral and just call balls and strikes.
The trouble is that the debate over abortion is very fraught. Anti abortion activists pulled of a coup in the early 80s by calling themselves prolife. . This is already an incitement to violence.
When you call your political opponents murderers and baby killers how do you then say that folks like Richard Dear are wrong to do what he did Friday night? While I appreciate the many prolife groups that condemned the attack, it begs the question why?
"The anti-abortion activists, part of a group called the Center for Medical Progress, denounced the "barbaric killing spree in Colorado Springs by a violent madman" and offered prayers for the dead and wounded and for their families."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/planned-parenthood-shooting-appears-to-have-been-politically-motivated_565a60cfe4b079b2818a98ab?s5g66r
Ok, give them credit for that-though they have to cover their asses. But why was Dear a madman-if abortion is really murder? This is why I think the media has been so ginger about motivation-to even admit that Dear was a prolife fanatic then makes you admit that abortion isn't really murder. If it were then, Dear is a hero or martyr.
As US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, says this was a crime against women. Thank you. Finally some honesty.
"Attorney General Loretta Lynch released a statement on Saturday evening, describing the attack as "not only a crime against the Colorado Springs community, but a crime against women receiving healthcare services at Planned Parenthood, law enforcement seeking to protect and serve, and other innocent people."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/planned-parenthood-shooting-appears-to-have-been-politically-motivated_565a60cfe4b079b2818a98ab?s5g66r
What's very interesting here is that we have the cross section of two very fraught political issues-gun control and abortion.
What we have learned is that while gun control is divisive, it can at least be discussed. Abortion is so polarizing, it can't even be openly discussed. The media pretends to sweep the very subject under the rug.
Again, regarding prolife the very term is one of extreme aggression and you can plausibly argue it represents an incitement to violence.
For this reason, I think that we should refer to them not as prolife but what they are-anti abortion activists. Hopefully some news organizations will consider this.
I can imagine that such anti abortion groups will not like this at all. At the least they'll say, we should stop calling their opponents prochoice in that case.
But this is the problem. The two sides are asymmetric. To say you're prochoice is not to demonize your opponents. Prolife was a brilliant political coup but it is too good-it literally calls your opponents murderers, and baby killers.
The anti abortion activists would probably say that prochoicers should call themselves pro abortion. But this is a clear fallacy. To say you are pro choice doesn't mean you are pro abortion, just that you think the choice-for or against having an abortion-rests with the women whose body the pregnancy grows in, not anyone else's.
To be pro choice is not like the NRA with guns where they desire to maximize not just gun sales, but literally gun shots-as many shots fired as possible.
To be pro choice doesn't mean you want to maximize-or minimize-the number of abortions performed.
"It's been interesting to watch the media squirm around motive the last few days. They feel we should be 'methodical' about this and not claim a motive. This is because admitting the obvious motive would be to take sides in the abortion fight and the media has convinced itself that they're job is to be neutral and just call balls and strikes."
ReplyDeleteThere's actually a possibility of a fortuitous advantage in the media's reluctance here: Because it focuses people's attention on the shooter's movites... it's like the obvious missing piece of the puzzle in the story (along with the identities of the two other people killed)... that means the story stays in the headlines longer, and it means the clear focus is now on "Why?"
The longer it takes for that to dribble out, the better.
Glancing at the headlines this morning (on Google News), my impression was that most news organizations had settled on the shooter being anti-abortion as the motive... especially that bit about him saying "no more baby parts"... however, when I took a look at Fox News in particular, I was struck by how they explicitly said that's a "claim" of PP:
"Planned Parenthood official says Colorado gunman opposed abortion"
I noticed that Fox has since (a half hour ago?) replaced their lead headline with something about the NSA (they're probably eager for this PP story to go away).
So anyway, after looking at that headline from Fox, I went back to Google News, and noticed that the headlines there from other media sources actually said essentially the same thing: saying PP says the motive was abortion... only because of the way they worded it, it wasn't so obvious that they were saying it was "merely" a *claim* by PP.
With the Fox headline, I can almost here the typical right winger's response after reading it: "Yeah, sure they would CLAIM that wouldn't they??? Goddamn PP liars!"
BTW, I saw one story on the Shooter's bizarre online activity:
DeleteEnd times Christian, ranting about the apocalypse
Anti-Obama
Pro pot smoking (he personally sounds like a smoker)
Into sado-mascochistic sex... looking for a partner
Hahahaha!... in other words, a typical American.
But overall, I think the mainstream press has been soft pedaling. About motive but also the Sunday tv shows downplayed the whole thing-didn't talk much about it.
ReplyDeleteIt's dominating the headlines in Google News... which is the 1st place I always turn: no stupid ads to deal with, and you can peruse the headlines from multiple sources and see part of the opening paragraph as well.
DeleteThe main question in my mind still is:
"Who were the people who were shot?"
"Where were they shot?"
"Who died? What were their roles? PP staff or bystanders?"
"Who was shot first? Who was the gunman targeting?"
"Where did the gunman do most of his shooting?"
This is all still unclear to me at this point.
Did he try to get into the main part of PP and fail and then decide to start shooting people in the parking lot and surrounding businesses at random?
Was he confined to a lobby in PP? Did he stay outside to do most of the shooting?
All the articles I've seen so far don't explain any of this very well.
Luckily the shooting survived, so details about his motivations will dribble out and be in the news for months if not years to come.
I don't even know the details of the cop's death? Was he 1st on the scene? Was he already there as a civilian? Did he arrive much later? Was he actually in PP when the shooting started? Was he near PP?
DeleteShould say (two comments up) "Luckily the shooter survived"
DeleteThere was a cop and two civilians dead. The cop was there to stop the killer
DeleteI guess for me the exact details of every aspect are less important than the overall narrative. There's forest and then there's trees. Whoever was first or second to the scene we know that this guy is an anti abortion activist who was inspired among other things by the fake video.
ReplyDeleteThat he was there to destroy the baby killers seems clear