the Mosque in NYC yes or no

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Rhetoric & reality the Tuscon edition

AS the world continues to reel from the tragedy in Arizona there must be something understood by all involved here. And it must be understood that violent rhetoric and negative imagery can create a violent reality!(and before we all go any further lets dispel the Notion that Sarah Palin is the Bogeyman here, she is not, and the attempt to paint her as such takes away from the true issue here, her badly timed attempt at looking presidential aside!) Simply put, rhetoric has created wars , spurred revolutions and far, far,more! Hitler was a individual but the third reich was a movement! The confederacy was a movement, mccarthyism was a movement, and they were all fueled by rhetoric! So to try to discount the effect of rhetoric in Tuscon was  and is a error! As we prepare in America to observe the Birthday of the greatest American, Dr Martin Luther King, his story can stand as a case study in positive rhetoric and negative rhetoric. The positive rhetoric of DR king improved this nation and changed the world in a positive way forever, while the negative rhetoric of his time led to his murder as well as the murder of RFK and JFK! AS the scamble continues by many to avoid being linked to what negative rhetoric has wrought, the fact is you cannot deny the reality of its history! Rhetoric can build or it can destroy! It can create peacemakers or it can make destroyers and murderers! But it can never be discounted or shunted away as a simple individual act! So I hope that all those who have over the past two years engaged in the most negative of rhetoric over the airways and in politics can finally come to grips with what they truly have wrought!And if they cant or wont then they need to think of Gaby Giffords this Monday when we honor another who was felled by a gunman awash in  Rhetoric!!!

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