Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska who was vice-presidential running mate of Republican presidential bet, Senator John McCain, is on the crosshairs of U.S. opinion makers.
Last fall, in her website, Palin featured 20 congressional districts targeted for Republican takeover in the November mid-term elections. To dramatize her point, she showed the Democratic members of Congress on cross hairs. Among them was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona.
Last Saturday, Giffords was shot in the head by a lone gunman who also killed six others and wounded 14 in the shooting rampage. This happened at a shopping center in Tucson, Arizona, where Giffords had set up a booth at which she met with her constituents. Giffords is still in critical condition but has shown signs of slow recovery.
President Barack Obama and Washington officialdom paused for a moment of silence last Monday, as they and the rest of America struggled to understand what could have prompted 22- year-old Jared Loughner to go on the killing spree.
There are indications that Loughner had purposely sought out Giffords. According to government prosecutors, before he took a taxi to the shopping center, he had scrawled on an envelope the words “my assassination” and “Giffords.”
While the gunman is reported to have a history of mental instability, some opinion makers are wondering if the rampage may have been triggered by the increasingly inflammatory rhetoric being employed by conservative talk radio hosts, as well as Sarah Palin, during her election campaign sorties and in subsequent media appearances, Palin does have a tendency to be over-dramatic, making up lack of substance with motherhood statements and hellfire-and-damnation rhetoric. But Palin’s language is benign compared to that used by conservative talk radio commentators who, almost literally, call for the scalp of those they consider liberals.
As a result of the Arizona shooting, some Democratic lawmakers are considering new legislation that would include members of Congress in current laws that restrict images and language that threaten the president of the United States. Rep. Robert Brady (D) of Pennsylvania is said to be preparing a bill that would outlaw the use of threatening language against lawmakers.
Is there a red flag here for Philippine public officials who have become targets of the increasingly vitriolic rhetoric of radio and TV commentators and newspaper columnists?
I don't think so. If we are to go by past experience, it is unlikely that the average Pinoy will be agitated enough by commentaries to be motivated to assassinate any public official, even those who have become virtual media whipping boys, like the members of the Supreme Court.
In fact, in our country, the reverse is true. The public officials are the ones who are known to liquidate media commentators and opinion makers, as well as political enemies.
The assassination of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto wouldn’t have happened in the Philippines. Pinoys do not seem to have the kind of temperament that would drive us to pick up a gun and hunt down and kill a public official, no matter how corrupt or incompetent.
We love to make loud noises against crooked public officials, but in the course of our railing and ranting, we let off steam and, subsequently, lose interest.
In the first place, it takes us a loooooong loooong time to get really outraged over even the most brazen official abuses. Small wonder, it took centuries before we could mount a revolution and sustain it enough to achieve a measure of success.
In the case of Marcos, it took a combination of Ninoy Aquino’s assassination, the breakaway of Ramos and Enrile, the rhetoric of Cardinal Sin and the support of civil society for the EDSA revolution to explode.
But, even in this historic display of People Power, which awed and impressed the entire world, we could not sustain our passion enough to see genuine reforms through and to punish those whom we perceived to have abused us.
Indeed, we seem incapable of the passion and the fanaticism that characterized the French Revolution. I don’t think anyone of us can imagine lining up official thieves and plunderers at the guillotine.
This is what makes us such a remarkable people. We are imbued with the talent for hospitality and friendliness, the virtue of charity and compassion, the inability to hold a grudge, the readiness to forgive and forget.
The politicians have a word for it. Uto-uto.
I can’t think of the English equivalent for that word. But it means being easily led around by the nose, sold a bill of goods, made happy and satisfied with consuelo de bobo, and fried in our own lard.
Even our commentators and opinion makers in media are like that. You can count on the fingers of one hand those can sustain their outrage against such obvious objects of disdain as Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The politicians and public officials know this only too well. They know that, no matter how grievous their abuses may be, they can always count on the Pinoys to forgive and eventually to forget.
Thus they have no compunction about plundering the country and committing all kinds of violations against the citizenry. They know that after all the sound and the fury, the people will cool down, lose interest, and even forget what it was they got so mad about. And, thus, the politicians know that they can plunder and inflict abuses all over again.
In America, I’m often asked to explain the psychology of the Pinoy.
How can we stage a revolution and drive leaders out of the country for having abused us and robbed us blind, and then welcome them back and elect them to high office again?
How can we eject a supposedly corrupt and incompetent president, like Erap Estrada, and then give him the second highest number of votes in the last presidential elections?
How can we accuse an incumbent president, like Arroyo, of every conceivable violation of the public trust and yet allow her to remain a power behind some of the most important offices in the land?
In the aftermath of the Arizona shooting rampage, my response is simple enough:
“Our bark is worse than our bite.”
No wonder, we are abused over and over and over again.
(gregmacabenta@hotmail.com)
Last fall, in her website, Palin featured 20 congressional districts targeted for Republican takeover in the November mid-term elections. To dramatize her point, she showed the Democratic members of Congress on cross hairs. Among them was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona.
Last Saturday, Giffords was shot in the head by a lone gunman who also killed six others and wounded 14 in the shooting rampage. This happened at a shopping center in Tucson, Arizona, where Giffords had set up a booth at which she met with her constituents. Giffords is still in critical condition but has shown signs of slow recovery.
President Barack Obama and Washington officialdom paused for a moment of silence last Monday, as they and the rest of America struggled to understand what could have prompted 22- year-old Jared Loughner to go on the killing spree.
There are indications that Loughner had purposely sought out Giffords. According to government prosecutors, before he took a taxi to the shopping center, he had scrawled on an envelope the words “my assassination” and “Giffords.”
While the gunman is reported to have a history of mental instability, some opinion makers are wondering if the rampage may have been triggered by the increasingly inflammatory rhetoric being employed by conservative talk radio hosts, as well as Sarah Palin, during her election campaign sorties and in subsequent media appearances, Palin does have a tendency to be over-dramatic, making up lack of substance with motherhood statements and hellfire-and-damnation rhetoric. But Palin’s language is benign compared to that used by conservative talk radio commentators who, almost literally, call for the scalp of those they consider liberals.
As a result of the Arizona shooting, some Democratic lawmakers are considering new legislation that would include members of Congress in current laws that restrict images and language that threaten the president of the United States. Rep. Robert Brady (D) of Pennsylvania is said to be preparing a bill that would outlaw the use of threatening language against lawmakers.
Is there a red flag here for Philippine public officials who have become targets of the increasingly vitriolic rhetoric of radio and TV commentators and newspaper columnists?
I don't think so. If we are to go by past experience, it is unlikely that the average Pinoy will be agitated enough by commentaries to be motivated to assassinate any public official, even those who have become virtual media whipping boys, like the members of the Supreme Court.
In fact, in our country, the reverse is true. The public officials are the ones who are known to liquidate media commentators and opinion makers, as well as political enemies.
The assassination of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto wouldn’t have happened in the Philippines. Pinoys do not seem to have the kind of temperament that would drive us to pick up a gun and hunt down and kill a public official, no matter how corrupt or incompetent.
We love to make loud noises against crooked public officials, but in the course of our railing and ranting, we let off steam and, subsequently, lose interest.
In the first place, it takes us a loooooong loooong time to get really outraged over even the most brazen official abuses. Small wonder, it took centuries before we could mount a revolution and sustain it enough to achieve a measure of success.
In the case of Marcos, it took a combination of Ninoy Aquino’s assassination, the breakaway of Ramos and Enrile, the rhetoric of Cardinal Sin and the support of civil society for the EDSA revolution to explode.
But, even in this historic display of People Power, which awed and impressed the entire world, we could not sustain our passion enough to see genuine reforms through and to punish those whom we perceived to have abused us.
Indeed, we seem incapable of the passion and the fanaticism that characterized the French Revolution. I don’t think anyone of us can imagine lining up official thieves and plunderers at the guillotine.
This is what makes us such a remarkable people. We are imbued with the talent for hospitality and friendliness, the virtue of charity and compassion, the inability to hold a grudge, the readiness to forgive and forget.
The politicians have a word for it. Uto-uto.
I can’t think of the English equivalent for that word. But it means being easily led around by the nose, sold a bill of goods, made happy and satisfied with consuelo de bobo, and fried in our own lard.
Even our commentators and opinion makers in media are like that. You can count on the fingers of one hand those can sustain their outrage against such obvious objects of disdain as Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The politicians and public officials know this only too well. They know that, no matter how grievous their abuses may be, they can always count on the Pinoys to forgive and eventually to forget.
Thus they have no compunction about plundering the country and committing all kinds of violations against the citizenry. They know that after all the sound and the fury, the people will cool down, lose interest, and even forget what it was they got so mad about. And, thus, the politicians know that they can plunder and inflict abuses all over again.
In America, I’m often asked to explain the psychology of the Pinoy.
How can we stage a revolution and drive leaders out of the country for having abused us and robbed us blind, and then welcome them back and elect them to high office again?
How can we eject a supposedly corrupt and incompetent president, like Erap Estrada, and then give him the second highest number of votes in the last presidential elections?
How can we accuse an incumbent president, like Arroyo, of every conceivable violation of the public trust and yet allow her to remain a power behind some of the most important offices in the land?
In the aftermath of the Arizona shooting rampage, my response is simple enough:
“Our bark is worse than our bite.”
No wonder, we are abused over and over and over again.
(gregmacabenta@hotmail.com)
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