Hillary Clinton calls on nation to consider ‘hard truths’ about church massacre

[OKNancy]

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-18/hillary-clinton-calls-for-discussion-of-hard-truths-after-charleston

Hillary Clinton offered condolences Thursday for the losses suffered in a mass shooting at a South Carolina church and vowed action in the face of yet another "terrible tragedy."

"The shock and pain of this crime of hate strikes deep," Clinton said in Las Vegas, speaking to National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

"We have to face hard truths about race, violence, guns and divisions," she said. Alluding to the mass shootings in Newtown and Aurora, among others, she asked: "How many people do we need to see cut down before we act?"

Clinton said that she will work with the group's members to combat the factors that lead to such incidents. She did not, though, speak specifically about gun policy.

She told the people of Charleston: "You do not walk alone. You do not walk alone because millions of Americans ... are walking with you, in grief, in solidarity, in determination. We are with you and we will stand with you as we seek answers and take action."

------------------------------------------

Washington Post article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/06/18/hillary-clinton-calls-on-nation-to-consider-hard-truths-about-church-massacre/

LAS VEGAS -- Hillary Rodham Clinton summoned the nation to consider "hard truths" in the wake of Thursday's massacre at a church in Charleston, S.C., and pledged to "take action" in response to yet another mass shooting.

"In order to make sense of it, we have to be honest," said Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner. "We have to face hard truths about race, violence, guns and division."

In remarks here at the annual convention of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Clinton offered words of solace and solidarity to the people of Charleston, where she was campaigning on Thursday just hours before the shooting.

"Today we say to the families of Mother Emmanuel and to all the people of Charleston, you do not walk alone," Clinton said. "You do not walk alone because millions of Americans regardless of race or creed or ethnicity or religion are walking with you -- in grief, in solidarity, in determination, we are with you. And we will stand with you as we seek answers and take action."

snip

Clinton described feeling optimistic about Charleston after her campaign stop Thursday, only to learn about the "horrific massacre" once she landed in Las Vegas that night.

"The shock and pain of this crime of hate strikes deep," she said. "Nine people – women and men – cut down at prayer, murdered in a house of God. It just broke my heart."

[Hoyt]

1. "We have to face hard truths about race, violence, guns and divisions." AMEN.

[calimary]

36. THANK YOU, Hillary! Took the words straight outta my mouth.

Race, Violence, Guns, and Divisions.

[Iliyah]

2. K & R

[misterhighwasted]

3. "This crime of hate.." Hillary calls it what it is.

[misterhighwasted]

4. K & R

^H^R^C

EQUAL RIGHTS are HUMAN RIGHTS

MPOTUS 2016

[hrmjustin]

5. K&R!

[Thinkingabout]

6. It is time for sensible thinking. Hate breeds terrorism, guns is an easy weapon.

People was gunned down by a 21 year old, he was not old enough to control his desire to use the weapon. Furthermore he apparently has not been instructed properly on houses of worship, they are not shooting ranges.

[sheshe2]

7. "You do not walk alone."

[Tarheel_Dem]

8. K&R

[freshwest]

9. Have to say I like her approach better than Obama's. He focused on guns, mainly. She is talking

about the entire picture. This was clearly a racist act, repeated too many thousands of times from the greatest to the least of African Americans.

Social injustice such as racism causes chaos in individual lives and communities. I wonder if we anything like the outpouring of shame for the death of MLK, Jr. will occur.

But I have my doubts, since the media studiedly diverts the national mind off the subject of social injustice and the depth of racism this country must end.

[djean111]

10. Funnily enough, Bernie's statement was criticized because he did not mention gun control.

Go figure.

[roguevalley]

12. there were hard truths after Michael Brown but she waited more than two weeks to make a general

statement of kumbaya.

[MissDeeds]

14. Two weeks???

My god, how is this leadership???

[elehhhhna]

41. gotta check with the focus groups. takes time.

[hifiguy]

44. Lots of people at Goldman have to clear it, too.

Slows things down.

[elehhhhna]

45. and check the family charity donors

"charity begins at home", btw

[mcar]

15. HRC and Bernie both made entirely appropriate statements about

this terrorist act. Is it really necessary to deflect from her statement by bringing up Michael Brown?

Everything doesn't have to be criticized.

[Maedhros]

33. Agreed. We shouldn't use tragedies to score political points. [n/t]

[mcar]

43. Thank you Maedhros

[LanternWaste]

23. And how long after the Charleston incident did she wait?

And how long after the Charleston incident did she wait?

[Nye Bevan]

35. At that time she was a private individual, not running for any office.

Why would anyone expect an instant response?

[Hekate]

48. This post and its sub thread are, sadly, trying to score political points off this tragedy

Kind of tasteless, people.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

52. Just pointing out...

you are politicizing a massacre, wherein the victims have not yet been buried.

[Politicub]

11. K&R

[Rex]

13. I am glad she called it a hate crime, someone needs to counteract the Foxnews spin machine.

[calimary]

37. That's a smart thing, too. And a great one. Call it WHAT IT IS: a hate crime.

Scarcely anything happened after Sandy Hook, though. I wonder if this will be the straw that finally broke the camel's back and got some meaningful gun controls enacted into law nationwide. But then again, I wonder that same thing EVERY DAMN TIME...

[RiverNoord]

60. Even worse, it was an act of terrorism

and that is what it should be called. So-called "White Supremacist" terrorism, who wanted to provoke a 'race war.'

I keep wondering how many people must be murdered by a light-skinned person before the label 'terrorist' finally applies right away.

Also, don't expect any meaningful gun controls - the frickin' NRA was discussing how the pastor, a state senator, caused the deaths by voting against guns in churches the very day of the shooting... If a board member of the major gun lobby in the country can get away with something like that with no repercussions, that battle's long lost...

[calimary]

61. Yeah, I think it more than qualifies as domestic TERRORISM.

TERRORISM. Absolutely. Violence to spread and provoke fear, intimidation, and manipulation of a community, or a population. That's terrorism. And when it's home-grown like our lovely white supremacists in this country, it's domestic terrorism.

[grahamhgreen]

16. "Discussion"?

[SomeGuyInEagan]

17. I would have gone with the more forceful, "Dialogue"

Sadly, a large segment of the country simply won't engage ... some of it out of racism and hate, some out of a twisted sense of entitlement to "bear arms." But I suspect it is a profit motive for far more.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. Actually 'dialogue' is not a more forceful synonym for 'discussion' at all, 'dialouge' as a noun

means scripted conversation in a play or film, while discussion means to talk about something usually with the intention of exchanging ideas and making conclusions.
I think a word choice that denotes contrived rather than authentic conversation would have been a poor one.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

50. But my colleagues with MBAs "dialogue" all the time

Especially when "striving to reach consenus."

[LanternWaste]

24. No doubt, she should have brandished two six shooters...

No doubt, she should have brandished two six shooters to better assuage the sensibilities of the terminally biased.

[OKNancy]

29. of course if you go by the headline and not read the article

she never said disscussion

[mainstreetonce]

18. I wish she would focus more on the gun problem like Obama did

but I understand why a candidate has to choose words carefully.

Damn the NRA

[okasha]

42. She focused on the victims,

one of whom was a friend.

There is a constellation of issues to be addressed, one of which is guns and their insane proliferation.

[freshwest]

46. You're right. She has seen him that morning, alive and well. What a shock it had to be.

Guns proliferation is being pushed for just such killings, IMO.

[jalan48]

19. Discussion and commissions! Let's get to the bottom of it.

[craigmatic]

20. If you're not going to talk about gun control then black people need to arm themselves. This is

a bullshit series of statements otherwise.

[gcomeau]

27. Except of course...

...that black people arming themselves inevitably leads to more dead black people.



"He has a gun!!!!"

[craigmatic]

39. Seems to me that both cases leads to more dead black people at least my way there will be dead

racists too.

[gcomeau]

40. You seem to be misusing the word "more".

Both ways can't result in "more". One has to be more and one has to be less.

Your way ("everybody arm up!&quot is more.

[craigmatic]

47. You're missing my point.

Either way blacks are going to die and we might as well go down fighting. White liberal guilt isn't going to stop these sprees and these cops.

[gcomeau]

51. No, really not missing it. Even a little.

Just pointing out that your way *many more* black people die.

[Iliyah]

22. SC State Senator, Clementa Pinckney was at HRC's rally.

Here today, gone tomorrow

R.I.P. the 9......

[Baitball Blogger]

25. By all means, let's talk.

Better late than never.

[gcomeau]

26. I'll believe any politician is serious about this...

...when they explicitly call out modern applications of the 2nd amendment as the biggest contributing problem and go toe to toe with the NRA over it.

[Hekate]

49. Didn't the POTUS try that right after Sandy Hook? And the Congress, which MAKES THE LAWS....

... met his suggestions and pleas with resounding silence. As usual for this Congress.

[Jamaal510]

53. You are correct, unfortunately. eom

[OKNancy]

28. I updated the subject line to reflect the Washington Post headline

because too many detractors in this thread grabbed on to what the writer of the article ( or the headline writer) posted rather than her words. I mean really... didn't even read the article.

[SunSeeker]

30. K & R

[heaven05]

31. passing reference

to race by tying it to other 'incidents'. Not impressive at all. Typical speech of someone careful not to offend a huge base of voters that that could give a damn less about some PersonsOfColor killed in some church by a racist with specific intent on acting out his RACISM and hate of black people..

[OKNancy]

32. read

"In order to make sense of it, we have to be honest," said Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner. "We have to face hard truths about race, violence, guns and division."

"Today we say to the families of Mother Emmanuel and to all the people of Charleston, you do not walk alone," Clinton said. "You do not walk alone because millions of Americans regardless of race or creed or ethnicity or religion are walking with you -- in grief, in solidarity, in determination, we are with you. And we will stand with you as we seek answers and take action."

"The shock and pain of this crime of hate strikes deep," she said. "Nine people – women and men – cut down at prayer, murdered in a house of God. It just broke my heart."

-----------------------
Everyone knows she is talking about race.

[heaven05]

34. sure, no argument

Last edited Thu Jun 18, 2015, 07:23 PM - Edit history (1)

from me. I'm talking about RACISM, as a specific problem endemic to this sick country. Purely political crafting and framing as a passing reference related to gun problems. Purely political crafting and tiptoeing around the fact of virulent racism with an agenda by the white supremacists in this country. Newtown and Aurora were not racially motivated, shouldn't even be mentioned as relative to racism. This was. I want specific, as Bernie said, comments about RACISM in this country. Straight to the crux of the problem, not all this political meandering to offend as few as possible. Benign statements from her, as far as I an concerned. You believe what you must, your right and I respect that.

[rurallib]

38. Let us hope we have a coming together of Democratic leadership

and sane leadership of all who care to address these problems come up with real solutions. Let us hope that Obama, Biden, Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley, Webb, Pelosi, Reid and also some of the leaders in the liberal thought community can show a united front in addressing this problem.

We seem to be in something of a cold war within our country. This is an issue that should be on the front burner now.

[Aerows]

54. Senseless violence like this

needs to end. I don't care who you want to vote for, this is a tragedy and a blight that will bring us all down if we leave it unchecked.

[lark]

55. Thank you Hillary

On this issue we stand shoulder to shoulder.

[YOHABLO]

56. Actions always speak louder than words: Go after the (white) terrorists in the U.S. and the NRA.

[William769]

57. Kick and highly recommended!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

58. K and R. !!!!! n/t

[quadrature]

59. did Roof have a job? ...nt