Yesterday was such a whirlwind of tragedy, and I am still gobsmacked by it all. I am also very sad that it took this horrific act to get people talking about political rhetoric, something that we've needed to deal with since the summer of '09. Of course, I am appreciating the fact that most of the news media are using a relatively slow approach to the gathering of news on this story, and that is saying something. Hopefully, and in due time, we will learn what motivated a young man to do the unspeakable, and justice will be served.
A friend of mine let me know that The Daily Dish was doing a number of posts (here, here and here) on the subject of vitriolic political rhetoric, and I agree pretty much with all that I've read.
I will tackle this subject myself soon, but definitely check out the links I've posted.
3 comments:
Palin Palin Palin.
Despite the fact that nothing ties this "leftist" (as described by a high school friend Tweeting contemporaneously with the news breaking that he shot the Congresswoman), currency-obsessed, Communist Manifesto-loving individual with Sarah Palin, that's all anyone's worried about.
Despite the fact that the DailyKos posted a blog the day before the attempted murder complaining that Giffords is "dead to me" because she voted against Pelosi as minority leader. Do you think Palin inspired that rant on DailyKos?
Despite the fact that DailyKos put "bulls eyes" and targets on Giffords in June 2008.
"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
"I want you to argue with them and get in their face."
“Are things in our country so bad that it might actually be time for revolution? The answer is obviously ‘yes.’ The only question is, ‘how to do it?’... To clear our dire problems may require even more drastic solutions."
"punish our enemies and reward our friends"
TC: The high school friend call is not sufficient. When I was in high school people knew my political leanings were to the right. By the time I was 22, they were different, so the "Leftist" thing doesn't work for me at this point, but I don't know if he was really of the right either.
I think for the comments that you've posted, I would dare say they would never match up in number to what we've heard coming from the right since the '08 elections. There was someone Andrew Sullivan quoted who noted that the difference here was that more of the vitriol coming from the right was coming from much closer to the mainstream of the GOP and the mainstream of conservatives. DailyKos isn't Palin, or Boehner of Trent Franks or any of the politicians, party leaders, etc. who've been invoking unfortunate analogies. Does this happen on the left, of course, but it is much more on the fringe. most mainstream dems and liberals (remember those really are two different groups for the most part) have confined their vitriol to things that you've pointed out that you don't like (even here on this blog), like racist or enemies (from Obama). again, we are talking mainstream versus more fringe.
And I've found posts and commentary on freerepublic and worldnetdaily to be highly offensive and troubling, and i see dailykos in that vein.
Palin is an easy one to call out here, but she is far from alone. this discussion needed to happen. i am just sorry that the reason we are talking about this is because of the tucson event.
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