In my previous posting, I noted that Republicans and Tea Partiers were reacting to the Tucson shooting by accusing anyone who questions the resurgent right’s virulent rhetoric of (to use the British term) “playing politics”. I shouldn’t want to understate the case. Here’s Tea Party spokesperson Mark Meckler in a telephone interview with The Daily Beast website: “To see the left exploit this for political advantage – some people have no conscience. It’s genuinely revolting ... I think it sinks to the level of evil. If these scumbags want to play it politically, let it be on their conscience ... Honestly, I guess I had more faith in humanity than to believe they’d politicise a tragedy of this magnitude. They’ve been trying for two years to use any smear they can to damage the movement taking place on the right”.
Well, it’s no smear to record truthfully that a common, powerful and persistent element of Tea Party protests has been a naked aggression in the sentiments both spoken by representatives of the movement and seen expressed on placards and posters. Republicans in general and Tea Party people in particular have indeed politicised and polarised the public discourse. To pretend either that such people do not have to take responsibility for their stances or that the Tucson shooting had no political resonance is as mendacious as it is witless.
Tea Party placards ... of the threatening kind ...Rightwingers, vociferously led by Sarah Palin, have been using the language and imagery of gunning and killing off and destroying and taking out so regularly that they forget they are doing it. And it infects the whole body politic. In the same issue of The Sunday Times in London that initially reported the attack on Gabrielle Giffords, a story about the new Republicans on Capitol Hill was headlined “Sheriff of DC has Obama in his sights”. I think newspaper subs – as well as political activists – should be more thoughtful when resorting to such imagery.
In shrugging off the notion that their rhetoric played any part in the shooting, reactionaries are advancing the “lone wacko” theory that tidies the problem away from anybody but the killer being tainted by blame. But that raises another awkward question for the right – and not only the right – in the States. If a guy is a wacko, how come he is permitted to carry a lethal weapon? The answer of course is that gun control is deemed political anathema right across the political spectrum in the US, where “the right to bear arms” is deeply embedded in every American’s image of himself.
... of the racist kind ...Twenty years ago, there was a huge sign on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles recording the rate of fatalities by shooting in the US as against the rate in Britain, Israel and other countries. The sign probably had a good shock value but clearly not a lasting one. I wonder if it still stands. On the same trip, walking through the residential canyons, I was appalled at the prevalence of neat little signs on the front lawns of most homes. The signs all read “Armed Response”.
The ubiquity of guns and the febrile nature of political discourse presently dominating America is a dangerous admixture. The important point for all sides to remember is that everyone is at risk, not only the brave liberals and progressives prepared to speak out against the rhetoric of hate. There will be individuals right now who want vengeance for the maiming of Gabrielle Giffords and others and the slaying of six innocent bystanders. They will be looking for someone to punish and Sarah Palin must know that she is now quite as much a target as the President himself. As her side has made crystal clear, it only takes one lone wacko.
... and of the illiterate kind (read your own sign, lady)
1 comment:
The thought that these people have the right to vote scares the hell out of me. Its a miracle none have tried to take a pot shot at Obama. They're idiotic enough.
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