I’m curious what you make of the above graphic? I really haven’t made up my mind about it at this point except to think it pretty much fits in with the rest of Palin. That is, it’s her style.
I’m curious what you make of the above graphic? I really haven’t made up my mind about it at this point except to think it pretty much fits in with the rest of Palin. That is, it’s her style.
Hell she wasn’t the only one. Check out Rep. Gabrielle Gifford’s Republican opponent and Tea Party candidate Jesse Kelly.
http://longshotsblues.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/bullseye-right-sarah-palin-jesse-kelly-one-down-in-arizona-massacre-19-to-go/
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Hi Longshot! Welcome to the blog!
I’ve had a chance to briefly visit your wonderful blog, but not yet a chance to read the article you’ve linked to in full. It does strike me as very original, though. Thanks for the link!
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It’s the FOX News style; their shows are full of violent rhetoric. But before blaming them, look at our entire culture; 24 was a top-rated show, and even US Senators referred to it as a model for fighting terrorism. They wouldn’t produce such corruption if it didn’t get ratings. Though at some point it becomes a chicken/egg question.
Dana Hunter exposed this violent style in What did you think would happen?.
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Dana makes a pretty strong case we are getting the kind of America the Right has called for, George. One ruled by bullets.
Thanks for the link.
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It falls right in line with the rhetoric of the Right, including nutso Sharron Angle (of Nevada) and her “Second Amendment Solution.”
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I think the voters of Nevada showed considerable maturity in rejecting Angle even though it meant voting for someone as unpopular there as Reid is.
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This goes along with the shootings that happened in Arizona yesterday.
All the violent rhetoric…it’s not surprising that someone who is already unstable would be pushed over the edge by it.
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That’s what I figure at this point, Astasia. The guy was probably unstable to begin with — and this atmosphere of violence gave him direction.
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That graphic with the gun crosshair sights and other violent rabble-rousing was cleaned off a lot of sites really fast, I’ve heard. Sarah is just pandering to her fan base. Sad but true.
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I too get the impression that pandering is what Sarah often does best.
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They’re now claiming it wasn’t crosshairs, but “surveyor’s symbols”.
OK, show the map to 100 people and ask them; “what is that symbol?”
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That’s just sick.
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I know of no surveyor’s symbols that look like that. The closest symbol is a circle with an X through it, means “remove,” and does not have a vertical and horizontal line, but two diagonal lines intersecting in an X. All other symbols do not have the lines extend beyond the perimeter of the circle. This is a common symbol on targets, however. It appears on the best spot of a target to hit, generally on the “kill points” where a hit results in an instant or near-instant kill.
If they wanted it to look like the crosshairs seen through a theodolite, the crosshairs would again not extend beyond the walls of the circle. These are not crosshairs through a scope or theodolite (a surveying instrument) but clear depictions of where to hit a target.
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As a politician with a lot of followers and people that hang onto every word Palin needs to realize that what she says (unfortunately) matters to people. With that power comes responsibility to act in a civil matter which doesn’t include violent rhetoric.
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I agree — although asking a politician to be responsible seems these days like asking an arsonist to show restraint around an warehouse.
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It’s definitely her “style”. I’m not sure I necessarily buy the connection between the shooter (who seems to have been very mentally unstable – check out his YouTube channel for a glimpse into a very incoherent and troubled mind) and the Tea Party, but I still think the above graphic is in extremely poor taste.
Conditions of life in the United States are extremely harsh, despite all the talk of “recovery”. According to a recent survey, nearly 1 in 3 citizens finds it difficult to afford food and 1 in 6 live in poverty. Nobody talks about these issues. So long as such conditions remain (and I don’t see them going away any time soon), I think we can expect to see more violent acts like this. People are angry and desperate, and combined with mental illness that can be lethal. The easy access we have to firearms in this country certainly doesn’t help.
And regardless of whether this particular incident was connected to the Tea Party, I think it is a fair assessment to say that members of that movement are often extremists and at least some of the membership is prone to violence. People seem to have already forgotten this incident from 2010, and this one. The Tea Party increasingly is looking like the Brownshirts.
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I love the way you document your points with links to sources. You should know, however, that the spam trap will put a hold on any post with three or more links in it. No biggie. But it means that your post won’t appear until I manually free it from the trap.
Sadly, I agree with you that the economic condition is full of danger.
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From what I’ve read in the last couple of days the shooter was pretty far on the left side of the political spectrum. So while I agree with the criticisms of the rhetoric of right wingers, I think there’s a pretty good chance the shooter never saw the crosshair graphic. I honestly think that the very real issues of violent right wing rhetoric and what motivated this particular shooter are separate things.
That said, I agree that public figures need to start taking responsibility for the type or words they use and the effect those might have on the barely sane.
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I agree. The issue of extreme, violent rhetoric is separate from the issue of what motivated this particular shooter. I like how you cut through the BS surrounding this issue and get to the heart of it.
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The alleged shooter was registered as a Republican. Opposed to immigrants, the right to choose, possibly associated with white supremacy groups.
We must also remember that American media is dominated by the rhetoric of the right wing. There is, essentially, no news coverage in this country.
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Yeah, someday we might actually get a decent mainstream media in this country — but I’m not holding my breath.
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Ayn Rand is pretty far from being left on the political spectrum.
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It seems pretty silly to me to try and deduce anything about the Loughner from his reading list, which includes The Communist Manifesto (clearly left), We the Living (right-libertarian), and Mein Kampf (fascist/authoritarian). He appears to be suffering from some kind of mental illness, possibly schizophrenia, and as such attempts to tie him to one political ideology or the other strike me as little more than partisan attempts to spin yet another news story in favor of one’s political “tribe”.
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Agreed. We can tell nothing by his reading habits.
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I’d hate to think what anyone would deduce about me from my reading list. But I can deduce lots of stuff from the fact that he went on a shooting rampage. And his act was apparently quite premeditated.
Haters spew hate, and wait for the crazy to pick it up and do something with it. Then they say; “Oh, my! I never intended anything like that!”
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That is so true, George. There is no excuse for the climate of violence we’ve fallen into in this country. And it is sickening that folks like Beck and Limbaugh seem to be making excuses for it.
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It does not make me thinking about shooting this people but then I am not mentally unstable either.
On this I agree with Dreihaus , it does not matter what I think or any other mentally stable person thinks…it matters what a mentally unstable person may think about it.
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Excellent point, Ana!
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No reasonable person would say she caused the shooting, but it is obvious that she was promoting violence towards people she had different ideologies from. They are different offenses.
This doesn’t mean we can take away her right to free speech, but it does mean we have a responsibility to use our free speech to challenge hate, bigotry, and ignorance wherever it exists.
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I wish more people thought the way you think.
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I strongly urge that you go to Senator Al Franken’s website to see his video concerning corporate control of the media, most especially the looming fear that corporate giant Comcast will soon take over the internet and control our access to information and sites, sites like this one:
http://www.alfranken.com/index.php/splash/fccopenletter
Corporate control of the media is a major factor in the current hatefest flying over our public airwaves, a factor which may have played a major role in the recent events of Tuscon.
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I am not familiar with Sarah and refuse to be concerned. The Xs on the map simply marked the targeted spots and leaving the Xs off would have accomplished the same thing. Thist would still have been interpreted by the media as a scope circle after the murders.
Any person as familiar as most gun owners are with rifle scopes do not see a rifle scope sight picture. The cross-markings extend beyond the circles and the circles are colored. Only a media-type pundit who is not familiar with a scope could have invented the connection with a gun.
The powerless masses are obviously being ignored too much to contain misfits like the shooter. Taxes for social support to support further pacification of the unhappy are the only solution besides a communist police state.
This is not how I would have predicted Western Democracy to have ended. It will only get worse.
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@curtisneeley: If you look at these printable targets from the Remington gun company, you will see that several of the designs resemble the symbols on Sarah’s map. In addition, guns are a big part of her persona. She is often photographed with firearms, and she made a big deal of hunting with a rifle on her “reality” show Sarah Palin’s Alaska. So: not an invention of the media or any pundit.
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