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How America's elite hijacked a massacre to take revenge on Sarah Palin

Taylor

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How America's elite hijacked a massacre to take revenge on Sarah Palin
By Tom Leonard
Last updated at 8:03 AM on 11th January 2011

On a sunny Saturday morning outside the local Safeway in Tucson,* Arizona, a man pulls out a powerful handgun, opens fire - and engulfs the U.S. in a political *firestorm.

Six people were killed on *Saturday, including a nine-year-old girl. But it was the fact that the target was a *Democratic congresswoman - who is fighting for her life - which has sparked such a furious row, not, as one might expect, over the nature of America’s gun laws, but over the vitriolic nature of its politics.

Defenders of gun rights like to say it’s not the gun that’s dangerous, but the user. Now the argument swirling across the U.S. is whether it’s not the user but violent political *rhetoric that may have *ultimately pulled the trigger.

In short, did the killer Jared Loughner - who has a history of mental instability and has made a series of bizarre postings on the internet - go out looking to kill because political voices told him to?

Could the inflammatory *language used by some Right-wing politicians - in *particular, Sarah Palin - have encouraged the killer to act as he did?

That’s the question at the heart of a febrile political blame game that started even before the most basic details had emerged about the background and possible motivation of the gunman. Already it has drawn in politicians, commentators, police and even the families of the victims.

Gabrielle Giffords was a Democrat and much - but not all - of the badly spelt, incoherent YouTube jumble that passed for the politics of her attacker was broadly ‘Right-wing’.

As a result, many liberal *commentators and establishment figures have leapt at the opportunity to blame conservative politicians.

The rush to make political capital out of a mass shooting shows just how nasty U.S. *politics has become. Under Barack Obama, America is more polarised than it has been for 40 years.

Conservatives have come to despise liberals, and vice versa, with an intensity the like of which few can recall. Right-wing anger with the high-spending Obama administration’s handling of the financial crisis, a weak economy and high unemployment has prompted thousands of ordinary Americans to break away from conventional two-party politics to support the Tea Party movement with its call for small government.

As the name (a reference to the 1773 Boston Tea Party) implies, Tea Party supporters see their movement as rooted in the rebellion against George III, and the language has *inevitably been full of *military metaphor.

In the fractious lead-up to last November’s congressional mid-term elections - which saw a major victory for the Right - there were scuffles outside town halls, occasional brandishing of firearms at *rallies and reports of rising membership of armed militias, ‘weekend warriors’ training for the day they believe will come when they will have to defend the U.S. Constitution.

Staring into camera with a terrifying smile, the chilling mugshot of Tucson shooting suspect Jared Loughner
'We have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living c**p out of me': Emails reveal student's fears of Jared Loughner months before shootings
'I hate violence': Palin hits back as critics blame Tea Party's 'vitriolic rhetoric' for Arizona shooting
Sarah Palin's teenage stalker 'threatening to go to Wasilla to overturn restraining order'
Execute him, says devastated father of nine-year-old girl killed by Tucson gunman
'All we can do is pray': Shot congresswoman's husband breaks his silence as Obama leads nation in mourning
'She's responding to simple commands': Giffords battles for survival after being shot in the head at point-blank range
Saviours of Tucson: White-haired heroine grabbed magazine from cannabis-smoking loner gunman linked to white supremacists

Political leaders with an ear for the populist mood *harnessed that militancy.

As the temperature level in American political debate shot into the red, Washington *security chiefs reported that threats against Congressmen and women had tripled in a year, many of them coming from furious opponents of the Obama health care reforms.

In Maryland, an effigy of *Democrat Representative Frank Kratovil was found hanging from a mock gallows.

Gabrielle Giffords’ Tucson office had been vandalised — the door shattered, possibly by shotgun pellets — after the healthcare vote.

Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s former chief of staff and a *figure compared to Labour’s Alastair Campbell, once said: ‘You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.’

And those on his side of the political divide have clearly seen the Tucson tragedy as an opportunity to score points and settle scores.

None more so than with Sarah Palin, a politician who is almost as divisive as the President. The former Republican vice-presidential contender has become a spiritual figurehead for many Tea Party supporters, but is loathed by many on the Left.

So it was that within minutes of the Tucson shooting, anti-Palin internet bloggers and Twitter users were highlighting a so-called ‘target map’ Mrs Palin had posted on her Facebook page last March.

Controversially, it used gunstyle crosshair targets to flag up Democrat politicians whom Palin felt could be vulnerable at the polls: Miss Giffords was one.

Despite the lack of any *evidence that the Tucson gunman had supported Mrs Palin, let alone seen the graphic, *critics — including senior *Democrats in Congress — have decreed she is somehow culpable.

Yet her critics choose to *forget the crosshairs could be all a part of her image as a hunter of big game. (It is worth noting, too, that Miss Giffords had been photographed *handling a semi-automatic weapon — no doubt aware it would appeal to a certain *voting constituency.)

Palin’s favourite maxim — inherited from her father — is ‘Don’t Retreat, Reload’, a *typically bullish phrase she’s been trotting out for months as an injunction on the faithful to stick to their political principles.

Since the Tucson shooting, Left-wing critics have leapt on the words as some kind of proof that she was encouraging *supporters to use real weapons.

Other far more loaded Republican comments are being quoted by those keen to make a connection between the *Tucson shooting and inflammatory political rhetoric.

Last year, Sharron Angle, a Tea Party favourite who stood unsuccessfully for senator in Nevada, warned that people might seek ‘Second Amendment remedies’ — referring to the right to bear arms — if they didn’t get what they wanted from Congress.

Then there was a campaign poster produced by Jesse Kelly, a former marine who stood against Miss Giffords last year.

It was headlined: ‘Get on *Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.’ It was pure Wild West hokum, but was it really incitement to violence, as is being suggested by the Left?

Liberals have made much of the words of the Tucson sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, who yesterday launched into a diatribe about the ‘vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government’.

Even the actress and activist Jane Fonda waded into the row with a succession of internet tweets blaming Mrs Palin, the Tea Party and Glenn Beck, a rabble-rousing broadcaster on Fox News, for the shooting.

The Tea Party leaders have been rushing to condemn the shooting and distance themselves from the gunman.

Whether they should really have to do so is another matter. The reality is that there is as yet no evidence that the political Right, and the Tea Party in *particular, has — as its opponents say — ‘blood on its hands’ over the Tucson murders.

While some liberals have slyly implied that Loughner was a Tea Party supporter, former classmates remember him as being ‘Left-wing’ and ‘liberal’.

Another said he was ‘on his own planet’, which seems nearer the mark. No existing political organisation - including the Tea Party - comes close to championing Lough-ner’s deranged world view.

Paranoid and nihilistic (he kept a miniature altar with a replica human skull in his backyard), he had clearly surfed the wilder shores of political views on the internet, preaching about the evils of religion, and even picking up and espousing a theory that the government was using grammar as a form of mind control.

History shows how dangerous it is to try to second-guess the motives of political assassins.

John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan because he was obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster, not because he hated Right-wingers.

Likewise, Lynette Fromme tried to shoot Gerald Ford because she revered the cult killer Charles Manson.

But those lessons from *history won’t stop some Democrats exploiting the shooting of a nine-year-old girl and five others at the weekend with precisely the sort of foam-flecked over-reaction for which they love to condemn their opponents on the Right.

Arizona shootings: How America's elite hijacked a massacre to take revenge on Sarah Palin | Mail Online
 
M

Major Miner II

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Palin cooked her own goose. This guy was just one of many Sous-Chefs
 

old gypsy

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Left, right, or inbetween, every politician in the nation (and every judge and citizen) should be required to reread the Constitution and pass a test on it's content. Then let the debates begin, Lincoln-Douglas syle, with none of this emotional flame-blaming and finger-pointing. But it's never gonna happen.

P.S. Mrs. Palin is no more guilty than her opposition. Give her a break, folks. At least she didn't say, "If they bring a knife we'll bring a gun."
 
R

RavenWinterHawk

Guest
Sarah Palin is limited.

Movie star mom with little use.

The incident of her and her climb to fame is unrelated to the killings. She spoke to speak. She spoke to toss her 2 cents into the media for her own gain.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

She got you all talking. It worked.
 

Aran

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I am not ginger. I am blond. There is no red of any variety in my hair.
 

Ahuaeyjnkxs

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Unless one of the times you said you would kill someone, and someone admiring you did it ?

Who knows... perhaps someone also suicided because you made them feel bad about life ?

I think Mag is hot as woman can be :thumbup1:
 

Taylor

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It was the hot media topic in the U.S. at the time. :p
 

Aran

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I'm mostly concerned that Ahoobajoob finds Mags attractive.
 

Taylor

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Ahuaeyjnkxs

stranger diamond
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I'm also concerned as to why you calls me ahotboobjob... I tought I heard you brag about your wife somewhere... :love:

Mag is definately a M.I.L*censored*LION times sexier than you...

*cough* *looks around*

Pablum General - 13 for u.

I know, I almost slipped...

:sad4:
 

Lorddog

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hmmm the left press has demonized EVERY single right sided presidental canditate. not one of them are even to be thought of as able to run in the 2012. not one. the left hates them ALL.

I like both sides of aurguments and then i can decide how i feel about it.
most people do not hear both sides :(

lorddog
 
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