We Reap What We Sow

On January 12, 2011, presumptive 2012 Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who had been silent since the horrific Tucson shootings that had taken the lives of six people including a nine-year old girl and wounded 13 others including Arizona U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords issued a vigorous condemnation of her critics on Wednesday in a video accusing her detractors of “blood libel” in what she referred to as their rush to blame a hostile environment of political discourse across America for the Arizona massacre.

“Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own,” the ex-Vice Presidential nominee said in a seven and a half minute video posted to her Facebook page. “Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”

Ms. Palin’s use of a map with cross hairs hovering over a number of swing districts, including that of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, has become a symbol of the vitriolic political discourse that she and other conservative politicos, journalists and bloggers have denied exists in America today. Tim Pawlenty, a conservative rival for the 2012 Republican nomination and the former governor of Minnesota has said that he would not have produced such a map.

Sarah Palin’s use of the term “blood libel” is what has rocked the political world however. The term blood libel has been historically used to refer to the accusation that Jews throughout history have murdered Christian children and have then used their blood in religious rituals, as well as in preparing matzos (unleavened bread) for Passover and other meals. That false claim was circulated and widely believed for centuries and was responsible for the successful prosecution of anti-Semitism and the justification for violent pogroms against Jews. Ms. Palin’s use of the phrase in her video is one reason that it went viral so rapidly. Its use has itself attracted criticism, not the least because Congresswoman Giffords who remains in critical condition, is herself Jewish.

Reaction to Sarah Palin’s video has been swift. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat lawmaker in Florida, who is also a close friend of Ms. Giffords, immediately issued a statement repudiating her use of the phrase “blood libel.”

“Palin’s comments either show a complete ignorance of history, or blatant anti-Semitism,” said Jonathan Beeton, Ms. Wasserman-Schultz’s spokesperson. “Either way, it shows an appalling lack of sensitivity given Representative Gifford’s faith and the events of the past week.”

As if to prove just how wrong Sarah Palin and her fellow conservatives-in-denial are regarding the present state of political discourse in America today, the conservative blogger Michelle Malkin rushed to the defense of Ms. Palin, accusing liberals of being “Tucson massacre opportunists” for criticizing her. “The blamestream media is already up in arms—can we still say that?—over the use of the phrase ‘blood libel’, Ms. Malkin wrote. “The more moronic of Palin-bashers will simply gnash their teeth because she said “blood.” Idiocracy: The new normal.”

Pat Buchanan, who wrote in his syndicated column during the vetting process of Elena Kagan who had been nominated by President Obama to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, “If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than two percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity” also came to the defense of Sarah Palin’s use of the term blood libel calling it “excellent.”

The problem is probably that Sarah Palin does not understand Jewish sensitivity and history because she is unable to see Israel from her back yard.

The reality, at least for me, is that Congresswoman Gifford’s shooting and the death and wounding of so many who came to meet with her, are just the latest examples of ideologically motivated violence. For at least two years, we have been told how angry millions of Americans are. The Republicans have been at the forefront of the angry rhetoric spawned by this so-called anger that initially was manifested by public officials and politicians being verbally molested at town hall meetings and other public gatherings where politicians had come to meet and speak with their constituents. During the health care debates of 2009 and 2010, these public discourses took an especially heinous and violent turn as no politician—Republican or Democrat was truly safe. It seemed that the crazies for the most part had found their passport to the surface in the unexpected election of America’s first African-American to the presidency which gave them a real live focus to vent their frustration and yes, anger at the government and it has ultimately created an environment in which a politician feels perfectly justified in placing a crosshairs over an opponent’s congressional district as part of a discussion designed to defeat that person in an election.

One image I will never forget was the photo of an African-American man showing up at a President Obama public appearance in Arizona with an automatic weapon strapped to his back. In almost any other state in the country, that man would have been whisked off the street and taken directly to jail. Not in Arizona however, where the right to own, possess and carry any gun, un-concealed or concealed, is allowable. And this past Saturday, another Arizona gun owner was able to shoot his gun, in a public shopping center, again and again and again and again……

One of the dead sprawled on that Arizona parking lot was nine-year old Christina Taylor-Green who had just been elected to her school’s student council. Because of that electoral victory, a neighbor brought Christina to Congresswoman Gifford’s constituent outreach event so that she could see how adults put democracy into action.

What happened however, was that this baby, born on 9/11, became just one more victim of political violence in America, a violence that has been fueled by an incoherent and misplaced rage against government and politicians who are unable to bring prosperity and lost jobs back fast enough, and worse, a violence that is driven by racism and hatred for others who are different, whether they are the President of the United States or a Mexican family attempting to cross the border in order to have a better life—like so many millions of Europeans did in the early twentieth century. And all of this anger, this hatred, this deciding to ‘reload instead of retreat’ driven by right wing leaders and listened to raptly by their feeble minded followers lurking in the outer reaches of the internet, are being constantly spurred on by the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Jon Kyl and Rush Limbaugh. We now are witness to the deadly effect of all that hatred

I am vexed by everyone trying so hard to transfer the blame of the Arizona shootings away from the vitriolic state of American political discourse to a lone, mentally ill gunman with no real political agenda. For me, the harsh language on the right is a direct correlation to the Arizona tragedy. I realize that the root causes for Saturday’s horror are many and not very definitive: fear of what is to come or not come, anger motivated by the uncertainty and dread associated with joblessness, embarrassment at not being able to honor one’s financial commitments or the frustration at having one’s entire household budget crippled by the loss of $50 or $100 in expected income.

Maybe however, just maybe, it is the fact that too many of us have or have access to guns in this country. One in four Americans owns at least one gun. Today, the NRA and their various offshoots are spending millions to ensure that anyone who wants a gun shall have one. According to gun advocates, the right to gun ownership supersedes the right to employment, health care, a decent and viable education, even housing.

Don’t we all realize by now that too many guns are not used for sport or even legitimate protection but for dealing with feelings of inadequacy and fantasies driven by weaponry? It amazes me that someone who seemingly everyone thought was crazy could walk into a store and buy a weapon with the capacity to fire off 30 rounds at a time and then walk across the street into a Walmart of all places, to buy the ammunition that would facilitate his ability to kill six people and wound thirteen! I simply refuse to accept the fact that this is what Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and Lighthorse Harry Lee and the rest of the Continental Congress had in mind when they discussed a “well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.”

Last night, President Obama spoke to the lack of civility in our political discourse. He did it however, in non-political terms. This is no easy feat—talking about politics apolitically—but he managed to pull it off in a way that even won kudos from Republicans. "At a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do -- it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds," Obama said.

On the day before the President of the United States was to address the nation regarding the shootings in Tucson, Rush Limbaugh reacted to the instantly despised mugshot of Jared Lee Loughner, the suspected shooter in the Arizona shooting, by publicly stating that Loughner is smiling in the picture because he knows he is backed by the Democratic Party.

Speaking on his radio show, Limbaugh said that Loughner was getting the exact attention that he wanted:
“What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail. He knows what's going on, he knows that...the Democratic Party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America...this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder - but something lesser."

After all the bickering and accusations and finger pointing following the tragedy in Tucson this past Saturday, President Obama last night stepped up to the podium and became what news analyst Nate Silver has called the “adult in the room.” The last two weeks were meant to be the time when the Republicans returned to power as they took control of the House of Representatives. There was to be a vote to repeal healthcare and with that a simultaneous vicious dismantling of the new healthcare law because even the most ardent Tea Partier knows that the still-Democratic controlled Senate and White House will not allow such a thing. Instead, the Republicans are somewhat on the defensive, distancing themselves from the likes of Rush Limbaugh who just days ago was their hero. And then, there is the difference between the shrill Sarah Palin, who bogarded her way into the limelight with a feisty, attacking and petty video message that made the insensitive and crude claim that she had been the victim of a “blood libel.” The contrast between the 2008 VP Republican candidate and the 2008 elected President of the United States could not have been sharper. It is my hope and prayer that the good will generated by the President’s remarks last night will somehow usher in a period of political compromise and accomplishment heretofore not thought possible.