Sportswriter Dave Zirin had this take on violent political rhetoric, reminding us of Sarah Palin’s March 2010 attempt at a satirical defense:

The point is that Palin revels in the idea that “reloading” against those she doesn’t deem to be “real Americans” is a completely legitimate part of national discourse.  The point is that behind her flawless facade and frontierswoman packaging, Palin draws strength from visions of violence.  The fact that she is a national political figure with an obsessive right wing cult following makes it all the more disturbing.

We should be honest and say that were Sarah Palin a Muslim, producing gun-sight propaganda aimed at Congressinal candidates, she’d be being interviewed by the Feds right now.   I personally don’t want the Feds interviewing anybody for their words, no matter where they fall on the political scene.  But that doesn’t mean we the people don’t have a collective accountability to stand up to Palin and all who feed the right wing hate machine.  If this weekend taught us nothing else, it’s not enough to just “change the channel” . . . This isn’t about stifling speech.  It’s about laying down a marker after this weekend, and saying that this is not a game. 

About the Author

TomT

TomT will be posting under his real name here (at least part of it), in spite of the fact that this site already seems to be crammed-full of Toms. He is a suburban husband and dad doing Union work within public education in the Chicago area. Once in a great while he also posts diaries under the name “Skitters” on Daily Kos, and—during football season—he does his best to chronicle the dark history of a fairly-vicious fantasy league.

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