Sunday, January 09, 2011

Palin and the Rhetoric of Violence

Andrew Sullivan is right on the money in this post on the incessantly violent and ugly imagery that floods out of America's most vicious, lying demagogue, Sarah Palin:

The point here is not that there is any connection between [her] random post[s] and political violence. The point is the worldview Palin holds. It is zero-sum. It expresses itself in clear and stark violent imagery. It is constantly about attack, conflict, combat, "enemy territory", "Big Guns", battle. This rhetorical background is so deeply part of the narrative we barely notice it any more. But it is not truly the language of politics; it's the language of war.

But that's the nature of Palin, and the dangerous, psychotic Right Wing that she epitomizes. Their whole worldview is saturated with violence and bloodshed, with hatred and revenge fantasies, with brutality and CONSTANT threats. Palin and others like her are the true danger to this country's future, and that cannot be said often enough.

And on another note, I offer my condolences to the victims of yesterday's horrible shooting in Arizona. Angry words and paranoid political ranting have their consequences.

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