I was on the phone with a friend from Europe this morning. We were discussing the headlines: 10 % unemployment, destruction of the safety net, health care, disturbing teabaggers and now the Fort Hood shootings. There was silence on the phone for a minute and she said, are you worried, because you know I am. This friend and I have worked together in many a politically unstable country, and we return to our respective homes, she France, I the US and we chat about the troubles of other places. But today was different. I felt unsafe for the first time. The rhetoric of the right is beyond lunatic amusement. It is seriously dangerous. The level of violence that it incites, is horrifying and the ignorance it requires frightening. All they need right now is a trigger. When you have casually repeated calls for violence against the president, the speaker of the house and liberals in general you know things passed the point of funny" haha" crazy, to scared as hell "haha" I'm worried about my safety crazy.
What is most troubling is that none of the Rethug leadership is willing to reign them in. They are, in fact, encouraging them.
Andrew Sullivan has a great post on his blog today: "The right and the tinderbox".
The angry folks at the protest -- which attracted several thousand conservatives -- held up signs with messages of hate: "Get the Red Out of the White House," "Waterboard Congress," "Ken-ya Trust Obama?" One called the president a "Traitor to the U.S. Constitution." Another sign showed pictures of dead bodies at the Dachau concentration camp and compared health care reform to the Holocaust. A different placard depicted Obama as Sambo. Yes, Sambo. Another read, "Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds" -- a reference to the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory holding that one evil Jewish family has manipulated events around the globe for decades.
He continues :
This kind of rhetoric - on the same day that the Fort Hood massacre took place - is gasoline on a fire of atavistic hate. Someone in the GOP leadership needs to call it out - before its logic propels us toward more violence and social division.
This kind of rhetoric is simply unacceptable for a major political party to institutionally embrace in a civil democracy:
I can't laugh at the teabaggers anymore. I don't know what we can do. But someone, somewhere has to talk these fools down from their mania before it's too late.