I've been reading a lot around the 'net today. It's distressing. So many people (on Twitter, on NYT, on CNN, on Facebook) seem to be distancing themselves from the facts of the case: the shooter, Jared Loughter, was embedded in a culture characterized by right-wing demands for violence against their perceived "enemies," and he acted on it. Let's not kid ourselves, folks: this is EXACTLY what Palin and her people wanted to have happen when they issued that map with the crosshairs.
The dodges and ducking and ridiculous handwashing and handwaving and attempts at retraction and sanitization of webpages and Twitter feeds - this is all an admission of guilt. Cops would look at that and say "Yeah, they're trying to hide something." And they are. The right wing is trying to hide its culpability.
Well, I have something to say to them. I posted this yesterday night as a comment to an open thread, but I think this needs a wider audience, so it's behind the jump.
Right after 9/11 happened, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson pointed their finger at all the liberal elements that they felt had "made this happen." Of course, it was ridiculous, because their claim was that the "abortionists" and the pagans and the gays and the ACLU had created a culture that God needed to punish. Nowhere was there any recognition of what our culture has been doing to people around the world. Nowhere was there any recognition of the very human element and the very human influences on other humans which led to 9/11.
But in this case, the people who try to deny that the culture of violence and hate created in this country by the right wing has nothing to do with what happened in Arizona yesterday are simply doing their best to blindfold the world to the truth. Here's the truth:
I really believe that the rabid conservatives and the anti-choicers and the sexist male chauvinists and the fundamentalists and the homophobes; the Tea Party, the Family Research Council, Operation Rescue, and Focus on the Family; and especially Fox News, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh are all jointly and severally responsible for what happened in Tuscon today, and what happened in Tennessee two years ago, because all of them have tried to polarize, terrorize, and create paranoia and hatred and suspicion and fear in America. I point the finger in their faces and say, "You made this happen."
Because you did, you bastards. You made this happen. You terrorized people who were already frightened, you enraged people who were already angry, you worked them up into a frenzy, you pointed them at people you didn't like or didn't think were American enough, and you said "Go get 'em." And now you want to be let off the hook for the fruits of your labor? You want to be Pilate and say "I wash my hands of this, I have no part in this?"
Never in a million years. You are the ones who are responsible. You created this. You encouraged this. You may have even, on some level you won't let yourselves think about, intended this. And by your labors and your incitements and your rhetoric and your pot-stirring, you succeeded - after a fashion. You killed a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl, as well as four other people, and wounded many more yesterday - including a Democratic representative whom you specifically told your followers and listeners to put "in the crosshairs," and who, miraculously, survived it.
This is entirely on your heads, you bastards. You can't get away from it, and you can't deny it, and it isn't going to go away. But I hope you're proud of yourselves. And for those of you who believe in an afterlife, I hope yours involves fire, pain, and unending torture for all eternity - because you created this, and that's what you deserve.
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. The evidence is clear: the right wing has blood on its hands today. Let's remember that.