GOP Leaders Match Up Message to Violent Talk

[depakid]

Words matter--and they matter even more when they are violent words. Apparently, GOP leadership agrees.

Despite the unwillingness of mainstream media to connect the dots, the base and leadership of the GOP are matching their rhetoric to the disturbing rise of violent talk at Tea Party rallies and amongst conservative anti-government groups. The conclusion: rather than recoil at violent language, GOP leadership seems to see it as a chance to turn out votes.

Most notably, Chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele, issued a recent call to Republicans to put Nancy Pelosi on the "firing line" because of the health insurance reform bill.

By using the phrase http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/88783-steele-put-pelosi-on-the-firing-line">"firing line," Steele encourages Republican activists to think of the next election as an execution of the opposition or a violent killing. The language Steele uses is not neutral. "Defeat" is defined as "kill." "Voting" is linked to "shooting." Winning the election is couched in an image of bloodletting.

In a similar violent vein, Sarah Palin via Twitter told her Republican followers to "reload" and "aim for" Democrats, directing GOP activists to her SarahPac website where they found a map of the country festooned with rifle scope cross-hairs over Congressional districts held by Democrats.

Palin's rifle scope map is the kind of image one might expect to see in an ad for a violent, first-person shooter video game. Again, neither the language nor the imagery Palin uses are neutral. For Palin, the concepts of political "organizing" and "volunteering" are recast as the functions of a rifle. "Campaigning" is re-imagined as a counter assault on a war battlefield. Even more disturbing, Palin re-imagines the traditional U.S. map as a military kill list. Engaging in election politics is framed as violent assault.



When seen in the context of this violent rhetoric by the highest-profile figures in the Republican Party, recent http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/20/code-red-gun/">calls for gun violence seen at Tea Party rallies on Capital Hill take on new meaning.



f the GOP leadership is truly appalled by calls for violence in response to legislation passed in Congress, their language would reflect that abhorrence for violence. Instead, GOP leadership seems to be shaping their messages to match the violent turn in the rhetoric from their base.

Even more disturbing, however, the violent framing from GOP leadership has suddenly sprung up in a context where anti-government conservative groups are inciting their members to engage in physical acts of violence against Democrats, resulting in bricks being thrown through windows of Democratic Party offices and vandalism against the house of a Democratic Congressman's family member.

...What should be done?

First and foremost: The mainstream media has an obligation to connect the sudden use of violent rhetoric and imagery by GOP leadership to the various incidents of violent language and actions by political activists. Telling viewers that right-wing violence is "isolated" or "fringe" is inaccurate at best, misleading and dishonest at worst.

More: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/24-11

[msongs]

1. exercising their constitutional right to own and use guns are they not? nt

[Doctor_J]

2. Still in deep denial

First and foremost: The mainstream media has an obligation to connect the sudden use of violent rhetoric and imagery by GOP leadership to the various incidents of violent language and actions by political activists. Telling viewers that right-wing violence is "isolated" or "fringe" is inaccurate at best, misleading and dishonest at worst.

When are we going to catch on to the fact that Big Media will not bash a fascist cabal that they are part of. They work for the fucking Republicans. What is so fucking hard to figure out about that???? If and when we finally decide to fight back, the media should be the first targets.

[depakid]

4. The Democrats control the FCC, DOJ and congress

If they wanted to de consolidate, divest and re-regulate the corporate media, they surely could. Perhaps as this continues, there will be more impetus on them to do so.

Single worst problem Americans face- and the single biggest reason for the nation's decline over the past 20 years. It underlies all other issues.

[mariawr]

3. Republican psych-ops in the messaging. Fvil. nt

[Bitwit1234]

5. Remember in Maryland about 10 years ago.

A father and his hired Hit Man , darn I forgot both names, hired this person to kill his son who was a paraplegic. The son had received several million dollars settlement in a lawsuit because he was injured at birth. He wanted the child and his wife both done away with so he could inherit the money.

Well the guys got a book that told how to be a Hit Man. After they were caught, when they killed the entirely incapacitated son with could not move and used a breathing tube, his mother and a nurse; they took the criminals to court because they had used the book and the contents to plan the crime. The courts then sued the writer of the book for setting up the scenario of being a Hit man AND WON.

So if they can prove these written words led to violence how come they can't prove all this spoken and written words are not leading to violence.

[whathehell]

6. Good Example....The left needs to know how to use that...before people (more people) get Killed.

[66 dmhlt]

7. Well, they didn't exactly win - the case was settled before trial ...

James Edward Perry was the hit man, and it was the families of those murdered who sued - not the courts. And they didn't exactly win a court case because the Publishers elected to settle.

Sources:
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/rice.html

http://openjurist.org/128/f3d/233/rice-v-paladin-enterprises-incorporated-c-abc-ew