Sarah Palin is facing a barrage of criticism for some of her tweets and Facebook activity and its use of violent metaphors in wake of the tragic shootings at the weekend in Arizona that left six dead and 14 injured by a anti-government activist.
Palin on her Facebook page has a map “Don’t Get Demoralized! Get Organized! Take Back the 20!” that features rifle-like cross hairs on states home to politicians who voted in-favour of Barrack Obama’s health plan including Arizona where US Congress woman Gabrielle Giffords was shot on Saturday in Tucson by Jared Lee Loughner.
It could just be written off as an unfortunate graphic in a country where guns play a big part in American life and its politics if it wasn’t for the other violent metaphors that may also feature in the language of right wing Republicans and their fellow travellers.
It is this language that some are suggesting invites violence if not directly inciting it. It is language through social media, through Facebook and Twitter, carries very widely. And it did not go unnoticed by Giffords herself. Last year she said on MSNBC:
“…we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, the way she has it depicted, we’re in the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize that there are consequences to that action…”.
Palin’s staff have been trying to distance her from the idea that the cross hairs had anything to do with guns. They’re cross hairs like you find on maps…
The Huffington Post reported Palin staffer Rebecca Mansour, who has been tweeting in defense of her boss since the tragedy, saying:
“We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights,” she said in an interview with talk radio host Tammy Bruce Saturday. “It was simply crosshairs like you’d see on maps.” Bruce suggested that they could, in fact, be seen as “surveyor’s symbols.”
She added that “it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent”.
As Huffpo reports, however, the idea that the symbols were related to guns seemed to come from Palin. In March Palin tweeted to her supporters a note about the aforementioned Facebook message, writing, “Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: ‘Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!’ Pls see my Facebook page.”
The”‘Don’t Retreat, RELOAD’ tweet and corresponding Facebook page are still online, with the crosshairs map of Democratic districts, despite some reports that Palin’s team had deleted them. Despite Mansour tweeting they had gone.
Furthermore, Rebecca Mansour, founder of Conservatives4Palin.com, notes that the Take Back the Twenty site, which some people have noted has been scrubbed of the crosshairs map and mention of Gifford, is “no longer relevant now that the election is over.”
That is a little odd as elsewhere the Palin team have been very busy and efficient at deleting comments at the Obama London blog points out:
“Sarah Palin has a reputation for being an agressive editor of comments on her Facebook page – a reputation that has always seemed likely accurate to me, given the tedious consistency with which all comments on the page are along the lines of “I love you SARAH!”
“But in the wake of the terrible events in Arizona, with many commentators pointing out the obvious fact that Gabrielle Giffords had been targetted by Palin in the November election on a map that used a chilling gun site graphic, I thought it would be worth watching her page for a little while to see if her team were indeed deleting negative comments routinely. But I had no idea how incredibly, almost comically, efficient her people would turn out to be in deleting comments that were even slightly critical of the former Governor. And then I came across… well, what I guess you’d have to politely call an appalling example of editorial misjudgement at best.
Whether Palin’s team now delete these tweets and Facebook images really no longer matters. They are out there permanently on blogs both for and against what she stands for. As many others have said before you can not take this stuff down any more.
It is clearly wrong to say that Palin and her fellow right wing Republicans in anyway incited the shooting, but the free and easy nature of social media clearly shows how the language and symbols they use in their campaigning can be misconstrued and taken out of context by the some who have access to guns. In states like Arizona that means those who have the right to carry concealed weapons.
On one hand this kind of language has been used in political campaigning, but if you do use such explicit language like “reload” and “bullseye,” and “cross hair” imagery then to many then the message is clear. You’re gunning for people even if it is metaphorically.
Alan A adds
Various people have pointed out that the pro-Democrat Daily Kos also put up an article in which Giffords was targeted with a non-graphic “bullseye”, for being the wrong sort of Democrat or something.
There is a jpg doing the rounds, which has added a graphical, illustrative, bullseye to the relevant Daily Kos posting. The original just uses the words “bulls eye”.
The thinking, I believe, is that a “bullseye” is a target for shooting. Not quite as explicit. However, as the man involved was a schizophrenic, I’m persuaded by this piece on CIF by Democratic activist, Alex Slater.
Alec adds: Christina Taylor Green, a nine year old victim of the shooting has been revealed to have been born on 11 September 2001. Six weeks after the 47th anniversary of a political assassination produced a nightmare on Elm Street for Americans, a failed assassination (albeit still murderous) has led to another on Ina and Oracle Roads.
