Blood Libel

Sarah Palin condemns those who would link her rhetoric to acts of violence such as in Arizona as "blood libel."

Although many American news outlets are saying the phrase, "blood libel," refers to the alleged use of the blood of Christian children by Jews to make Matzo during Passover, I have always heard it in the context used in this story, by the Guardian, a British newspaper.

In that usage, it meant holding the Jewish people accountable for the death of Jesus Christ. Of course most mainstream Christian denominations reject this blood libel, with some (many?) teaching that Jesus' martyrdom was a necessary part of God's plan.

Regardless, the use of the term, "blood libel," in the context of the attempted murder of a Jewish politician, seems to me, at best, to be a very poor choice of metaphor, and, at worst, another poorly disguised, coded message of support to extremists who subscribe to anti-Semetic beliefs.

Don't blame her

Don't blame Palin for the murderer.

She only deserves blame for bringing the wingnuts into the Republican Party mainstream.

She gives fascists hope that there will be a "Fourth Reich." Or to use the gentler words of that fascist website, and "American Renaissance."

That's because her husband, Todd Palin, has taken big dips in the same philosophical cesspool that Jared Loughner was guzzling from.

Back in the 1910s, and then in the 60s, radical leftists had to reject violence. Now it's time for the right wing to atone for the patriot movement, Tim McVeigh, Joe Stack, Eric Rudolph, Buford Furrow, and Shawna Forde.

They'd better get on the stick and find their "MLK" to transmit the Gandhian ideas into their world of violence, and start controlling their violent tendencies.