Gabrielle Giffords attack

[David Johnson]

Are there left wing extremists? Yes.

Do they sometimes make stupid accusations? Yes.

The thread is not about that. Nor do I make any suggestion that Palin said Giffords should be shot.

What the thread is about is that given the inflammatory language and imagery used by Sarah Palin and other right wing political commentators, what would have happened if it had been Muslims that had been using this language and imagery which had been followed by an assassination attempt on one of the people referenced by that language/imagery.

Based on how Muslims are dealt with at Guatanamo and in other US cases, I would expect at the very least the Muslims would have been picked up and interviewed to see if there were any links between the assassin and their group. Also the police would be anxious to see if the assassin was working entirely alone or were there colleagues who might pose a similar risk.

Obviously I am guessing but it seems to me a fair assumption. I doubt if they would have just left the Muslims to come out with a statement passing on their condolences.

That is what the thread is about.

Cheers
D

[Flat_Eric]

>>


I think it's safe to assume that this is one line of enquiry that's being pursued.

And as far as the statement you quote is concerned, all I can say is that politicians, political parties and political commentators are demonising and bad-mounting each other all the time. They regularly claim that each other's policies are dangerous, will cause civil unrest etc. etc.

Even ours do it sometimes. In fact just the other week, Labour were saying that the tution fees issue could lead to a return of the sort of rioting we saw 20 years ago over the Poll Tax. Perhaps you'd call that "incitement" as well, I don't know. ?

But I do know that there's a world of difference between that sort of talk and openly calling for someone to be killed, or actually advocating violence. And as far as I'm aware, no-one in the Tea Party has done that.

So I really don't understand your "if Muslims had said this" obsession. I really don't.

- Eric

[beutelwolf]

On Radio 5 they interviewed a few (rather partisan) American politicians/political commentators about the connection (or not) between Palin's gung-ho campaign language and the attack.

One guy, apparently somewhere on the Republican site, argued that there was no connection, after all that nutcase was reading mostly left-wing literature - such as Mein Kampf. At which point I (being German) was banging my head against the wall.

If Mein Kampf now counts as left-wing literature in the US then I'm seriously worried about the place...

[andy at handiwork]

I heard that remark as well, though not on 5Live. It struck me as very odd and I was disappointed the interviewer didn't pick up on it.

[Robches]

Well Hitler was a National Socialist wasn't he? Fascism/Nazism has nothing much to do with free market capitalism. To be honest, the whole left/right thing is rather simplistic in my opinion. Hitler was a murderous dictator who did not belive in freedom, but so was Stalin. Was one right and one left?

As to this killer, it is becoming quite clear that he was not influenced by Tea Party rhetoric in any way, it doesn't matter what they were saying. Yet the left and their media allies rushed to smear the Tea Party without knowing any facts, within minutes of the shootings. That's sick. That's inflamatory.

[beutelwolf]

Robches wrote:

> Well Hitler was a National Socialist wasn't he? Fascism/Nazism
> has nothing much to do with free market capitalism. To be
> honest, the whole left/right thing is rather simplistic in my
> opinion. Hitler was a murderous dictator who did not belive in
> freedom, but so was Stalin. Was one right and one left?

Keep digging, you are almost in Australia!

[Robches]

Tell me I'm wrong!

[Flat_Eric]

>>


I concur.

Old-style Soviet Communism and National Socialism have much in common: One-party dictatorship, "strongman" leader, total subservience of the individual to the state, mobilisation of "the masses" on behalf of the state, aggressive militarism, state control of production, persecution of certain groups (Jews, intellectuals, certain ethnic minorities and religious groups), labour camps and the imprisonment / murder of people perceived as a threat to the state, the banning of "subversive" literature etc. etc.

They're not so dissimilar when you look at it.

- Eric

[beutelwolf]

Robches wrote:

> Tell me I'm wrong!

Obviously, the left-right distinction is simplistic, as the political landscape is more than one-dimensional. Its historic origins go back to the French revolution and seating arrangements in the French assembly that reflected certain political views. The Reichstag kept the arrangement and the Nazis sat there on the very right. The modern American view of liberals as left and libertarians as right is not consistent with this historic interpretation which would put them both on the political left. By Reichstag's standards there would have been both in the political center, perhaps with the DDP the nearest equivalent to liberals and the DVP the nearest to libertarians. (American politics re-interprets the left/right distinction, because the political spectrum to the left of liberals and to the right of the libertarians is missing there.) Totalitarianism is right-wing, because it is the modern version of 18th century absolutism - and the supporters of it were the supporters of the absolute power of the king and sat on the right.

Stalinism is in those respects a real oddity, because in many ways it goes full circle from origins on the very left of the spectrum to a practice of the very right.

But the Nazis occupy the very right, no ambiguity there. Right to them is the wall.

[Sam Slater]

Sadly, for the more ignorant in society (esp. the ignorant who happen to lean to the right) the word Socialism in 'National Socialism' is enough. In American politics that's what's called a slam dunk.......we just know they scored at the wrong end.