We can’t — shouldn’t — blame Sarah Palin for what happened in Tucson … but it was/is shocking to revisit her political advertisement from last year — with Representative Giffords’ state of Arizona in the crosshairs. And I do know this — if the advertisement — and Palin’s rhetoric of “lock and load” had been done and said by someone like Marilyn Manson, there wouldn’t be a doubt in anyone’s mind about drawing a parallel.
image courtesy of The Huffington Post
This is all just a sad, sad mess.
Posted on January 10th, 2011Comments RSS Feed
John W. Perkins
January 11, 2011 at 1:19 pmAren’t you just perpetuating the sleazy pundits that are using this tragic opportunity to tout their pet causes and vitriol of politicians that do not agree with their views ??
MC
January 11, 2011 at 1:29 pmInteresting question — JW. I asked myself a similar question as I was making the post. Ultimately, I decided that it was important to the conversation for people to know what the press was talking about all day yesterday, last night, and this morning — so many pundits and talk show folks were referencing the image of the Sarah Palin ad. Palin had it removed from her site some time ago because so many people were outraged about it, so a lot of people who were trying to find what the media was talking about, couldn’t.
I’m not that concerned with “perpetuating the sleazy pundits” you talk about — mostly ’cause I’m not sure to whom you are referring. The question in my mind was more one of – does posting it on my site fuel anger, and more vitriol? Just giving any credence to Palin’s original ad at all was a question for me — that’s why I didn’t write about it when it first came out. But this recent situation in Tucson would make any thinking individual reflect back on that ad — and wonder if there was a connection between that kind of “lock and load” talk and advertising and violence. My point was that if Marilyn Manson had created an album cover like that and then someone ended up shooting one of the people listed in the ad, people everywhere would be drawing a correlation — in fact, many would lay immediate blame.
Thanks for reading and contributing to the dialogue.
Steve
January 11, 2011 at 3:11 pmIt’s ironic you bring up Marilyn Manson who was blamed for the Columbine killings as it was reported that his music influenced the killers which was not true.It is pretty sick that all his band members have last names of serial killers.
John you make valid points and MC it is indeed a sad mess.Just senseless!
MC
January 11, 2011 at 3:37 pmThanks for the additional info, Steve.