Violence is an elemental part of right-wing rhetoric and the Giffords shooting is just the beginning. Arizona, however, could be thought of as the “head of the pack” when it comes to right-wing hate speech and violence. So unrelenting is the gun culture in the state that, since the mass murder, local firearms merchants report that gun sales in Arizona have actually increased.
Arizona has always had some of the loosest gun restrictions in the country, but Jan Brewer, the tea party Governor of Arizona, has done her best to make as many guns, and types of guns, available to as many customers, er, I mean, people as possible. So that now, to the delight of the Westboro Baptist Church, Arizona has among the loosest gun laws in the country.
This gun culture takes a paranoid and even sociopathic new dimension when mixed with the bigotry and greed that dominate Arizona’s political system.
Remember, Arizona is the state that brought you SB 1070, the stop-and-search law for all non-whites. It was such a big hit with the Tea Party Racist type, that Arizonan Neo-Nazis came out in proud support of it. Arizona is the state that brought you immigration hysteria for the benefit of the multi-billion dollar prison industry. Arizona is the state that banned ethic studies. This is the state that even banned teachers who had “too much of an accent.”
Limbaugh Ad from Tucson Arizona
Maybe that’s why immigrants rights groups from the state weren’t at all surprised by the Giffords shooting. Unrepentant and inexorable in its raging stupidity, the paranoid right-wing blood-lust belched forward on the national scene when less than 48 hours after the Giffords shooting, another RightWing fatwa was issued, this time the death sentence being haded out by “humor” writer Andrea Rouda against centrist newscaster Keith Olbermann.
Giffords herself, who on the eve of her shooting was actively reaching out to the GOP to tone down its rhetoric, had been on a hit list of Democrats that Sarah Palin issued. After the shooting, Sarah Palin only doubled down on the violent rhetoric when she accused anyone who laid any responsibility on her shoulders of “blood libel.”
Other Republicans, instead of rolling back their own violent vitriol, have stressed the Mental Health Service Loughner should have received, while hypocritically cutting the funding for those very services. Yet others, like Tucson’s own Tea Party founder, blamed Giffords for getting shot in the first place.
Eric Erickson, a notorious right-wing shill CNN keeps around, used the occasion to lobby for the insanities of fundamentalist Christianity. John Boehner, tanned tea-bagger and Speaker of the House who simply refuses any gun control legislation, also showed typical right-wing compassion when he skipped the memorial for the victims of the Arizona shooting so he could attend an RNC fundraiser (where at least he might find some booze).
Things are not so cheerful on the local level for Arizonan Republicans. Numerous party figures have resigned — out of fear of violence from armed tea-party members. GOP leaders on the national level, however, continue to take no issue with tea party rhetoric, even using the Loughner-Giffords shooting as an excuse to ask for even more money.
One would almost have to wonder… why aren’t national GOP leaders as concerned as lefty leaders over the rise in right-wing violence?
Do they somehow have less to lose?
One Love, One World, One Struggle,
–Reverend Manny (from the South Brooklyn Belly of the American Beast)
Original article: Arizona: Representative Micro-Vortex of Right-Wing Bigotry, Greed and Guns
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