Lynchmob mentality and Loughner

[kristopher]

For me, the imagery that most clearly shows the role of the conservative leaders in the slaying of Rep. Giffords is that of a movie saloon where a lynch mob is being talked up by a couple of "bad guys".

You know, it's the the sort of old western where the bad guys are intent on causing trouble for nefarious reasons of their own such as taking over someone's ranch, grabbing a mining claim or trying to lock up the water rights in the valley. To that end they find it convenient and helpful to their cause to stir hatred and animosity towards the authorities holding some poor schlep in jail, so they talk trash in the saloon and on the streets.

All too often at the standoff a shot will ring out and someone will die, providing a moment of sober clarity where real authority can be re-established by the good guys.

It is clear in these movie scripts that we view the responsible parties as those who talked up the trouble in order to benefit personally from the discord they were sowing,

That function of sowing discord is what we saw occur during the 2008 campaign. It was led by Sarah Palin and the the conservative talk radio syndicate.

Sarah laid the framework for solving the "problem" with violence.
The big name conservative talk shows took it a step further and encouraged the on-air callers to express their agreement that the "problem" was real and that a violent solution was acceptable. That filtered down to the local call in hosts and their shows where I've heard countless times direct threats of violence that were greeted by the radio hosts with a response designed to egg on that vein of thinking.

We know who is responsible for that rampage in Tuscon, the lynch mob led by the leadership of the GOP and their corporate funded talk-radio rabble-rousers.

So if it comes up in conversation just say, "Remember the scenes in old westerns where the bad guys try to whip up a lynch mob - that is what the GOP did."