“Sarah Palin’s remarks Wednesday in which she accused critics who would tie her political tone to the Arizona shootings of committing a ‘blood libel’ against her have prompted an instant and pronounced backlash from some in America’s Jewish community,” according to the L.A. Times.
“The term dates to the Middle Ages and refers to a prejudice that Jewish people used Christian blood in religious rituals.”
“Instead of dialing down the rhetoric at this difficult moment, Sarah Palin chose to accuse others trying to sort out the meaning of this tragedy of somehow engaging in a ‘blood libel’ against her and others,” said David Harris, president of the National Democratic Jewish Council, in a statement. “This is of course a particularly heinous term for American Jews, given that the repeated fiction of blood libels are directly responsible for the murder of so many Jews across centuries — and given that blood libels are so directly intertwined with deeply ingrained anti-Semitism around the globe, even today.”
The rest of the article is here.
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She can’t get anything right, first the gun crosshairs now this. Frankly, I hope she runs for President so she can pick fellow reality show star Snookie as her running mate, after all Snookie “bonded” with John McCain on Twitter.
Seriously, that was an insensitive, ignorant thing to say.
Gifford is AZ’s first Jewish congresswoman and Palin chose to use the term “blood libel”. This is a BIG insult to the Jewish and to Gifford. Palin screwed up big time on this one!
PALIN ain’t writing this stuff. Her right-wing handlers wrote a script and sat her down to read off a TelePrompTer.
SHE is the face that read it and she is the one that will pay a price, rightfully so, for once.
You’re right Curtis. To think she’s actually writing this stuff, or anything that comes out of her mouth is absurd. She’s a dangerous , not too intelligent, narcissistic puppet. But her handlers and writers…unbelievable. She chose the low hanging fruit of PR.
But she is the “entity” that this crap passes through, and in the end is the one responsible.
Can anyone, anywhere, ever find a reference showing that Palin ever used the term before?
It would be telling.
As a multiculti agnostic out of Berkeley, I don’t pay much attention to a person’s religion unless they bring it up. Until this happened, and until I read it here, I had no idea Giffords was Jewish.
Unbelievable bad taste on the part of Palin or her handlers!
Bad kitty, back into your cage!
Well of course the other community that knows about the term ‘blood libel’ (other than of course Jews and historians or history buffs) is skinheads. The skinhead and white supremacist community knows all about the term.
I do kind of wonder if there is any record of her ever having used the term before. Lexis-Nexus search anyone?
Many of the far far right politicians and ideological whack jobs, with the help of their pr people and writers, unsubtly insert words and phrases that to a certain sector are codes for other things and beliefs. Palin has used these from the start. They usually appeal to religious fundamentalists from the fringe. Unfortunately, or fortunately there are enough people out there to display their use to the public. This is just a small example.
http://www.phys.psu.edu/people/display/index.html?person_id=202;mode=research;research_description_id=804
or:
“President Bush sends frequent coded messages to the faithful. In his address to the nation on the night of September 11, for example, he lifted a line directly from the Gospel of John when he said “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.” He often uses the sentence “when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law,” words taken directly from a pro-life manifesto entitled “A Statement of Pro-Life Principle and Concern.” He quotes from hymns, prayers, tracts and Biblical passages without attribution. These phrases reassure the elect. They are lost on the uninitiated.”
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JYH-AH3Kj5gJ:www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/ChristianRight_AmerFascism.html+coded+meaasges+and+words+christian+right&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
I just finished watching a very heartfelt speech by President Obama at the memorial in Tuscon. It will raise the bar for rhetoric going forward on both sides. But I think it will throw a real monkey wrench into the hard right, which I still argue has driven its agenda in recent years with angry, inflammatory images.
Yes, and as Obama said in that speech, “It’s important that we pause for a moment and make sure we are talking in a way that heals instead of a way that wounds.”
Here’s the full sentence:
“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized — at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do — it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”
Thanks Michael.
You know, it’s a little too long but I would put that quote in the same category of Kennedy’s, “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”
Thanks Greg, I totally agree. I think President Obama showed a new more mature sense of leadership today, one that could only come from something as wrenching to our country as this assassination attempt.
I have a son who was born 16 days after 9-11, so the murder of Christine Taylor Green is really hard for me.
She was born on the exact day of that horrific attack, and later featured in a book about 50 babies born that day. Next to her photo are wishes for her to have a happy child’s life, simple things like splashing in puddles.
After that terrible day, for her to have come so far, and to be who she came to be, the only girl on her Little League team who often said she wanted to be the first woman to play in the major leagues, recently elected to the student council with an already deep understanding of public service…I am at a loss for further words of my own.
Here is what President Obama said about her:
“I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it…If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today.”
‘Got it,
Thanks.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101005134537AAf1Rjm
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/john-dingell-runs-through-litany-of-violent-rhetoric-on-house-floor-video.php?ref=fpb
Jeff,
Obama was good.
Daniel Hernandez was a revelation!
He is a large man with an impressive speaking voice and manner.
We will most likely be seeing more of this young man in the future.
I’ve come up with a name for this system to keep nutters from getting guns.
“Peg All Locos Instantly Nationally”
It is possible to set up a system where professionals like teachers, doctors, social workers, LE, and others, can enter reports into the database use to clear gun purchases. The would enter brief descriptions of questionable behavior, and also rate the incident, from 1 to 9, vague unease/oh my God! The gun seller would only see the flags, and the ratings. If he say, saw 3 “1′s”, he might go ahead a sell the gun. If he saw 30 reports, rated all over the map, then he would know to call in a professional to go through and evaluate the actual reports. There would have to be an appeals process, but such a system would have stopped Loughner cold, and Christina Green would still be alive.
If a tree falls in the forest in Alaska, does everyone in the lower forty-eight hear it? Apparently so, and it ain’t Presidential timber.
Wormwood!
Add this to the list…
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana woman who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Congress last year was being held Saturday on charges she made threats against judges and other officials on her Facebook account.
Morgan County Prosecutor Steve Sonnega — who said he was among those targeted — said he decided to move quickly after discovering the threats in part due to last week’s shootings in Arizona that wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others.
“I think the Arizona situation drove more to the sense of urgency,” Sonnega told The Associated Press.
Cheryl Allen, 51, of Martinsville was being held on $100,000 bond Saturday in a jail in her hometown, about 28 miles south of Indianapolis. State police arrested her on eight felony counts of intimidation on Thursday, the same day authorities discovered the postings, which were apparently published on her page three days earlier.
Allen repeatedly maintained her innocence during a court hearing Friday. But after the charges were read, she said: “Someday, may someone get even with them,” according to The Reporter-Times. She could face four to 24 years in prison if convicted, state police said.
The alleged threats mentioned four Morgan County judges, and other public officials — including Sonnega — were mentioned by first name. Media reports said Allen had previously filed a discrimination lawsuit that was dismissed by a judge.
“One day I will have my revenge on your seeking so much revenge on me,” read one of the posts cited in media reports.
“Someday Boooooom while your setting in your offices,” read a second. “And you know I won’t even be the one pulling the trigger,” said another.
A message seeking comment was left with Allen’s attorney on Saturday, and her home phone number was disconnected.
Sonnega told the AP authorities had been monitoring Allen for months due to comments she had made about various public officials, but she hadn’t “crossed the line” until this week. He said he contacted state police and appointed a special prosecutor, Barry Brown, after discovering the alleged threats.
“In light of what happened in Arizona … we thought we had better act quickly,” Sonnega said.
Brown was traveling and could not be reached for comment Saturday. The Reporter-Times said Brown said in court that authorities intend to have Allen’s mental health evaluated.
Allen ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for Indiana’s 4th Congressional District seat in 2010, winning just 3 percent of the vote. The seat that was vacated by U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer was eventually won by new U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita.
Allen had criticized the courts’ handling of her discrimination case during her campaign last year and suggested the system needed a major overhaul, according to The Reporter-Times. In a Facebook post on Jan. 8, the newspaper said she wrote: “What do you need to have done to get all the current government out of office? That is why we should own guns to go into court to get my right to trial back.”