A cat belonging to the family of Jake Burris, an Arkansas Democratic Campaign Manager, was found killed with the word “Liberal” painted on the carcass. Burris and his four children found the cat on their doorstep when they returned home last night. One side of the head had been smashed, an eyeball hanging out of its socket.
Jake Burris is the Campaign Manager for Democrat Ken Aden who is running against incumbent Republican Steve Womack in the 3rd Congressional District, a heavily conservative ward won by Womack with 72% of the vote.
Can the timing of this story be more ironic! It happened on the same day as this announcement, Gabrielle Giffords will resign from Congress to focus on her recovery.
Let us segue to July 27, 2008: Jim David Adkisson entered a Unitarian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, brandishing a shotgun. He killed two people and wounded seven others. While searching Adkisson's house, investigators found three books: The O'Reilly Factor, by Bill O'Reilly; Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, by Michael Savage; and Let Freedom Ring, by Sean Hannity. The motive behind the crime: Hatred of liberals and Democrats.
Let there be no mistake. There is an ugly pattern of rightwing violence that targets liberals and Democrats. It is born of an undercurrent of rightwing talk radio raised to the level of hate speech. The message is chillingly clear: If you are a liberal or a Democrat, you are demonized as unpatriotic, as an enemy of the state - and therefore undeserving of rights, respect, or protection under law. It is the same kind of inflammatory rhetoric used for centuries to scapegoat minority groups for the failings of society - leading to persecution, ethnic cleansing, murder, death camps, and slavery.
The proper historical reference is blood libel - not in the context used by Sarah Palin to justify herself after the Tucson massacre - but in the truest sense of the term. When partisan speech rises to the level of hate speech, it means the end of civil discourse and the beginning of violence. Eliminationist rhetoric is the signature trait of fascism.
Update (under the fold):
