False equivalence

The rightwing in the US is continuing its desperate attempt to shirk responsibility for pushing violent rhetoric in political debate. Yesterday, one of the folks I follow on Twitter, Marnus3, tweeted some succinct reminders of why the right is uniquely culpable. Here are my favourites:

• Was it both sides who wanted their constituents "armed and dangerous"?
• Was it both sides suggested that if you lose at the ballot box you can have "second amendment remedies"?
• Was it both sides who declared on national TV "Tiller, Tiller, the baby killer"?
• Was it both sides who drew a map of cross hairs over the districts of incumbent representatives?
• Was it both sides who told their followers to "reload"?

And here are a few “fun” items for sale on a “patriot” website:

The “spin” on the site is incredible. Of the “Liberal Hunting License” their sales blurb said, “Target them for defeat! Elect conservative majorities in Congress, and put a conservative in the White House by 2013!’ [emphasis added: “BY”? Not “in”?]. We’re supposed to ignore the bullet holes on the donkey (the animal is a symbol of the Democratic Party), and ignore the hunting terminology “No bag limit – no tagging required”! But, just in case, they added: “Disclaimer: For novelty purposes only.” That way they can feign shock and surprise that anyone took them literally. This item was still on sale yesterday, but has now been removed.

The middle image is more obscure, but I mentioned it in this post. Their sales blurb says that the Psalm says “May his days be few; and let another take his office”. That’s true, but they deliberately left out what follows: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” This violent Psalm is no less than a wish for the death of the president, or even a wish/call for assassination. This is used by many of America’s rightwing (some of whom probably don’t know the rest of the text, never having read much of the bible). This is still on sale.

The site’s sales blurb claims that the image on the right is merely a play on the Obama slogan “Hope and Change”. “Our new sticker states it correctly,” it says. “Rope and Chains. Taxes, loss of freedoms, and Big Government sum the changes up pretty clearly.” Although that’s delusional in its own right, it could be tempting to take them at their word, were it not for one inconvenient detail: The sticker deliberately suggests images of lynching of African Americans.

Without a doubt, the most infamous modern day lynching occurred in Texas in June 1998 when James Byrd Jr. was beaten by white supremacists, then chained by his ankles to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged along a road for three miles, during which time Byrd was alive and conscious—until he was killed when his body hit a culvert, decapitating him and cutting off his right arm. Pieces of Byrd’s remains were found in 75 places. Let me put this so plainly that even the folks behind that nutjob site can understand it: Don’t dare try to tell me that they didn’t mean to conjure up images of lynching President Obama, not when they’re also praying for his death/assassination and urging people to shoot liberals, too.

This is the reality of the far right in America, urged on by their leaders in the media, Republican Party politics and the tea party movement. Until they end their poisonous violent rhetoric, they have no grounds nor right to criticise the left for the altogether different—and far milder—negative rhetoric they used during the Bush/Cheney regime.

There is no equivalence between what the right does and says now and what the left did and said in the Bush/Cheney years. None. It’s a lie and a smear—and cowardly excuse making—to suggest otherwise.

Update: On AlterNet, Melissa McEwan details other ways in which there is no equivalence.