Palin's Audacity of Libel: There Will Be Blood Edition

Blood Libel (via Boston Globe)

The power of speech is paramount. It is the vocalization of thought, sometimes trivial, sometimes deep or powerful. You can be Martin Luther King Jr, vocalizing your dream, or Sarah Palin vocalizing your inability to speak truthfully. You can also be Osama Bin Laden, inspiring masses of young, misguided men into murder. Osama didn't pull the trigger, didn't fly the plane on September 11th. But Osama and a host of like minded "men of influence" spoke the word, and the word was made flesh, and dwelt in the hearts of the impressionable, and we beheld their acts of destruction.

That's how it works. I was listening to Diane Rehm's show on NPR today, and author Daniel Rasmussen was discussing a rebellion of slaves in the South that was ultimately crushed, with the heads of the rebels planted on spiked poles. It was the largest uprising of slaves in the U.S., with some 500 people across several plantations uniting to fight for freedom. This American Uprising (the title of the book) began with thoughts, and then words, spread from person to person in secret. It ended with death all around.

Generally you don't get to death without ideas, whether reasoned or insane. It can variations on the two. Someone thinks a thought, develops an idea, it expands into an ideology, and a host of enthusiasts and fellow travelers latch on. You cannot choose who will take your ideas and put them into action, nor can one be sure that those ideas will be represented authentically. Jesus, crusades. Communism, Stalin. Capitalism, Enron. Good food, McNuggets. Classic attire, flip-flops. Again, see how that works?

There are derivative actions that stem from foundational thoughts and words. If you create an environment where the President is a racist, biased, foreign born, Chicago crook, and if an entire ideology of resistance is centered off of these distortions, then the resulting mental equations are no surprise. If the blood of patriots is not just hyperbole and the man at the top is changing my way of life, more than words are necessary.

They found a bomb on Monday near along a parade route in Spokane, Washington. Of course the parade was in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr, who spent the majority of his life struggling against those who used every name and trick in the book to knock him down and debase his image and ideals. He was a wedge in a society where a large majority were not buying what he was selling. He was changing the American way of life. He came unto his own, his fellow Americans, and his own received him not, ultimately shooting him down and reducing his voice to a whisper across time and conscience.

The same words that he spoke then still inspire us now and in retrospect he is generally recognized for his achievements, though there is a vocal contingent that is very grudging in acknowledging King's worth. Often his name is invoked by those who are diametrically opposed to the types of activities that Martin Luther King pursued....things like social justice. Today, some conservatives can mock community organizers while making sweet verbal love to the memory of the dead King.

Despite that, the words of King inspired people. We don't acknowledge him or any great American--F.D.R, Reagan, Jefferson--because they gave a nifty speech. Usually these words inspired others into action, and credit is apportioned to the author of the spoken words. Reagan never walked into an I.R.S or Treasury office and physically rewrote the tax law. He spoke an idea and others followed: a shepherd leading the flock.

Today we have the shady shepherds who believe they can say or do anything, with no causal links to the environment being created. It's a slippery position dancing on that pole, and is nonsense amplified, with conservatives who would argue that the imagery and words deriving from Hollywood (and from the "lame-stream media") have undue influence, while words of hate, dishonesty and theatrical blood invocation move nobody at all.

Palin, atop the list, invokes blood libel, so soon after affirming that President Obama wants to kill the elderly, leaving the thinking man's head spinning on a pole, and lamenting the hypocrisy.