Bruce Wilson, of Talk2Action, [aka "Troutfishing"] has a diary at DKos, "Clinton & Campaign Float Assassinate-Obama-Kennedy X5 ?" that's a good deal more than just expressing outrage. It presents a timeline of assasination remarks related to Barack Obama-a timeline including FIVE separate incidents involving Hillary Clinton's campaign. The point of the timeline is not so much to point the finger at Clinton as the instigator as it is to call attenion, to clearly illuminate what is going on, and her failure to act responsibly.
Some may think it is even more sinister than that. But all can agree that this should have no place in our politics. And yet it does. In fact, the assasination talk attached to Obama's candidacy are just one manifestation of a much broader sickness afflicting our political culture, a sickness known as eliminationism, which pioneering blogger David Neiwert described thus in his 10-part series "Eliminationism in America":
What, really, is eliminationism?
It's a fairly self-explanatory term: it describes a kind of politics and culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas for the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through complete suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination.
More on this below. But first, to Bruce's timeline....
The power of words, the power of the media, and the power of graphic imagery cannot be underestimated in this political year, or any year. The fact that the vulnerable homicidal-suicidal mind of an assassin can and has been influenced by behavior contagion and the copycat effect cannot be disputed by anyone who is a student of assassinations.
Indeed, what was Hillary Clinton thinking?
Indeed, what?
He goes on to quote from Keith Olbermann's scathing special comment on Countdown following Clinton's May 23 remark, in which he said:
You actually used the word "assassination" in the middle of a campaign with a loud undertone of racial hatred -- and **gender** hatred -- and **political** hatred.
You actually used the word "assassination" in a time when there is a fear, unspoken but vivid and terrible, that our again-troubled land and fractured political landscape might target a black man running for
president.
Or a white man.
Or a white woman!
You actually used those words, in **this** America, Senator while running against an African-American against whom the death threats started the moment he declared his campaign?
You actually used those words, in **this** America, Senator, while running to break your "greatest glass ceiling" and claiming there are people who would do anything to stop **you**?
You! . . .
The politics of this nation is steeped enough in blood, Senator Clinton, you cannot and must not invoke that imagery! Anywhere! At any time!
Although it starts earlier, her is the core of the timeline:
December 27, 2007. Hillary Clinton, on Meet
The Press, accuses Barack Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod of
accusing Clinton of playing a role in the assassination of Benazir
Bhutto. Clinton said Axelrod "accuses me of playing a role in Benazir Bhutto's assassination." (see Salon story for more complete transcript) But on January , 2008 Albert R. Hunt, for Bloomberg News, writes:
"I was in the small group of reporters in Des Moines, Iowa, on Dec. 27, when Axelrod was asked if the Bhutto assassination would help the more-experienced Clinton politically. He disagreed and said the war in Iraq has "diverted" attention and resources from Afghanistan and Pakistan, bolstering radical elements, who may have played a role in the assassination.
That "diversion" argument is made by many Democratic politicians and foreign-policy experts, including Clinton advisers.
Whatever the merits of that argument, it isn't accusing Clinton of complicity in an assassination. Both Clintons had a professional relationship with Axelrod. Hillary Clinton and her husband, who leveled the same charge, know full well he wouldn't accuse her of playing a role in a murder."
January 7, 2008: Hillary Clinton, speaking to a crowd during the New Hampshire 2008 Democratic Primary, is introduced by Francine Torge, who tells the crowd:
February 26, 2008: Howie Kurtz, for the Washington Post, comments on the apparent circulation, by Clinton Campaign staffers, of a picture of arack Obama dressed as a Somali elder. The picture pops up on right winbg websites with titles alleging an Obama-Al Qaeda link. By May 12, 2008, notes Ali Etaraz on the Huffington Post, the Obama-Muslim smear had morphed into a veiled assassination threat via the claim, spread by right-wing and right-wing Jewish websites, that Barack Obama might be assassinated by Muslims because he's an "apostate muslim".
Hillary Clinton, March 6, 2008 [off-camera interview with Time Magazine]:
"Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June, also in California. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual. We will see how it unfolds as we go forward over the next three to four months."
I don't. Because again, I've been around long enough. You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I just don't understand it. You know, there's lots of speculation about why it is.
The feeding in of the "apostate Muslim" lie is quite telling, as it's all a part of the larger context of eliminationism-in this case, as in many others, our own right wing projecting its own eliminationist fantasies onto the Muslim world. This off-loading of eliminationist fantasies onto others is an incresingly common theme in American politics-and an increasingly mainstream one.
To get a sense of the larger context this comes out of, consider the Christian Zionist movement, among whom John Hagee is a leading figure. It is wholly founded on eliminationism. Christian Zionists are dedicated to the "defense" of Israel in order to bring about the Armageddon, and the destruction of Israel, along with billions and billions of people worldwide. It is a fantasy of mass death so vast and sweeping that almost no one even stops to notice what they are talking about. Israel even welcomes them as allies!
Here is an expanded version of Neiwert's remarks cited above:
What, really, is eliminationism?
It's a fairly self-explanatory term: it describes a kind of politics and culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas for the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through complete suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination.
... Rhetorically, it takes on some distinctive shapes. It always depicts its opposition as simply beyond the pale, and in the end the embodiment of evil itself -- unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus in need of elimination. It often depicts its designated "enemy" as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and loves to incessantly suggest that its targets are themselves disease carriers. A close corollary -- but not as nakedly eliminationist -- are claims that the opponents are traitors or criminals, or gross liabilities for our national security, and thus inherently fit for elimination or at least incarceration.
And yes, it's often voiced as crude "jokes", the humor of which, when analyzed, is inevitably predicated on a venomous hatred.
But what we also know about this rhetoric is that, as surely as night follows day, this kind of talk eventually begets action, with inevitably tragic results.
This is what we are playing with today. It is far more pervasive than most are prepared to realize. Which is precisely why the timeline Bruce has put together is so important. Not because it's unusual. But because it's unusually clear.
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