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I first saw the term “Blood Libel” used in a Wall Street Journal editorial, an early entry in the “it’s-not-our-fault=don’t blame us” response from the American Right to the recent Tucson murders. Sarah Palin, as usual, picked the term up for its color, doubtlessly ignorant of its pathological Anti-Semitic roots.
It’s yet another brilliant piece of idiot-savantry, nonetheless. By using the word ‘libel’, it appeals to the American penchant for litigiousness and also to the American passion for name-calling in public life. By using the word “blood” it does several things at once. It invokes the bloodiness of the Tucson events. It paints the enemy as a blood-shedding carnivore (against a pacifist Palin, no doubt). Deeper still, it appeals to the idea of sacrifice, a favored metaphor for those who like to spill blood (usually the blood of our young people” in the name of the national interest.
The deep stimulation of Anti-Semitic fears is a bonus, for those old enough or religious enough to pick up the symbolism. For the rest of the American public, it will suggest the violence of the liberal left, rare and exceptional as that has been.
These are just the incitements that President Obama urged Americans to leave behind in yesterday’s great speech in Tucson. But Sarah Palin, and her followers, presumably saddened by the dropping of her Alaska reality show, full of blood libel against Alaskan wildlife, can now hunt elsewhere for bloody metaphors.
Words hurt and kill as well. Accusing one’s opponent of blood libel amounts to a call for Tombstone justice: did Ms. Palin mean to invoke an eye for an eye? Or perhaps a Glock for a Glock? I hope those of Tucson’s citizens who have rushed to the stores to buy multi-round handgun clips in the last few days are not among the libel-hunters!
-Arjun Appadurai is an expert in Globalization, Cultural Anthropology, Violence, Media, and Development.
Related articles
- White House: ‘No comment’ on Palin ‘blood libel’ debate – Washington Post (news.google.com)
- ‘Blood Libel’: Sarah Palin’s Reference Causes Controversy (abcnews.go.com)
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Really gotta love Palin – the lady’s something else at times