But When The Left Does It ...

by guest blogger Andrew Roman

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I'm thinking that the Target Corporation should consider changing the name of its retail stores to something less incendiary, something decidely less conservative, something far less provocative and catchy, like “The Open Arms Barn,” or “Fuzzy Bunnies R Us" - something that does not push the American people toward their more barbaric instincts and predispositions.

The name just screams gun violence ... "Target."

It's actually quite frightening.

Thank goodness the American Left has helped me to realize that.

And how about Target’s logo?

It was probably designed by one of those flyover gun nuts, no doubt – someone unwittingly pushed into the misfit world of murderous weaponry, forever doomed to see life through the crosshairs of his rifle scope.

The image of a target, after all, conjures up horrifying scenes of firearms a-blazin', gratuitous violence, and a host of sinister realities that can drive those who could have (and should have) been happy and healthy, multicultural, anti-war, environmental crusaders into cold-blooded murderers, or, God forbid, soldiers.

History doesn’t lie.

You’ll recall that when the the NBA's Washington, D.C. franchise changed its name from the Bullets to the far more cuddly Wizards, within months, the city of Washington, D.C. was transformed from a lawless, gang-happy war zone into a veritable Xanadu, where violence and hatred almost immediately became relics of the past. Thanks in large part to ditching the bullets and embracing the magic, Washington, D.C. is today synonymous with fuzzy bunnies, swaying daisies and offense-free discourse – much like San Francisco’s streets are synonymous with unbathed library-step dwellers and their urine-soaked cotton slacks.

Last weekend’s horrific mass murder in Arizona by an evil gun-wielding mental defective has been a call-to-arms (so to speak) to the real moral crusaders of American society – the Left. They are the concerned among us, the arbiters of decency, the bearers are all that is good and just.

Just ask them. They'll tell you so.

Chellie Pingree (D-Me)

Maine Congresswoman, Chellie Pingree, for example, has a splendid idea. She says that the “Repeal the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” slated to come up for a vote next week should have its name changed by removing the offensive and unnecessary word “killing.”

It's a bad word, a scary word.

And it’s no accident that it was chosen for the bill's title, she says. Republicans - drafters and namers of the proposed legislation - knew   what they were doing, she claims. The word "killing," she explains, sends the wrong message at this critical “moment in our nation’s history.”

We should all aspire to such deep thinking.

Former Congressman Paul Kanjorski, in a New York Times Op Ed on Monday, wrote that a more civilized political climate is needed in this country (i.e., the Right really needs to shut up). His point is well taken. When Kanjorski is not calling for someone to shoot Florida Governor Rick Scott, as he did last October, the former congressman does, indeed, make a lot of sense.

Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee is, too, sick of the right-wing hate machine. He is actually using his office for good, promoting genuine civilized discourse, by banning all state employees from appearing on any talk radio program anywhere … except those on NPR (National Public Radio), of course. This policy was implemented because the governor doesn’t “think it is appropriate to use taxpayer resources” to “support for-profit, ratings-driven programming.”

The governor’s office did say, however, that it would be perfectly appropriate for state employees to appear on television news programs. Oddly enough, news programs are also broadcast on “for-profit, ratings-driven” television broadcast outlets.

 

So, while common, everyday words and phrases that have been hijacked by the instigators and provocateurs on the Right, such as “in the crosshairs” and “targeting,” are finally being exposed for what they really are - genuine battlecries -  conservatives would be wise to use this opportunity to figure out how to put things in their proper context.

After all, when then-candidate Barack Obama said in 2008, ”If [Republicans] bring a knife, we bring a gun,” anyone with any grasp of reality should have understood that what he really meant was that Democrats love all human beings and want everyone to live together in perfect harmony. It should have also been inferred that Republicans crave endless war, possess disdain for the elderly, and want little children to go hungry at night (as Howard Dean once famously asserted).

It’s also clear that when Sarah Palin used the image of a crosshairs to “target” certain electoral districts on her website, it was actually a dispatch to angry right-wingers across the map to do whatever was necessary to acquire firearms so that they could treat their political opponents as Palin treats wild moose.

John Kerry (D-Ma)

When Senator John Kerry kicked it around with entertainer Bill Maher in 2006, he (in)famously talked about going to the White House and killing President Bush. Uncomfortable as that might have been for some to hear, it was as obvious as the ear on President Obama’s head, that it was all meant in heart-warming jest – a moment of unrehearsed jocularity between two intellectual powerhouses. (This delightful exchange between the two is regularly misunderstood by conservatives and helps to illustrate the point that common folk on the right will always struggle with the wit and intricate nuances of leftist repartee).

Besides, conservatives do not jest or speak in such ways. They are not witty, sardonic or delightful. They have no sense of humor, do not recognize cutting-edge comedy, and can only be found laughing when poor people suffer or their golf handicaps dip. They hate everyone who do not think exactly as they, and want school children to pray for guns in public school.

When New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, in front of a graduating class at Queens College in 2006, said that New York Senator Charles Schumer would “put a bullet between the president's eyes if he could get away with it,” there isn’t a fair-minded human being in all of existence who misinterpreted what was clearly his heartfelt plea for unity among political adversaries. No one would ever dare to believe that Hevesi meant anything other than reaching across the aisle to work together with political opponents for the common good of all the American people. He didn’t really mean that Schumer wanted to see a bullet in George W. Bush’s skull. Everyone knows that.

Only conservatives want their opponents dead.

Angry Constitution-obsessed right-wingers have only one agenda in mind: to put guns in the hands of pissed off white folks so that it becomes impossible for honorable, well-intentioned post-racial, post-political middle-of-the-road public servants, like California's Nancy Pelosi and Nevada's Harry Reid, to forge ahead with the difficult work of bringing everyone together for a life of peace, social justice and free health care.

Meanwhile, the maker of BullsEye barbecue sauce ought to take a good, hard look at itself.

The surviving Beatles also ought to retroactively change the name of their 1966 album “Revolver” to something more embraceable and human-being friendly.

Incidentally, for what its worth, a friend of Jared Loughner (the Arizona mass murderer) says that Loughner did not pay attention to “the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right."

Go figure.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews isn't going to like that.

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