Sarah Palin Made Me Do It

"Sarah Palin Made Me Do It" (inks on bristol / 2011)

"Buck up or stay in the truck."

-Sarah Palin

Today I was compelled to compose a portrait of Ms. Palin lending her hand to the now infamous, Jared Loughner...

Jared Lee Loughner opened fire with a Glock 9 on U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was hosting an open house for her constituents at a supermarket over the weekend.  She recently narrowly defeated her Tea Party opponent in the mid-term election to retain her Democratic seat in Arizona.  The shooting killed six people, including U.S. District Judge John Roll and Giffords' aide Gabe Zimmerman. Among the 14 wounded was Giffords, who was shot through the skull. 

Loughner was unhappy with the government by all accounts and preached extreme right-wing rantings to anyone who would listen.  This young man (barely out of his teens) orchestrated this- the most recent bloodbath our country has seen carried out by one of it's own citizens.  Every now and then, the every-day Joe buckles under the pressure of choking down their own little slice of the American dream, spoon fed to them by the media and government all their life.  We all know it's tough.  We all know our government is mismanaged and big business sucks us just dry enough so that we keep creeping along and making that next check.  Why does this guy snap?  Why does he decide to go on his own assassination crusade in the name of overthrowing the government?

Let's start with what he preached... you saw him carry it out through his practice.  Loughner was known to often quote a real national treasure of a right-wing mouthpiece with the rantings of Mr. Glenn Beck.  The problem with our new gods of the modern media is they don't report a damn thing.  Reporting involves communicating facts to the public.  Over the past decade, Fox News gained a large viewer base by having news personalities who spoke their opinions to fill their segments on the air.  Much of this was their own meanderings and pure speculation with little facts mixed in... just a little "news."  The success of this formula infected the other news networks so now you get no true world news in our county.  Beck feels free to tell his audience how much he distrusts the government and keeps them coming back for more with his wild theories and claims standing on the soapbox of freedom of speech.  He and Alaskan political glamor queen Sarah Palin are just a couple of examples of the mouthpieces worshiped by our new media.  Being opinion and not news, I feel such public figures should be held more accountable for their messages.  They should own what they say when people act on it. 

Sarah Palin loves her guns.  She's made it no secret her advocacy of Americans arming themselves to the teeth.  Over the past year, she's provided the world with countless soundbites in reference to her beliefs on the subject.  Last year, the image posted below was used on her website.  Rep. Giffords who was shot this past weekend was one of the targets.  Palin also held voter rallies where they let people fire assault rifles on target ranges set up for the event.  What a way to find the true pulse of your followers.... and what a way to forebode the tragic event of this past weekend.

"Don't retreat... RELOAD."

-Sarah Palin