As The Atlantic‘s James Fallows initially pointed out in the wake of the Arizona tragedy, shootings of political figures are by definition “political” but it’s worth remembering how “rarely the ‘politics’ of an assassination (or attempt) match up cleanly with the main issues for which a public figure has stood.” Going off the information reported so far, the accused is more anarchist than any shade of red or blue, but it’s still worth considering what Fallows brands “a time of extreme, implicitly violent political rhetoric and imagery.”
Richard Farmer has pointed to a speech delivered by former President Bill Clinton in Washington DC in April last year on the upcoming 15th anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It’s depressingly pertinent:
… what we learned from Oklahoma City is not that we should gag each other or reduce our passion from the positions we hold — but that the words we use really do matter, because there’s this vast echo chamber and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike. And I am not trying to muzzle anybody. But one of the things that the conservatives have always brought to the table in America is a reminder that no law can replace personal responsibility. And the more power you have and the more influence you have, the more responsibility you have.
… By all means, keep fighting. By all means, keep arguing. But remember words have consequences as much as actions do. And what we advocate commensurate with our position and responsibility, we have to take responsibility for.
The violence of language takes on new meaning in a country whose residents are armed to the hilt, but that doesn’t mean Clinton’s words aren’t relevant to the kind of political language that we were treated to in the election year that was 2010. So let’s kick off the new year with the hope, for what it’s worth, that political rhetoric, here and further afield, aspires to loftier heights …
Australia, even morseo than the US, has a virtual one-party media. Many of the more prominent right wing opinionists preach hate, along with conspiracism, and a steady stream of anti-Labor / anti-Green / anti-progressive diatribe.
I too hope that the political rhetoric can move beyond the base and the nasty. This was one of the things that made me pleased to leave 2010 behind. Sarah Palin has a lot ot answer for as does the Murdoch press which makes so much of this kind of language because people will buy papers or watch tv to learn what the latest piece of nastiness is.
Amen to that, Crikey.
Maybe this terrorist should join those yet to be proved terrorists languishing in Guantanamo. Maybe he could take the place of one of those Yemeni prisoners who are still held in custody there despite being available for release to any country other than Yemen who The US regards as a haven for terrorists and unworthy of receiving back its innocent citizens from US custody.
But I stray … the US establishment and mainstream press is rotten to the core and hate and revenge (as well as imperial ambitions) are becoming defining characteristics of that broken society.
“Going off the information reported so far, the accused is more anarchist than any shade of red or blue…”
Really? On what basis do you conclude that Jared Lee Loughner is “more anarchist” than ‘red’ (progressive?) or ‘blue’ (conservative)? It seems pretty clear to me that Loughner is ‘more psychologically disturbed’ than ‘political’, but even if his actions had some (more properly) ‘political’ motivation, I see no evidence to suggest that this is more likely to have been ‘anarchist’ than not. As The Great Man said, “By all means, keep arguing. But remember words have consequences as much as actions do.”