The United States is still in shock today after an assassin targeted a political meeting in Arizona on Saturday. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, remarkably, survived being shot in the head at close range, but six others — including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl — were not so fortunate; another ten or so people were injured.
No-one wants to be seen to be exploiting tragedy for political gain, and it is especially important to avoid the temptation of tagging one’s opponents as potential terrorists. Political leaders from both sides have condemned the attack in the clearest of terms, and there is no reason at all to doubt their sincerity.
Nonetheless, violence does not happen in a vacuum, and it is right to point to the escalating intensity of America’s political discourse as a likely factor in this sort of incident. Tony Blair famously promised to be “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, and the enquiry into causes needs to go beyond this particular crazed gunman and on to the rhetorical climate that fosters such craziness.
Nor will it do to try to be even-handed and suggest that “both sides are to blame”. Of course there are extremists on both sides, but the American right has given mainstream acceptance to extremists and extreme rhetoric in a way that the left simply has not.
Doubters could perhaps start with the carefully documented chronolog of “insurrectionist” incidents compiled by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. It shows the eerie correspondence between what accepted Republican politicians and opinion leaders have been saying and the actions of nutters who have taken some of those ideas to their logical conclusion.
The point is not — contrary to what some gun control advocates maintain — that there is anything intrinsically wrong with the notion that private gun ownership represents an ultimate safeguard against oppression. (Those who think this is a crazy idea might like to read about Switzerland). The point is that the rhetoric of the Obama-haters is so wildly out of proportion to any of his real or alleged misdeeds.
On any rational accounting, the US is further from tyranny now than it was three years ago, when Dick Cheney was still plotting the overthrow of all constitutional restraints on executive power. But there is a basic asymmetry in the way the two sides of politics have reacted to being out of power (and of course Bush and Cheney were white, which in America still makes a difference).
Either the firebrands of the right are utterly unscrupulous, exciting their voter base with terminology that they must know is completely inapplicable, or they have themselves lost touch with reality and have no idea what tyranny and oppression really look like.
Whichever it is, it has taken America into dark and dangerous territory.
And the media have been enablers in the process, treating incitement as if it were just business as usual. In a widely re-tweeted comment, Michael Moore said “If a Detroit Muslim put a map on the web w/crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he b sitting right now? Just asking.”
Although of course they have been subject to criticism, it is hard to see that Sarah Palin and others have been made to pay any political price for their incendiary rhetoric. That may now change, and the country’s revulsion at the murders in Arizona may shift sentiment decisively against them.
But with so many people having so much invested in the denial of reality, that shift will not come easy.
Horrific in every way, this latest mass shooting comes with some ironic elements: the primary target was a Democrat congresswoman who’d supported gun “rights”, even the carrying of concealed weapons in public. The alleged shooter had supposedly written some blog rants that included one of Glenn Beck’s hobby horses i.e. a return to the gold standard (of course Beck is financially involved with gold sales too).
Joining the dots makes for a pretty surreal picture of a country besotted with mad notions of the need to arm themselves, a deep distrust of the federal government, a constant torrent of incendiary talk from Fox “News”, and just enough deranged individuals to make events like this seem more likely to occur.
That someone with this guy’s mental history (he’d been banned from attending college, with requests made for psychiatric assessment) could so easily purchase a Glock pistol is surely inviting more tragedies.
How many millions will the NRA spend trying to spin this one I wonder?
Just off the top of my head all the US political assassinations I can recall have been of Democrats and those further left such as the Kennedys, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Abraham Lincoln was Republican, but he defeated the Confederates and opposed slavery.
During tragedies like this I am relieved to be Australian, despite the some time laconic attitude towards politics and politicians the debate within this country rarely gets to a point where our political leaders live in constant fear of physical acts of violence. http://danieljames.com.au/political-vitriol/
All the political spin doctors and PR merchants which the USA can command failed to nail the truth identified by a 75 year old Sheriff. He has asked for reflection on the hatemongering words being used to incite the population in Arizona. Herein lie people of all persuasions and intelligence- the crazy, the looney, the haters, the racists as well as the moderates, and the human rights upholders..
There are lessons to be learnt for Australians as well.
Australia is a place where hatemongerers thrive. The more outrageous they are – the higher salaries they command in the media.
Words are thrown to excite the people, the veracity of their content matters little. Politicians know this and use it unwisely.
From words to action.
Sarah Palin’s Political Action Committee SaraPAC website before it was taken, down presumably as a consequence of the attempted murder of Gabrielle Giffords, contained gunsight targets for 20 Democrat candidates on a map of the United States, one of them being targetes was Gabrielle Gifford.
It appears that Ms Palin is quite happy to use gun sights to target individuals with whom she disagrees without appreciating the consequences for mentally disturbed individuals who might take her admonishments literally.
Not surprisingly the link to this website is now broken on the presumption that it has been taken down, or has been overloaded with enquiries. I suspect the former.
The following vacuous response on her website is of little consolation.
“My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona.”- Sarah Palin.
Unfortunately, due to the collective stupidity of a significant section of uneducated morons in the United States she is taken seriously in some quarters as a potential presidential candidate in 2012. If so God help us all.