The massacre in the Safeway parking lot is yet another example of how hate speech assigned to suggestive violent imagery can be explosive. Since the election of the first black president, we have seen the right ignite this combustible combo for the opportunist purposes of furthering its agenda and riling up its base.
The alleged gunman is Jared Loughner, who has a known recent history of instability. His bizarre and disruptive behavior led to suspension from Pima Community College until he underwent a psychiatric evaluation. These are some of the red flags that get ignored until a tragedy happens. Loughner’s constant
rhetoric about what is unconstitutional, immigrants not speaking English and loss of property rights suggests that he had picked up on the code words of right-wing political rhetoric.
Last year, Sarah “Reload” Palin had a map on her website that put several congressional districts in a symbolic crosshair. Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was in one of those rifle scope crosshairs. In response to
that map, Giffords’ reprimand was that “there are consequences to that action.” There are consequences: The legislator was the first to be gunned down, and before the rampage was over, six were killed and 12 wounded. Included in the carnage was a nine-year-old child, a federal judge, Giffords’ staffers and other innocent bystanders.
There are three issues that are intertwined in this tragedy. This country does not have a realistic and comprehensive handle on mental illness. We often choose to ignore people with mental health issues or ridicule them. Treatment plans and funding would be laughable if the problem wasn’t so serious. If you have a loved one with a diagnosed mental health condition, you know that what exists is woefully inadequate.
Another issue is the approach to problems. This is a reactionary society where extremists are able to dictate or change how the majority will live. The act of one extremist can lead to laws and regulations that further restrict our civil liberties. Most people passively accept that approach because they don’t know what else to do. In the future, we can count on changes being made as to how we publicly interact with our lawmakers. Coupled with that will be the individual decision by citizens not to attend such political events. We saw the latter happen during the volatile town hall meetings on health care.
The big issue is the right’s message of fear that is sometimes laced with flammable inferences. The week after President Obama’s election, gun sales jumped 50 percent and gun stores still can’t keep up with ammunition demands.
Conservative talk show hosts like Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Rush “Dittohead” Limbaugh have multi-million-dollar contracts to dole out unlimited quantities of hate and fear on their shows. During the last campaign cycle, we were bombarded with images of candidates holding or firing guns. News coverage included men parading around public spaces, visibly strapped down. This is not an atmosphere for healthy political debate; this is a recipe for disaster.
It is possible to disagree and not just be violently disagreeable. In a minute, the U.S. will look like some of the other countries where opposing sides fire upon one another (literally) and the rest of the folks try to stay out of the way.
This kind of political behavior is a deterrent to an open, democratic society and leaves the extremists in charge of the debate as well as governance.
Domestic terrorism has the same roots as foreign terrorism. Loughner defined a terrorist as “a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon.” We all have a responsibility to diffuse the politically charged rhetoric in our society by denouncing public figures who engage in it.
On a personal level, we can stop fanning the flames of people who are willing to spew the hateful words we may be too cowardly to do. We must be vigilant in our efforts to stay civilized or be forced to operate with a society turned against itself, and where the targets are the “others” who don’t think or look like us.
