Once again, Americans are up in arms or perchance, better armed and dangerous. Only little more than a week into 2011, citizens have had to confront their fears, feelings, all at gunpoint. It began on a calm, clear Saturday. In a Safeway Store Tucson parking lot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords held one of her customary Congress on the Corner events. It was January 8, 2011. Friends and admirers from each political Party turned out. Suddenly, cordial chatter turned icy cold. gunshots shattered the calm. People were slaughtered. Some survived. However, as a nation, we were all wounded.
Retorts followed. Seemingly, a culture was changed, or was it? Just as has occurred, many times in the recent past, people quickly took sides. Blame was ballied about. Solutions were also presented. Some argued for stricter gun control laws. Others used the occasion to validate a need for less restrictive restraints on gun ownership. Persons who held a position similar to the most prominent victim proposed a need to protect themselves.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in the head at a constituent outreach event in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson on Saturday. In all, the gunman shot 18 people, killing 6, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.
Jamelle Bouie of TAPPED urges President Obama to take up the issue of mental health care in his upcoming speech on the mass shooting. Several people who knew the alleged shooter came forward with stories of bizarre behavior and run-ins with campus police at his community college. College administrators ordered him to seek treatment before he returned to school, but he does not appear to have done so.
H. Clarke Romans of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Southern Arizona explained to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that mental health services in Arizona have been devastated by budget cuts.
In 2008 the state eliminated support services for all non-Medicaid behavioral health patients and stopped covering most brand-name psychiatric drugs. At least 28,000 Arizonans were affected. Arizonans with mental illnesses can expect even more cuts in the future as the state slashes spending in an attempt to address its budget shortfall.
In AlterNet, Adele Stan, argues that, while we don't yet know the gunman's motives, the right wing's intensifying campaign of anti-government hysteria and violent rhetoric may have emboldened an already disturbed person:
Had the vitriolic rhetoric that today shapes Arizona's political landscape (and, indeed, our national landscape) never come to call, Loughner may have found a different reason to go on a killing spree. But that vitriol does exist as a powerful prompt to the paranoid, and those who publicly deem war on the federal government a patriot's duty should today be doing some soul-searching.
I don't have too much to add to the Giffords debate, but in case these points haven't been made (probably unlikely) or haven't been made prominently enough, let me raise three issues about the Arizona massacre:
Implicit versus explicit eliminationist rhetoric. There has been much justifiable focus on various forms of explicit, or even slightly veiled but still militant/aggressive rhetoric in the political discourse. I think more attention needs to go the implicit calls for violence, usually in the form of portraying adversaries as the extremes of evil, and even direct equation with history's greatest monsters like Stalin, Mao and of course, that Austrian painter who went on to a bad end. The thing about calling Obama Hitler, or Stalin is, you don't fight Stalin by organizing a petition drive, or a peaceful protest. He liquidates his enemies. You fight him tooth and nail in every alley and from every dark corner. By making such comparisons you foment in your supporters a romantic fantasy of being the French Résistance (perhaps the only time right wingers have anything good to say about France). After all, right wingers have spent a lot of effort comparing anyone who wants to negotiate with anyone considered "bad" to Chamberlain giving away Czechoslovakia to the Nazis. So if the enemy is Hitler, what else is there but violence to stop him? He cannot be appeased, it is either total victory for freedom or totalitarianism.
This debate should have happened years ago. While I support this issue being a major debate as the extremity of the crime certainly warrants the attention, I'm not alone in noting that there have been a frightening number of incidents of politically motivated violence, including numerous murders in recent years. While more people died and were injured this time than at some of the others, I fear that the real distinction here as far as Very Serious People are concerned is that actual Villagers or people the Villagers know were hurt and killed. Why didn't this debate erupt say when Dr. Tiller was murdered, or when 2 were murdered at the Knoxville church for being too liberal by the guy who wanted to get everyone in Bernie Goldberg's book? If in six months another madman kills even more people for political reasons but none of them are "important" people as far as Versailles is concerned, will a similar major discussion happen? I hope so but I think not.
Does the right have any actual policy to handle this? Lest the debate careen off into oblivion, some attempt to suggest any serious ideas for how to prevent this sort of thing from happening should occur. As it's clear the right is not going to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness for their rhetorical extremism, they should be challenged to suggest some actual laws that might have stopped this or the other incidents of political violence. It not enough to provide guards to members of Congress at public events; can the government guard every "liberal" Church or IRS office? There's far too many targets for lone lunatics to go after, so what is the right going to suggest we do about that? My suspicion is that they have no ideas for this. The right wing cupboard is bare. As for the left, it's true that the right has succeeded in making all gun control politically toxic, at least liberalism has ideas that might have either prevented this (such as making it easier to bar the mentally unfit from gun possession) to reducing the harm done (restore restrictions on magazine sizes that lapsed in the AWB) to even helping the mentally unsound before they become violent (say by a program that makes it easier to get people into free psychological help). At the very least, forcing the right to say (in effect) "We have no ideas, so America will just have to live with people going on killing sprees every six months..." is important in exposing the limits of their vision for life and society.
And to the inevitable and highly cynical right wing responses to any policy suggestions to this tragedy, let us only heap scorn. We who survive such tragedies have a responsibility to the living to prevent their recurrence. If that requires "politicizing a tragedy" or a "power grab" then I say politicize and grab while asking the critics "so what are you going to say to the next group of bereaved people to explain what you did to prevent this from taking away someone they love from a known threat?" I think people expect a little more inspiration from the political class than "shit happens, carry a gun."
(In light of the shootings in Arizona today, I wanted to provide the Open Left community with the best sort of deep background coverage possible. That's why I invited Frederick Clarkson, co-founder of Talk2Action, to cross-post this diary from his site. NOTE: Idiot Wind Will be delayed to late Sunday afternoon, because of special circumstances - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
In light of the attempted murder of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in a shooting spree resulting in the death of 6 (including federal judge John Roll) and the wounding of 12 others, I want to underscore the culture of violence and threats of violence being furthered by the Religious Right by reprising (a slightly edited) post from 2009 in which I discussed how Arizona pastor Rev. Steven Anderson called on God to kill Barack Obama, and encouraged a member of his congregation to protest an Obama speech by carrying an assault rifle outside the venue.
It is also worth noting that during the election campaign Giffords Opponent, Jesse Kelly, Held June Event to "Shoot a Fully Automatic M16? to "Get on Target" and "Remove Gabrielle Giffords"; and Sarah Palin put Giffords in a crosshair target graphic on her web site. There is no apparent connection between these events and Anderson. However, all are part of the far-right political culture that encourages such ideas and actions. Anderson has continued to promote violent ideas since 2009 and the Southern Poverty Law Center recently listed that Anderson's church as a hate group. We could also discuss the history of how the theology of hate and violence and related rhetoric directed at abortion providers relates to the quarter century of arson, bombings and murders and more that have been directed at abortion providers and how this part of, and not separate from the rest of the far right. But for today, let's recall the words and deeds of Rev. Steven Anderson.
In 2009, I published an essay at Religion Dispatches that discussed the Religious Right back story behind Anderson and his congregation. Here are a few excerpts:
Chris Broughton, 28, made national news when he showed up to protest a speech by President Barack Obama in Phoenix, Arizona with an AR-15 automatic rifle slung over his shoulder and a handgun. While Broughton claims that his (apparently legal) actions were not meant to threaten the president, there was more to the story than a single citizen's dubious actions and pronouncements. Local print and television coverage in Phoenix, and bloggers all over the country, have led the way on an interesting and important story of religion and politics that has been almost entirely ignored by the traditional media.
Here is what they missed.
The night before Broughton's fifteen minutes of fame, he attended a fiery Sunday sermon by his pastor, Rev. Steven L. Anderson, at Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. Rev. Anderson, also 28, explained not only "Why I Hate Barack Obama," but also why he and God both want the president dead. "When I go to bed tonight," Broughton's pastor declared, "Steven L. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell." He even goes so far as to claim that:
"God appointed [Obama] to destroy this country for the wickedness of the United States of America. God appointed him because that's what our country has turned into. That's who we deserve as a president."
Republicans don't have the votes to repeal health care reform, but they are determined to use their newly-won control of the House to fight it every step of the way. Marilyn Werber Serafini gives Truthout readers a sneak-peek at the GOP playbook to attack healthcare reform in 2011.
Who are some of the top contenders in this coming battle? Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) is a leading candidate to chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Barton is vowing, if elected chairman, to use the oversight powers of the committee to hold a flurry of hearings on alleged misconduct in the crafting of the Affordable Care Act. Barton plans to show that budget experts "covered up" the true projected costs of health care reform. In Barton's world, the fact that there's no evidence to support this allegation is all the more reason to investigate.
Other key players include James Gelfand, the director of health policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who has already compiled a wishlist of 31 investigations that he wants the newly Republican-controlled House to undertake. The Chamber spent millions to elect Republicans this cycle. Barton's hearings will have to compete for political oxygen with those of Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA), the chair apparent of the Investigations Committee, who is promising to gum up the works of government with at least to seven hearings a week for 40 weeks, a projected rate nearly triple that of his predecessor Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Ca).
Health care freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
If they can't undo health reform in the corridors of Washington, conservatives are looking to the states and the federal courts. In The Nation, Nicholas Kusnetz reports on how a coalition of hard right groups are organizing against health care reform at the state level.
A group known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is at the forefront of the drive to pass so-called "health care freedom acts" in the states to preemptively outlaw federal health reform before it can be implemented. ALEC claims to have filed or pre-filed bills in 38 states and passed 6 so far. Few expect these laws to stand up in court, if challenged, but they are part of ALEC's long term strategy to fight health reform itself in the federal courts. A Virginia judge recently ruled that an ALEC-sponsored "freedom" law gave the state standing to challenge federal reform.
Kusnetz shows the close ties between ALEC officials and Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, and other Koch-Industries-funded conservative activist groups that are campaigning against health care reform in various capacities.
What about Medicare?
At the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen notes that many Republicans, including Senator-Elect Rand Paul (R-KY) successfully campaigned on a platform of repealing health care reform to save Medicare. Benen explains that repealing the Affordable Care Act would actually put Medicare in worse financial straights than staying the course. The Republican rhetoric of defending Medicare and railing against socialized medicine is a flagrant self-contradiction. It's not hard to see which of these two projects they are more committed to.
As Brie Cadman points out at Change.org, the self-proclaimed "Young Guns" of the Republican Party are keen to privatize Medicare all together.
Government cheese: Corporate welfare edition
The USDA is scheming to make you eat more cheese. Tom Philpott of Grist explains how it works. Big Dairy produces more milk than Americans care to drink. Plus, consumers are increasingly demanding reduced-fat milk. That leaves a lot of milk left over to make cheese, but Americans aren't eating enough cheese to make a dent in the national milk fat surplus.
Unsold milk fat could become a toxic asset on the books of Big Dairy. So, the USDA created a non-profit corporation called Dairy Management (DM) to convince fast food companies to spike their products with millions of tons more cheese every year. With the help of DM, Domino's Pizza created a line of "Legend" pizzas with 40% more cheese. Who can forget the epic 2002 "Summer of Cheese" when DM teamed up with Pizza Hut to boost cheese consumption by an astonishing 102 million pounds? The average American now eats 33 pounds of cheese per year, three times as much as in 1970.
Officially, the USDA is supposed to help Americans eat better and support the agriculture industry. Cheese can be part of a healthy diet, but not in ever-increasing quantities. In practice, supporting the profits of Big Agra should not take precedence over preventing obesity or reducing the incidence of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes.
CPCs: Incubators for anti-choice violence
In Ms. Magazine, Kathryn Joyce explores the shadowy world of "crisis pregnancy centers," anti-choice ministries that pose as full-service reproductive health clinics, but offer no real health services. CPCs have a business model built on deceit. They seek to prevent abortions by tricking women seeking comprehensive reproductive health care, which might include abortion.
Activism rooted in such deceit and contempt for women's autonomy can flare into violence. Joyce reveals that CPCs also serve as incubators for radical anti-choice activism. Radical groups like Operation Rescue encourage their supporters to volunteer. Scott Roeder, the assassin of Dr. George Tiller, got his start accosting women on the street outside abortion clinics as a volunteer "sidewalk counselor" for a crisis pregnancy center.
Just the presence of a CPC near an abortion clinic is correlated with increased violence against the clinic, as Joyce reports:
A recent survey by the Feminist Majority Foundation of women's reproductive-health clinics nationwide found 32.7 percent of clinics located near a CPC experienced one or more incidents of severe violence, compared to only 11.3 percent of clinics not near a CPC. (Severe violence includes clinic blockades and invasions, bombings, arson, bombing and arson threats, death threats, chemical attacks, stalking, physical violence and gunfire.)
Doctors on the front line see the overlap between CPCs and more virulent forms of anti-choice activism every day. "[CPCs and violent anti-choice activists] have two different spheres," OB-GYN Dr. LeRoy Carhart, one of the nation's last remaining specialists in late-term abortions, told Joyce. "The underlying theory of both is never let the truth stand in the way of getting your point across. If you distort facts to women, there is no difference."
Flip Benham's slap on the wrist
One of the activists Joyce interviews in her piece is Rev. "Flip" Benham, director of Operation Save America/Operation Rescue. Robin Marty of RH Reality Check reports that Benham was found guilty of stalking an abortion provider and posting "Wanted" posters with the doctor's picture on them, accusing him of being a baby killer. Benham was sentenced to 24 months probation.
In his defense, Benham claimed that this was a harmless gesture that never killed anyone. In fact, "wanted" posters for abortion doctors are a time-honored intimidation tactic that has been used repeatedly before the murders of abortion providers. Benham is deliberately cultivating a climate of fear and rage is conducive to violence.
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This appalling story of a woman MoveOn activist in KY being grabbed, pushed down to the cement, and having her head kicked by a Rand Paul supporter, as terrible as it is, only becomes the latest in a long line of political violence in the past few years. From relatively isolated incidents to ones even more violent and troubling, there's a growing pattern here, and as someone who reveres American democracy, I find it quite frightening. Here's just a few examples from the current era:
Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller hires a group tied to a paramilitary militia to do security for him, and his paratroopers assault and handcuff a citizen journalist just trying to get a question answered.
a bullet is shot through Rep. Grijalva's campaign office window, and obscene threats are delivered to his ofc as well.
Rep. Perriello's gas line to his house was cut.
Republican congressional candidate Allen West using a motorcycle gang known for violent criminal activity for security, and then gang members actually harassed and bullied a Democratic staffer trying to videotape a public event.
Vandalism and assassination threats occur at offices of Congressional members during the health care fight.
a doctor who performs abortions in KS is brutally murdered while coming out of his church on a Sunday morning.
a guard at the Holocaust Museum is murdered by an anti-Semitic racist stoked by listening to Limbaugh and Beck.
a lunatic also stirred up by Glenn Beck shows about the Tides Foundation is stopped on his way to murder people at the Tides office in San Francisco.
These are just the actual acts of violence. In the meantime, we have people coming to town hall meetings and Presidential rallies with assault weapons, Republican Senate candidates talking openly of having to use "Second Amendment means" in case regular politics doesn't work, Republican Governors (both Rick Perry and Sarah Palin) meeting with secessionist groups with ties to racist leaders. Rand Paul's wimpy statement about civility is only the latest in Republicans' utter unwillingness to clearly condemn violent acts or rhetoric on the part of way too many of their supporters.
The sad thing is that all this violent talk and action, along with the cowardly acceptance of it by the political party benefiting, is a terrible reliving of American history too many times over. When lynchings and church bombings and the brutal murders and beatings of civil rights activists were going on in the South during the civil rights movement era, politicians in the South rarely said a word to condemn or even restrain their citizens. When an abolitionist Senator, Charles Sumner, was caned by a Senator Preston Brooks from South Carolina, he was cheered and congratulated throughout the South. When the staff at abortion clinics have been murdered several times over the years, "pro-life" politicians have fallen strangely silent way too often.
If Republican politicians don't strongly condemn the thuggery of way too many of their followers, they share in the blame. When they ratchet up their own rhetoric, and talk about second amendment solutions and the President being friends with terrorists, they share in the blame. Democracy is premised on us being able to freely and vigorously debate the issues, and on those who win elections governing the way they believe, but our entire democracy is at risk if violence becomes just another standard operating procedure and isn't swiftly and strongly condemned. Republicans who welcome paramilitary militia members and people with ties to violent racist organizations do so at not only their own peril, but our entire way of government.
James Gilligan published a book 13 years ago called "Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic," in which he diagnosed the root cause of violence as deep shame and humiliation, a desperate need for respect and status (and, fundamentally love and care) so intense that only killing (oneself and/or others) could ease the pain -- or, rather, the lack of feeling. When a person becomes so ashamed of his needs (and of being ashamed), Gilligan writes, and when he sees no nonviolent solutions, and when he lacks the ability to feel love or guilt or fear, the result can be violence.
Rachel Maddow has been doing the best reporting and commentary there is on the widening cycle of violent rhetoric, threats, and, increasingly, crime being committed by right-wing extremists. Her shows the last couple of nights (here and here especially) have been remarkable, and her focus on this has begun to get the traditional media to start looking at it.
This is an important story as the implicit violence in the rhetoric of conservative politicians and pundits has continued to ratchet up. This kind of intentionally violent rhetoric- "Dreihaus is a dead man", "firing line", all the gun and noose references- is exactly what we were getting in the months before the McVeigh bombing in 1995, as Rachel did a good job of pointing out last night.
Anyone who has been a public figure in Democratic politics has gotten violent, threatening calls, letters, e-mails from right-wing extremists. When I mentioned going on the cruise with Maddow, someone with a rather obvious conservative world view e-mailed me saying they hoped that Rachel would push me over the side. Every time I have been in the public spotlight even a little bit- in my days as a PFAW spokesperson on the impeachment fight, in my time as a consultant for the Brady campaign, when I've done ads going after Bush and Cheney that got a lot of media attention- our office mailbox and voicemail have been full of threats, intimidation and obscenities, many assuming I'm Jewish so they threw in anti-Semitic stuff as well. Threats and intimidation just seem to come naturally to these folks. In fact, the right-wing extremists in this country have always had a dark and violent side- the Civil War, canings on the Senate floor, the KKK and White Citizens' Councils, the death and beatings and lynchings of civil rights activists, Father Coughlin's radio rants, the deaths at abortion clinics, Timothy McVeigh.
It's all part of a pattern that goes wide, deep, and steady throughout American history. There have been a smattering of violent lefties as well- a few school bombings and riots in the 1960s, some random anarchist violence a century ago- but nothing that was so intrinsic and deep in the progressive movement itself. Where this could become a crisis for the American political system is if the Republican party leadership decides that the violent extremists are too much a part of their base to distance themselves from them. They are coming dangerously close to that point now, embracing the teabaggers, adding more violence to their own rhetoric. If that's where we are going to in this country, we better hope that Democrats keep winning elections until the Republicans realize they need to do a little distancing from their crazies.
Since the end of July, there have been two massive bombings in Iraq. On July 31st, 29 were killed when a several bombs exploded outside Shiite mosques. On Friday, a truck bomb in another Shiite mosque detonated, killing another 37.
Regular days are also violent affairs. Take August 3rd. In the restive city of Mosul, five Iraqis were killed by separate attacks. Two bombs in Baghdad exploded, killing up to six Iraqis and wounding 26. Near Falluja, another bomb killed two and wounded seven.
In fact, according to the Associated Press, there have been 27 major bombings this year alone, the worst of which led to 82 deaths. The two months with the least number of major bombings were January and February. Since then there have been an average of four to five major bombings per month.
Politically, things look even worse. On important political issues ranging from the fate of Kurdistan to a new oil law, Iraqi politicians have failed to make progress. Worryingly, the current Shia-dominated government seems increasingly hostile to the Sunni-led Awakening movement that was a major factor in reducing insurgent violence.
I have been meaning to write about this topic for several days now, in part because of Cheney and the right-wing movement’s proud defense of torture, and in part because of having finally finished (after much delay because of my book tour) Rick Perlstein’s masterful book Nixonland. I got started yesterday morning, and then got the terrible news about Dr. Tiller, and had to stop for awhile. I hesitated to keep writing because I want to be careful with tying this terrible event to the conservative movement, and indeed I want to start with some caveats. But there are some things that just have to be said on this dark day.
A few hysterics have been trying to peddle the line that an unnamed leftists are just as biased against Israel as the M$M is biased against Palestinians. It is not enough, in their view, that people like myself denounce violence on both sides. We must denounce it with equal vigor. And they will be the judges of whether our vigor is sufficient. Otherwise, we are but a mirror image of the warmonger "pro-Israeli" M$M, and no better than they are.
There are so many things wrong with this sort of "holier-than thou" false equivilency stance, that we could talk of nothing else for days on end. But the bottom line is really pretty simple.
You see, I think it's pretty obvious, and quite rational why a progressive blog, particularly one with a significant Jewish presence, would focus much more attention on Isreali state violence rather than Palestinian violence--reasons in addtion to the obvious fact that Israeli state violence is so vastly more extensive than Palestinian violence, however indiscriminate violence on both sides may be.
The reason we focus more on Isreali state violence is that we are morally, legally and politically responsible for that violence in ways that we are not responsible for the Palestinian violence. And if we truly wish to end the violence on both sides, then the way to do that is to work strenuously to end the violence on our side--and that will give us moral standing and credibility to call for ending violence on the Palestinian side as well.
Hate does not emerge in a vacuum writes the editorial staff of El Diario/La Prensa [translated by New America Media]. Nor could it thrive there, we might add. While many collude to bring about positive change, they face opposition from others who have coalesced to propagate negativity on a large scale. As of late, it is the Latino community catching the hate that has been unleashed upon the immigrant community. El Diaro/La Prensa gives the gruesome details:
I was vacillating about whether or not to go to an anti-Bush demonstration today at 5 p.m., but I think this tipped me over the line:
Paul Rogers writes in opendemocracy.net that the Bush Administration is still considering a strike on Iran in the last months of its administration. The idea would be to bind the next administration into a war.
Not only is this scary, but it seems almost probable. What else would this bunch of psychos do? Like Jim Lobe, cited in the article, I've been skeptical of the prospects of war with Iran given how overstretched the U.S. military is and the disastrous political consequences it could potentially have, but as the time wanes in the presidency, the administration transforms even more from stationary bandits to roving bandits. So, Cheney et al. may actually make a calculation to plunge all of us even closer to a level of violence and warfare that I don't even want to imagine.
Amnesty International reported yesterday that China is the world's top executioner. From ITN News in the UK:
But as with everything else in life, there are unseen ties that link China's use of the death penalty with the United States' use of torture in conducting the "war on terror".
"We want to say to China, 'We thought that the Olympic Games would help you improve your human rights record," Tutu said. "We still hope... But what we are saying to the heads of state, to President George Bush, is, 'For goodness sake, don't go to the Beijing games... for the sake of our children, for the beautiful people of Tibet. Don't go!'"
STATE BLOGS
