After the shooting in Tucson

[Hannah Bell]

It is indubitably true that there is a direct and immediate connection between the murderous rampage of the shooter, Jared L. Loughner, and the interminable stream of fascistic ravings from Republican Party politicians, corporate-funded “Tea Party” organizations, and television and talk-radio demagogues...The American right has long understood the susceptibility of people suffering from serious forms of psychotic derangement to its message of hate, paranoia-tinged bigotry and anticommunism.

However, it would be inadequate to explain Loughner’s actions as merely the product of the propaganda of the political right and its stable of talk show demagogues. There are deeper social causes for the bloody events in Tucson...

Richard Kim of the Nation proposes, as an antidote to the violence of the right, that the American people “cherish more dearly the practice of politics and citizenship as something noble in its intent, something to expand and celebrate—instead of something to denigrate as the enemy of the people...”

Millions of American workers feel instinctively and correctly that the politicians of both the Republican and Democratic parties are for sale, and that all the important decisions made by the government are for the rich. And yet it is this political system that the Nation wants the people to “cherish,” “expand” and “celebrate.” How can such a message appeal to masses of people in the midst of a terrible social crisis? Can it come as a surprise that the tributes of the Nation and like-minded “progressive” publications to the glories of American politics in general and the Obama administration in particular fall on deaf ears...?

Millions of people today are in a similar situation. They are threatened with disaster. No, they do not want to shoot or kill anyone. But they do want change, and they are prepared to fight for it. But the entire social structure, and the political system erected upon it, seems to allow no possibility for protest and progressive change...

But discontent builds relentlessly and seeks an outlet. To the extent that it cannot find a progressive and optimistic expression, in the form of collectively organized class struggle, it finds malignant expression in the outbursts of desperate individuals. Sections of society, and not only those who are psychologically disturbed, become susceptible to the demagogues of the extreme right, for whom corporate funding and publicity are always available.

The events in Tucson are a warning. The accumulating social discontent must find a new and progressive path of expression...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/tucs-j11.shtml

[leftstreet]

1. "Strikes and virtually every other form of social protest have disappeared"

No kidding

Excellent piece!

K&R

[ClassWarrior]

2. K&R

NGU.

[krispos42]

3. It takes a lot to make somebody kill another.

We don't generally do it naturally. Our murder rate is about 5.2 per 100,000 people per year. And that's a fair bit higher than Western European countries, who manage to get things down into the 2.0 range.

It's pretty easy to rant and rave about something, to get emotional. I do it all the time in my car listening to podcasts or whatever. But it's a huge leap to go from angry internal monologue after listening to some mouth-breathing idiot to murder, to assassination.

It takes a huge audience and constant, daily pummeling by the right-wing talkers and their pundits to get one or two people to go off the deep end every year. In way that is a positive thing.

But it's still a bit depressing.

[Hannah Bell]

4. k

[sabrina 1]

5. We live in a culture of violence. TV is filled with violent shows,

cop shows, war movies, murders, crime shows, and there is always a detachment from the 'body' in these shows. The cops are depicted as very clinical with no feeling for the victims. Maybe if once in a while they would show a reporter or cop or doctor, show some emotion it would counter the violence slightly. But when even the 'good guys' don't bat an eye when they find a body and appear as detached as the criminals, the lesson is that violent death is normal, nothing to get emotional about.

Then there is the war culture, the worship of the military, the nationalism and the myth that war is noble and the covering up of the reality of war. It's a wonder that anyone grows up even relatively normal exposed as they are to so much violence.

And the 24/7 drumbeat of hate radio teaching intolerance for anyone different, or poor.

I think this nation has been taken over by some very emotionally sick people and it should not be surprising that tragedies like this one occur on such a regular basis.

But we could not be an empire if we were raising normal, anti-violent human beings, it would not be good for business.