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I'm surprised this is still being debated when there are so many more relevant issues to be discussed, not to mention fought around. Anyway, I found SW's coverage yesterday to be on point: http://socialistworker.org/2011/01/18/what-they-say-not-how FOR ALL the countless hours and pages devoted to the question by the mainstream media, no one knows that much about why Loughner did what he did. Loughner clearly suffers from mental illness. If the shootings weren't evidence enough, he left behind a collection of rambling videos on the Internet that testify to his condition. As for any political beliefs that might have motivated him, there's no clear evidence--only the signs of an anti-authority tendency that can just as easily be portrayed as far-right libertarian, rather than liberal, as some conservative pundits have tried to do. Missing from all the conflicting media speculation about Loughner as an individual is any consideration of the broader picture--of the elements of U.S. society that shape tragedies like these. The right wing's message of scapegoating and hate is one of those elements. But so is the day-to-day violence of a world dominated by inequality, oppression and greed. And Arizona has, in the past year especially, been a symbol for several different forms of that violence. After a press conference following the shootings, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik was roundly denounced, and not just by right-wingers, for his statement that Arizona has "become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry." But it was surprising how few media outlets even mentioned Arizona's anti-immigrant law SB 1070 that last year made the state notorious as precisely what Dupnik called it. SB 1070 essentially legalized racial profiling with requirements that law enforcement officials determine the immigration status of everyone they stop, and that they detain, even for minor offenses, anyone who can't prove they're in the U.S. legally. The worst provisions of the law were blocked by a federal judge, but not before immigrant communities were decimated when people fearful of being victimized left. Barely a week before Loughner opened fire, another reactionary law went into effect in Arizona--a ban on ethnic studies in public schools. There's little evidence that Loughner thought one way or the other about the state's new "Juan Crow" laws, as they came to be called by activists. But the casual dehumanization of whole groups of people by politicians ambitious for the limelight, like Gov. Jan Brewer, has certainly become more a part of daily life in Arizona than ever. The state has also been hit harder than most by the economic crisis. Real estate prices dropped dramatically in the suburban area of Tucson where Loughner lived with his parents. The 22-year-old reportedly filled out applications for dozens of low-wage jobs, but wasn't hired. Like countless other college students, his prospects looked grim after graduation. Loughner wasn't driven to kill by a bad economy alone, either--but it would be absurd to deny that the deteriorating living standards and bleak future he faced along with millions of other people didn't compound already existing tensions and crises. When internalized conflicts burst out in horrible acts of individual violence, political leaders talk piously about their reverence for human life. But that's a lie. The ruling class of the United States is the most violent in the history of the world--to judge only by the horrific wars it has waged around the world, at the cost of tens of millions of lives lost and many more destroyed. Some people have connected Loughner's shootings in Arizona with Timothy McVeigh, for obvious reasons--McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 also came amid a conservative political climate after a Republican election victory in which the right claimed to be standing up against the liberal elite. McVeigh was a part of far-right organizations, and Loughner is not. But whatever else the two do or don't have in common, it's worth remembering something else about McVeigh. Before he became the despised murderer of 168 people in Oklahoma City, he was decorated as a hero by the U.S. government for his part in murdering Iraqis during the 1991 Gulf War. He learned to kill as the driver of a military bulldozer, burying Iraqi soldiers alive in their trenches during the invasion 20 years ago this month. The truth is that America's rulers glorify violence in any number of forms, while claiming to oppose it in other forms. That hypocrisy is part of a toxic mix of factors that shaped Jared Loughner. None of them was necessarily responsible for his horrifying murders in a direct way. But all of them are part of a world where violent acts--some officially disapproved of, and others officially celebrated--are constant. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
