Who Was to Blame for the Massacre in Tucson?

A few of the Telegraph bloggers are suddenly very keen to point out that "the left / liberals" are a bit too eager to pin the blame on the Tea Party and people like Glenn Beck, for encouraging the terrible shootings that have led to six deaths and thirteen injured when lone gunman Jared Loughner opened fire at a meeting where the right wing Democrat congress woman Gabrielle Giffords was holding a meeting, an apparent assassination attempt which has led to Mrs Giffords needing life saving treatment for a bullet to the head, and has caused the deaths of a 9 year old girl; Christina Green*, and several elderly people dead as well. The Torygraph bloggers who have been pretty supportive of the Tea Party are keen to highlight that the left are trying to politicise the massacre for their own ends, and to discredit the Tea Party itself for their own ends.

Obviously the blame ultimately lies with the Loughner himself. He fired those shots, he decided to murder people for whatever twisted "reasons" he may have had. But the controversy around Palin and Becks antics on the part of "the left" and others in relation to the shooting is not a politicising act as such, but (IMHO) serious questions about the nature 0f the kind of rhetoric emanating in some right wing; anti government; libertarian circles. Now there is no evidence that Lolughner was a Tea partier, and if you can stomach reading the self pitying incoherent drivel he has posted in the past, he comes across as an unbalanced anti-government paranoid conspiracy theorist who is attracted to both hard left and hard right sentiment, a classic self pitying fanatic with an axe to grind who thinks the system is spying on him and is to blame for his own failings as a person, and that all us schmucks are too thick to see what he can.

Now back to the criticisms of Beck and Palin. Obviously they aren't responsible for the massacre, and should not take direct blame for it. However, and this is where I'm sorry to say - mud sticks. The level of some of the sentiment from their supporters has been geared towards implied violence. Some of the more fringe extremes have been echoing sentiments in the mould of the placard above. There has been rather a lot of use of metaphors relating to aggression and violence and an inability to even entertain the notion of listening to the opposing side. Not even taking into account the innocuous "Mama Grizzly" thing. Stuff like the rattlesnake poster saying "don't step on me!" or Palin using the "gunsight map" to make a stand against the 20 reps who voted for the healthcare reforms (including Gabrielle Giffords herself). Palin has been keen to remove it from her website since the attack occurred. Now let me emphasise again, Sarah Palin did not guide the hand that fired the bullets, the killer is to blame for what happened. But that does not excuse the harsh incendiary rhetoric that has been doing the rounds. To quote the republican David Frum (so it isn't just leftys who have condemned the militant language):

"Conservatives have been quick to repudiate – to brand as offensive and disgusting – any suggestion that the Tucson shooting was somehow inspired by the extreme anti-Obama political rhetoric of the past 2 years.

In this, conservatives have the facts on their side. By all reports, the Tucson shooter was a very mentally disturbed person. Even if Jared Lee Loughner was aware that Sarah Palin’s PAC had posted a gun sight next to Congresswoman Gifford’s name, that awareness cannot be translated into a motivation. It makes no sense to talk of the “motive” of someone who is fundamentally irrational.

That point should be acknowledged, accepted, and internalized. Yet as we acknowledge that extremist rhetoric did not incite this crime, it should also be acknowledged that the rhetoric has been extreme, and potentially dangerously so. I wrote in April 2009:

A man bearing a sidearm appears outside President Obama’s Aug. 11 town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., under a sign proclaiming, “It is time to water the tree of liberty.”
That phrase of course references a famous statement of Thomas Jefferson’s, from a 1787 letter: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.”

Earlier that same day, another man is arrested inside the school building in which the president will speak. Police found a loaded handgun in his parked car.

At an event held by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona last week, police were called after one attendee dropped a gun.

Nobody has been hurt so far. We can all hope that nobody will be. But firearms and politics never mix well. They mix especially badly with a third ingredient: the increasingly angry tone of incitement being heard from right-of-center broadcasters.

The Nazi comparisons from Rush Limbaugh; broadcaster Mark Levin asserting that President Obama is “literally at war with the American people”; former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claiming that the president was planning “death panels” to extirpate the aged and disabled; the charges that the president is a fascist, a socialist, a Marxist, an illegitimate Kenyan fraud, that he “harbors a deep resentment of America,” that he feels a “deep-seated hatred of white people,” that his government is preparing concentration camps, that it is operating snitch lines, that it is planning to wipe away American liberties”: All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence.

Again: this talk did not cause this crime. But this crime should summon us to some reflection on this talk. Better: This crime should summon us to a quiet collective resolution to cease this kind of talk and to cease to indulge those who engage in it.

Although there is always the risk of a loony with an axe to grind going on a shooting rampage whatever you say, or however eloquently you word your views. The sentiments on Glenn Becks show, and the more militant talk on the murky ends of the tea party are music to the ears of a paranoid misfit with an irrational hatred of big government, or any for of government whatsoever and in any form. When Beck equates firearms control with the rise of National Socialism, or calls Obama a white hater without any evidence to back that up, these kinds of people are going to listen. When suggestive imagery about "gunning" after your opponents may cause someone like Palin to perhaps worry that someone could take her literally, especially when people have been turning up to these meetings brandishing firearms that would not be out of place on a bloody battlefield (why do you need such a large arsenal by the way. How big are the coyotes on your farm?) When right wing news networks totally exaggerate the perceived dangers of social democracy such as health care reform as "some doctors are going to send granny to the gas chambers." or pro abortion as "Stalins USSR". This feeds the paranoia of frightened disturbed individuals who think the establishment is out to get them. Is it not too much to ask that those who may be cynically manipulating this stuff, to see that they may be stirring things up that they may not be able to control. Do they even comprehend where it could lead? The right are often quick to highlight European nations slackness on zealous ultra Islamic preachers using militant rhetoric, and that we shouldn't be surprised if a devotee may take their words to horrific conclusions. The same applies here. For all the talk of liberty, there seems a lot of fascistic violent sentiment doing the rounds. Time for more constructive dialogue with opponents, and less threatening demagogy .

THIS VIDEO IS AN INTERESTING AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE MILITANT SENTIMENT THAT WAS DOING THE ROUNDS, THOUGH BEFORE THE SHOOTINGS HAPPENED. IT IS EVEN MORE PERTINENT IN LIGHT OF WHAT HAPPENED.

*Christina was born on September 11th 2001. She was at the meeting to highlight the positive things that happened that day. What a tragc irony. Utterly heartbreaking.