Ice is Melting... Some

I guess it's time to see if the road is more or less clear.  Two days ago there were over 2,000 traffic mishaps in North Carolina.  Mine wasn't really a mishap either.  I've just been reading the continuing conversation over whether the general "tone" of right wing political discourse is relevant to the events of last Saturday.  I'd recommend Driftglass's rebuttal of David Brooks' predictable view that, no, right wing rhetoric is NOT relevant.  Roy Edroso also has an excellent post up, with many excellent comments.  But the following is worth a thought:

http://firedoglake.com/2011/01/11/build-your-own-joe-wilson-commemorative-you-lie-assault-rifle/

Palmetto Armory has apparently taken the page down because of all the publicity.  Or possibly because there's a legal problem with a Congressional Seal they used. Or because the item has sold out. Or whatever.  Fact is, they put this page up.  And the question is, I suppose, would some shooter somewhere sometime be connected to right wing rhetorical excess if he didn't use one of those "clips" (haha Mr. Gun Nut, I used that word just to be annoying). Or if he did, for that matter.  What does it take, anyway?  We're not talking about the law here, but about language and common sense.  And here's a simpler question for you.  Would you go to a political event--even a little "meet your congressperson in the parking lot" kind of deal, if you believed it likely that people would be there carrying machine pistols and assault weapons, in a "display" of their "Second Amendment Rights."  Fact is, I'd guess quite a few sensible people would rather not be anywhere near people "displaying" their supposed "Second Amendment Rights."

This has a name.  The name is intimidation.  This is how democracy is bent to the will of people who use effective intimidation tactics.  And Mr. David Brooks can get his nightly shot on the News Hour, that bastion of rationality, and complain that Loughner likely never heard of Sarah Palin's "reload" metaphor, because he was too much "in his own world."   Fact is, some of this blood might have splattered out there on the right wing ranters, and they know it.  It's not about some legal argument to be made in some trial of Loughner or anyone else.  It's about a decades long history of mischaracterization and intimidation and "culture war."  Mr. Limbaugh took offense at Clinton's speech after the Oklahoma City bombing.  McVeigh too was, in some sense, a "lone nut."  So, for that matter, are the 19 people who flew the planes into the buildings. (And the attempt to tar a billion-member world religion with those 19 is ok with Hannity, Beck, Palin, et al.--so what exactly is their problem anyway?)

Only on a blog can you end a piece with a parenthetical rhetorical question--ain't America wonderful!

Good Country Folks

Gloucester, NC, Mardi Gras, 2010

I went out yesterday, about 7:30 or so, intending to drive the eight miles in to work.  About two-thirds of the way there I encountered a road entirely glazed with ice, and noticed a number of folks slipping and sliding, and then parking their vehicles in fields and on shoulders as quickly as they could.  Out here where I live it had not been this way, and I was driving South--which of course was in the direction in which the weather was coming.  My little 2Xdrive, light truck started sliding around at about the moment I noticed the parkers.  Several times I nearly went into the ditch, but fortunately I avoided that and maintained a bit of progress towards town.  There was no on-coming traffic.  After a few hundred yards I came to a driveway with some decent parking places and got myself into one of them.  Almost instantly the owner of the place drove up, on the way to town, and said it was fine for me to leave the truck there.  I called Libby, told her what was happening, called work, embarked on the walk home.  I was decently dressed for the weather, although my very comfortable standing on concrete shoes are not nice and warm like the work boots I wear to cut wood and generally be outside in.  My great Kyle Busch toboggan which was a Christmas present was sitting at home in the kitchen, but I did have a hat.

It wasn't long till I got offered a ride, by a woman in a big blue 4X Dodge truck.  The road was so slick that I was unable to walk across it to the truck, so I told her thanks, but just worry about your own situation.  She drove down the road apiece, parked in a church parking lot that was kinda flat, and I eventually reached her, where I got in.  She was going precisely my direction, and getting to miss a 6 mile walk was pretty nice in my book.  As we rode along she told me she was going to see her parents in Burlington (about 20 miles or so to the north at that point), and had taken this particular road because it was scenic, not realizing it was iced.  Her parents, she said, were both stroke victims and needed assistance in the on-coming winter storm, which had already dropped some 5 inches of snow and ice on Georgia.  We chatted about parent care and such, and it turned out that her parents were both a good bit younger than me.

I don't usually pick up people she told me, but in this weather....  Anyways, she said, I have a gun.  I smiled and told her my name, and how Libby and I had been stuck in a snow-induced traffic jam just south of Roanoke on US 220, a few years back.  Ever been on 220 I asked her.  Nope.  She went around a stationwagon that was totally stalled on an uphill.  That situation had caused the big jam we had been stuck in.  My rescue-er said both her parents smoked.  I asked if she did and she said yes.  You ought to quit I said.  I know she said.  Maybe when the stress of dealing with my parents is less.  Yeah I said, I know.  (I quit back in '84; it was not easy.)  We got to where my road T's into the road we were on.  I said let me out here, I can walk the rest--you don't need to go out of your way.  I told her my name and shook her hand.  Then I got out and started walking.  Another person came along and gave me a ride the rest of the two remaining miles.  Good country folks, every one.  I didn't even have my fiddle in hand, as a credential. 

Later, in the evening, we watched Ed Schultz interview a young guy who'd been one of the people to tackle the shooter in Tucson.  He revealed to Ed that he'd been armed.  I always carry a gun he said.  I saw what was going on, had the safety off.  I would have killed the guy if I'd of needed to.  What had happened was, he saw a man with a gun, ran and grabbed him.  Then someone said, no, not that guy, this one.  So he went and grabbed the real shooter and helped hold him down.  He said there was blood everywhere, screaming, crying.  The worst thing I ever saw he said.  He was glad he carried a gun.  I thought that it was also good he hadn't shot the wrong person--that first guy he saw, with a gun.  Still, the guy did good, no doubt about it.

I was also glad my rescue-er had been armed.  Otherwise, she would not have rescued me.  And I was glad she wasn't crazy, and glad she didn't shoot me.  Glad that things had pretty much been for me what I'd expected, aside from that moment when my truck went sideways and it turned out there was ice on the road.  And I was glad I didn't wreck the truck, for that matter.  And that nobody stole the wheels till I could go get it later, when the ice had melted.

It was over all a pretty good day yesterday, for me.  Made me think of the Robert Hunter lyrics:

"See here how everything, lead us to this day
And it's the same as it ever was:
Sun comin' up and then, the sun it goin' down
Shine through my window, and my friends they come around...."

This year's Gloucester Mardi Gras is February 19.

The Right "Response" to the Giffords Massacre

A Klan Wedding, Washington State, 1923

You don't need citations to know that right wing response to the Giffords Massacre is primarily a matter of deflection and/or refocusing the question.  For example, some have tried to focus the issue on the character of the gunman, arguing that he was a "liberal" because his unhinged rantings included Marx.  "I doubt he listened to Glenn Beck," someone said, "because he quoted Marx."  (Of course Beck quotes Marx from time to time--just sayin'.)  The other response is to express concern over "free speech."  This tack has a history in the defense of the Tea Party--every racist sign was either "free speech" or "an outlier, maybe a liberal even... but what can we do?"

As you know from reading this blog, I've come to the conclusion that actually having a conversaton with committed Right Wingers on any topic is pointless, because I'm convinced that the Right is now completely committed to "winning" by any means, at any cost.  Thus, in this tragic case, they aren't really defending free speech.  They're just defending their weapons cache.  Hate is a powerful weapon in the Right Wing arsenal--without it it's likely that much of the fervor it generates amongst the millions of voters who have very little in depth understanding of what's going on--on any subject--would dissipate.  But there's also a kind of structural issue in this particular example.  The only solution to a world with irresponsible, unfettered hate speech is probably a governmental one--some kind of "Fairness Doctrine," backed by legal sanctions, for example.  Tikkun wonders this morning why a Democratic Congress didn't generate a Committee on Hate Speech while they had the chance.

The fact is, the complete cynicism concerning government which is a foundation block in the Right Wing philosophy (drown it in the bathtub, to use the short hand) makes solutions to situations like our current Hate Speech Fest impossible.  This is of course convenient for the Right--they want the leverage Hate Talk brings.  But if we were to assume for the moment the counterfactual idea that the Right is actually appalled at the Massacre and shares with us the hope that there might be some solution, let it be noted that the Right has already closed the door to a solution, and insured the continuing circularity of what passes for conversation.  Indeed, Arizona may point the way to America's future.  As the sheriff of Pima County, where the Massacre occurred, said last night on C-Span--"Arizona is the Tombstone of the United States."  Forces are now in control of Arizona government such that all citizens of that state may, if they wish, carry concealed weapons anywhere, any time, and can obtain said weapons without background checks.  The fantasy of the Old West has apparently returned to Arizona.  The fetish of the Gun has been instituted in law. (And Tea Party right-wingers in Pima County are already calling for the Sheriff's resignation--apparently he's run afoul of the thought police which must accompany any rigorous institution of Doctrine such as has occurred decades back on the Right.) 

Howard Hughes once made a very strange movie called "The Outlaw," which, for its obvious subtext, should be required viewing this week.  He got into trouble with the movie because it's female lead, Jane Russell, showed a bit of cleavage.  Miss Russell (a wonderfully real, down-to-earth individual who, if she wrote an autobiography, you should definitely read it) was not the real point of the movie.  The real point was Mr. Hughes subconscious, and the symbolism of the gun.  It's all there, even if rather humorously portrayed.  In Arizona today, apparently "The Outlaw" has been realized.  Except, of course, in this version children lie bleeding and dead on the dusty floor, and a sparkling, earnest Congresswoman who would be a star in any District's crown now lies in a hospital in critical condition, able to respond to simple commands.  I hope she fully recovers.  I am saddened by the likely life she now faces.  I am shocked that an obviously crazy person could buy himself a machine pistol in Tucson, a city I've played music in and love.  Indeed, I'm saddened that Tucson's citizens now bear the burden of being the place where the Giffords Massacre occurred.

There is no good reason for this tragedy.  That fact should not be used as a justification for doing nothing, for continuing with hate as usual.  I'm afraid that's exactly what will happen.  It's just what we do.  Next week there's the Martin Luther King Holiday.  No doubt some right wing wag will argue that because there's a Martin Luther King Holiday, there can't be racism.  Maybe it'll be Mr. McCain who makes that argument, on the floor of the Senate.  Wouldn't be at all surprised, would you?  McCain's career of hypocrisy and 180 about faces would make even thoughtful constituents crazy.  He's Arizona's Senator.

Update:  David Frum, who surely should know better, argues that the problem is pot.  How's that for deflection.  (See Tbogg for the details.)  There is already much nuanced discussion of the crazed shooter's pyschology and thoughts, particularly as he was articulate enough to have written some of his ideas down on the internet and elsewhere.  Here is one of the best pieces I happened to have run across so far:

http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/01/10/exploring-the-mind-and-behavior-of-jared-loughner/


Insofar as they're not just dissembling, the Right needs to try and understand that it's possible both for the shooter to be, in extreme shorthand terminology, "crazy," and for there to be a rhetorical atmosphere that encourages extreme acts, such as the act he perpetrated on Saturday.  Moreover, the ceaseless "they do it too" statements by a mainstream media more afraid of, e.g., Sarah Palin's reaction to any criticism than to the remote possibility that some next crazy person might come their specific way, are most unhelpful, since they just encourage everyone to fall back into the circular and meaningless conversation.  Can't we just get real for a change?  It's real blood on the saddle right now.  (An unlikely hope I realize: driving to work earlier today, an effort which was ended in ice and a long walk back home, the truck now parked in someone's driveway six miles towards town, the "Rush Radio" morning blather mused that the shooter might have been a "set up" for some sort of new gun regulations.  Ain't that a pip.  From a Massacre to "they're coming to get your guns" in 48 hours.  And you wonder why I say talking the the Right is pointless?)

Other very good posts on this subject:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/01/dont_politicize_this_tragedy.php#comments

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/01/she-can-see-fatwa-from-her-house.html

If You Were In the Park, and It Was 1968

Ms Giffords opponent last fall

 Let's start with this:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/8/934297/-Second-Amendment-Solutions-%28pictures,-continuing-updates%29

 The link presents the facts.  That is, the "atmosphere," if you like.  All the perfectly crafted responses from "Tea Party Spokesmen" and from various politicians and main stream media people mean absolutely nothing.  Also meaningless is the analysis of the kid's ravings, e.g., "Oh look, he mentions Marx, he must be a liberal."  This, Mrs. Angle, is a "Second Amendment Solution" in action.  This tasty phrase has been all the rage this political season.  It's in the water now.  

The sad fact is, the simple minded rhetoric about weapons is just as simple minded as the simple minded rhetoric about debt ceilings, and the simple minded rhetoric about government in general.  It is being proposed that we be led by the simple minded.  They are in fact winning elections.  Mrs. Virginia Fox (R, NC) is now head of the Education Committee in the US House of Representatives.  That picture is worth about the same as the one of Rummy shaking hands with Saddam.

If there is one lesson to be learned at this juncture, it is that people who bother to vote in some sort of seemingly special circumstance, such as the election of Barack Obama in '08, have got to understand that they can't just go back to their ordinary lives and forget about politics for another decade, until something else so bad develops that once again they decide to be bothered.  The right does not rest.  Their goal is utter destruction, and they are working on it without respite. Moreover, they have vast resources, including an army of highly effective sales personnel who command innumerable radio and television shows.  And the right, in the form of corporate dominance of the terms of discourse, is already so powerful in the US as to almost make democracy an illusion, just as things stands.  Don't expect an Obama to manage to change much. Read a little Chomsky if you want to understand the lay of the land.  But if you bothered to vote in '08, you'd best plan on staying in the game.  The alternative is out and out fascism, which is what assassination and terrorism amounts to.

What a tragic waste.

Update:  Laurie is correct that "their" goal is not really utter destruction.  Their goal is control and power.  They do hope to utterly destroy the New Deal and various assertions in law and fact that bring the founding phrase "all men are created equal" more to reality.  For more discussion see:
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/01/police-are-seeking-possible-acccomplice.html
Be sure to read the comments.