American Madness

By John Cory, Reader Supported News

14 January 11

Reader Supported News | Perspective

e are mad, mad as hatters - absolute bonkers, gone 'round the bend and back again without so much as a how-do-you-do.

Don't believe me?

We've just witnessed a horrific mass shooting and what is our reaction?

Glock sales have spiked. One Congressman says we need more people armed on the streets because we all know that nothing protects innocent life like a mob of armed citizens shooting back and forth at one another. In New Hampshire they just voted to allow state representatives to carry guns on the capitol floor, and another Congressman is writing legislation to allow members to bring guns to the floor of the US Congress in DC. Some Tea Party leader in Tucson named Trent Humphries said that Rep. Giffords should have had security at her event if she was so concerned about possible violence. The implication being that it was her fault she got shot. A NY Congressman wants to introduce gun-control legislation that would restrict guns within 1,000 feet of a member of Congress. What about the citizens you represent Congressman?

Good God, the genius switch is never off in America.

On Monday evening, I happened to catch an interview between Chris Matthews and a fellow named Judson Phillips who apparently is a founder of something called Tea Party Nation. You can watch it for yourself here. But this is what struck me:

Matthews: Joining us now, Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Part Nation. When you first heard about the incident, what was your reaction?

Phillips: I was stunned. It was unbelievable that a member of Congress would be shot in America. This happens in Third World countries, not America ...

When Matthews pushed back that we have a long history of shooting political leaders, both elected and unelected, Phillips clung to denial.

Phillips: I disagree ... that there is not another country in the world -

Matthews: Name one.

Phillips: Give me a chance to take a look. This is a pop quiz kind of question here ...

I didn't know much about this guy so I figured he must be from the Baldrick School of History. You remember Baldrick from Blackadder Goes Forth, the BBC comedy series about WWI?

Baldrick: I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry.

Blackadder: I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.

Baldrick: Nah, there was definitely an ostrich involved, sir.

Of course maybe Phillips is one of those folks who blindly embrace the divine myth of America, unblemished by reality, whose history is manipulated by propaganda patriotism and exceptionalism.

I mean come on, the names of those shot or assassinated should rise to the top of our common memory: Medgar Evers - John F. Kennedy - Malcolm X - Dr. Martin Luther King - Robert F. Kennedy - George Wallace - George Lincoln Rockwell - Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone - James Chaney - Michael Schwerner - Andrew Goodman - Ronald Reagan - James Brady - and now Gabrielle Giffords. This is just in my lifetime.

We embrace violence. We have made it a tradition. Guns and violence are as American as apple pie.

But we can't talk about it in any sort of honest fashion or openly admit we even have a problem. Crazy, huh?

The first mass shooter I remember as a kid was in August of 1966. I can still recall the photos in Life Magazine. A disturbed young man climbed a clock tower on the university campus in Austin, Texas, and proceeded to kill 16 and wound another 32 people. It was called "Murder Rampage: The Most Savage One-Man Orgy of Killing in the History of American Crime."

We have long since surpassed that August day in 1966.

The 1984 MacDonald's Massacre in San Diego. The postal shooter in Oklahoma in 1986. Sunnyvale, California 1988. Luby's Cafeteria in Texas 1991. A San Francisco law office 1993. Jonesboro, Arkansas 1998. Columbine 1999. Goleta, California in January 2006, followed by Seattle in March 2006. Virginia Tech in 2007. Ft. Hood in 2009, and now Tucson in 2011. This is only a partial list of shootings.

And that's without counting our celebrity serial killers and people like Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber and on and on.

America is No. 1!

And we accept it all with inane rationalizations like: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." - Yeah - with guns!

Our acceptance and mainstreaming of violence and torture is jaw-dropping, and yet part of our numbness to the new normal. It is not just guns it is so much more. Consider this article about the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) by Erfon Elijah entitled: "Most Entertaining Booth: Taser Shocks Consumers With Product Line Up" and the opening paragraph: "Literally. In what was one of the greatest and most entertaining spectacles at CES, Taser had consumers lining up to get shocked - and I got it all on camera." (h/t to Digby)

America, we need to talk. But we won't.

Why?

The Republican radical conservatives that now decry having their toxic words linked to the violent actions of a madman are disingenuous at best. The great right-wing echo chamber spends millions of dollars on focus group testing of words and phrases like "death panels" or "lame-stream media" or "government is the problem" or "Obamacare" or "paling around with terrorists." Words are important.

Think about this: after a democratic election based on the very principles of the founding of this country, a noise-machine kicked into high gear with words like tyranny, socialism, communism, fascism and illegitimate legislation to describe the free election of a president and his agenda. Obama may have won the majority vote but he was not one of us, not a true American and therefore must be tainted and smeared and delegitimized at every opportunity. Democracy worked but the losers didn't like the results. Damned democracy. I want my country back.

America, we need to talk. But we won't.

Why?

Money.

The NRA is a powerful lobby able to move money and votes. Weak-kneed politicians cannot stand on principle in a cash-and-carry world.

The camera-carnival of cable pundit shows and the mealy-mouthed mainstream networks of our corporate owners profit from "rodeo clown entertainers" like Beck and Limbaugh because controversy increases ratings and ratings bring sponsors and sponsors bring multi-million dollar salaries to these purveyors of political porn and phobic hate.

Citizens are not wealthy but corporations are and have now been declared "persons" by a tainted and partisan Supreme Court.

Our discourse is one of denigration and demonization.

Why?

It sells.

And this has been going on for thirty years while the once grand liberal movement buried its head in the sand alongside Baldrick and his ostrich.

That's right, liberals can't skate on this. There be no free passes here.

Silence is acquiescence. Failure to stand is failure to lead. Losing a fight is not failure, but failing to fight is.

The toxic noise machine of the far right cannot survive without manufacturing fear and anger; without twisting the words and intent of our Founding Fathers; without selectively picking which parts of the Constitution are divinely inspired and thus require unswerving obedience, and which rights are not really guaranteed and need to be repealed. Such weight of sound and fury can only lead to collapse unless we prop it up by supporting sponsors and media that seek to make us indentured servants of bloviators and their wealthy owners.

Liberals/Progressives it is time to step up and speak up.

As Dr. King said: "In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."

Up next: A Liberal Dose of Reality.