Vitriol

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," the sheriff said. "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

I do not know the circumstances or mental condition of the young man named Jared Loughner, 22, who killed at least six people yesterday in Arizona.  But many such acts are committed by paranoid delusional persons,  so I'm taking a wild guess that something similar is going on with this young man.  This is why, as someone who works with mentally ill persons in crisis, I appreciated the above statement from the Pima County, Arizona sheriff, Clarence Dupnik.  It is a statement which places yesterday's evil in a larger context than just an unstable person acting out in complete isolation from societal forces.

The article I got this quote from gave a glimpse into to what societal forces Jared may have been responding (in conjunction with the forces inside him, of course): the violent and hateful language used by political candidates and the whole political media machine in America.  For example, Sarah Palin, who uses gun battle language in her political rhetoric, saying things like, "Don't retreat, reload!" and who also placed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Democratic congresswoman shot by Loughner, on her 'targeted' seats list.  Another example:

During his campaign effort to unseat Gifford in November, Republican challenger Jesse Kelly held fundraisers where he urged supporters to help remove Giffords from office by joining him to shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle. Kelly is a former Marine who served in Iraq and was pictured on his website in military gear holding his automatic weapon and promoting the event.

Clearly Mr. Kelly, age 28, was not thinking of the unsound-of-mind when he came up with this ploy to pose in military dress and SHOOT A LOADED RIFLE in a gesture of defeating another (female) political candidate.  Clearly his mentally unstable supporters were not on this businessman's mind when he chose to use a concrete act of violence to demonstrate what he would like to do to Giffords--*symbolically*, of course.  (Speaking of concrete thinkers, what are we telling our children when they see legislators shooting automatic rifles and speaking contemptuously of their opponents?)  I'm assuming Mr. Kelly is white, as I can hardly imagine such a stunt benefitting a brown person running for office in Arizona.

On his website, votejessekelly.com, Mr. Kelly offers his condolences to the victims, stating, "Senseless acts of violence such as this have absolutely no place in American politics." Is he speaking too of his own act of violence, as 'symbolic' as it may have been?  Is he referring also to the senseless language of violence used in political rhetoric today?

"I can't trust the current government because of fabrications. The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar."  --Jared Loughner

I do not refer to Mr. Kelly as the lone contributor to Jared's delusions.  It's possible Jared did not even know who Jesse Kelly was, or of his rifle stunt.  I don't suggest that Jared had no control over the long line of decisions and actions that led to his acts of violence.  But I agree with the sheriff that these murders should check hard the rhetoric used in American politics.  It is dramatic, sensationalist, overrun with falsehood, prideful, polarized, fear-mongering, increasingly violent, and thank you for the word, sheriff, vitriolic.  When did the public servant become the public militant?

We are naive to think there is no cost to contemptuous and murderous rhetoric in any common arena, much less on the political stage.  (Could we also be naive about the cost of our nation's gun laws?)

I look at these two men's photos and think, are we not all connected?  And how will we get by without being each other's keepers?