To Dehumanize

Racism is a form of violence and it isn’t going away until we repudiate violence itself. We demand that our political leaders be “tough on crime,” but forget to ask ourselves, where are the candidates who are “tough on hatred, tough on violence”?

One needn’t look far, then, to see one critical reason why racism doesn’t die — a reason that we ignore only because so many of us are numbed into insensitivity by its sheer familiarity. We ourselves saw a shocking example the other day on the main street of liberal Berkeley: a graphic poster for a popular television program with the bold message, “LET’S GO KILL SOMETHING.”

Coming as it did right after the very real murder in Mississippi, the echo was sickening. It isn’t just the message that violence is fun, but the enabling denial that makes violence possible, which is dehumanization: you cannot kill something, of course, but someone, some form of life.
~ from Why Racism Doesn't Die by Michael Nagler and Stephanie Van Hook ~

The authors begin their essay with a brief recounting of the murder of an innocent bystander who was selected solely based on the color of his skin. As CNN reported,

On a recent Sunday morning just before dawn, two carloads of white teenagers drove to Jackson, Mississippi, on what the county district attorney says was a mission of hate: to find and hurt a black person.

In a parking lot on the western side of town they found their victim.

James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, was standing in a parking lot, near his car. The teens allegedly beat Anderson repeatedly, yelled racial epithets, including "White Power!" according to witnesses.

Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith says a group of the teens then climbed into their large Ford F250 green pickup truck, floored the gas, and drove the truck right over Anderson, killing him instantly.

What made this killing so easy was that the youth didn't view Anderson as a fellow human being -- the very essence of dehumanization. He simply was a target like a tin can or a spot drawn on a board.

Except in the throes of passionate jealousy, convulsive anger and/or nationalistic/religious fervor, it is hard to kill someone. When a person is thinking clearly and rationally, we see that the other person is a lot like us. They have hopes and dreams. They have people who love and depend upon them. They laugh, cry, smile and frown just like everybody else we know.

So, while violence is a scourge upon society, it is only a symptom of the deeper problem of dehumanization.

Skin-Deep

The idea that one person could kill another -- particularly a complete stranger -- because of a person's race, sexual orientation, gender, age, ethnicity, mental capability or religion continually astonishes and saddens me. I don't happen to like the policies advanced by corporatists, but I would NEVER, EVER suggest to anyone that random corporatists should be rounded up and killed just because I disagree with them!

Hate is a plague on our society. Until we can learn to respect our fellow brothers and sisters -- which doesn't always mean we have to like or agree with them -- we will continue to exhibit the traits of a primitive species. We like to think that "modern" society shows that civilization has advanced. However, until crimes like the one shown below have ended, we stand in the way of any meaningful progress.

To Reiterate the Point

The first images of the destruction in Oslo's city centre Friday were reminiscent of New York City's, Madrid's and London's encounters with jihadist terrorism. But Oslo also looked eerily like Oklahoma City in 1995. And as the news trickled in that the terrorist attack was the work of Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian rightwing extremist, Americans had rapidly to re-evaluate their comfortable post 9/11 belief that only swarthy jihadists engage in terrorist atrocities. The ghost of Osama bin Laden quickly morphed into the visage of Timothy McVeigh.

No religion, ideology, race or ethnicity has a monopoly on political violence. Despite this truism, many Americans and US media outlets continue to conflate Islam with terrorism – a fact many media critics documented during the clumsy breaking coverage of Breivik's attack. This may seem understandable as we Americans face the anniversary of 11 September 2001 in little more than a month. Homegrown and overseas jihadists certainly present a clear and present danger to the United States, but they are by no means the only threat or, arguably, the most dangerous. Indeed, the US has come face to face with many potential Breiviks before – fortunately, few as bloodily effective as this terrorist.

Since 9/11, there have been at least five incidents where American extremists possessed or sought to obtain chemical, biological or radiological materials, according to the post 9/11 database compiled by the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Of these five, three cases involved white males holding white supremacist and extreme anti-government beliefs. None, however, was jihadists. Incidents such as these show that it isn't only al-Qaida and its fellow travellers who want to make a spectacle of indiscriminate slaughter. Yet, past incidents like the shooting at the Holocaust museum; the murder of abortion doctor Dr George Tiller; Joseph Stack's suicide attack on the IRS building in Austin, Texas; and a neo-Nazi's disrupted attack on a Martin Luther King Day Parade in Spokane, Washington; all highlight the US media's blind spot to terrorist acts and plots not perpetrated by Muslims. Rarely are they described as what they are: rightwing terrorists.
~ from Norway's Corrective to Our Post 9/11 Terror Myth by Matthew Harwood ~

There are radical leftists -- people on my side of the aisle -- who advocate violent revolution. If one or more of them carries out some heinous act to further their political beliefs, you can rest assured that I will condemn them as much as anyone else. As Harwood aptly points out, violence and hate are spewed across the political spectrum. For me, it makes no difference what your political or philosophical beliefs are -- if you set out to terrorize and kill others, you are an immoral SOB!!

Take Some Responsibility...For Once

Over the past few years, each time a right-wing individual has committed some sort of heinous or threatening act, the conservative demagogues immediately throw up their hands in unison and scream, "Don't blame this on me!" They seem to think they can spew words of vitriolic hatred and yet they bear no responsibility when someone utilizes their mean-spirited rhetoric as a prime motivation for action.

You see, for the most part, this is one of those core issues that separates the left from the right. I rant quite a bit about my disgust with the capitalist system and the oligarchs who maintain it. For me, however, the issues I address are systemic, in nature. I am not suggesting that the people who implement the system are evil; no, the system itself is amoral. I understand (to a certain extent) that the decision-makers have to play by the rules of this amoral system, lest they be thrown out and chewed up like the rest of us.

Conservatives, on the other hand, demonize particular individuals or a whole class of people based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or country of origin. While people like me are interested in transforming social, political and economic relationships, rabid conservatives want to defeat, exile or nebulously get rid of those they disagree with.

I advocate change through nonviolent and peaceful means. Many demagogues on the right use militaristic phraseology and turn almost every issue into a divine battle between goodness (what they believe) and evil (anything they disagree with).

When a person waylays others with a constant barrage of violent-tinged rhetoric, it becomes a difficult proposition to step away from those words when someone else decides to utilize that imagery to commit atrocities. While this does not mean the demagogue is legally liable -- though that decision sometimes is left up to juries and judges -- one would think that it might motivate the hate-spewers to reexamine their putrid speech.

In the wake of the slaughter in Oslo, this does not seem to be the case at all. The demagogues refuse to see their own role -- no matter how indirect or slight -- in the carnage wrought and, for this reason, we can be assured that more such episodes are on the horizon.

Who Shall We Hate Today?

[Anders Behring] Breivik’s political itinerary shows that his views and actions emerged from broad and powerful trends in European bourgeois politics. He left a trail of postings in right-wing blogs. Shortly before the attack he emailed a 1,500-page document that provides some insights into his thinking. It is based on views that find support not only in fascist circles, but within the established bourgeois parties, including the social democrats.

The focus is a hatred of Muslims. Anti-Muslim racism to some extent serves the function for today’s fascists that anti-Semitism did for the Nazis.
~ from The Slaughter in Oslo by Peter Schwarz ~

When times are perilous and uncertain -- which is most of the time -- there seems to be a human tendency to look for scapegoats. The identification of a bogeyman is fueled by a society's elite members as a mechanism to draw away attention from themselves and their policies -- policies that serve as the fulcrum for peril and uncertainty!

In the United States, those who benefit from the targeting of scapegoats have created a large array: Muslims, Latinos, Blacks, Jews, Gays, Socialists, Non-Christians and Liberals. On any given day, purveyors of hate like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and countless others reach into their bags of demagoguery to select the scapegoat of the day.

Is it any wonder that some individuals -- sane or not -- take the words of these firebrands and use them to commit widespread violence? When some folks are told day-in and day-out that a certain ethnic or religious group represents evil incarnate, should we be surprised that some of them take it upon themselves to try to eradicate this supposed evil stain on humanity?

It Is Getting Ugly

It should go without saying that political opinions can be very passionate. It really is the nature of the beast. It is not uncommon for people on different sides of the political aisle to disparage those who disagree with them. This is as true for conservatives as it is for liberals, right as much as left, and proletarian as well as bourgeois.

In the olden days, snide references tended to be made under the breath, in back rooms or among confidants who shared a particular political viewpoint. Subject to the dawn of the radio and television era, sometimes a stray microphone picked up a comment not meant for public consumption and there might be hell to pay for the individual uttering the not-so-nice-or-proper aside.

Now, with the advent of the internet, off-handed remarks quickly can go viral and, once made public, it can be next too impossible to take back the poorly worded missive. An immortal record is created that will live on long after the offender has disappeared over the final horizon.

One medium that seems to get public figures in trouble again and again is the tweet. Though limited to a meager 140 characters, it is amazing how these short and often emotional abbreviated statements can create a firestorm almost instantaneously. The individual may quickly regret the emotional outburst they just shot into virtual world, but by then, it almost always is far too late. Somebody, somewhere has taken a snapshot of the offending comment and the brouhaha is on.

Such an occurrence took place this past weekend.

On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building — something that didn't end up happening — one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."

From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana...

Of course, a tweet of this nature from a deputy attorney general is problematic. The attorney general and his or her deputies of each state are the top law enforcement officers and lawyers for the government. So, this statement by Jeff Cox amounts to an endorsement of using deadly force on people exercising their constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly.

Even more troubling is that Cox sounds like he endorses the same strategy being currently employed in Libya, Bahrain and other Middle Eastern nations who are experiencing massive civil unrest. It would be bad enough if Cox was some yahoo out in the boondocks spouting off anonymously, but, when you consider is current position, such statements are entirely irresponsible.

The worst part about his tweet is that it has the potential to provide a modicum of legitimization to the idea that it might be patriotic for someone with violent mental health issues to go down to the Wisconsin state capitol to carry out the use of "live ammunition" on peaceful protesters. While, after the shootings in Tucson, Sara Palin received a healthy dose of criticism for her use of cross hairs over select congressional district, Cox's declaration is ten times more direct and blatant.

It will be interesting to see how (or if) Cox tries to backpedal from his inflammatory tweet. It will also be interesting to see if he keeps his day job serving the citizens of Indiana.

UPDATE: Cox lost his job and rather quickly too.

Violent Pacifists?

For many years, I was very active in the peace movement. During all that time, I met many fellow activists who, like me, were devout pacifists. Not one of them is what I, or almost anyone I know, would label a conservative or right wing follower. Not one. While some were ardent Democrats or nondescript liberals, most were either far left leaners or completely apolitical.

This is not to suggest that an individual cannot hold some conservative political views AND be a peaceful citizen. The vast majority of conservatives I've met throughout my life are law abiding folks who would never think of physically attacking another person UNLESS they needed to do so to defend themselves or their loved ones to save life and limb.

My point here is that, while many conservatives do not support indiscriminate violence, I know of NO left-wing pacifist who condones violence in any form. In fact, I know of few self-defined liberals or progressives who condone personal violence (except in emergency defensive situations) either.

So, it strikes me as more than odd that the mainstream media has painted the picture that violent rhetoric and a call to arms can be found equally on both sides of the political aisle.

For the most part -- though certainly not often enough -- people left of the imaginary center decry policies and initiatives, not people. We might be vehemently opposed to a candidate or elected leader's words and actions, yet almost none of us would suggest -- even in jest -- that this person or group should be rubbed out. We might very well demand change, but the change we want is more systemic, in nature.

Many popular figures (as well as many everyday citizens) on the right have no qualms whatsoever about attacking people -- more than their policies -- with rhetoric that suggests such individuals or groups aren't worthy of life itself. Instead of simply stating their substantive disagreements, they demonize others as subhuman traitors to so-called American [Christian] ideals. In essence, they draw targets on people's heads and suggest that any means necessary to remove such people from office or the public discourse is justified.

Take, for example, Glenn Beck's ongoing campaign to vilify a particular 78-year old woman.

If anyone thinks that the vitriol that Glenn Beck spews on his radio and TV shows doesn't stir people to aggressive and hateful action, they should take a look at the postings on his website, The Blaze, about Frances Fox Piven.

For two years Beck has targeted the political science professor as a Marxist Machiavelli whose writings constitute a manifesto for a radical revolution.

But in recent months Beck has escalated his hate campaign against Piven, a professor at the City University of New York, former vice president of the American Political Science Association, and former president of the American Sociological Association. He labeled Piven one of the "nine most dangerous people in the world," and "an enemy of the Constitution."

Not surprisingly, this has led to a dramatic rise in ugly threats to the 78-year old Piven...

It would be one thing if Beck wanted to dispute Piven's research and/or point of view. There is nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. But when you paint a peaceful elderly widow as a "dangerous person," you've stepped far over the line. Even worse, in the shadows of the mass shooting in Tucson, Beck has kept up his vitriolic attacks against the professor.

Ruth Coniff of The Progressive recently made these points in terms of Beck's continued crusade.

As everyone who pays any attention at all to politics knows, the current political climate is not exactly a hotbed of 1960s radicalism, particularly when it comes to welfare policy. Beck pulled out quotes from a paper Piven wrote decades ago in order to make a general case that Democrats and progressives want to overthrow capitalism. But ever since President Clinton enacted welfare reform in 1992, there has been precious little support among Democrats for emergency assistance to the poor. President Obama, the biggest recipient of Wall Street campaign contributions in the history of Presidential elections, has shown more willingness to put big banks on the dole than poor people.

But in the alternate reality inhabited by Glenn Beck and his Tea Party cronies, City University of New York professor Piven is responsible for everything from the current recession to Obama's health care reform policies to violence by rightwing extremists. She is, he said over and over on his web site and on the air, a menace to society. In an Orwellian twist, he even connected her to the shootings in Tucson because of her support for civil disobedience...

Glenn Beck, like many other popular right wing commentators, celebrities and pundits, has stated that he is against violence and that his violent rhetoric should be taken with a grain of salt. However, as Thomas F. Schaller writes in The Baltimore Sun,

...for decades, conservatives have insisted that culture influences action. Violent or sexed-up video games, television shows and movies, though fictional, are routinely blamed for contributing to drug use, promiscuous sex, illegitimacy, gang violence and other social ills. Yet somehow the daily rants by conservative radio and television personalities about tyrannical government, evil liberals and murdering abortionists, though not fictional, are wholly unrelated to the actions of a supposedly isolated, mentally disturbed few? Culture warriors want it both ways...

In my view, Schaller pegs the issue square on. If conservatives are going to argue about certain influences in one instance, it is wholly disingenuous to argue against the very same influences when the spotlight is focused on them!!

The big topic in the news lately is that we need to engage in more civil discourse. While that certainly isn't a bad suggestion, it misses the point entirely. I really don't care how politically correct a commentator is. If he or she wants to be rude or crass, it doesn't tend to raise my hackles.

However, when a person suggests or infers that another person doesn't deserve to live simply because they hold views that you or I disagree with, that's an altogether different matter. Whether stated explicitly or not, it constitutes a threat to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

It has no place in the world and we should shun people who choose to communicate in this way.

(Note: Check out my Tumblr blog for a slew of links -- including the ones featured above -- that dissect this issue up one side and down the other.)