The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    David Seaton's picture

    The shooting in Tucson: the sound and the fury

    By David Seaton on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 1:22pm |

    The obligatory theme for a political blogger this week has been the Tucson shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Wading through the papers, columns and the bloggers, everything I have read about it is a stew of the same cliches that appear after every shooting of this kind. Among all the flood of cliches I found one, single, memorable quote from (as often happens) "Saint" Bob Herbert of the New York Times:

    I remember having lunch with Marian Wright Edelman, the president of the Children’s Defense Fund, a few days after the Virginia Tech tragedy. She shook her head at the senseless loss of so many students and teachers, then told me: “We’re losing eight children and teenagers a day to gun violence. As far as young people are concerned, we lose the equivalent of the massacre at Virginia Tech about every four days.”

    At the bottom of it all lies what is, in my opinion, the marker, the key, to all of America's present day political dysfunction:

    Because of an amendment to a sclerotic 18th century document, (a time when it took about a minute to muzzle-load a single-shot, flintlock pistol), a 21rst century, gibbering maniac can purchase, carry and fire a semi-automatic pistol with a 30 bullet clip.

    Here is the tragic key: I get the feeling that much of the entire document is about as relevant to contemporary American life as that treasured Second Amendment and with similar results in all fields touched by political organization.

    The chance of any of this ever getting changed?

    Practically nil.

    Another doctoral thesis for my "future Chinese historians"?

    Amidst the sadness and the sick feeling that senseless violence brings, I noticed something underneath, a feeling that was obscenely inappropriate to the tragedy of the occasion: boredom.

    I find myself not wanting to write about American politics anymore. Political news from the US seems increasingly, to my ears at least, to be the Shakespearean, "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

    I write about politics for two basic reasons: because people tell me that I have some understanding of it, but mostly because I have discovered late in life that I love to write...

    I love the mere act of writing itself, the putting together of appropriate words in the appropriate order in such a rich and beautiful language as ours... and political commentary is vaccinated against the terror of writer's block. There is something to write about every day. But what is coming out of the States is so hopelessly repetitive and so locked and loaded in its ideological matryoshka that it produces for me a "Larsen effect" of stupefying dissonance.

    The world's a big place and I am going to give more attention to other problems, in the words of Robby Krieger, "The time to hesitate is through/ No time to wallow in the mire"... I hope my regular readers will bear with me while I work this out..

    Cross posted from: http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/

    Comments

    Take your time.


    by kyle flynn on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 4:20pm

    I find myself not wanting to write about American politics anymore. Political news from the US seems increasingly, to my ears at least, to be the Shakespearean, "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

    Pause that refreshes and the head of a fox.


    by cmaukonen on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 5:17pm

    Tales of idiots:

    1. You need 30+ round clips to defend yourself / -the WW2 M1 had a clip of 8 rounds, they also faced Banzai charges

    2. Murder is against the law anyway / so is detonating a nuclear weapon, but we try to keep them in safe places and out of the hands of bad guys

    3. A gun is just an inanimate object like a car / think it over

    4. If everyone just had a gun they could just shoot the bad guy /  life isn't like the movies, if having guns makes people safer the US wouldn't have the highest death rate by gun in the world

    5. guns prevent government oppression / if so why are we in Afghanistan where everyone is armed, and why did we do regime change in Iraq where everyone already had AK-47's and should have been able to overthrow their own government

    6. mentally ill people can't buy guns / unless they check NO on the ATF form on the line "have you been adjudicated mentally ill?

    7. 'a gun is all you need to protect yourself' / Congress members are planning extra police to protect themselves, apparently 'carrying' their own gun is insufficient protection from armed nutcases roaming the country, but you, you are on your own.


    by NCD on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 6:45pm

    Tales of idiots

    If  a gun is involved, you are exhonerated; you don't have to take personal responsibility, the gun did it.

    If your in line waiting for cooking oil or food rations or at your local grocery, and an individual bent on hurting or killing, goes on the rampage, never fear; the government will protect you.........If by chance you end up being murdered, the government will bring them to justice. Don't you feel so relieved, the perpetrator didn't get away with murder.  Unless of course he blames the gun?

    “That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are LIFE,  liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”

    Tales of idiots, would convince you that you have no inalienable rights to protect your LIFE , the only rights you have is what the government gives you, legal rights.


    by Resistance on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 8:57pm

    So, tell us,  Speaker of  Scripture, do you pack?


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 8:58pm

    When the judge asked me if the gun I was caught with was loaded, I asked him if he thought I was crazy...'Of course it was loaded your honor...'


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 9:00pm

    "But don't blame me your honor; the gun did it "


    by Resistance on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 9:08pm

    Hey, the gun didn't carry itself...I said I was caught with a gun, I didn't say I was caught using it


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 9:10pm

    Is carrying a gun, baseball bat,,machete, knife, frying pan, ice pick, pick axe, large rock, or any other object, the crime? Or is the crime committed, by the USING of it.   


    by Resistance on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 9:21pm

    The crime was committed with a gun. Using it required much less work and training than the other methods you refer to. If it is real easy to kill people by a certain method, it is not a reversal of the idea of justice to wonder if using that method can be made more difficult as the result of a collective action. 

    Measuring personal culpability has nothing to do with it.


    by moat on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 9:47pm

    Measuring "personal" safety has everything to do with it.

    Collectively, sheep are so vulnerable. Sheep have no claws to fight off predators.  

    Can the government assure you or anybody else, you will not fall victim to any violent crime. The streets are safe. No need for personal protection.

    I could think of unintended consequences, if the guns are taken or severely limited.  

    I remember the history of the Union organizers, who had to be assisted by unscrupulous mobsters with guns,  to battle the Pinkerton protectors, who had guns.

    I remember too, Iran’s recent crackdown on political dissidents. The government had guns, what did the people have FACEBOOK?  

    I think about a recent movie I saw, about Dodge City in the Wild West days.

    If the sheriff taking the guns appeared able to provide the protection, then one might not be so hesitant to be unarmed. Seeing as how the Sheriff and his deputies were apparently assuring the unarmed citizens safety.

    At this recent event, there was no obvious deterrent. Who was taking personal responsibility, for those giving up the right to defend themselves?

    I am not convinced that political and financial upheavals are behind us   

    Within the walled cities of the oligarchy, the Pinkertons and the like will have guns, The well healed will have the miltary. The rabble outside the gates will just have to defend themselves, from the marauding gangs.

    Will you then admit how culpable you were, when your misguided attempts to disarm the citizenry, allowed the remaining, to be victimized as sheep, by criminals with guns. Like the Somalian war lords.  

    Or do you suppose, that officer recently laid off, will risk his life for you?

    Using our very own Government policy of deterrents, has kept us safer. Mutually assured harm is better than one-sided victimization.     

    I don’t think singing  kumbya and clicking our heels, and everyone living happily ever after, is our future.

    You want to solve the problems of violent crimes, then go to the direct causes. Poverty, unemployment, mental health care. Taking away the guns, doesn't end desperation


    by Resistance on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 11:04pm

    actually, depending upon the jurisdiction, time of day, and (most importantly) your skin color, any and all of those can get you charged (except the frying pan) with possession of a deadly weapon.


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:02pm

    An icepick or a frying pan is not a Glock 19 with a 30 bullet clip. This is a battle between an infantile ideology and plain common sense.


    by David Seaton on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 5:26am

    Common sense, is evidenly not to common. 

    I posted at the bottom, what George Washington warned about and that day is upon us, and despite the burying of heads and denial,  you'll find frying pans are absolutely of little use in the days ahead, 

    That may include, you may not have anything to put in the frying pans. while you remain homeless and desperate.  


    by Resistance on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 7:51am

    Good luck to you, Dave.  Here's the best piece I've read to date: 

    http://my.firedoglake.com/billyglad/2011/01/11/where-does-jared-lee-loug...

    Having gone through these obscene mass murders and assassinations for so many decades, it's just depressing that we do the same dances over and over, and not much changes.  We are sadly, a nation that accepts violence: in our foreign policy, we export it, in our domestic policy, we sit still for it.  And we don't wait for facts, but start pontificating about how and why our 'enemies' are to blame.


    by we are stardust on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 6:14pm

    Your billy glad piece is frankly a bunch of useless fluff. The same movies we watch are watched in Canada and other countries that don't allow anyone to walk in and buy semi-automatic guns with 'massacre clips'. The weapons available are the primary enabler of these mass killings, although our violent culture, lack of universal health care including mental health, and lack of safety net social programs are also factors. I have found the best commentary in the readers comments section of the NYT, like here.

    The GOP thrives by perpetuating bad government for everyone but their fat cat financial backers. They do this by instilling fear, hate and using lies to gin up their Fox infused mentally unstable gun wielding base.  They have no interest in protecting anyone in this country but themselves.


    by NCD on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 6:59pm

    I clicked the link, thinking I must have sent the wrong one.  He's added the last few paragraphs about the films.  I think his idea that it's our culture promoting these horrific events is spot-on, and the ease with which head to violence as a solution.  Of course it'e enraging that we can buy assault weapons so easily, but until a wholesale change of our nation's character (as in competition v. cooperation, or concern for more than ourselves, or greed v. sharing the pie) changes, there won't be big changes to gun policy. 

    Apparently far fewer Americans favor any gun control now than even ten years ago, before so many mass murders.  That's sick, but we need to know why that is, or pining for less guns and less gun violence is just a dream.

    Hundreds of comments there; too many to read for now, nothing surprising in the first dozen I read.


    by we are stardust on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 7:12pm

    I found the following in the NYT comments section, also.  Didn't make a note of where I saw it.

    My right to live peaceably, assemble and speak freely, should outweigh any right of a person to carry in public the means to kill me.

    Edited to add:  Apparently the sales of Glocks in Arizona soared after the shooting.


    by seashell on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 11:00pm

    You have the right to remain silent, is a protection

    Speaking freely offers no protection except from the courts within guidelines.

    Living peacefully and minding ones own business, is a safeguard.

    Hitler spoke freely.   


    by Resistance on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 11:38pm

    Yeah, billy glad has his fanboys and girls from his days at TPM; never made any sense to me.  e.g., "The loose talk, provocative language and demonization of specific people by entertainers at both ends of the political spectrum..."

    Er, no.  Who's writing this, anyway, Howard Kurtz?

    Amazing to me the same people blaming Obama for every political failing are falling over themselves looking for reasons to exonerate the "water the tree of liberty" types when one of their chickens comes home to roost. 


    by brewmn on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 5:05pm

    Jared Loughner is an un-medicated schizophrenic in a very active and noticeable phase and the question is how is it possible for a gibbering maniac to walk into a gun shop and buy a Glock 19 and a 30 bullet clip?

    Having said that I agree with Billy about America’s culture of violence… even if nobody ever got killed it would stink. But at the bottom I think the problem that the untouchable Constitution is wildly sclerotic and out of date.


    by David Seaton on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 5:23am

    It is not like I am going to stop writing, I am just not going to comment on this business of our "culture of violence" stuff anymore. I have one piece to write about how the natural form of governance of a grab bag collective like ours is punitive and authoritarian and what makes America so weird is that all of this is dressed in a libertarian form.


    by David Seaton on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 8:21am

    I think i know what you are experiencing.

    When Curly Rand Paul actually had the balls to say that guns don't kill people....I went berserk.

    The anti gun Brady Organization notes there are 34-35 deaths every day as a result of gun shots.

    it is not our Constitution that is at fault, it is the interpretation of that document. I do not wish it changed.

    The right actually wishes to amend the single greatest portion of our Constitution today, the 14th Amendment.

    But getting back to Rand, the statements made over the last couple of days from the right wing pundits are just incredible. Rush is saying that the dems were praying and hoping for a tragedy like this. And I read his statements and I go berserk.

    So I understand your wishing to change subjects.


    by Richard Day on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 8:27pm

    I think any long term expatriate sometimes wonders, "what would it have been like if I had stayed?"... now I think leaving was by the grace of God. The place is just too screwed up and if that wasn't bad enough, it is managing to screw up the rest of the world. Having said that I would say that most Americans are lovely people, generous, positive and filled with good intentions... Which goes to show that if a system is rotten, being lovely, generous and having good intentions... and a dime (or whatever its cost nowadays, $5?) will get you a cup of coffee.

    Advice: the classic American recipe.... head on out to the frontier. Nowadays if you want to do that you have to learn some Portuguese and head south to Brazil.


    by David Seaton on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 2:22am

    Americans welcome? They won't turn on them or kidnap them?


    by Resistance on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 7:56am

    But, you can have a lot of fun while they are trying,


    by David Seaton on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 2:47am

    A friend of mine recently went to Rio, said it was the best time of his life.


    by Resistance on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 4:49am