Most reporting on the tragic shooting carried out by Jared Loughner in Arizona this past weekend has missed a critical point. After reading many commentaries from both the “left” and “right,” I am reminded of the crucial role that these partisan groupthink reactionaries play in the continued decline of American society. As much as I despise partisan rhetoric, I don’t believe that even the most belligerent Republican or Democratic propagandists are to blame. They definitely influence opinions and voting patterns, which is significant, but, in my opinion, there isn’t anything a media personality or politician can say that is going to make a person commit mass murder. It takes deeper sociological and personal psychological issues to drive someone to carry out a massacre.
The best headline I’ve seen thus far read: “Our Political Rhetoric Isn’t Too Violent, It’s Too Dumb.”
Concerning Jared Loughner, all indications are that he was clearly mentally disturbed. Alex Pareene, writing in Salon, took the following viewpoint:
“Jared Loughner, though? He’s just nuts. Seriously, classic nutcase, end of story. It’s frankly irresponsible to speculate as to whether or not he had a political motivation when he attempted to assassinate a member of Congress.”
I agree with this assessment to a point. He is quite obviously a “nutcase,” but to say, “It’s frankly irresponsible to speculate as to whether or not he had a political motivation” is a grave mistake. The fact that he set out to kill a member of Congress demonstrates clear pre-meditation and shows that something was driving him to this extreme behavior, however deranged he may have been. I’m not a psychologist, but if we want to understand or speculate on the deeper forces thatmay have driven him, we need to look at this tragedy as another consequence of the breakdown of American society.
It’s easy to dismiss Jared as just another crazy person, or to blame the political rhetoric of people you disagree with, but holding one of these shallow views just reinforces the status quo and attempts to minimize these events so we can just continue on our path, business as usual.
People like Jared are not going to fit neatly into left or rightwing boxes, in the real world people rarely do. For the most part, the left-right dynamic is an artificial reality propagated by a paid off group-thinking media-political establishment. Generally speaking, people who act out in such an extreme way are people that are confronted by extreme circumstances that make their life incredibly hopeless, and desperate people will eventually strike out in desperate ways.
Before moving on, just to be 100% clear for anyone who may attempt to take any part of this out of context, this doesn’t in any way justify what he did. There is nothing that can justify his horrific actions. Going out and shooting a group of innocent people like this is not going to get you anywhere but dead or life in prison, and deservedly so.
Now that we are clear on that, let’s look into Jared’s circumstances and consider the following. He was obviously mentally disturbed, but he didn’t receive any mental health treatment. He was kicked out of college, before he then dropped out, and he was unemployed. Being an unemployed college drop-out with mental problems and no health care would certainly put you in a desperately hopeless situation.
Reporting in RH Reality Check, Amanda Marcotte writes:
“Some people are lucky enough to have insurance that not only covers mental health services, but makes referrals, but those people are rarely 22-year-olds attending community college. It’s not like there’s a centralized, low-cost mental health service… Maybe there should be, but in our country, getting more funding for this kind of necessary health care infrastructure is like pulling teeth.
The problems with our mental health systems in the U.S. are just part of a larger problem with health care in general—people fall through the cracks, diseases that could have been prevented or minimized with early interventions instead fester and become bigger, more expensive problems down the road, and we don’t do enough to connect the available services with the patients in need. [Ironically] This is something that Rep. Giffords understands….
Unfortunately, the push towards cuts for social services means that we’re running away from and not towards that goal. Take the state of Arizona, where all this went down. Mental health services were cut by $36 million in 2010, a 37 percent budget cut. That’s introducing a lot more cracks to an already cracked system. And it’s increasingly looking like Loughner is one of the people who fell through the cracks in the system.”
Arizona is not the only state to drastically cut mental health services, this is a popular trend in many states that are experiencing massive budget deficits due to the financial crisis. This is happening at a time when there is a dramatic rise in mental illness throughout America. Prior to cuts in services, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) revealed that over 60% of mentally ill Americans didn’t get any care whatsoever.
According to one of Loughner’s friends, he held strong beliefs that the government was “fucking us over.” In one of his YouTube videos, Loughner outlined his thoughts on the economy and his desires to create a new currency, writing the following:
“Firstly, the current government officials are in power for their currency, but I’m informing you for your new currency! Of you’re treasurer of a new money system, then you’re responsible for the distributing of a new currency. We now know — the treasurer for a new money system. Is the distributor of the new currency. As a result, the people approve a new money system which is promising new information that’s accurate, and we truly believe in a new currency. Above all, you have your new currency, listener?…”
In another video he wrote:
“In conclusion, reading the second United States Constitution, I can’t trust the government because of the ratifications: The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.
No! I won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver! No! I won’t trust in God! What’s government if words don’t have meaning?”
These haphazard thoughts come from a disturbed mind, but they echo a belief that many sane people hold. In a convoluted way he is saying that he has lost faith in the government and our monetary (dollar based) system. You can do a quick search on the internet and find hundreds of people with PhDs who feel the same way. Obviously he is mentally disturbed, but a significant portion of critical-thinking US citizens share similar economic and political views.
In my view, this horrific event should serve as a warning sign as to what lies ahead. Jared Loughner is a canary in the coalmine and a consequence of a collapsing society coming apart at the seams. The reality that everyone seems to be in denial about is that our society is in the beginning phase of a massive breakdown. As tragic as this shooting was, many societal indicators lead me to believe that this was just the tip of the iceberg.
Trillions of dollars in national wealth have been funneled to the top economic 0.1%, at the expense of everyone else. Most people know, on a profound level, that their economic and future prospects are grim because of the crimes of a small group of crony-capitalists. Our future has been sacrificed so multi-millionaires and billionaires can keep living business as usual. When vital social services are cut so the richest members of society can get tax breaks and all-time record-breaking bonuses, as our inequality of wealth reaches the most severe level in American history, based on well-established global societal precedents, outbreaks of violence such as this one are inevitable.
As I previously wrote in my book, The Road Through 2012:
“As we have just begun to see, budget cuts to vital social programs on the state and federal levels will become increasingly severe right at the point when many more Americans will need them. As the 52 million Americans currently surviving in ‘anti-poverty’ programs are gradually cutoff from life-sustaining government assistance – and as the 239 million people now living paycheck to paycheck, buried in debt, stressing out and working their asses off just to make ends meet realize that things are not going to be getting any better — and are only going to get worse — social unrest and outbursts of violence will eventually start to bubble up to the surface…
Looking at this from a purely technocratic sociological viewpoint, avoiding mass riots and violence while this many desperate people lose life-sustaining programs appears to be an impossible task, and given our current economic and political environment this seems inevitable.
In an article titled ‘A Planet at the Brink: Will Economic Brushfires Prove Too Virulent to Contain?’ Michael T. Klare explained: ‘As people lose confidence in the ability of markets and governments to solve the global crisis, they are likely to erupt into violent protests or to assault others they deem responsible for their plight, including government officials, plant managers, landlords, immigrants, and ethnic minorities.’
Without a coherent non-violent movement to provide a viable alternative, without an outlet for severe and legitimate grievances that provides any chance for urgently affecting necessary political change, people will resort to violence as a last desperate act of vengeance and frustration. As time passes, these forgotten and isolated people, tens of millions of them, are quickly running out of options, and they will act out just as exploited people throughout the world always have….
The health care and financial reform bills have proven that our politicians are much more concerned about the short-sighted necessity to please the Economic Elite and raise campaign funds, than they are to understand the consequences of millions of Americans being forced into situations where their very survival is threatened. In a system where most elected officials are millionaires, this lack of perspective and understanding is ultimately what will lead to violence. Whether it is by arrogance or ignorance, perhaps both, it appears that our ruling class has suicidal tendencies. Unless they quickly recognize the growing threat posed by the dispossessed masses, our puppet politicians will themselves be in harm’s way.
To show you how incredibly out of touch our current elected officials are, and to give you a clear indication of the prevailing attitude on Capitol Hill, a recent report from the Washington Post summed up their response to the recent news that a record number of Americans are now living in poverty:
‘The reluctance of political leaders on both sides of the aisle to directly confront the fact that growing numbers of Americans are slipping into poverty reflects a stubborn reality about the poor: They are not much of a political constituency.
‘We talk to many people on Capitol Hill who do believe poverty is important and is a blight on our nation, but we are also up against a general recognition that poor people don’t vote in great numbers. And they certainly aren’t going to be making campaign contributions. That definitely puts them behind many other people and interests when decisions are being made around here.’
And that sums up our current crisis, doesn’t it? The ‘poor people don’t vote’ and they don’t make ‘campaign contributions.’”
As bad as the past two years have been, due to stimulus spending, the effects of the economic looting that has occurred will just begin to be felt by most people this coming year. A recent report from Joseph Kishore sums up the consequences ahead:
“Governors in states throughout the US have begun to unveil budget proposals that include devastating cuts in basic social services, education, health care, and pay and benefits for government workers.
US state governments face a collected deficit of about $140 billion this coming fiscal year…. This does not include the disastrous budget situation confronting cities and localities throughout the country. Total state revenues fell by half a trillion dollars from 2008 to 2009, contributing to the budget crises.
Nicholas Johnson of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities remarked to the Washington Post that the coming year “will actually be the most difficult budget year for states ever.” The combined budget deficit is somewhat smaller than last year’s, but the states will be deprived of even the very limited federal aid to the states included in an earlier stimulus package.
Amidst various plans put forward by Democratic and Republican governors alike, the one proposal that has been completely excluded is the option of increasing taxes on the wealthy. The state budget cuts, which will have disastrous consequences for millions of people, are being implemented even as corporations sit on record profits and the pay of Wall Street and corporate executives returns to its pre-2008 highs.”
As our economic conditions continue to deteriorate, mentally disturbed people like Jared Loughner are the first to breakdown and lose it, but there will inevitably be many to follow. This tragedy is not an isolated incident. In just the past few days there have been two more incidents. A lobbyist, who was the wife of a White House adviser, was found dead in a burning car. A man upset over his Social Security benefits threatened to set fire to Senator Michael Bennet’s office and shoot his staff. There have been dozens of similar incidents over the past two years. From John Bedell, the man who opened fire on the Pentagon, to Joe Stack, the man who had a tax dispute and flew his plan into the Austin, Texas IRS building, an increasing number of Americans are beginning to resort to violence as a last desperate act of vengeance.
We can dismiss and write off all of this as just crazy people doing crazy things and go back to living with our heads in the sand, business as usual, or we can begin the urgent task of fixing a society that is severely out of balance.
The choice is ours.
– David DeGraw is the founder and editor of AmpedStatus.com. He is the author of The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States. His new book is The Road Through 2012.