The world is looking on, wondering what will happen in America next, after the massacre and assassination attempt on an Arizona Congresswoman last weekend. In this article from Poland’s Polityka, columnist Tomasz Zalewski asks if this is the beginning of a wave of political violence like the one that claimed the lives of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s.
America has never lacked deranged, frustrated types like Jared Laughner, who take their revenge for a lack of success by shooting other people – and easy access to firearms makes it possible. Usually, however, they shoot indiscriminately, often at their own family and themselves. It’s been a long time since politicians were targets of their fury. The last time was the turbulent ’60s in the last century, when President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert and Martin Luther King Jr. were killed by assassins’ bullets. During the ’90s, the victims of such attacks included judges and doctors caught up in the “culture war” on abortion, gay rights, etc. Does the Tucson massacre signal the beginning of a new wave of political violence?
Warning signs preceded the shooting on Saturday. Arizona has been close to the boiling point for months, after its adoption of a law against illegal immigrants [SB 1070]. As elsewhere, a battle over health care reform was fought there, a topic on which the ultra-right Tea Party movement is not afraid to say what it thinks: its candidate in neighboring Nevada, Sharon Angle, suggested that “Second Amendment remedies” (right to bear arms) might be necessary.
Since the attack, many appeals have been heard to calm the divisive rhetoric. Until things get back to normal, we can expect mutual politeness to continue. The rhetoric of hate and violence is in fact a reflection of the sharp divisions in contemporary America: fear of the country’s future and frustration with politicians who are unable to subdue forces beyond their control. In the short term, the Tucson massacre may harm Republicans, since two years ago it was their party that unleashed the spiral of anger against the “un-American” president and his supporters.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
Founder and Managing Editor of Worldmeets.US