The Culture Fights At The Tuscon Corral

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer

This country of 308 million is as diversified as the earth’s and has many different “cultures.” Four give us the most trouble. We have a celebrity culture where people thirst for 15 minutes of fame. Take Lady Gaga and Jared Loughner. We lead the civilized world in violent death. Take Seung Hui Cho who murdered 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech or Timothy McVeigh’s bomb at Oklahoma City that killed 168. More than a million Americans have been killed by guns since 1968. More than 150,000 Americans have been murdered in the decade of the 21st century. Between 1979 and 1997, 651,697 Americans were killed by guns. In all our wars since 1775, 650,858 Americans were killed in battle. We have a gun culture that falls just eight million guns short of having a gun for every American from baby to centenarian.

We have a political culture made up of tectonic plates of red meat, tooth and claw free market capitalism bumping up against a modern welfare state with a private enterprise economy where society’s winners are willing to be taxed for safety nets for the mentally and physically disabled. Think Charles Darwin and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We have a wealth culture where gated mansions occupy the mountains while the hovels of the poor are surrounded by sewage in the valleys. The argument is always fierce in tax code time. Should the affluent help the less fortunate or should they keep all they have gathered?   
Only Six Percent Of Americans Suffer From A Serious Mental Illness—But That’s 12 Million
Before anyone makes judgments about why Jared Loughner fired at least 31 bullets in less than a minute at a Tucson Safeway, I think it’s necessary to look at ourselves and the number of mental disorders in the U.S. population. According to experts in the American Psychiatric Association, slightly more than 26 percent of Americans 18 and older suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder during any given year. That translates to about 57.7 million. (All of these estimates are based on the 2004 census, not the 2010.)

About six percent, or 12 million, have one or several serious mental illnesses during a given year. Most psychiatrists identified Loughner as suffering from schizophrenia. About 2.5 million Americans are schizophrenic in any given year, with its serious sides beginning in the late teens or early twenties. Others have hinted he is bipolar which affects almost six million. I assume he will be labeled with something during interrogations by the police and experts. Was Jared thinking of committing “police” suicide, which seems to be getting more popular among the afflicted? There seems to be no evidence of this, although 90 percent of the suicides in the U.S., about 34,000 per year, have a diagnosable mental disorder.

A country that kills an average of 85 people per day (including eight children) by guns requires many mental disorders. The shrinks estimate we have 15 million with a major depressive disorder, 40 million subject to anxiety disorders, eight million with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and 15 million with social phobias. It’s enough to give one Agoraphobia (1.8 million), a phobia about being alone outside the home, trapped where escape might be difficult.
Arizona, The Land Of Human And Geographic Contrasts
Corky and I have traveled extensively throughout Arizona over our retirement years and we lived in Sun City West for three months in 2010. Midst all the sand, brush, and
roadrunners there are fascinating canyons, painted deserts, monumental valleys, great rivers, petrified trees, meteor craters, snowy mountains and historical towns such as Tombstone, Douglas, Bisbee, Sedona, Jerome and the Navajo Nation. The people are as different as the land. It’s an odd combination of retired geezers flailing away at a little white ball on carefully manicured and watered grass - while the vans of homeowners, landscapers and other “employers” listening to the 24/7 anti-immigrant rants of right-wing radio, pick up illegals on “certain” corners in Phoenix and Tucson. “That cheap labor is wonderful, but why don’t they go home at night?”

There’s money in Arizona, but geezers and millionaires move there because taxes are low or non-existent. Paying fair taxes is an Arizona Cardinal mortal sin. While we were there the state legislature closed practically all state parks, rest areas and all of the adult and children’s recreation programs in cities and towns. I have always wondered about that. As tourism is the main industry, I figured closing down these areas and programs didn’t seem to make sense. But that’s Arizona, a no new tax, eyes closed state. I remember when the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County (Phoenix) went on a two-year search for employers hiring illegals so he could charge them with federal offenses. Although Arizona had an estimated 500,000 illegals in the state, all working in plain sight, sightless Joe couldn’t find a single Arizona employer breaking the law.
Political Climate And Culture Of Arizona
In 2009, a Tea Party protester waving his sign “Don’t Tread On Me” too strenuously, dropped his concealed pistol at a Rep. Gabby Giffords “Congress On Your Corner” meeting. Guns were often present at other political meetings. Do you think guns might inhibit an honest political discussion? As gun design is not regulated, safety is not paramount with the manufacturers. Many have dropped guns killing people or shot the ankles of carriers.

Giffords’ office in Tucson was vandalized after she voted for “Obamacare.”  In 2009 Giffords ran against an ex-Marine named Jesse Kelly who took his contributors to a rifle range so they could shoot M16s. Kelly said, “And if you dare to stand up to the government they call us a mob. We’re about to show what a mob looks like.” Is that a threat? I remember seeing several Arizona candidates brandishing and firing semi-automatic weapons in their political commercials last year. Giffords was worried about death threats after encountering vitriolic foam at meetings about health care.

Margaret Robles has lived in Tucson all her life. Her response to the killing and the general atmosphere: “Too many things are happening. I’m embarrassed to say I’m from Arizona.”
Tom Debley of Phoenix said, “I cannot begin to describe how distraught I am over the shootings … I have been saying for months that someone in Arizona will get hurt, or killed.. .and now it has happened.” Throw in the Arizona ‘birthers” who believe Obama was born in Kenya or that foreign country Hawaii or the governor who said she knew of headless bodies being discovered in the desert. This is also the state that repealed the Martin Luther King holiday in the 1980’s and didn’t restore it for another decade. And guns? Arizona has the most lax gun laws in the country.

Arizona Representative Jack Harper is typical of the NRA gun crowd: “When everyone is carrying a firearm nobody is going to be a victim.” Harper needs to read the real story of Joe Zamudio who was carrying at the Safeway store. He ran out with his gun and yelled, “Drop it! Drop it!” at a man holding a gun. He almost shot the man. That man had just taken a Glock away from Loughner. Someone pointed out to Zamudio after the killing: “Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess.” That’s just one of the problems with everybody carrying. If people really believe that more guns improve safety, I would suggest that all governmental entities pass laws that employees and elected officials at the local, state and national levels, including the president, must carry handguns at all times. Just think of all the money we would save on security?
Is Loughner A “Political” Figure?
Many TV and radio talkshow hosts have said that Loughner had no interest in government or politics, therefore these two “cultures” have not influenced him. One columnist wrote: “No evidence has emerged that Loughner has a coherent political philosophy.” Nonsense. He once asked a fellow student what he thought of “the government taking over” the local YMCA. He often parroted the ideas of right-wing extremist groups to other students. He read “Animal Farm,” Mein Kampf,” Farehheit 451” and the “Communist Manifesto.”  Not exactly novels. Counselors who worked with him said he had extremist views. One student said Loughner was obsessed with the American dollar and the Federal Reserve system, which also happens to be the “obsession” of Libertarian Texas Rep. Ron Paul and his son Kentucky Senator Rand Paul of the Tea Party.

According to experts who study right-wing extremist groups, his posts online about the currency and the Constitution echo the same lines used by paranoid extremists. In one post he remarks: “No! I won’t pay debt with a currency not backed by gold and silver.” This is not a political statement. This is a remark by someone who believes, like numerous private militias, “the Federal Reserve is a completely private entity engaged in ripping off the American people (NY Times).”

Although he has not been traced yet to the American Renaissance magazine, FBI sources think he is a reader of white supremacist literature. A high school friend said Loughner often talked about a political philosophy of fostering chaos. He was a nihilist (total destruction of political and social institutions), discussed anarchy, read Friedrich Nietzche’s book “The Will To Power,” and wrote in his dream journal every day. In class he talked about killing people and why don’t we strap bombs to babies. Even while he was talking to a school counselor (and taping the discussion), he waved a copy of the Constitution in her face. Not a political being?
Did Sarah, Rush, and Sean Talk Him Into It?
No, but they gave him a strong push. They, among many others, helped to create a climate of fear, distrust, violence, and “ME!” Giffords said of Palin: “We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list.  She… has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that action.” Giffords seems to be saying to “Lock-and-Load” Sarah:“Lock your mouth up and Load your brain for once.” And it was Obama’s opponents who carried guns to his speeches, reciting Thomas Jefferson’s line: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Did Loughner try to determine the patriot and the tyrant?

Glenn Beck contributed greatly to the violence culture with this rant: “Somebody has a gun to your head.. .You’re going to have to shoot them in the head.. .I don’t know how I don’t get a bullet in my head some day.. .Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government.. .Grab a torch and drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers.” Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, the head of the Tea Party caucus, added these lines to the culture of violence: “I want Minnesota armed and dangerous. Thomas Jefferson told us having a revolution every now and then is a good thing.”

As we contemplate the killings at the Tucson Corral we need to find out who is to blame, otherwise our society will never improve. Some are saying that no one is to blame because Loughner is crazy. But why are they talking about lowering the “tone” of political discourse? Winston Churchill said: “The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. If Jared Loughner wanted his name to be added to Booth, Oswald, Sirhan, and McVeigh, why didn’t he seek out the most famous?
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