Go to consortiumblog.com to post comments

Order Now

Archives

Age of Obama
Barack Obama's presidency

Bush End Game
George W. Bush's presidency since 2007

Bush - Second Term
George W. Bush's presidency from 2005-06

Bush - First Term
George W. Bush's presidency, 2000-04

Who Is Bob Gates?
The secret world of Defense Secretary Gates

2004 Campaign
Bush Bests Kerry

Behind Colin Powell's Legend
Gauging Powell's reputation.

The 2000 Campaign
Recounting the controversial campaign.

Media Crisis
Is the national media a danger to democracy?

The Clinton Scandals
Behind President Clinton's impeachment.

Nazi Echo
Pinochet & Other Characters.

The Dark Side of Rev. Moon
Rev. Sun Myung Moon and American politics.

Contra Crack
Contra drug stories uncovered

Lost History
America's tainted historical record

The October Surprise "X-Files"
The 1980 election scandal exposed.

International
From free trade to the Kosovo crisis.

Other Investigative Stories

Editorials

Editor’s Note: In an eloquent speech memorializing the victims of the Tucson massacre, President Barack Obama urged Americans to talk “with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds," a refrain similar to magnanimous words of other Democratic leaders, such as Al Gore’s concession speech in 2000 after George W. Bush muscled his way to a presidential election "victory."

However, does this endless effort by Democrats to calm things down really serve the interests of the American people at a time when Republicans and right-wing talkers have chosen to rile things up, a question posed by Lawrence Davidson in this guest essay:

There are two groups responsible for last Saturday’s tragedy in Tucson Arizona.

One group is made up of right-wing Republicans, Tea Party fanatics, and extremist conservative talk show personalities. These people have, for too long now, been consciously creating an atmosphere in which illegal acts of intimidation and violence are mistaken for patriotism.

It does not matter if members of this group are self-deceived "patriots" or just political opportunists. Their actions were and are predictably disastrous.

When Sarah Palin placed a map on her website showing the whereabouts of twenty Democratic politicians, including Gabrielle Giffords, using, in Palin’s words, "bullseye icons" (that is gun sights), she essentially committed an act of criminal incitement.

Anyone with average intelligence can recognize this to be so given the pre-existing combustible environment created by the near criminal speech of people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that when she released her metaphoric invitation to violence Palin knew that among her supporters were a large number of angry white men armed to the teeth with everything from handguns to bazookas.

The fact that in the case of Tucson (not the first or the last case), it was allegedly a mentally unstable fellow who acted out this violence is irrelevant to the fact that the pre-existing climate of incitement was palpable. What Palin, Beck and their kind are practicing is not free speech. It is the equivalent of, as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, "crying fire in a crowded theater."
 
However, the situation would never have gotten to its present explosive level without the complementary behavior of the second group. And that is the country’s center/liberal establishment, including the Democratic Party leadership, all of whom have failed to treat the right-wing threat seriously.

It does not matter if members of this group simply misjudged the situation or they had the mistaken notion that to confront it would only make things worse. In either case they were wrong.

Whether we consider Al Gore’s response to the stolen presidential election of 2000 or Barack Obama’s consistent refusal to prosecute the criminal acts of the Bush-era extremists, these center/liberal leaders have behaved irresponsibly in the face of a growing and recognizably dangerous situation. They do the country no favor by confronting a violent right with passivity or sorrowful words.
 
It has been 153 years since Abraham Lincoln made his prescient House Divided speech. He did so in June of 1858 in Springfield, Illinois.

His words, which at the time were considered alarmist, went like this, "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it." Making reference to continuing "slavery agitation" he went on "in my opinion it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed."

And then he told his audience (1,000 members of the original Republican Party) that "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
 
The United States is, once more, increasingly a house divided. It is not divided by "slavery agitation" though some of the issues have their roots in that era. It is over fundamental differences in the meaning of the nation’s Constitution and the very nature of government. These differences bring with them feelings that are just as emotional and inherently divisive as was slavery.
 
There are a growing number of Americans who no longer believe in the modern interpretation and application of U.S. Constitution. They insist that the way Constitutional interpretation has evolved over the past half century is a betrayal of true American principles.

Many of these Americans are apparently enamored of the 19th century outlook that the only government that is legitimate is that which sees to the police, the military and the law. Everything else should be a private concern.

If you tax them for programs that have to do with social equity or economic justice (even in its pitifully weak form) or even to maintain public functions such as education, transportation and social services, they consider it theft and imagine that they are subject to a new tyranny.

In addition, many of them are not willing to go along with any election that might run counter to their outlook. Some are very close to advocating sedition, and a few are obviously already gunning for their imagined "tyrants."
 
The present center/liberal leadership is confused. As Lincoln put it, they do not know where they are, where they are going, or what to do.

Unfortunately, unlike Lincoln, they are not prescient. They do not seem to understand that what is happening is not superficial or transient. They beg us not to "politicize" the Tucson massacre, as if the murders were not, prima facie, political acts.

Lincoln knew that the house was dividing and that the process would "not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed." Our center/liberal establishment has yet to come to a similar understanding.
 
Passivity and accommodation will not make right-wing violence go away. Those who incite this violence as well as those who act it out have to be confronted in an aggressive yet principled fashion. One way to do this is to enforce the law in a way that prioritizes our problems in a common sense fashion and ceases to practice double standards.

In other words, it is time for President Obama to tell his Justice Department and the FBI to stop chasing around the Midwest harassing people friendly to the Palestinians and to start going after that element of the American right that is inciting its members to act out their political rage.

They can start by taking a look at the activities of one Sarah Palin.

Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America's National Interest; America's Palestine: Popular and Offical Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; and Islamic Fundamentalism.

To comment at Consortiumblog, click here. (To make a blog comment about this or other stories, you can use your normal e-mail address and password. Ignore the prompt for a Google account.) To comment to us by e-mail, click here. To donate so we can continue reporting and publishing stories like the one you just read, click here.

Back to Home Page