Dialogue

We haven't written in awhile, but feel it's appropriate to begin today, three days after the brutal killings and assaults in Tucson, Arizona.  As the link in the caption alludes, there is now much discussion and loud debate (only in America can we have loud debates about loud political debates) over the climate of our political culture.  Almost immediately after it was reported that a moderate Democratic Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was the target of the shooting (and indeed was brutally shot in the left side of her head), the TV, radio, and internet content providers instantly went to their respective "airwaves" and began alleging that the murders and assaults were the result of violent language in today's political climate.  One "target" of the commentator's rage is Sarah Palin, who last summer posted a map of America with various Congressional districts covered in "crosshairs," urging her followers to "target" those districts and vote out the incumbent Congressional representative, replacing them with more conservative followers of Palin.  Giffords was one of those districts.

However, it is not a straight line from violent political discourse to a deranged gunman shooting at a Congresswoman and killing a federal judge.  While it appears Congresswoman Giffords was the target of the shooting, there are many other variables to the motive of this crime, including the possibility the young man was insane.  Nonetheless, this crime is a vivid reminder of theories of criminal behavior that we have forgotten in this "lock 'em up and throw away the key" era: society has a huge role to play in crime.  How we shape our children, address mental health issues, regulate instruments of violence (guns), poverty, education, greed and wealth.  Whether it's an Enron executive inflating stock value or this young man who shot at a crowd of people on a Saturday morning, our society shaped and informed those acts.

Unfortunately, ideology and violence are a potent mix.  The reason the picture with this blog is of a Northern spotted owl is because it is merely one example of violence and ideology.  In the 1990s the Pacific Northwest was split apart by widely divided sides on how our federal and state forests were managed.  The Northern spotted owl was listed as a threatened species under the Federal Endangered Species Act, and violence broke out in the woods, federal offices, and in state legislatures.  A colleague of mine had an owl nailed to his door.  So-called eco-saboteurs reigned terror upon federal offices, logging companies, and even a research facility at the University of Washington.  These same "eco-saboteurs" later testified that they had large caches of automatic weapons and had trained on how to kill corporate executives.  Loggers revved up chainsaws, threatening to cut down trees which held tree-sitters (and in Humboldt County, California, a tree was felled with a tree sitter in it).  These are violent acts in the name of "righteousness" and ideology.

Those of us who sought dialogue were laughed at for not being "pure."  Even attempts by President Clinton to find compromise, where portions of forests could be sustainably harvested and other areas protected, was ripped and tattered by the vastly opposing sides.

Until, until we are ready as a society to reflect on our own, individual reactions to ideologies we don't agree with, we will not find "reasoned" discourse.  While it does take a village to raise children, to change how we talk about heated issues will take each of us to quiet down.  Then to turn to the person next to us, summon courage, and ask them to quiet down.  To tell that person you will listen, but only if they talk, not yell or threaten.  Perhaps this will never happen.   And more deranged people like the Tucson shooter, or the Unabomber, or Peter Young (an animal "rights" advocate who encourages violence), or the man who murdered the abortion doctor in Kansas, will continue to feed off of our collective anger.  It's up to each of us, individually right now to not point fingers at anyone else but ourselves if we want this cacophony of anger to stop.