Murder Most Foul

When I was a senior in high school, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. During my college years Malcolm X was shot and killed, freedom riders were murdered in Mississippi, peaceful demonstrators for civil rights were attacked by dogs and fire hoses in Selma and Birmingham and within a few short months Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were murdered at gunpoint.

During the early 70s it felt like society was breaking apart. Student demonstrators at Kent State were shot (and killed) by the National Guard. Patty Hearst was kidnapped by a homegrown terrorist group. "Hard hats" slugged it out with antiwar demonstrators in the streets of New York City. Anti busing protesters in South Boston violently protested the integration of Boston schools. Colleges were shut down by protesting students. The United States vice president (Spiro Agnew) was forced to resign or face corruption charges. The president of the United States (Richard Nixon) resigned to avoid an impeachment trial.

In the early 1980's President Reagan was shot and nearly died.

In 1995 a domestic terrorist bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City.

Abortion clinics have been bombed and the doctors who provided services for them murdered.

In 2001, after the 9/11 tragedy, anthrax was sent through the mail killing postal workers and recipients alike.

Over the past several days explosive devices mailed to political figures have detonated.

After the health care bill was passed, Congressmen who supported it received death threats and many had their offices vandalized.

And yesterday a gunman opened fire on an Arizona Congresswoman and killed a Federal judge, several bystanders including a child and severely wounded the Congresswoman.

The thought of returning to the climate of the 1960s and early 1970s is frightening. The tone of our political discourse and the failure of either the right-wing media or Republican politicians to reject the posturings of the extremists, is unconscionable. If this comes to pass, we will see a curtailment of our personal freedom unlike anything that has gone before. There are extremists on the right (and some, albeit fewer in number, on the left) who would tear our democracy down and replace it with the dictatorship of the mob. There are more sinister forces working behind the scenes who would grab that opportunity to establish the oligarchy they have been working toward for decades.

Rule by the mob or by the oligarchy? Which do you think would emerge? Either way, the thing we call liberty would be the first casualty.

It is past time that the American people stopped listening to their media gurus and politicians and started working with each other. Sound bytes are catchy but do not inform us. Political catch phrases are convenient but disingenuous. Simple solutions are attractive but usually ineffective.

Wake up, America. You are under siege. The forces that work to divide you are the forces you need to combat.