We can’t retreat from struggle
THANKS VERY much to Nicole Colson for her excellent article on the horrific and tragic shootings in Arizona ("Hatred strikes in the 'capital of bigotry'"). It is important to highlight the responsibility of the right wing in creating the kind of climate that resulted in the shootings.
Nicole quotes a comment made on Sarah Palin's Facebook page approving the murder of Christina Taylor Green on the grounds that she was likely to grow up to be a liberal! The callous and monstrous inhumanity that applauds the wanton killing of a 9-year-old child is almost beyond comprehension and comment.
Unfortunately, one of the results of this horrible incident has been calls by the media and politicians for "toning down the rhetoric" on "both sides"--as if people attacking the civil rights of Muslims can be equated with those who fight for equal rights for all; as if people who are vehemently demanding that the government provide for people's needs can be equated with people who want to cut social programs and wages, and let people starve in the street.
If "toning down the rhetoric" by people fighting for progressive social change means refusing to call out the politicians and others who are engaging in a wholesale attack on poor and working people, toning down the rhetoric from progressives will actually make incidents like the Tucson tragedy more likely.
The right wing can only be backed down if people on the left are prepared to confront their outrageous lies and attacks. If we don't change some of the conditions that cause the insecurity and general crisis in this society, more people will lash out with assassination attempts or just random violence against families and neighbors.
As SocialistWorker.org's Alan Maass commented in October prior to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" ("Down a notch or up?"):
Is that what's really wrong with U.S. politics--too much shouting and protesting?...[R]ight-wing monsters like columnist Bill Kristol or John Yoo, the architect of the U.S. government's justifications for torture, can express themselves in a perfectly calm and polite tone. The problem is what they say, not how they say it...
[W]hat's wrong with protesting? Why shouldn't people get angry about the vile racism they hear from the right wing, or the pathetic backsliding of the Democrats? Why shouldn't they organize themselves to do something about it?"
Marxists have always been against assassination. We believe that only mass action can fundamentally change the conditions in society and relations between people. Ironically, it is the politicians that now call for "toning down the rhetoric" who still justify mass murder and torture as tools of foreign policy, or call for the assassination of figures that threaten their power, like Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.
We should demand that the politicians and right wing tone down such rhetoric. But there is no way that we should "tone down" our struggle for fundamental social change.
Steve Leigh, Seattle
