In the Sights of the American Dream

The website for Sarah Palin’s political action committee included Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman, in a list of 20 members of Congress who had supported Obama’s health care bill. It wasn’t just another list. Their names appeared under a map that had the states which they represented marked with gunsight crosshairs. In the upper part of the map, there is another bellicose caption that alludes to the need to resist. What is it that must be resisted, according to Mrs. Palin? Answer: Nothing less than the secular march towards socialism, which the Obama administration wishes to impose on the United States. You read it right: There is a secular march towards socialism, and Obama is the architect of that transformation. That kind of rhetoric has been repeatedly referenced by Palin and other fools of the extreme right in the United States.

Since the appearance of the aforementioned map on Mrs. Palin’s website (www.palinpac.com), many people have pointed out these calls to violence. But neither Palin nor her followers have done anything to change or modify the tone of the rhetoric used to attack their political opponents. Mrs. Palin introduced her map, showing those 20 evil Democratic congressmen and their followers, on Twitter, with the phrase, “Don’t retreat, reload.”

Today, Rep. Giffords fights for her life in a Tucson hospital, after a fanatic shot her in the head on January 8, while the congresswoman carried out a meeting directly with the constituents of her district. The shooter killed six people (including a 9-year-old girl) and injured 14 others. It’s possible that the killer, Jared Loughner, may be a mentally disturbed individual, but that doesn’t eliminate the connection with the political discourse and calls to violence used by Palin and many other conservative politicians in the U.S.

Gifford’s opponent in the same electoral district in 2010 was Jesse Kelly, member of the extreme right of the Republican Party. Probably this individual has gone furthest in the violent rhetoric. His campaign last year included a call to action with these words: “Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.” The box showed Kelly, an ex-Marine, with his combat uniform and holding his favorite rifle.

The militarization of the electoral rhetoric in the U.S. is no coincidence. In the midst of its worst economic crisis in seven decades, the U.S. sinks ever deeper into a trajectory of decadence. Its financial sector, once proud of its economic performance, has been the epicenter of the crisis. Today, the sad recuperation promises high levels of unemployment for many years. The economic inequality [in the U.S.] appears to look more and more like that of an underdeveloped country ruled by a fierce oligarchy. The extraordinary concentration of wealth goes hand in hand with the deterioration of the education system nationwide. Lastly, the macroeconomic imbalances that mark the American economy are not only a domestic issue, but because of the major role that the dollar plays in the international payment system, predict a prolonged headache for the world economy.

Mr. Loughner probably doesn’t have any ideas about these problems. In his delirium, he thinks that he is only defending the American Dream that Mrs. Palin demands, with so much insistence. He’s wrong. The paradox is that Rep. Giffords wasn’t the only one in the sights of the American far right. The main target of the movement is actually Loughner’s entire generation — a generation hit and condemned to a life without education, without the promise of a well-paying and stable job, and without adequate health care. A lost generation that cannot ever aspire to a better quality of life. Their sacrifice is so that a small minority of privileged people can live the American dream, and no longer dream it.

Samuel Johnson, an English author from the second half of the 18th century, said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. His words can be applied to the case of the far right in the U.S. No one doubts that Palin and other pseudo-journalists are “rogues,” but now they have a direct connection with super, murderous patriotism.

Let us not forget that a protofascist political movement already existed in Arizona, which literally has Hispanic immigrants in its sight. The right and their allies in the media have promoted the climate of hate that prevails, not just in Arizona, but in many other states. After all is said and done, as [Russian author Aleksander] Soljenitsin said, “Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.”