Why Six Murders and So Much Hatred in Arizona

The midterm campaign has highlighted the extreme violence that is daily life in Arizona, a state where immigration is a purulent abscess which Republican Governor Jan Brewer has made a permanent live hand grenade. The famous laws against immigrants set fire to the spirits (including the weakest ones). And the declared unconstitutionality of some of them is fanning deadly hatred. Now, unlike the U.S. Constitution, the police may question any person who appears illegal, while in the United States no one can be arrested without “probable cause,” as reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.

Bill Clinton at the time of the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing had warned his countrymen against the verbal avalanche which irrigated the country.

Several lawmakers and Democratic members of Congress had reported during the midterm campaign of attacks upon their lives and even death threats. Some had found a coffin in front of their house. Republicans had spoken of paranoia. Above all, the fiery speech of the tea party, which considers the government a tyrant, elected officials as sodomites and the changing demographics of the country as a threat to be combated by force if necessary (a slogan that is regularly seen is “The tree of liberty must be watered regularly with the blood of the tyrant”), contributed to an explosive atmosphere. Protection services of the president have never received many death threats against the occupant of the White House. In this unhealthy climate, the GOP leaders did not hear the voice of reason, but sought instead to surf the discontent against the institutions.

The Tucson drama is the practice put into place by Sarah Palin’s words. She had said in recent months that some elected officials were too far left “in the crosshairs” and had published a list of those who were in the crosshairs.

Gabrielle Giffords was on that list. Curiously, this card has disappeared in the minutes that followed the murder of six people in the parking lot of Safeway in Arizona. Arizona is a state that sees itself as the front line against immigration. It is also the state in which the campaign to win back the White House in the 60s started. It is the state of Barry Goldwater, the father of current conservatives, long before Ronald Reagan [sic]. It is also the state of John McCain. It could also soon be home to the Palin family, whose daughter recently purchased a residence in that state.

What is happening in the U.S. since the election of Barack Obama resembles the clashes of the 60s. But what differentiates the two eras is the arrival of the Internet, Twitter, social networks that disseminate ideas and slogans at the speed of light. And the hippies and beatniks of the 60s did not call for anything other than “sit-ins” or peaceful protests against the Vietnam War. The tea party and its associates call for an armed struggle and constantly evoke the “tyranny” of the White House. Bullets fired in Tucson will perhaps make those who call for murder think. Unless they are just the beginning of the violence.