Workers World statement: Unite to defeat the bigots
Published Jan 12, 2011 3:48 PM
Jan. 10 — Twenty people were shot, and six of them died, while
attending a political rally for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz., on
Jan. 8. The authorities are now saying they have evidence that the shootings
were an attempted assassination of the Democratic Congresswoman, who is in
critical condition.
The shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was captured on the spot by people
attending the rally in a supermarket parking lot and turned over to police. He
is reported to be a psychiatrically disabled person with a recent history of
fascination with right-wing rhetoric.
At this point, no evidence has surfaced in the media or from the authorities
that Loughner had accomplices in the massacre of so many people. However,
evidence of a conspiracy may turn up later. Let’s not forget: All
information is in the hands of the FBI and the Arizona authorities — the
capitalist state.
But whether Loughner acted alone or with accomplices, this was a political act.
It was not another Columbine. Its target was a politician who had already been
verbally attacked and threatened by the far right. It must be seen in the
context of the poisonous anti-worker, anti-immigrant, sexist, racist,
anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-Semitic and anti-Obama offensive of the Republican
right, working through the Tea Party, that has allowed a neo-fascist movement,
even further to the right, to ride on its coattails.
Arizona has been the epicenter of this movement. Even the sheriff of Pima
County, Clarence Dupnik, said that Arizona had become “the capital for
prejudice and bigotry.” John McCain, the Arizona senator who ran for
president in 2008 with Sarah Palin, is a war hawk for the Pentagon, which
practically owns the state. However, McCain isn’t right-wing enough for
Palin, who on her website during the 2010 elections showed a map with
Representative Giffords’ district behind the crosshairs of a rifle
accompanied by the words, “Don’t retreat, RELOAD!”
But this appeal to violent reaction is not just an Arizona phenomenon. Dozens
of states are planning to model their immigration laws on Arizona’s
infamous SB 1070, signifying that powerful forces in the ruling class are
getting behind this anti-immigrant racism.
The right and far-right — and often the “middle,” too —
have been using the capitalist economic crisis to scapegoat immigrants,
Muslims, unions — anyone but the super-rich who have milked not only
workers’ wages and benefits but government social funds to keep their
profits coming in despite the crisis.
The ultimate responsibility for this bloody act lies with the millionaires and
billionaires who have heavily financed the right in the recent period. Through
right-wing former Texas Congressman Dick Armey and his well-financed
foundation, FreedomWorks, the ultra-right organized racist attacks on town hall
meetings during the debate over the weak health care bill. They financed the
phony “grass roots” rallies which became the basis of the Tea
Party. And the corporations poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the
last election to promote Tea Party candidates and the right wing in
general.
At a time of economic crisis and mass unemployment that has lasted for more
than three years, this kind of divisive, scapegoating politics serves the
interests of the entire ruling class, all the way up to the summits of finance
capital.
The FBI has now taken over custody of Loughner and the case. This is the same
FBI that has been lawlessly raiding the anti-war movement and persecuting
solidarity activists.
The FBI stood passively by when armed vigilantes, calling themselves the
Minuteman Project, formed what amounted to a fascist militia along the
Arizona-Mexico border and openly hunted down undocumented workers. The
capitalist state was totally complicit in this crass violation of bourgeois
legality. The response of the Obama administration was to send more U.S. troops
to the border to do what the Minutemen were doing. And on Jan. 6 a member of
the Border Patrol fatally shot an unarmed Mexican youth, 17-year-old
Ramsés Barrón Torres.
The FBI, Homeland Security and other government agencies spy on and monitor
groups and individuals all over the U.S. Reportedly, the killer mentioned the
American Renaissance Party, a known fascist group, on his MySpace page. This
together with his behavior and other signs, such as recommending Hitler’s
“Mein Kampf,” would have made him a suspect to be watched —
if that’s what the capitalist state was looking for. But they close their
eyes to the activities of ultra-right and fascist groups.
In connection with Loughner’s praise of “Mein Kampf,” it is
worth noting that Giffords was the first Jewish woman congressional
representative from Arizona and openly identified as Jewish during the election
campaign.
The Obama administration has responded weakly to this massacre, trying to
reduce it to a nonpolitical event — in the same way that Washington stood
by while the semi-fascist Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County
was creating a police state for undocumented workers. While this resurgence of
reaction is pushed mostly by Republicans, it also feeds on the weakness of the
Democratic leaders, who have compromised and retreated on every issue, from
health care to Social Security to workers’ rights.
This atrocious act is a wake-up call. The people cannot rely on the capitalist
government to protect them from the ultra-right and the fascists. Progressive
organizations, community groups, unions and all fair-minded people need to
unite in a massive response to the hate and prejudice spewed forth every day by
the political establishment and the media. They can be turned back. Now is the
time.
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