“Politics has always been based on fear”

U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords with her husband NASA astronaut Mark Kelly in an undated handout photo

 

The language in our culture since 9/11 has become increasingly violent. I noticed this a few minutes after my co-workers and I watched the Twin Towers go down on a conference room television. As I stepped out in the corridor, a company vice president strode toward me. Without pausing, he said, “We’ve got to hunt them down and kill them.”

Almost any newscast from Afghanistan in the past few years has featured an interview with an American military leader boasting about the number of Taliban his troops have killed. Whatever happened to the practice of taking prisoners?

The word “kill” is now commonplace in our national discourse.

The Tucson massacre has triggered a much-needed discussion on the lack of civility in politics and the media. Gail Russell Chaddock, a staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor, offers a thoughtful perspective on what it might take to bring about a positive change in the language and tone we use to converse with one another on the air and elsewhere.

Washington

 

Saturday’s mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., reset the political clock on Capitol Hill Monday, as Congress swept aside the legislative agenda out of respect for those killed or injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) of Arizona and her aide, Gabriel Zimmerman.

The motive for the mass shooting in Tucson is not clear, but that hasn’t stopped speculation about what is to blame or how tragedy can be averted in the future.

The most frequent comment on Capitol Hill – short of ubiquitous calls to exercise prudence – is to tone down the toxic rhetoric, especially gun-infused metaphors.

RELATED – Arizona shooting: Seven times politics turned to threats or violence last year

But critics acknowledge that it will take more than just members of Congress altering their tough-talking ways to change the overall culture. Political consultants, fundraisers, the news media are all also addicted to tough talk – and for the same reason, it sells.

“This is a deep cultural style of political expression that has developed over 30 years, and it’s not going to be changed overnight,” says former House historian Raymond Smock, who led a staff discussion Monday on the issue at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies.

“Politics has always been based on fear … keeping people mad, keeping people on the ragged edge,” he adds. “Every once in a while we get sensitized again, but it’s hard to change.”

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A statement from No Labels on the violence in Arizona

The No Labels political movement arose in part to help de-escalate the political rhetoric in America and to encourage bipartisanship.  Today, the organization responds to the shooting of Rep. Giffords and several others on Saturday:

Statement from No Labels

The horrific act of violence that occurred Saturday in Arizona has shocked us all to our core and spurred many Americans to ask some hard questions, both about this specific incident and the larger political forces that may have contributed to it. We at No Labels believe this kind of conversation, as painful as the circumstances surrounding it are, is in the best interests and traditions of our country. At times of crisis, when our fundamental democratic values are threatened, we come together as Americans and directly confront our challenges.

But for our country to move forward from this tragedy, we have to talk carefully as well as candidly. We do not yet know all the facts behind this senseless act, and it would be inappropriate and irresponsible to rush to judgment or point fingers of blame at the moment, as some sadly have already done. This is no time for self-aggrandizement or partisan point-scoring -- that's part of the problem, not the solution.

It is clearly, though, a time for self-reflection, as Sheriff Dupnik eloquently put it. Based on the immediate and intuitive reactions of so many Americans, we know enough to say that something is deeply wrong with our political discourse -- and that with this incident, a dangerous line has been crossed. As we grieve for those who died and pray for the recovery of those who were injured, we hope this moment of mourning will lead us to engage each other with more civility and respect and see each other not as opponents or enemies but as Americans.

A Buddhist monk’s antidote to the violence in American politics

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in AZ Saturday, photo courtesy of her website.

In July 2004, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh began his address to the US Congress, published online in the Shamabala Sun, with these words:

Distinguished members of Congress, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, it is my pleasure to have this opportunity to talk with you about how we can share our insight, our compassion and our understanding in order to better serve those we want to serve and help heal the wounds that have divided our nation and the world.

In the aftermath of the outbreak of violence in Arizona yesterday, it might be wise to keep Nhat Hanh’s words in mind while reading this NY Times article by Carl Hulse and Kate  Zernike on the increasing vitriol in our national discourse:

WASHINGTON — The shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and others at a neighborhood meeting in Arizona on Saturday set off what is likely to be a wrenching debate over anger and violence in American politics.

While the exact motivations of the suspect in the shootings remained unclear, an Internet site tied to the man, Jared Lee Loughner, contained antigovernment ramblings. And regardless of what led to the episode, it quickly focused attention on the degree to which inflammatory language, threats and implicit instigations to violence have become a steady undercurrent in the nation’s political culture.

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