I forced myself to listen to 5 minutes of Limbaugh yesterday. Besides blaming the libruls, he used the sounds and cadences of black street speech to put words in Pres. Obama's mouth. If that isn't racist hate-mongering, I don't know what is.

Oh, and for the rest of my drive, I listened to NPR. They dragged out every Republican they could find, all of whom assured listeners that politics had NOTHING to do with the shootings.

This article really had a visceral effect on me. At the risk of 'stirring the pot', we have some monstrous people in our political system and punditry.

The repubs are still managing to bully anyone who wants to agree with the sheriff if Pima county. I am not a democrat, by the way. But they even manage to let themselves be intimidated - after something like this.....

Monstrous corporate shills that have no humanity...I don't even see it as a liberal conservative issue..it's money, plunder and power at any cost..the population be dammed..their manipulation skills are second to non...playing into peoples fears, anxieties and prejudice...it has always been this way, but not with the skill and mass media control they have now.

The article and most of the debate misses the point: America is a sick culture, sick from fundamentalist capitalism, fundamentalist christianity and militarism and imperialism.

Loughner is a product of this sick culture, which includes a toxic corporate media environment based on manipulation, spin and lies, and which covers-up the truth about what is really going on.

Until we start facing the fact that the American "way of life" is sick and psychopathological, we will not move one inch in solving the problem of a culture in sociopathic decay.

To simply call Loughner a "lone nut" is the easy way out for the cowards. Loughner is a reflection of our sick culture. From Palin to Palestine, from Beck to Basra, from the Kardashian sisters to Kabul, we are a sick, vicious country drowning in narcissistic denial.

Are Loughners actions really that much different than the actions of the helicopter crew in Iraq that mowed down civilians and journalists with sadistic glee, as revealed on a video released by Wikileaks? Can a country kill as many people as we have killed from Vietnam to Iraq and not become sick and morally insane?

I could obviously go on and recount the exploitation and greed and all the rest, but we know the story. People die homeless in the streets while the elites spend millions of dollars paying off warlords in Afghanistan. Hell, anyone with open eyes cant avoid seeing how sick this country is.

To break out of a prison, you must first admit to being in a prison. So the first thing we have to do is face the fact that we are a sick culture run by criminally insane psychopaths at the highest levels of business and government.

The usual bland centrist posturing promoting typical false equivilance although all examples cited were from the Right. Even the police chief and the congresswoman herself expressed fear from the conseqiences of the ramped- up rhetoric and tactics of the Right.
Not interested in "working together" if it means continued capitulati­on and serving corporate interests at the expense of the citizens--­- leaving the citizens with no representa­tion other than the false populists of the Right and the insincere advocates for the people on the Left.
Centrists will try to impose a blanket of smothering, superficial niceness and civility to mask the gutting of the social contract.

That Beck-Palin exchange at the end of the piece ... that's actually from The Onion, right?

Right?

Hypothetically speaking of course, why is he not waterboarded or interrogated like Gitmo people? You mean we actually respect the right to remain silent? I don't understand this country.

'Limbaugh ... denounced Democrats as “ghouls” who are effectively 'accusing a majority of Americans of being accomplices to murder.''

I am no Democrat, but I wholeheartedly accuse a 'majority of Americans' _ if a majority support Palin and Limbaugh _ of being accomplices to murder. Not only in Arizona, but in Iraq.

'accusing Democrats of politicizing pain caused by a lone lunatic'

Again, guilty. Come & get me. Is it wrong for someone in 1930s Germany to 'politicize' the lunacy of the Nazis? You bet it's the same thing. You bet.

We have to stop being cowards about being labeled 'political' in the face of this tragedy, in a world in which the words 'political,' and 'Leftist,' have been cynically redefined to replace 'moral.' These people, and the deranged lunatics they've knowingly unleashed on society, are now actually murdering our children, and grandparents. Hang tough. Fight back.

Those that would define "others" as responsible for this trajedy had best look in the mirror. Anyone on the left that would accuse the Limbaughs and Palins are no different from them.

The childish whining coming from both right and left, the predictable whining of the political agenda people that want to make use of this poor deranged shred of a human being is simply disgusting.

This assassination is not just about the latest toxic political debate in Arizona. This, to my mind, speaks to a toxic culture of entitlement and racism. There are no lone gun men any more. This is a myth. Every one of us as we reach adulthood is disturbed by the way of the world and within the disturbance, the right wing media vitriol raises a culture of hate. Moderating forces have in the past successfully challenged hate but lately hate has a new cache, it seems. When a person decides to take action in the way that the assassin did he/she is acting not only on his/her own personal ideology but with support from some combination of accepted ideology within the social structure and the "logical conclusions" ie: kill people so that their friends will be intimidated into doing what you want them to do.

I have it on good authority that John Lennon, a major peace activist of his day, was on some sort of target map/list in the 60s. In those days the right didn't publicize their agenda on facebook and of course they didn't have a dynamic political voice like the Republican party/tea party of today. We, in North America and most other parts of the world, were all still in the shadow of WW2 and people were more circumspect. Everyone was still burying loved ones. But then came Viet Nam. And what have we learned? Lots. And so today we can see this assassination as an example of the tragedy of ignorance; cutting back to funds for health care and education again and again and again in the vain hope that everyone will soon be rich and we can all pay out of pocket for a decent standard of living. Where is the logic in that? How many loved ones have been slaughtered by believing that shit?

Sure, let's have gun control. Let's begin at source. Let's stop the production of guns. Let's cut production to zero. Let's make the slaughtering soldier as obsolete as the traffic cop standing at an intersection doing stop and go. Let's call for a general strike by all workers in the war tool making factories. Call out to our brothers and sisters in the technologies producing drones and fighter aircraft to step up and step down. And let's make sure that an open and warm reception is waiting.

Of utmost concern is the shallowness of the political debate rather than the tone.

The domination of our two parties, both owned by and submissive to capital, has robbed us of the ability to think (or care) deeply about how to live in a democratic society and, of greater consequence, robbed us of the means to organize with others who share our political views. As a result, our contry is teeming with loners who have have a lack of a "coherent political leaning." Where in the world would one look for such a thing?

I completely agree with everything that Kitaj said in his/her post! I would assume that Kitaj has acquired psychological knowledge, which provides a much needed and essential perspective to more fully understand what is going on in the US political and media culture and how this has 'contaminated the cultural psyche of America. Thanks Kitaj for your astute posting!

What's the presupposition of the nut-job or loner political killer theory?

It's the Robinson Crusoe theory of society, which goes like this:

Individuals precede society, and do not need society to become full fledged human beings.

Society is merely a convenience for the procurement of our needs, a tool, a means, not the environment that we need to be what we are and that shapes what and who we are.

Basically, on this account of our genesis, we are already human at birth, and would be human even if there were no society.

On this account, we are born human, and do not become human through a complex societal process.

Very convenient, of course, for an ideology that disparages all that is social and emphasizes the myth of the self-made man, the enterprising ego taking on the world and making it to success.

The problem, though, with the loner, nut-job theory of political killers is that the theory wants to have its cake and eat it too.

On the one hand, the political killer is declared an island, a murderous Robinson Crusoe (a pretty funny notion already!), but, on the other hand, he is said to be a nut-job, a deviant, one who does not fit in, namely, one who deviates from societal normalcy, who does not fit into the societal norms.

So there we have it: when it comes to political killers, all of a sudden society reenters the picture of what it is to be human with full force and becomes the norm of what is human and acceptably human, and not merely a convenient and efficient way of providing for one's needs and that one could dispense with, as Robinson Crusoe in fact did.

The reader will have noted, no doubt, that I used the masculine pronoun when referring to our proverbial lone killer. I did so intentionally, for the overwhelming majority of lone political killers or would be killers are males. But, hey, that sociological constant, too, surely has nothing to do with our society and the manner in which males are shaped and reared in it.

Ask yourself this question: why is it that our lone assassins are not described as, say, self-enterprising or self-made killers?

Conclusion: our dominant anthropological narrative is as twisted as our dominant economic theory and our dominant relation to nature, but all three serve the political regime that holds sway over our lives.

"Beck opened the exchange, urging Palin to “please look into protection for your family. An attempt on you could bring the republic down.”"

Priceless, these overnight inversions! From targettor, Sarah becomes a potential target needing protection

Since this was not a terrorist act, she won't get homeland security protection, I suppose.

An attempt on Gabrielle Giffords only brought the media down.

Couldn't invent this stuff if ya tried to.

I think it's unfortunate that so many people immediately tried to politicize the shooting in a partisan way. We simply don't know what motivated the killer. Of course, "lone nuts" can be manipulated. Mind control is something the CIA has invested a lot of money and time in. I have seen enough of the sinister side of this Republic to have my suspicions, as airplane crashes and "lone nuts" seem to disproportionately kill Democrats and liberals, but at this point in the case of Ms. Giffords, it is pure speculation.

As to the 'toxic political debate,' we hear a lot about 'partisan rancor' and the like in the US, but I would say one big deficiency in the US is DEBATE, real debate about the many crucial issues facing us. One can watch US television literally for years without seeing any real debate, i.e., a formal, in-depth argument between opposing perspectives about an important issue. Rather than debate we get the shopworn, predictable theater critics like Paul Gigot and David Whatshisname on Jim Lehrer or the bland commentators on CNN.

Speaking from a progressive point-of-view, I am frustrated to live in a nation where progressive views are systematically shut out of all mass media--with the possible exception of an op ed in a big city paper occasionally. This systematic silencing of one perspective can only cause many others to feel similarly frustrated and angry. The only remedy for this is the breaking up of the media monopolies and a great infusion of capital into public broadcasting, but not the PBS/NPR model, the programming of which is too centralized, and not truly 'public' because of the huge quantities of corporate sponsoring. We need a public sector media that can compete with the private media. As long as we have a system where large corporations control the vast majority of what people see and hear and read as news, we are going to drift in ever more sociopathic directions.

Here are some questions that seem to have conveniently dropped off the proverbial radar screen:

If Jared Loughner was merely a loner, what was he doing living at his parents' house? He was not so alone, after all.

If Loughner was not well, why is it that his parents weren't looking after him and paying attention to what he was doing?

Why didn't they take that gun and ammunition away from him?

If it was a publicly known fact that Loughner was not well, why is it that no public agency looked after him and made sure he was getting better and would not commit acts of violence?

Why was Loughner not in therapy? If he was, was this yet another case of malfunctioning, incompetent and negligent authorities?

Was Loughner on medication, and if he was, why weren't those administering the medication paying attention to his activities?

When and where did Loughner learn how to shoot a gun?

Was he engaged in target practice? If he was, why was a "nut-job" allowed to do such?

Funny, hey, how some people only become "nut-jobs" or wackos or loners after they've killed a few people?

Thank you oikos and kitaj and all you other sentient CD posters to this article. I am unable to articulate my feelings about the topics here so am grateful for your cogent words.

The shooting was obviously political -- just looking at his youtube videos one sees that they are steeped in politics. Loughner did not go out to shoot anyone and just happen to chance upon a representative.

What it was not is strongly partisan, and there is a simple reason for that: both parties are just two wings of the fascist party. Both parties are pro war, pro business, anti civil rights, and democracy, and anti constitution, and both parties are engaged in massive propaganda and the destruction of the economy for but the wealthy. The politics was confused and conflicted reaction to fascism, the Big Brother state, and the endless violence and perversion of a democratic system. It is said the shooting was senseless and insane, and so it was -- but not much more senseless and insane than the nation's informational, political, economic, and violent conditions which prevail, from both parties.