Who Are We Really?

from Sarah Palin website

Kennedy poster distributed in Dallas before his assassination.

I recall the statement made by Malcolm X, about the inevitability of the assassination of John F. Kennedy; “the chickens have come home to roost.”

It appears to have happened again.

The press will likely frame the story of the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Giffords as the act of an insane lone gunman. Where have we heard this before?

John F. Kennedy

Robert Kennedy

Martin Luther King

George Wallace

Gerald Ford

Ronald Reagan

and now Representative Gabrielle Giffords

This has happened so many times that we can't help but consider; is this a reflection on us? Does America condone, even promote political violence?

Is this a part of the War on the Left I have posted about before? Or is it even bigger?

Well, we definitely can blame Sarah Palin, Fox News, John Boehner, and the Tea Party for creating an environment of hate that makes it more socially acceptable (in potential assassins' minds) to commit such heinous crimes. Had there not been such an atmosphere of violent anger, maybe Jared Loughner would have chosen to seek help – instead of a gun.

However, I recently read a comment on one of the articles about the assassination attempt.

The comment reads:

“Democrat or Republican really doesn't matter. What we have here is a government that is pushing people over the edge by caring about special interests (their own, mostly) rather than us.”

This is much bigger than Sarah Palin.

Though Jared Loughner is likely insane, this killer may have seen himself as a revolutionary.

This is a key point.

America has created an atmosphere of violence that has now bred even more violence.

If it's OK to expose a CIA agent (Valerie Plame) to potential harm for anti-war comments made by her husband. If it's OK to torture Bradley Manning, who was trying to expose the callus and self-serving nature of our political and war machine on Wikileaks. If it's OK to imprison (for no apparent reason) the CIA asset (Susan Lindauer) who knew the real motivation behind the 9/11 attacks. If it's OK to kill or allow the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for the 9/11 attacks (of which no Iraqis participated in). If it's OK to invade and occupy at least two countries on the slimmest of excuses. If it's OK to run our nation into financial ruin to pay for a military budget that exceeds the next six countries combined. Then what have we become?

This isn't just about a crosshairs map. This is about a systematic failure within our Nation. This is about a kingdom of hate and fear on the verge of coming apart at the seams. This is a sign... And this will not be televised – because there are powerful people making too damn much money not fixing anything.

Oh, by the way...

There is another list.

This list of (likely) assassinated public figures is less well known because the official records claim they were accidents. However, these people all died in plane crashes:

Senator Paul Wellstone – the most outspoken critic of the Bush Jr. administration

Mike Connell – Carl Rove's chief IT consultant, the key witness to the 2000 and 2004 election thefts

Former Senator John Tower – chair of the commission that investigated the Iran/Contra scandal

Senator John Heinz – an outspoken critic of the Viet Nam war

House Majority Leader Hale Boggs – one of the members of the Warren Commission who had strong doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone

In all, 23 air crashes have killed 48 U.S. politicians.

Needless to say, most of these plane crashes were just accidents. But when a pattern emerges, the possibility of them all being accidents becomes less and less likely. Especially when it is generally accepted that two South American leaders (Jamie Roldos and Omar Torrijos) were assassinated by the CIA in airplane crashes.

We live in a country where, whether true or not; violence is seen as a commonly used option by those in power. So, why are we surprised when we see others emulate them?

In what is supposed to be the greatest democracy on Earth, we now have a huge, angry mob of people who don't feel they are being represented. And a few of them feel the only option they have is violent revolution... Maybe, just maybe, we need the threat of that to get motivated. Of course, we now have that threat, whether we want it or not. The big question is will we dismiss this assassin as a lone gunman, panic and further push our Nation towards a police state, or try to fix the system that created him.

This is not about freedom or security.

It's about money and our insane economic reward system. It's about an unhealthy culture. It's about an abundance of man-made chemicals in our environment. It's about our Big Pharma and illegal drug culture. It's about concentrated power over what we know. It's about the powers-that-be making every decision with brutal self interest. It's about the rest of society following along.

This is about our society's violent collective mental illness – which we don't understand and don't even want to admit exists.