Gunfire in Tucson

by George Shriver

TUCSON, Ariz.—This state has become a symbol of hatred, intolerance, bigotry, and violence—especially after the signing of the Arizona Senate Bill SB 1070 last April, which in effect authorized racial profiling. That law is now going through a lengthy process of court challenges and appeals.

Unfortunately, while the immigrant rights movement continues to organize and build, the fightback against SB 1070 (and against other anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican laws and initiatives in Arizona) has not become sufficiently powerful, has not acquired a big enough mass base, nor a mobilized union movement (most unions declined to back the boycott against SB 1070). And after the midterm elections of November 2010 it seemed that the racist forces had been strengthened.

Now, in January 2011, the government-promoted atmosphere of hatred, violence, and dehumanization (directed mainly against Mexicans and generally against people of color) has boomeranged.

On Jan. 8, Jared Lee Loughner—a mentally unbalanced, and possibly drug-addicted, white 22-year-old from a middle-class suburb of Tucson—lashed out and killed six people and wounded at least 13 in a deliberate assassination attempt aimed at a white politician, U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a pro-corporate “Blue Dog” Democrat recently re-elected to the House of Representatives. Giffords was at a shopping mall to meet with constituents, and the assassin brazenly ran up and opened fire—reportedly, with a Glock 9 mm semiautomatic pistol with a high-capacity magazine holding more than 30 bullets.

Without necessarily being aware of it, the assassin was acting out the messages of hatred and intolerance encouraged by the federal and Arizona governments, with policies that have been pursued with heightened intensity since the introduction of NAFTA in the mid-1990s. At the same time that NAFTA was pushed through by the Clinton administration in 1993-94, backed fully by the twin parties of the capitalist ruling class—both Democrat and Republican—they began a deliberate policy of militarization of the border.

This promoted the idea that the solution to problems is to take up the gun and use force and violence—i.e., the military. The U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan give the same message. If there’s a problem, shoot! Or wipe people out with predator drones. In April 2010 the top official of the U.S. government, Barack Obama, declared it was all right for the government to assassinate U.S. citizens. What an example to set from the highest office in the land! What Martin Luther King, Jr., said in 1967, is truer than ever: the U.S. government is “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”

Interestingly, it was reported that Loughner had tried to join the military but was rejected because he failed to pass a drug test.

Militarization of the border

But let’s take a closer look at the impact of the government militarization policy on the Arizona border. Isabel Garcia, a leader of the immigrant rights movement in southern Arizona, pointed out that the assassination attempt and the killing of six people were directly related to the policy of border militarization: “These senseless deaths are the result of a border policy that has been building since 1994. This policy has propelled the growth of fear, hate, and violence. Over 5000 migrant deaths, shootings, and continuing violence are a direct result of this policy."

The militarization policy took the form of blocking off traditional crossing routes for migrants from Mexico, through populated urban areas in California and Texas—with “Operation Gatekeeper” being implemented in San Diego and a similar military operation in El Paso. As a result, migrants were intentionally funneled into the inhospitable and dangerous desert regions of Arizona, more than half of all border-crossers now taking the Arizona route.

These migrants are essentially “NAFTA refugees.” An estimated 6 million peasant farmers in Mexico, growers of maíz, have been driven off the land, unable to compete against U.S. government-subsidized corporate agribusiness, which under NAFTA was allowed to flood the Mexican market with cheap corn. The ruined farmers are forced to seek work for their livelihood wherever they can, and large numbers attempt to migrate north to the U.S. in search of jobs.

But the U.S. government dehumanizes these migrants, labels them “illegal aliens,” and the huge number of unnecessary and preventable deaths among them is virtually ignored by officialdom. Washington takes no responsibility for the social impact of its NAFTA policies or for having used militarization to funnel migrants into the deadly desert. Meanwhile, the public in Arizona and elsewhere is made callous and hardened, inured to the ongoing cruelty. Many are frightened by the stream of impoverished migrants coming through the Arizona desert, don’t understand how and why they have been driven to make this desperate journey, and have no compassion for them.

The government policy of ICE raids—including a major raid in Tucson involving hundreds of federal agents and local police right around the time that SB 1070 was adopted—also suggests to the public that extreme and inhumane measures are necessary. A similar dehumanizing message is given every workday in Tucson, as “Operation Streamline” processes 70 or more detained migrants, with chains on their legs, a parody of legal action, and then turns them over to a privatized prison-for-profit outfit, the Corrections Corporation of America.

On top of that, since the 1990s many migrants have been shot and killed with impunity, mainly by Border Patrol agents—most recently a 17-year-old youth in Nogales, Sonora, killed on Jan. 6 by the Border Patrol. The young man had scaled the 10-foot border fence, but there he met his death. The Border Patrol’s shooting of the young man in Nogales is only the latest of many such killings.

A few years ago, self-appointed vigilantes, inspired by hatred of Mexicans and under the impression that such actions were officially approved, invaded the home of a Mexican American family near the border south of Tucson. The family members were U.S. citizens living in the small town of Arivaca in full legality. The vigilantes killed the father of the family and his nine-year-old daughter.

No great outpouring of rage greeted that action. No visit by a U.S. president to southern Arizona to protest the killings. The corporate-owned media and the capitalist establishment actually look with tolerance, even with favor, on the vigilante types, the so-called Minutemen and others, and encourage the hysteria and hatred voiced by these racists, who include self-proclaimed Nazis and “white power” advocates. The corporate bosses are happy to divide and conquer by encouraging racial antagonism of one section of the population against another.

Many middle-class whites, especially retirees who migrated in large numbers to the Phoenix metropolitan area in recent decades, and also to Tucson and southern Arizona, have fallen for the message to “hate Mexicans” and “blame illegal immigrants”—the message pushed by ambitious politicians—as well as the message of using military force to solve problems.

Middle-class and some working-class dupes keep voting for the Phoenix-area political machine headed by such promoters of hatred and intolerance as Russell Pearce, now leader of the Arizona Senate; Joe Arpaio, sheriff of the Phoenix metro area (Maricopa County); Tom Horne, former state superintendent of schools, now attorney general; Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed and continues to champion SB 1070; and many others of similar stripe.

But the Obama administration pursues equally dehumanizing, though less blatant, anti-immigrant policies. Rather than denouncing and opposing the racist policies of the state legislature in Arizona, Obama & Co. act in a similar manner. The White House website brags that an unprecedented 400,000 “illegal aliens” were deported in 2010. And Obama’s actions spoke louder than words when, after the signing of SB 1070, he sent thousands of National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, as if to say to the racists, “Yes, this unauthorized immigration is terrible and must be stopped by any and all means, including military violence.”

Obama even bragged that “we now have more boots on the ground on our Southwest border than ever before in our history.”

Tea Party hysteria

The Tea Party movement that emerged in 2009 similarly lined up with the anti-immigrant racist political machine centered in Maricopa County, heightening the tone of hysteria and violence. Last summer Tea Party supporters demonstrated in large numbers at the office of Congressman Raúl Grijalva, who had called for a boycott of Arizona to protest SB 1070. Grijalva received death threats, and gunshots were fired at one of his offices.

The Tea Party election campaigns in Arizona last fall featured the use of firearms, supposedly in defense of “freedom.” For example, the Tea Party candidate who opposed Gabrielle Giffords in the 2010 midterm elections invited voters to come join him in shooting off his M-16 assault rifle. Giffords’ challenger, Jesse Kelly, a former Marine who served in Iraq, promoted a campaign event on his website this way: “Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”

And the website of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin showed crosshairs targeting the Giffords electoral district. Palin also sent out an e-mail message: “Don’t Retreat—RELOAD!” Such suggestive messages undoubtedly resonated on some level in the unstable psyche of the 22-year-old Loughner, living in Tucson’s northwest suburbs.

But in the background, building up for nearly two decades, has been the U.S. government-promoted message of divisiveness, dehumanization, and carte blanche for military-type violence.

In addition to what we have outlined above, another crucial aspect of this ugly event in Tucson should be stressed. The mentally disturbed assassin was also, in a very real sense, a victim of the current economic crisis of the bankrupt capitalist system.

Cutbacks in social services—while trillions go for war and bailouts of banks—had a ghastly outcome in this case. Although Loughner obviously needed treatment for his mental disorders, and probably should have been in a mental institution, the social services to accomplish that were not available. This is true particularly because massive cuts to mental health programs, along with all public health programs, have been made in Arizona, as in other parts of this country, since the economic crisis broke out in 2008.

> This article was originally published in the January 2011 print edition of Socialist Action newspaper.