It Isn't About the Fringe

The fact that Christine Taylor Green was born on September 11, 2001 is purely coincidental to the tragedy that took her life in Tucson, Arizona. And yet the relevance of those two events is so compelling that it is difficult not to think of the end of her short life as some kind of dark metaphor.

In the round table discussions that are part of the Sunday news circuit, the conversations were the same from show to show and, further, they explored ground that has been so trampled on at this point that it might as well be concrete. Pundits and officials of varying political persuasions resurrected the usual dialogue on how polarized and vitriolic the social and political views of the nation have become. They talked about how leaders need to “tone down the rhetoric” so that this kind of thing “won’t happen again”. Their focus was on the tragedy itself, including the assault on high officials of the US Government, and for good reason. It’s because focusing on the event itself is just so, so easy to do. Those discussing the problem of “polarization” speak as if elimination of the lunatic fringe would solve the problem. Politicians and pundits alike don’t want to face the real dilemma. To do so would be like asking Homer Simpson to give up his doughnuts.

The shooting in Tucson was not unlike other similar events that have occurred (and in a practical sense forgotten) over the past couple of decades. They have simply been responses from the lunatic fringe to a much greater uncoordinated conspiracy, and should be expected. The major response to this event will probably be the same as with prior events; huge analysis of psychiatric resources, lots of finger pointing, and increased security, even though the specific event has little impact on safety of the nation. Virtually nothing will be done, or even suggested (at levels that would make a difference) about the real problem. The tragic event is a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.

It is already clear, thanks to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, that Jared Lee Loughner was mentally imbalanced and burdened with (among other things) a consistent torment; that the Government (the United States or otherwise) represents a malevolent force separate and in conflict with his perception of a free individual. In his world undoubtedly, being free meant not being in a state of torment. In Arizona he will receive the death penalty instead of life imprisonment because, incredibly, he will not be considered insane.

Loughner, like other displays of insanity from people like Timothy McVeigh, are the top of a sponge like iceberg, soaking up the relentless and aggressive rhetoric of pundits and politicians of post-Reagan Conservatism. It is born of an acceptance by both Conservative and Liberal extremes that freedom of communication means an absence of public control over the means of communication. It is fed by mercantile powers that ultimately control those means and stand to benefit from a lack of diversity. Today it is the Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks, Rupert Murdocks, and dozens like them who are driving the frenzy. It could have been some radical left wing nuts turning the screw on the nation’s psyche (as some try), but today the big nuts are turning right.

The tragedy in Tucson is heart wrenchingly unfortunate, but the real damage from an iceberg is caused by what’s below the surface and this current iceberg is getting huge.

Interestingly we can actually identify a date when this began. As an aftermath of World War 2 the Truman Administration, with bipartisan support, recognized that unregulated control of public communication was the very thing that allowed the special interests to effectively limit information in a large industrial society. The then compelling example was of the Nazi Party’s influence over public communications in Germany in the 1930s. In 1949 the Fairness Doctrine became part of the FCC’s operation, passing judicial muster along the way. It was not a law, but a policy or regulation over public airways. It required that in order to have a license to broadcast a station must present contrasting viewpoints on matters of public interest. Under the guise of freedom of speech the Reagan Administration directed its FCC chairman, Mark Fowler, to end the policy in August 1987. By August 1988 Rush Limbaugh started broadcasting his anti-Government sputum daily, soon joined by others, making hundreds of millions of dollars. Those who found enjoyment in the mindless vitriol could happily listen or watch nothing else.

With only some minor exceptions, our political leadership has not addressed the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, or something like it. Most are content to preserve their jobs by not risking the label of being anti-First Amendment. Few, if any, are willing to address the extraordinary power of mass communication over a largely unsophisticated and uneducated population of 300 million people. For 38 years our leaders and our nation saw and accepted the advantages of regulation requiring diversity. Conversely, since then, the advantages of unregulated uniformity have been accepted and enjoyed by a relative few. The similarities to an unregulated financial system are profound, and how many lives will end or be ruined, totally unnoticed, by our inane for-profit healthcare system because the lies perpetuated about it can continue unchallenged? Is it possible the recognition that the American people and the American Government are an inseparable whole been lost? Maybe so.

The tragedy of the September 11th attack in New York and Washington was indisputably the result of myopic brainwashing within the Muslim world. The vast majority of Muslims would not have participated or condoned the attack, but they are more than comfortable with listening to the endless condemnation of the United States and other non-Muslim nations as their antagonists. The lunatic tip of their iceberg is pretty big. But make no mistake about it. The insanity that destroyed the Trade Center in New York and that which killed Christine Taylor Green grew from the same seed. Perhaps this little life might become a window to see the truth.