Krugman, for being a economics professional, has good perceptions on other vital issues facing us.  I like his distinction between ridicule and eliminationist rhetoric.

The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.

And it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.

Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

More at Krugman

His columnist colleague David Brooks leaps in to take issue with any linkage of  Loughner’s state of mind with what is going on in the world he inhabits. In fact, he accuses the early coverage of  ”of suppressing” evidence about Loughner’s writings, statements and the obvious fact they were deranged.  A bit paranoid of you Mr. Brooks.  You have no evidence that any one suppressed anything.  Perhaps in the first hour after the murders journalists hadn’t done what they should have done but that is no surprise.  Giffords was announced as dead by quite a few in the rush to get listeners eyes and ears; they rushed as you rushed and didn’t take a deep breath and ask themselves if they had it right.  The coverage I have read has uniformly acknowledged his seeming mental illness.  Most, go on to say there is some connection between him, whatever his mental state — which isn’t well known either– and the environment he lived in.

Loughner after all did not go to a kindergarten and shoot children; he did not pull out a pistol on a bus and shoot people; he did not shoot up a bar, his parents home or the community college he was expelled from.  He went to a political rally and shot the speaker, and those around her.  Believe it or not Mr. Brooks, mentally ill people respond to the world around them — in ways bizarre to most of us, but they respond and adjust nonetheless.  It is not unreasonable to think that a murder attempt against a local and well-known politician comes from some awareness of who she is, what she says, and what others say about her.  And, by the way, Loughner’s ramblings you cite, sure sound a  lot like the ramblings of other right-wingers we’ve been hearing lately.  Fears about big government, devotion to the gold standard, mind control through grammar are all right wing – of one sort or another– themes.  He did not ramble about the rise of the proletariat, monopoly capital,  commodity fetishization, the  oligarchy or other left wingy themes [which, if he had, Brooksie would have been all over making the linkages,]  nor did he ramble about the Red Queen the Cheshire Cat, space aliens, faked moon landings or other possible fantasies.  They were rambling for sure.  But while they are semi-coherent — they do not cohere well– they are not incoherent.

Brooks goes on to say that any “accusations” that political actors contributed to the murders are “vicious.”  Ahh David, David, maybe there are some who say Sara Palin, Michelle Bachman et al are directly “responsible.”  I haven’t read any such thing.  I have read a lot of people saying that those two have been part of, and often set the example, of language , accusation and demagoguing that has been unknown in public discourse, above all by public officials,  for many decades;  indeed it was unthinkable except in extreme circles — Birchers, KKKers– until the 1980s.  The people saying this,  people who live in the real world,  know how such language affects themselves and those around them.  They know that when people scream and curse at public meetings others grow fearful.  They know when one person screams others are emboldened to scream, louder.   They know that screaming leads to pushing, pushing to fists,  to slashed tires, gunshots from behind trees and dead doctors.  It is a perfectly reasonable connection to make that an act of political violence has something to do with the rhetoric, gestures and shown emotions of violence.

Stop leaping to the defense of your friends and use your brains to help see a way out of this.  Please.

*

The NY Times has an interesting set of 7 short expert opinions titled: Assassins and American History All are worth reading but I was struck by a nice Jefferson quote offered by Jill Lepore:

Jefferson, in a plea for unity, spoke of the dreadful consequences of bringing religious absolutism into politics:

having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.

*

Finally, for the moment at least, let’s look at one of the screamingly obvious questions:  why was someone who — now–is seen to be so mentally ill, not under treatment?  What did his parents do?  What could anyone have done?

Rush Limbaugh was off on a tear about how the shootings were the parent’s faults.  [I hope Brooks chastises him, since surely he knows nothing about what the parents did or did not do.]  It is worth while to recall the parents of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the Colombine shooters.  They were judged accountable by many for the massacre their sons perpetrated.

…as the New York Times later reported at great length, Susan Klebold spent a lot of time with her kids and tried her best to instill good values. She was “more patient and gentle and kind with her kids than I was able to be,” one mother told a reporter; her husband was, by all accounts, a good father. The Harrises were likewise caring parents; when their son displayed worrisome signs they got him psychiatric care and medication and paid him lots of attention.

Before the inevitable rush to judge the Loughners begins, before we jump to conclusions about how easy it is for the parents of a mentally ill young adult to do the right thing—whatever that might be—it is worth remembering Susan Klebold. She wrote a harrowing and deeply humbling account of what it was like to be viewed as an accomplice in her son’s crime for O, The Oprah Magazine in 2009; it bears rereading now.*

Slate

And what is available, in Arizona or anywhere else,  to help those beginning to show signs of instability?  What would you or I do should a son begin rambling, and sounding crazy?  Amy Goodman, per her usual fierce independence, looks at what is available, and what is not in Arizona.  Mental health support has been severely slashed under the new Governor.

people who have a serious mental illness diagnosis beginning last July were denied any further coverage in a number of areas—case management, brand-name medications, access to support groups, transportation subsidies, and more recently, housing subsidies. So these individuals who have the most serious forms of mental illness were essentially, except for generic medications, were basically pushed out of the system.

Democracy Now

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