New Clear Vision

Will It Be Force … or Discourse?

by Randall Amster

In that fateful supermarket parking lot in Tucson, two drastically different forms of politics were on display, and the contrast couldn’t have been more starkly evident. On the one hand there were ordinary people meeting with their congressional representative, ostensibly to get to know one another and share concerns about important issues. On the other there was an alienated and disturbed individual armed with a deadly weapon, seemingly bent on making a statement of his own while brutally silencing others in the process. The fact that this transpired in beleaguered Arizona, known widely for its invidious policies, lax gun laws, and blunt politics, has served to heighten the contrast and arouse the nation’s conscience in the process. (more…)

Democracy and Humanity in the Balance

by Michael N. Nagler

The night after Representative Gabrielle Giffords and others were shot, I happened to be officiating at a celebration for the career of a close friend of mine who has devoted his life to the search for nonviolence and peace. There were nearly 200 of us from a great variety of organizations, all of which had stories about nonviolent actions and projects they had done that actually worked.

I must confess that when the shock of grief has worn off after an event like this horrific shooting, I hear myself asking my fellow Americans, in some exasperation: how long do you want this to go on?

Happily, this time things were a little bit different, in one respect. For the first time that I am aware, there was in almost all the commentaries the hint of an apparently forbidden truth: that we bring violence on ourselves when we promote it, glorify it, or legitimize it — as in this case by the extreme rhetoric associated with Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, among others.

Let us by all means seize on that hint. It is exactly right that when goaded into violence by our words or thoughts, we — and not just a few deranged killers — get that much closer to ‘losing it’ and acting out some form of destruction in real life. Massive scientific evidence confirms this connection, which is anyway obvious if you know anything about human nature. What we think, we eventually do; in particular, when we think righteous hatred, we will do vile things that are unworthy of our humanity. (more…)