Workers World Statement: The Forces Behind the Massacre in Tucson, Arizona

Students protesting the Arizona ban on ethnic studies. The state has been the focus of a boycott resulting from its passage of racial profiling and other racist laws by the state legislature and Governor Brewer.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Workers World statement: The forces behind the massacre in Tucson, Ariz.

Published Jan 9, 2011 9:17 PM

Jan. 9 — Twenty people were shot, and six of them died, while
attending a political rally for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson,
Ariz., on Jan. 8. The authorities are now saying they have evidence
that the shootings were an attempted assassination of the Democratic
Congresswoman, who is in critical condition.

The shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was captured on the spot by people attending the rally in a supermarket parking lot and turned over to police. He is reported to be a mentally deranged person with a recent history of fascination with right-wing rhetoric.

At this point, no evidence has surfaced in the media or from the
authorities that Loughner had accomplices in the massacre of so many
people. However, evidence of a conspiracy may turn up later. Let’s not
forget, all information is in the hands of the FBI and the Arizona
authorities — the capitalist state.

But whether Loughner acted alone or with accomplices, this was a
political act. It was not another Columbine. Its target was a
politician who had already been verbally attacked and threatened by
the far right. It must be seen in the context of the poisonous
anti-worker, anti-immigrant, sexist, racist, anti-Muslim, anti-gay and
anti-Obama offensive of the Republican right, working through the Tea
Party, that has allowed a neo-fascist movement, even further to the
right, to ride on its coattails.

Arizona has been the epicenter of this movement. Even the sheriff of
Pima County, Clarence Dupnik, said that Arizona had become “the
capital for prejudice and bigotry.” John McCain, the Arizona senator
who ran for president in 2008 with Sarah Palin, is a war hawk for the
Pentagon, which practically owns the state. However, McCain isn’t
right-wing enough for Palin, who on her website during the 2010
elections showed a map with Representative Giffords’ district behind
the crosshairs of a rifle accompanied by the words, “Don’t retreat,
RELOAD!”

But this appeal to violent reaction is not just an Arizona phenomenon.
Dozens of states are planning to model their immigration laws on
Arizona’s infamous SB1070, signifying that powerful forces in the
ruling class are getting behind this anti-immigrant racism.

The right and far-right — and often the “middle,” too — have been
using the capitalist economic crisis to scapegoat immigrants, Muslims,
unions — anyone but the super-rich who have milked not only workers’
wages and benefits but government social funds to keep their profits
coming in despite the crisis.

The ultimate responsibility for this bloody act lies with the
millionaires and billionaires who have financed the right in the
recent period, beginning with the racist “town hall” meetings against
the weak health care bill. They poured hundreds of millions of dollars
into the last election to promote Tea Party candidates and the right
wing in general.

At a time of economic crisis and mass unemployment that has lasted for more than three years, this kind of divisive, scapegoating politics
serves the interests of the entire ruling class, all the way up to the
summits of finance capital.

The FBI has now taken over custody of Loughner and the case. This is
the same FBI that has been lawlessly raiding the anti-war movement and persecuting solidarity activists.

The FBI stood passively by when armed vigilantes calling themselves
the Minuteman Project formed what amounted to a fascist militia along
the Arizona-Mexico border and openly hunted down undocumented workers.

The capitalist state was totally complicit in this crass violation of
bourgeois legality. And on Jan. 6, a member of the Border Patrol
fatally shot an unarmed Mexican youth, 17-year-old Ramsés Barrón
Torres.

The FBI, Homeland Security and other government agencies spy on and monitor groups and individuals all over the U.S. Reportedly, the
killer mentioned the American Renaissance Party, a known fascist
group, on his Facebook page. This together with his behavior and other signs, such as recommending Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” would have made him a suspect to be watched — if that’s what the capitalist state was looking for. But they close their eyes to the activities of
ultra-right and fascist groups.

The Obama administration has responded weakly to this massacre, trying to reduce it to a non-political event — in the same way that
Washington stood by while the semi-fascist Sheriff Joe Arpaio of
Arizona’s Maricopa County was creating a police state for undocumented workers. While this resurgence of reaction is pushed mostly by Republicans, it also feeds on the weakness of the Democratic leaders, who have compromised and retreated on every issue, from health care to Social Security to workers’ rights.

This atrocious act is a wake-up call. The people cannot rely on the
capitalist government to protect them from the ultra-right and the
fascists. Progressive organizations, community groups, unions and all
fair-minded people need to unite in a massive response to the hate and
prejudice spewed forth every day in the political establishment and
the media. They can be turned back. Now is the time.