Sunday, January 9, 2011

TOPICAL THOUGHTS... KIND OF...

GABBY GIFFORD



A lot of people are going to utilize this tragedy to push politicized agendas when there is ALWAYS going to be something to for someone to latch onto. Hell, I have been listening to reports about the areas of her injury that was affected and it made ME think about what is going on with me. I don’t think of the words or have the ability to verbalize the words that I choose at all times and that could be due to something malfunctioning in my speech center, one of the areas that may be injured in the Congresswoman.



But when I began thinking about what went down in AZ, the name ‘John Wilkes Booth’ flashed in my mind. Not that it was an exact ‘match’ but what it said to me was that I needed to de-politicize my perspective and look at this in a way that I could gain my own comprehension prior to what I would read after everyone started their shouting (although this morning I did Face Book some stuff along with David Dust’s entry on the shooting featuring Keith Olberman’s commentary from MSNBC).



Now I do think the climate has changed in politics. But is politics not the reflection of society? That is where I see the larger problem and why it is beyond the simple heated politics of the day. Because I likened the incident to the Squeaky Fromme attempt on President Ford or maybe a closer incident to examine, Mark David Chapman. This was a Travis Bickle… who simply would not take it anymore.



But what does he feel compelled to take? What does he feel is being forced upon him?? While it is fair to say that elements of political discourse may have given this person some direction for him to vent his emotional turmoil, what made him this way to begin with?? I don’t think that stupid Sarah Palin and her mock ‘targeting’ of the Congresswoman was the only reason for Jared Loughner to have committed the acts that he did. This was the fruit borne of a seed planted a long time ago that grew just as billions of other seeds have bloomed into what we call humanity.

AND THE POOR GET THE PICTURE

Yeah… Mark David or Travis… people who found themselves on the fringes of society prolly as a child and never found a way to be included in the way of the world. Blaming the politics that are a part of this tragic incident is to miss the bigger picture of the pressure being exerted on those beneath the ceiling of the top wage-earners in society and the lack of connection among human beings in this increasingly technocratic world.

What I can’t be sure of is whether or not the kind of behavior that is studied in places like the BAU on ‘Criminal Minds’ and other places that determine what we choose to buy and what we choose to wear, is unique to human’s as a species. I mean there are mother lions who go on to be ‘cub killers’. Can we actually say that we know enough about how we behave to venture a guess at to where the causes for stuff like this lie in the perpetrators?

Look, it did not take my injury to know that less thought is given about people who not only don’t fit in but don’t want to fit in either. That has been an underlying tangent to my journey, that there is not a place for those who float in-between the many segments of society. What happens when someone finds themselves falling through each and every layer of cheesecloth and finds themselves as truly isolated as person can be?


One of the problems that I had with dealing with Mookie Dee and at my Dad’s house was being isolated around people. That wasn’t anything new… I have long felt that way, even among my blood relations (irony or no this news may be, but things with my step-folk were not that way… got a message from my step-sister that verifies what I know about those relationships) that I was going to fall in the cracks and creases… I accepted that and moved on. Maybe because I was/am highly socialized so that my furstrations with socialization did not spin me towards such mayhem and I never fell into a sociopathy that I acted on.  But there were plenty of unidentified pathways on my road that did not lead to Omaha, I know that much. 


The blog that I found about the writing of a 17 year-old nerd is how nostalgia looks when you are among the well-adjusted and  you look back. But what is it when you never find a place in the world even as you are urged to continue persevere fruitlessly? Kind of like the ‘raisin in the sun’ thingy, isn’t it??


I don’t even think that this is a case of our collective need for understanding striving for a hand-hold to stop the spinning that helps drive the media frenzy. The delicate balance of ego and insecurity that comes from complete self-awareness, something that only a select and I mean a very select few humans dare to walk, thrown in disarray when something like this happens. And it isn’t that we don’t know why these things happen but that we do.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was a little upset at how quickly my fellow liberals latched on to the shootings as a way to slam people whose politics they never liked anyway.

I think this is, more than anything else, a story about the difficulty in recognizing and treating mental illness.

Unknown said...

I don't care if one 'gets it' or not. There is never an excuse for resorting to the type of violence perpetrated on those people in Tuscon. It's one thing to go bonkers and fixate on some person of note - and then shoot, stab or otherwise do that person harm. It's quite another to not only take out the person one is fixated on - but eight others as well. What did that nine year old do that she deserved killing?

And to Thomas I might say:
There are anarchists and fruitcakes on BOTH sides of the aisle. It's just that THIS time, the gun-toting, child-killing, anti-establishment asshole happens to be a Conservative. I'm sure there's a Liberal out there somewhere just as willing to take up arms for his or her own personal cause. So don't get too upset with your 'fellow liberals'.

Toon said...

All the hateful rhetoric from the right and especially the teabaggers was bound to pay off in blood. Well done, Fox News!

Anonymous said...

LceeL: I'm confused by your comments. I think we're on the same side on this one.

Babz Rawls Ivy said...

As someone who has been elected to office---served 2 terms. Being in the midst of people is dangerous. I know what its like to have people not only attack your political stance but want to harm you.

The folks that drive the rhetoric do so with a kind fo seduction that manipulates and incites. Those of us still in our so-called right minds can tune out the call to action. Those that are already marginalized, left out and isolated hear the call to arms and act! We are all responsible for not saying to each other STOP and let's have civil debate. We are all accomplices in the madness whether we own it or not. Each of us has a responsibility to act with humanity and respect.

Ken Riches said...

Tragic, we can only hope that things become more civil.

laurenne said...

Hi Mark!!!!!! I've missed your blog. Just finally catching up. YAY!!!

I can't imagine not finding a place in the world. I feel like once you decide where you are, you attract like-minded people. But you're right... if you're scared to be part of something and you resist it, you're alone. And feeling alone is the scariest feeling. I guess it could lead to anything.

Why can't we just get rid of guns?