Gavel Gamut
By Jim Redwine
(Week of 07 December 2015)
ANOTHER DAY IN AMERICA
A television reporter with the British Broadcasting Company announced the December 02, 2015 incident in San Bernardino, California as:
“Just another day in the United States of America. Another day of gunfire, panic and fear.â€
This description sounded like normal British haughtiness toward their one-time colony until Cable News Network anchor Chris Cuomo reported on December 03, 2015 that this latest situation was the 355th such event in America this year. Cuomo did not define what qualified as a “mass shootingâ€. Regardless, there is no doubt America has suffered greatly.
Jim Sciutto, CNN’s Chief National Security Correspondent, said it used to take years or, at least months, for a person to be “radicalizedâ€, but now it is a quick and easy process requiring a few days.
The twenty-four/seven news coverage of each new event almost always follows this pattern:
- Report with shock and awe; then
- Seek to assign blame.
This process is flawed. There is no need to assign blame. The shooters are to blame. We know who they were in San Bernardino: twenty-seven year old Syed Rizwan Farook and his twenty-eight year old wife, Tashfeen Malik. They murdered fourteen people and wounded twenty-one others. Two police officers were hurt in the gun battle which resulted in the mass murderers’ deaths.
We also know America, Farook’s native country, and Pakistan, Malik’s native country, are not to blame. We know Saudi Arabia, which Farook visited, is not to blame. And we know neither Arabs nor Muslims are to blame. However, our media and many politicians have, once again, responded with venom toward all of these.
When Indiana’s Reverend Jim Jones murdered 918 of his Christian followers and Congressman Leo Ryan, who tried to free them, no one sought to blame Christianity.
No one blamed Catholicism for the child abuse by priests.
It is Israel, not Judaism, we hold accountable for the slaughter at the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Palestine.
America prides itself on equal protection and due process. When the troubling phenomenon of quick and easy radicalization becomes reality, we need not seek to assess blame but to change the outcomes.
If Italian immigrants are painted with the broad brush of the Mafia, some few Italian-Americans may decide to commit crimes in response.
If “No Irish Need Apply†signs appear at work places, some few Irish-Americans may turn from seeking work to committing crimes.
If Native Americans are called savages, some few Indians may act savagely.
If Jews are blacklisted from country clubs and society, some few Jewish-Americans may turn to crime.
And, much as many Americans tend to blame all Arabs and Muslims for the actions of a tiny minority, America also tends to blame all African Americans for the criminal acts of some. Of course, this has led to a feeling among a few otherwise peaceful Blacks that violence is necessary.
And if one opines these are not mass murder type situations, I submit the Christian Timothy McVeigh who murdered 168 people and injured 680 more. His convoluted logic called for him to attack a government building in Oklahoma City to avenge the media’s and the government’s treatment of his fellow Christians led by David Koresh of the Branch Davidians in Texas.
So, if radicalization is the problem, how should we solve it? Perhaps we can address this question next week.
