*On The Arizona Shoot-Out, January 8, 2011, And The Defense Of The Public Square- A Short Note

Markin comment:

Back in the early 1960s, before the Kennedy assassinations, when the epicenter of radical right-wing politics and its violently physical manifestations in America were centered in Texas, we of the left, and this was not the extreme left, the socialist or communist left by any means but just the left of the Democratic Party in those days, the question of the democratic defense of the “public square,” of the right to be heard without facing gun fire, was also posed. And, for me, posed for the first time. Since then, apparently, as the events of the last few years, especially around the hot-button question of immigration has heated up, and as epitomized by the shoot-out massacre on Saturday January 16, 2011 in Tucson, the epicenter has moved west to Arizona. But the question of the defense of the public square remains the same. And that is, in the final analysis, the issue that should disturb the sleep of every leftist today.

Under the norms of bourgeois democracy the question of the public square, and its defense, does not generally come up, especially for bourgeois democrats of every stripe. Usually the issue is centered on the margins when some “outsiders” and “outside agitators”, and here I mean of the left, want to exercise that right and are proscribed from doing so. And we have had more than our fair share of battles with governmental agencies at every level and of every sort, as well as the legal apparatus from the local level to the Supremes in order to exercise that right.

But the Tucson events should also concern us, even though it is only someone else’s, some bourgeois democrat’s right to express his or her opinion without being fired on. Especially in this “heated” political climate. This is one of those days, frankly, I have dreaded for a while although I knew, knew deep down in my political sensors, that it was coming. Knowing that on the fringes of this tea party movement that has erupted over the last couple of years that para-military right-wingers, assorted Nazis, native fascists, old fashion unrepentant racial segregationists, and assorted other crackpots were going to feel the wind in their sails and be emboldened to take off their masks. Yes, I have dreaded this day, but I do not stand in fear of it, and right this minute, this “heated” minute, I am sworn to defend the public square, and you should be too. Better than any democrat, or any other parliamentary political type. This is our life-line and we defend it, by any means necessary. Be ready.