Popular fiction has it that we live in a democracy, with one guy as good as the next. Even those elected or appointed to office are regular folks just like us, or so Americans fantasize despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But then, they also believe that politicians and bureaucrats “serve” them.
Coverage of the incident in Arizona certainly gives the lie to those little myths, doesn’t it? Quick: name just one of the murdered victims aside from the judge. I didn’t think you could. But not only can you identify the wounded Congressional representative, you can probably tell me her latest prognosis.
Our egocentric Rulers see the massacre only in terms of themselves. “Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi” issued a statement saying, “It is with the deepest sadness that we have received word of the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, members of her staff, and her constituents.” — as if those “constituents” had no reality apart from their political status.
“Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)” read off Pelosi’s page. “An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve … Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her staff, all who were injured, and their families.”
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“All who were injured,” let alone killed, are merely collateral damage: Giffords is clearly the star here. Yet depending on how we count (is a Congressional staffer one of us or them?), Mr. Loughner killed 200% more taxpayers than rulers while wounding 13 times as many of us, too (or so we’ll assume: the “Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act” prohibits releasing information on the injured).
So not only does the corporate media’s reporting of this story confirm our descent into vassalage, albeit one where the kings boast such titles as “President,” “Senator,” “Representative,” and “Justice,” but so do the royalty’s reactions.
For instance, you probably saw little connection between the killings in Arizona and the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) sexual assaults at airports.
And that, my friend, is why you’re a mere serf rather than one of our Congressional lords of creation. Those reptiles consider Tucson’s tragedies proof that the TSA should exempt them from its abuse.
“Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who serves as assistant minority leader in the House” announced on Sunday, “I really believe that that is the place where we feel the most ill at ease, is going through airports.”
Duh. Don’t we all? But while a passenger’s only recourse for protecting himself from the TSA is to stay on the ground, King Clyburn enjoys a great many other options. At the very least, he could vote against the TSA’s budget when it comes up for renewal this year — or when it did any of the last eight years. More thrillingly, he could introduce legislation to abolish this racist, sexist agency, especially since it promotes pedophilia while endangering the public’s health.
Alas, King Clyburn prefers instead a haughtily regal solution. “We’ve had some incidents,” he huffed, “where TSA authorities think that congresspeople [sic for ‘sociopaths’] should be treated like everybody else…” Oh, the audacity! The lese majesty and horror! “Well, the fact of the matter is, we are held to a higher standard in so many other areas” — yeah, I split a gut laughing here, too — “and I think we need to take a hard look at exactly how the TSA interact [sic] with members [sic for ‘sociopaths’] of Congress.”
Indeed. Take a very hard look — and then grope ’em even harder, O ye goons of the TSA! Squeeze that Congressional junk as mercilessly as they squeeze us for taxes!
Another of our sovereigns capitalized on the deaths for a more hackneyed hobby-horse: stripping the hoi polloi of self-defense. “Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York plans to introduce legislation in the coming days that would limit access to the type of weaponry used to gun down Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and 19 other people,” CBS News gleefully notes.
Queen McCarthy predictably prattles that this will “protect people, certainly citizens.” But we all know the score: unelected criminals are far less likely to prey on official ones than they are “people, certainly citizens.” Compare the stats: murderers killed 15,241 of us plebeians in 2009 but only four members of Congress in the country’s history (five if we count Larry McDonald [D-Ga.], who died when the Soviets shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983).
And no wonder: our regents live pampered, protected lives. You and I don’t work in buildings with metal detectors guarding the entrances, but Our Rulers do. And we pay a police force dedicated to “protecting Members of Congress, Officers of the United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, and their families. We serve these individuals throughout the entire United States, its territories and possessions, and throughout the District of Columbia.”
All this as partisans piously prattle that “No one should be the victim of violence because of their political beliefs.” But of course it isn’t their beliefs for which politicians very occasionally “become victims of violence”; if it were, assassins would shoot political philosophers. Rather, it’s for their crimes, their tyranny and imposition of their whims on the electorate, their thieving, lying, and warmongering. Usually, U.S. troops take the bullets for them when politicians try to lasso yet another sovereign nation for the American Empire; when they declare war on their own taxpayers under the guise of fighting “drugs” or “terror,” the domestic soldiers we call cops die for them (though, again, after slaughtering us in greater numbers). Very, very rarely, a politician like Abraham Lincoln or Robert Kennedy pays the price for his evil with his own blood.
Not this time, though. Jared Lee Loughner seems so totally deranged it’s doubtful he understands Giffords’ politics. His animosity toward her appears to be personal and stems from a brief meeting in 2007.
No matter: the monarchs hope to ban our weapons regardless. While they’re at it, they plan to further restrict our speech, too. “Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pennsylvania, said he will introduce legislation making it a federal crime for a person to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a Member of Congress or federal official. … ‘The rhetoric is just ramped up so negatively, so high, that we have got to shut this down,’ Brady said.”
Notice that while “language and symbols” have this nut in a lather, bombing villagers in Iraq and Afghanistan doesn’t. Nor does socializing medicine back home, bailing out banks and corporations, or wiretapping the nation. In other words, King Brady will reign as he wishes, and we villeins can jolly well shut up or face charges of “inciting violence against a Member of Congress or federal official.”
His Majesty adeptly brandishes the jaw-dropping arrogance and intolerance requisite for potentates. “As for support for the bill, Brady said, ‘Why would you be against it?’”
Or anything our kings and queens decree?
