A Grave Indictment: What Khashoggi's Death Says About Us

Another journalist has been murdered.  The murder of journalists is nothing new, of course.  Journalists sometimes live very dangerous lives, dodging bullets on battlefields and all.  Sometimes, their deaths are collateral damage.  Sometimes they are killed for exposing, or trying to expose, corruption.  And the more unsavory the truth, the more dangerous it is to report it.

Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi did not die on a battlefield.  He was not blown up in a car, as was Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles.  He was not shot six times at a stoplight, as was Sunday Independent reporter Veronica Guerin.  No, Jamal Khashoggi died in the ultimate bureaucratic setting - his native country's consulate.  He was trying to get a marriage license.  As his fiance waited outside in the car, it seems that he was hacked into pieces.

So what was this Indiana State University-educated journalist doing that would incur the ultimate punishment?  Surely he must have been writing incendiary pieces aimed at overthrowing his native country's white-robed government?  Nooooo.  His written voice was gentle.  By exposing human rights violations in his native country, though, he could not help but offend the violators - all of whom happened to be wealthy and powerful.  But sometimes, he simply wrote about normal government corruption - things like sewer covers without sewers underneath.  Bridge-to-nowhere-type stuff.  You know, the kind of stuff that big-city reporters used to report here decades ago.

But, no matter how gently expressed, unpleasant truths sometimes cannot be made more palatable.  And, now, no rose-colored glasses can hide or disguise the appalling nature of this journalist's murder and the even more appalling implications of its aftermath.

Khashoggi was killed in a Saudi consulate.  It was a Saudi government hit job. Period. Yet, the current W.H. occupant says that the Crown Prince may or may not have been responsible - as though the Crown Prince's personal role matters or would need to be proved.  That's just spin, though.  Smoke and mirrors.  Look here, no look there. And to show how hard he's working for the American people, this same W.H. occupant adds that he won't screw up a 110-billion dollar arms deal with the Saudis because of something so insignificant as a non-American journalist's murder in their consulate. Sharing Al Capone's entrepreneurial philosophy, he says we might as well sell them the goods since they're going to get them from somebody.

Regardless of current reporting that the Saudi "deal" is no deal at all, W.H. defenders point out that we are simply doing what we've always done, that we trade with many horribly corrupt and murderous dictatorships, and that the man who currently carries the title of "President of the United States" is simply "telling it like it is."   This time they are right.

So, this holiday season, whether scurrying through the underwear-strewn aisles of a Walmart or wandering leisurely by the elegant displays in a Nordstrom, take a moment to think about those who may have given their lives, in one way or another, for better conditions in those countries that produced that shirt, that coat, those slippers, that television set, and those earphones.  And think about why those items are so inexpensive.

And when you pump gas, remember Jamal Khashoggi.

One Fallen Marine

A country nightclub in California.  Students drinking, chatting, laughing – a simple night out in one of America's safest towns.  Suddenly gunfire, screams, scrambling, blood, death.  A madman.  A fight for survival that many would lose on that night.

Just as the attack had been unexpected, the hero status of the shooter may also have been unexpected. 

Ian Long will always be remembered for one thing: his madness.  He will not be remembered for his heroism or for his many awards for service to his country in Afghanistan.  He will not be remembered for what caused his madness, either.  He will not be numbered among the war’s fallen, though fallen is probably exactly what he was.

He was the kind of person who gets a parade in small-town, flag-waving America.  The list of his commendations was as long as your arm: two Navy Unit Commendations for “outstanding heroism in action against the enemy,” a Combat Action Ribbon, a Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, two Sea Service Deployment Ribbons, an Afghanistan Campaign Medal, a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, a National Defense Service Medal, and the NATO Medal-ISAF Afghanistan.

He was a hero... until he wasn't.

Was it PTSD that caused his murderous actions?  PTSD is just a condition, though; most people with it do not shoot up nightclubs.  Was the cause guns?  Lots of people have guns, but they don’t go around shooting one another.  Should we blame it on Afghanistan?  Many have served there, some nobly and perhaps some not so nobly, but they don’t shoot up public gathering spots of celebration. 

The events of a few nights ago will lead some to call for gun control.  Others will call for more and better mental health treatment.  Others will blame Afghanistan.  And still others will blame war itself.  They will argue with each other, calling each other names, as they defend their assumptions.  For a week or two, there will be a lot of fake sympathy expressed for the victims, too.  Eventually, perhaps too soon, the events of that night will shrink in the rearview mirror.  After all, the United States is now experiencing mass shootings (defined as shootings in which there are four or more victims) on a daily basis.  Most get nothing but local coverage in the media.  Only very deadly shootings with unexpected backdrops become national stories.  Most mass shootings are simply not news - and besides, it wouldn't be practical to cover every mass shooting that comes along.  The United States is not Canada, after all.  Or Britain.  Or Ireland. Or most other countries.

We will never know why Ian Long decided to go to a nightclub and start shooting strangers.  Any possible explanation will be superficial.  Somewhere along the line, Ian Long began to hate people - and maybe we should ask why people hate people.  If we could answer THAT question, we might begin to understand the Ian Longs of the world.  But that question would require a national introspection, a collective soul-searching - and a lot of evidence suggests that this nation generally doesn't do a lot of soul searching.  So expect more shootings.  A lot more shootings.

Is Arizona Really Red?

Is Arizona really a red state?  

There are plenty of reasons to assume that Arizona is a red state.  After all, isn't it a haven for old people living "active lifestyles," zipping around in golf carts by day and playing pinochle at night?  We all know that old folks vote, and we all know that they're conservative, right?  RIGHT?  And of course, there are all of those rich people wandering the artificially quaint streets of Old Town Scottsdale, looking in shop windows and saying things like, "Look, honey, wouldn't that look lovely on the mantle?"  The stereotypical Arizonan has white hair, white skin, perfect white teeth, white shorts, black socks and white shoes - and looks like he/she stepped out of a Viagra commercial.  People like that would obviously have much to fear from of hordes of poor people coming across the border to cut their grass, trim their oleanders, lay their Saltillo, deliver their enchiladas, and then return to their barrios far, far away- right?

And Arizona's politicians are almost all Republican, so that certainly cements the stereotype in the minds of Americans.  

Yup, Arizona is definitely a red state.

Or maybe not. It is hard to tell, since so much of what we "know" is what we glean from words and images fed to us from elsewhere.  In reality, only a teeny-weeny minority of Arizonans ever get interviewed by the press or shown on TV.  Bernie Sanders attracted thousands of supporters to his rallies in Phoenix.  The rallies were almost completely ignored by the local media, but enthusiastic Bernie supporters stood in line in the hot sun until they almost sank into the gooey asphalt.  If they hadn't been so peaceful, perhaps the rally would have been covered by the press.  Maybe a few thousand people at a Bernie Sanders rally, though, just really aren't enough people to deserve media attention.  Compare Bernie's thousands to the President's massive support.  As President, Mr. Trump drew 15,000 flag-waving, cap-wearing, friends to the Phoenix Civic Center.  That's a lot of supporters.  The Phoenix metro area has a population of about 4.5 million people, so the fact that a sitting President's rhetoric could draw a whole one-third of one percent shows just how massive his support is.  And those thousands just must be the tip of an enormous iceberg.  His supporters were far greater in number than those who protested outside and were tear-gassed by police.  But Phoenix, 2017 was no Chicago, 1968.  You'd need a Vietnam to get those kinds of protests.

And we shouldn't overestimate the importance of the 70,000 underpaid teachers and their friends who showed up to protest the fact that Trump ally, Governor Doug Ducey, offered only a 1% raise after funding cuts a decade before had decimated their incomes.  That's only 70,000 teachers and sympathizers - nobody important.  And besides, Arizona state government workers (excluding political appointees, of course) have not received a raise in ten years, but you don't hear them whining (at least not on television or radio) despite the fact that rents have skyrocketed to $1,400/month in the Phoenix area.  "But what about the unions?" you ask.  Well, unions aren't allowed for government workers.  Arizona is a red state.

Some say that Arizona is turning purple. They point out that Democrat Kyrsten Sinema will probably be the next Senator from Arizona (over the strong objections of the state Republican Party, which filed a lawsuit to stop the vote count).  What does Sinema stand for?  Nobody knows, really.  As a Congresswoman, she voted with the President 62% of the time.  Her opponent, a really distasteful woman by the name of McSally, as a Congresswoman, voted with Trump 97% of the time.  So Sinema certainly isn't blue, but she's not as red as McSally.  That MIGHT indicate that the shade of Arizona's blush is changing.  

But given Arizona's slave wages and human rights history, one does wonder whether Trump's support and the consistent election of Republicans really reflect the will of the people.  The Democratic Party routinely puts up lackluster candidates for major offices and then doesn't seem to fund their campaigns well. Often, these candidates seem to be watered-down, lukewarm Republicans whose only positive attributes are that they aren't angry and they don't spew hatred.  Sinema seems to be that kind of Democrat, and the fact that she now appears to be winning the vote count might only indicate that McSally was just too vile, too inarticulate, and too unsympathetic.  McSally tried to ride the President's coattails ("border wall," "invasion," "border wall," "terrorism," "border wall," "aren't you doing better now?"), but she may have fallen off.  We'll know when the votes are counted (and probably recounted). 

Here's a theory:  Arizona isn't blue, but it might not be very red.  Perhaps the Republicans have been winning by default for all of these years.  Perhaps the Republicans who, until recently, were counting the votes were not counting them accurately.  Perhaps the cause of Arizona's redness is not conservatism or even apathy, but despair.  Perhaps all of the above.