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| The San Martin Palace in Buenos Aires. Once private residences, now the ceremonial headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. |
Buenos Aires is a beautiful city. At least along the tree-lined boulevards of the Retiro. Domed buildings, charming streetlights, couples dancing the tango in pocket parks. "It's like the love child of New York and Paris," I told friends, after visiting.
So it was unexpected and jarring, on a walking tour, to suddenly have the guide start talking about thousands of Argentinians dropped to their deaths from helicopters during the 1970s "dirty war," after the takeover of a military junta — about secret torture sites and desaparecidos, "the disappeared," people who vanished without a trace into the machinery of state oppression.
You realize, once again, how fragile society can be. How quickly it can decay under a pretty surface. How easily, despite the Beaux Arts buildings and comfortable cafes, it all can go horribly wrong. How what should be the central, cherished values of any decent culture — respect for life and individual dignity, our ability to work out differences through debate and the ballot box — can quickly dissolve into horror.
The murder of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk is both a horror and another warning sign that our vaunted American civil society is hurtling into a ditch whose depth none can predict.
Not just a human tragedy — Kirk, 31, was married, the father of two young children — but a gear in a larger, grinding global disaster where the clanking mechanism of democracy is seen as no longer acceptable. This assassination happened against a background of norms and laws being shredded, of American soldiers sent into cities, supposedly to combat crime. But it doesn't take a very active imagination to suspect the troops are, as Gov. JB Pritzker has said, there to acclimate Americans to the idea of armed military in our streets. Because though the Trump administration has not shown any special interest in the hard work of fighting crime, it does display a keen desire to paint its adversaries as criminals.
Before a suspect was even in custody, the usual MAGA screamers were at it. President Donald Trump blamed those calling out his excesses for the killing.
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals," Trump said. "This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
The comparison to the Nazis is used because Trump and his supporters say things reminiscent of the Nazis. The Reichstag fire was the pretext for turning Germany into a police state. Kirk's death was immediately put to similar use.
“It’s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, & prosecute every single Leftist organization," close Trump ally Laura Loomer wrote. "We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all. The Left is a national security threat.”
If not Kirk, it would be someone else. For days before Wednesday's murder, that awful video of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee stabbed to death on a train in North Carolina, was shown in heavy rotation on right-wing media. Not because of a sudden sympathy for immigrants, but for their eagerness to spotlight certain groups of victims and criminals, part of an endless shriek of grievance, to demonize those who disagree with them and justify their repression.
This is a very old playbook. In the 1870s, it was called "waving the bloody shirt" — using the losses of the Civil War for an emotional appeal to gain political advantage.
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Connect the dots in post-war America. The Strom Thurmond segregationists starting in the 40s, McCarthy, William F. Buckley, Goldwater, Nixon's southern strategy and silent Americans, Reagan, Proposition 13 in California, fundamentalist Christianity, the billionaire class, the rise of Fox News and the great right-wing propaganda machine. The people who vote for this have been encouraged for decades to marinate in anger, hate and resentment, but it's up to us liberal types to go to diners in Ohio to better understand them and find ways to reach across the aisle. There's not even a thought given to the notion that they could also spend a little time getting to know and understand the other half.
ReplyDeleteThese MAGAs who talk about civil war have no idea of fire they are playing with. Jim Stewartson, a war correspondent now living in Kiev, said that he's lived in countries embroiled in civil war. He simply noted that "you do not want to live in a place like that."
The murder of Charlie Kirk is terrible and there is no place in our society or it.
ReplyDeleteJust like Kirk's ideas and statements.
The writer I meant to quote is Philip Ittner, not Jim Stewartson.
ReplyDeleteKirk was never a "wonderful person" as out demented, deranged fascist in the White House spewed out.
ReplyDeleteHe hated blacks, Jews, gays, immigrants & everyone that wasn't like him.
He wanted all gays stoned to death!
Seriously, what have they done that would deserve that?
Nothing!
Simple, he wanted a bible based Christian country, with all laws based on the primitive, hateful crap in that vile book of fiction.
Basically, he wanted a Christian sharia set of laws!
Except for the gun laws he so hated. he said that guns deaths were a necessary part of keeping the Second Amendment.
I wonder if his widow also feels that way now?
He had a nine year old daughter & said if she were raped & got pregnant from that rape, he would force her to carry the rapist's baby to term, something that a nine year old's body is not fit for & could kill her or make her sterile for life.
He doesn't deserve a single word of praise he's gotten in the last two days.
He doesn't deserve the presidential medal of freedom, he's getting posthumously, a medal totally whose meaning has been debased by that deranged, demented fascist.
One congresswoman, Anna Paulina Lunatic from Florida actually sent the Speaker a demand that a statue of him be placed in the Capitol Building!
He was never a good guy just debating people, he was a flat out menace to a civil society & I certainly won't miss him!
While I can't disagree with the gist of your comment, Kirk's daughter was not 9 years old. More like 4. I think you're getting your right-wing lunatics confused.
DeleteHis two children are one and three.
DeleteThis is the stuff that's interesting. I had really only heard the bad but when you actually dig into his statements, he toes the line, never crosses it. A lot of baiting where folks who don't appreciate nuance miss. I looked up whether he said that gays should be stoned and he straight up did not. His point was you can't quote the bible for honor thy neighbor and not the stoning part - it's all full of contradictions. Everything gets ripped out of context. Is it baiting to some, yes. Did he say it, no. Is he purposely baiting? How do I know, I wasn't in his head. He pointed out the hypocrisy of a liberal bias just like many point out the hypocrisy of conservative bias. Bottom line - whether we realize it or not, we're all hypocrites. He was beloved among conservatives and many view this an assassination on the level of MLK and RFK. Folks on the liberal side may view him as a menace but the equivalency is folks on the conservative side viewing Colbert & Kimmel & Stewart as a menace. Half our voting population is hurting badly.
DeleteThe arguments and strife on 9/11 on what should be a day of mourning and unity is breaking my heart. We are in a bad place.
He was asked if his nine year old was raped & got pregnant. I didn't know that part wasn't accurate.
DeleteThis is a very nice piece, Neil.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded again how there are two realities at hand. Those who are willing to have an open honest conversation about the greater good, freedom, America, what our role in the world is, and anything center and to the right of center.
We lack a true national media landscape that condemns both the shooting of charlie kirk and the rhetoric that lead to his death. Kirk wanted a world of whites only. He was a christian nationalist, a racist, homophobic, sexist, antisemitic, anti American, fascist. He was a high school graduate, who dropped out of community college and couldn't make it passed the first round of interviews at west point. He funded busses to the January 6th insurrection and helped organized it. He was funded by dark money from right wing extremist and blamed all of his failures anyone who wasn't exactly like him.
Our society's "news" response to his murder has been horrific. White washing at its finest, refusal to admit what the actual problems are, moments of silence at a game where a black man was blackballed for expressing his first amendment rights without calling for anyone to be harmed or hurt.
We will continue to slide into the darkness until organizations across the country, and the world, start to talk about the truth... honestly.
Kirk was not a good person; that doesn't mean his murder was warranted or called for.
But his death doesn't mean he's forgiven of his sins, the affront to our countries founding principles, or the rights continued call for the crackdown on the very freedoms he abused.
Political violence is uncalled for, just like charlie kirk.
I fear I must live in a hole in the road. Until his killing I had never heard the name Charlie Kirk. Zero recognition. Who? Charlie Kirk? Who he? That must say something about me because all of you folks appear to know of this man. Mrs. St. Claire and I watch David Muir most nights. We still subscribe to print editions of Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Delivered in the driveway daily. I thought myself reasonably well informed. Apparently not. Apparently I must have skipped over dozens of articles regarding the rise of the young man. Clearly I need to do a better job.
ReplyDeleteOur biggest issue today is how disparate the information we receive is from the people sitting next to us.
DeleteEveryone thinks we're reading the same facts and ideas. This couldn't be farther from the truth.
Our kind host used a phrase in today's piece- "an endless shriek of grievance".
DeleteI think that hits the nail right on the head.
So many people in this country think they're being done wrong.
The solution?
Certainly not violence of any kind against anyone.
Modulation?
I don't think we've got it in US
Did you see our Representatives screaming at each other right in the halls of Congress immediately after a call for a moment of silence.
These are our leaders?
Franco, was there a moment of silence in the halls of congress for Melissa Hortman, her husband, and her dog?
DeleteI had never even heard of Charlie Kirk before his murder. My 20-something Son had and was very familiar with him.
ReplyDeleteHe actually referred to himself as a liberal maga. If we are losing Urban youth we better be paying more attention.
The messaging of the Democratic party does not resonate with many young people in our country.
They are fed up with the duopoly and the security/surveillance state.
Two parties with the same goal to enable corporate greed at the expense to The working Man.
I'm not saying this he is you aught to talk to him sometime.
We in the progressive wing of the party are in trouble
As some of the other commenters have mentioned, I also had never heard of this young man. I was watching Cuomo on News Nation (they're supposed to be neutral, but not really). And they were all decked out in mourning black and carrying on like the pope himself had been killed. One person was comparing this to what it must have been like when MLK and RFK were assassinated. I thought this must have been quite a wonderful person. Needless to say, after studying up on him, my feelings are very different. Of course, that's not the point; he shouldn't have been murdered. But to know he actually felt it was perfectly justified to have a certain number of gun casualties every year in order to keep their God given (?) right to guns, I admit gave me a different perspective. Will his loved ones be comforted because he took one for the cause? Or was that just for the rest of us?
ReplyDeleteCarol, the vitriol Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received, and continues to receive to this day are a constant reminder of the how broken and unfix able the right is.
DeleteShow me when Dr. King called for violence. Show men when Dr. King called any deaths worth it. Show me when Dr. King said Jewish money was ruining US Culture. Show me when Dr. King said empathy was made up and a new age term. Tell me when Dr. King called for someone to pay the bail for the release of an individual who attempted to kill the husband of a sitting member of congress. Show me when Dr. King gave up on a college degree and blamed other people for his inadequacies.
Charlie Kirk's death is awful. Political violence has no place in our country or the world.
Charlie Kirk's views were appalling. He was the opposite of what the United States stands for. Even comparing him to such great people like Dr. King or RFK is an insult to them both. Anyone who does is part of the problem that led to these dark times we are in.
His murder is wrong, but so was mr. kirk.