The following analysis of the Aurora California
massacre comes from the Workers World paper.
This is a socialist publication from the United States. The author, Larry Hales, lived in Aurora and Denver, Colo. He was in
the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.
Behind
Colorado massacre
By Larry
Hales on July 24, 2012
The most
important question raised by the latest massacre in Colorado remains unasked by
the corporate media: What is it about social conditions in the United States
that promotes these terrible tragedies?
Late on the
evening of July 19, theatergoers in Aurora, Colo., sat down to watch an “event”
film — the kind whose opening at midnight showings is preceded by saturation
ads placed by Hollywood studios.
“The Dark
Knight Rises” is the final in a film series based on Batman comic books. The protagonist
is a billionaire vigilante whose primary objective is to “clean” the streets of
a metropolitan area of criminals, who for the most part commit crimes of
opportunity. On occasion, he tangles with oddly named and outfitted master
criminals with murky rationales.
Twenty
minutes into the film, survivors said a young man outfitted in full-body
tactical gear — including a helmet with gasmask, vest, leggings, throat and
groin protectors — threw gas canisters and began shooting into the crowd.
Aurora police say he fled out a back door, but was quickly captured in the
parking lot. They have identified the alleged shooter as James Holmes, 24.
In the
initial confusion Holmes was thought to be a prop associated with the
screening. But the screams of those shot soon alerted others to what was
happening. In all, 70 people were reportedly shot; 12 were killed, the youngest
a six-year-old girl. A dozen of the wounded remain in critical condition.
Holmes made
his first appearance in court on July 23; formal charges will be filed on July
30.
Survivors
told of great acts of heroism. Family members, friends and complete strangers
shielded and ushered one another out of the theater, while Holmes shot at
random, first with an AR-15 assault rifle, which is a shortened version of an
M-16, and then with a 12-gauge shotgun and two Glock 40-caliber semi-automatic
pistols. He is reported to have purchased them over a period of several months
in preparation for the massacre.
Why isn’t
Holmes called a terrorist?
Holmes grew
up in an upper-middle-class area of San Diego, Calif., raised by a computer
scientist/mathematician father and a mother who is a nurse. According to
police, he had booby trapped his apartment in Aurora and left his door
unlocked. If tripped, the intricate traps could have killed many in the
building and the nearby Anschutz Medical Campus of the University of Colorado.
The media
have been cautious not to use the word “terrorist” because “there is not enough
information as to motive.” Would they be so reserved if the suspect were a
Muslim from almost anywhere?
What if
Holmes were a person of color? Mightn’t labels like thug, gang member or
terrorist have been hastily applied, regardless of how much information police
had? In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, people scrambling to survive were
labeled criminals and looters. The media constantly reported false stories of
rape and mass murder, eager to believe the worst when describing Black people.
If Holmes had
an Islamic name, or one uniquely African or Southeast Asian, would he have been
able to purchase and stockpile massive amounts of ammo, four weapons including
an assault rifle, tactical gear, accelerants and large commercial fireworks? If
he had a known affiliation with a progressive or leftist group that was infiltrated
or spied on by authorities, might not his apartment have been flagged and
raided?
Whatever
personal motive the shooter might have had is speculation at this time.
However, the massacre of people in a movie theater is an act of terror, and the
few words he allegedly uttered claiming to be the Joker character in “Batman”
showed he was very aware of this.
Holmes may
suffer from delusions that come from a mental illness. But his planning,
purchasing of weapons, tactical body armor, thousands of rounds of ammunition
and chemicals, and other components to make bombs and the other devices found
in his apartment show a great deal of calculation. However, mental illness and
the ability to think through a plan are not mutually exclusive.
Nevertheless,
the label of mentally ill, or sometimes genius, superb student, etc., are the
usual platitudes whenever a “normal” or “everyday” person who is not from an
oppressed community commits a crime such as this massacre.
Violence
& capitalist alienation
This event
must be analyzed in the context of the overarching culture of war and violence
that runs through the entire history of the United States and has been
perpetrated against the most oppressed and vulnerable. Violence is an integral
part of this capitalist system, based on exploitation of workers and
super-exploitation of the nationally oppressed.
The
established norm, what is generally accepted as everyday or mundane, flows from
how the wealth of this society was first gained and then maintained. The
dominant class in U.S. society has historically been white. Thus, Holmes is
“normal” at first glance and without a coherent political motive, so the word
terrorist is not applied to him.
Instead, he
is categorized as a loner, a misfit or socially awkward, which denote that in
no way is this type of violent crime condoned or reinforced by the society as a
whole. At the same time those terms disregard the glorification of violence in
the U.S. and the effects of the military-industrial complex on the culture.
Karl Marx
wrote that under capitalism workers must sell their labor power for a wage as
part of a productive process owned by a boss, leaving the worker alienated from
the product. There is no satisfaction in the end product because the primary
reason to work is to earn a wage to sustain oneself and one’s dependents.
Over time
workers are not only alienated from what they produce, but are in competition
with one another for jobs — which are now becoming increasingly scarce. This
often influences how people relate to one another and contributes to the
development of some mental illnesses and anxieties. The more developed the
country, especially one that has passed into the imperialist phase, the more
decadent the society grows and with it the prevalence of social illness.
It was just a
few miles from Aurora that a similar incident happened in 1999 at Columbine
High School. There two teenagers specifically paid reverence to Hitler’s
birthday and espoused ultra-right, racist beliefs as they gunned down fellow
students.
A culture of
war & militarism
Most of
Colorado was stolen from Mexico in an extremely violent war. It is a
militarized state where Rocky Flats, the infamous U.S. government facility,
produced chemical and nuclear weapons for 40 years. It also once housed
napalm-maker Dow Chemical.
Colorado is
home to defense contractors Lockheed Martin and several Northrop Grumman
facilities, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the Air Force
Academy, and one of the largest and most technologically advanced infantry
divisions, the 4th Infantry based at Fort Carson.
Before
becoming a state, it was the site of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, where
hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapahoe were massacred by the Colorado Territory
militia, which terrorized Indigenous people into leaving their land.
It is also
where the National Guard and company goons employed by the Rockefeller-owned
Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. massacred two dozen striking miners and their family
members in Ludlow in 1914.
San Diego,
Calif., where Holmes grew up, is a military area with a huge Naval base close
to the border with Mexico.
To leave out
the effect on people’s minds of the military-industrial complex and the U.S.
history of conquest would miss the point. The U.S. was founded on violence and
genocide. The major colonial countries carved up land that did not belong to
them. They waged a battle that is still ongoing against the original
inhabitants, as well as against Black people and Latinos/as in general and
other oppressed peoples who don’t belong to the dominant nationality.
Maintaining
the status quo has been a violent affair. The U.S. has been constantly at war
since its inception. The mainstream media justify this with jingoism and
glorification of the U.S. military machine.
The U.S.
military budget dwarfs that of the rest of the world’s combined. The constant
glorification of violence in movies, commercials and video games, plus the fact
that the U.S. has been openly engaged in warfare for the last decade, seep into
the psyche.
U.S. soldiers
massacred at least 16 villagers in Afghanistan just months ago, many of them
women and children. Such massacres are commonplace during an occupation. Every
day whole families are incinerated by bombs.
This is the
context in which the mass killing occurred in Colorado, where, as in most of
the U.S., it is so easy to purchase weapons, tactical gear, loads of ammunition
and other materials online.
No family
should have to experience such horror. People should be outraged, and the
victims and their family members are entitled to justice. But justice is not
served by making this an isolated incident and leaving out its historical,
cultural and social framework.
James Holmes
may be mentally ill. This should not reflect on those who suffer from mental
illness, but who would never harm another person. Nor should it be assumed that
mental illness is an excuse to get out of going to prison.
Mental
illness & a sick society
Julie Fry, a
Legal Aid attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., told WW: “Mental illness is not generally
well understood or appreciated at all within the criminal justice system. In
fact, prisons have become essentially warehouses for people with mental
illness, while social services and medical networks designed for the treatment
of these illnesses have been gutted systematically through budget cuts over
recent decades. Far from using it as an excuse to escape prison, people with
mental illness usually receive much worse treatment in jail and are likely to
receive longer sentences than other people.”
Only a sick
society refuses to give people the help and services they need.
The argument
that incidents like this happen because of the prevalence of weapons is
problematic. It is obvious that all too often the right-wing do champion gun
rights and the wealthy and politically backward have access to large
stockpiles.
But
revolutionaries and progressives such as the Deacons for Defense and the Black
Panther Party were able to offer defense from the Klan and racist police by
being able to purchase guns. While people of color are made the targets of the
police and denied the right to self-defense, we cannot cede the monopoly of
force to the police and the military, which maintain the status quo of a
society built on exploitation.
The victims
and family members do deserve justice, but ultimately justice will be secured
when the root causes of crimes like this one are addressed and the social
foundation for the glorification and justification of violence is uprooted.
http://www.workers.org/2012/07/24/behind-colorado-massacre/
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