Quick and dirty without analysis (a little prattling only). Chris Cilliza of the WaPo confirms what many of us suspected, that Jared Lee Loughner is an Independent who didn't vote in 2010.
While the media has portrayed him as a long-haired, Leftist DFH, well, maybe Travis Bickle was just a little old lady from Long Island...
Suspected Tucson gunman Jared Lee Loughner registered as an independent voter in Arizona in the fall of 2006, according to the Pima County Registrar of Voters.
Loughner registered to vote on Sept. 29, 2006, identifying himself as an independent. Records show he voted in the 2006 and 2008 elections but is current listed as "inactive" on the state's voter roles -- meaning that he did not vote in November.
Thus said, there have been numerous, exemplary diaries here on why the tragic shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and others have been politically important to the current conversation, in that they've cast light on the virulent underbelly of the contemporary American political scene. It also shows how disenfranchising the sniping can become to those with less than healthy minds. Perhaps it's not so healthy for those with perfectly sane minds either. Binary thinking is, quite frankly, a little deranged.
It was reported by a friend that four years ago he was a "Lefty Democrat."
A close analysis of his Youtube videos showed a more complicated, contrary picture of someone who had appropriated a great deal of Anarcho-Libertarian-style rhetoric about the Constitutional rights, Federalism and anti-Federalism, gold & silver (even if really metaphors there for "knowledge as power"), concerns with Big Brother, the state of the American flag, and a great deal of typical conspiracy-theory stuff, including one that wasn't widely reported by the news: that Loughner was obsessed with NASA, actually banned from a UFO-conspiracy theory website for his odd syllogisms.
But this isn't about Jared Lee Loughner.
It's about the stunned, vulnerable reactions of a nation in turmoil. In other words, it's about us. Loughner served as a rhetorical moment where, with peoples' defenses raised or lowered, they spoke the truth as they saw it. When Sheriff Dupnik stated that Arizona had become a mecca for bigotry and prejudice, he called it like he saw it.
When Keith Olbermann and Rep. Grivalja stated that it was time to change the political tone, which had become too heated and too divisive, too angry and hateful, they called it as they saw it.
When Sarah Palin failed to apologize for any possible contributions she may have made to the deranged ideations of an unhinged mind, her cards were shown. When she, and others in her so-called Party, failed to speak out against violent rhetoric, failed to acknowledge its power, it wasn't because they were aware of Loughner's political leanings, or lack thereof. They knew no more than you or I knew. And were guided only by their deficient moral compass which seemed to be stuck in permanent spin, ignorance, and hatred. They refused all calls to "come together," "be better human beings," or "work with the health of the American people, abandoning unnecessary violent rhetoric."
As Jared Loughner was described by his Philosophy teacher, he stared blankly out the window during class. During the tragic shooting, he was described with a blank stare. At the scene of the shooting, it was said that his face was blank. When he appeared today for the first time, again, he was said to stare ahead without expression. And in his video, where he burns a flag, he wears a mask.
Jared Loughner is indeed a blank face, a mirror for how all of us project our feelings when we are unsure, vulnerable, trying to make order out of chaos. We have now shown one another what that mirror displays, our political leadership has very much shown its face.
From Sheriff Dupnik to Sarah Palin to President Obama to you.
The masks are off.
We've seen into the void.
We've had a moment of truth.
In the pain, the aftermath, the trauma, we have had a paradigmatic moment.
We need to stand even stronger than before as those who wage war against everything and anything but truth, telling the fierce, beautiful, painful, healing truth, to be the Nation that we stand for.
Or else we stand for nothing more than cowardice, mendacity, projections, and fear. We are better than that -- every one of us.
This is, indeed, a wake up call about how we conduct ourselves in our political scene, which inevitably spills over into our daily lives. If Jared Loughner bragged of Matrix-style conscious dreaming and somnambulism, we shall rejoice humbly in our wakeful visions.
Another resounding wave of love sent out to the families of the deceased, to all of the small heroes like Daniel Hernandez, and to all of our truth-tellers in this world where words are actions and always have consequences, sometimes bitter, sometimes beautiful, but always powerful when righteous, true, and unifying. As George Lakoff explains, words always operate through metaphor. As Semiotics note, we are constantly in a state of a constructed world view mediated through our cultural referents. Rather than bite our tongues, we need to liberate our minds.
Wage truth. This isn't about Jared Loughner. This is about us.