Now the nation is in mourning for the tragic shooting in Arizona, in which six people died and which left Representative Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded, a bullet having passed through her brain. I find myself grieving deeply, and terribly disheartened. I keep thinking, “How could this happen? Where is our country headed?” The answers that come back to me are unnerving–because the causes are multiple, and there is no easy fix:

• guns are legal and easy enough to obtain
• mentally ill people are not adequately provided for
• our broken educational system is turning out citizens who are gullible and ill-informed
• economic suffering is widespread, and fear is rampant

But the immediate cause and concern of the violence in Arizona is the violent political rhetoric from the right, both from right-wing media figures such as Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly and from some of the leading political figures, one being Sarah Palin. Palin put a map online during the midterm elections which used cross hairs to indicate which Democrats she wanted defeated. We cannot talk about “targeting” the opposition, “taking them out,” “killing them,” etc., and think that these words don’t make a difference.

Jesse Kelly, the Republican who ran against Congresswoman Giffords in this last Congressional race, and almost defeated her, had a campaign event in which voters were invited to come to a shooting range and “shoot a fully automatic M-16.” Really? This is somehow something I never aspired to do.

The individual who did the shooting was by all accounts mentally ill, but my experience as a clinical social worker convinced me that the mentally ill end up acting out the extremes of the societal psychosis. When admired political pundits and elected officials pepper their speech with violent rhetoric, they should expect the result to be exactly what they are getting: a 300% increase in threats to members of Congress (Politico.com). The windows of Rep. Giffords’ Tucson office were shot out or broken after Congress passed the health care law, and similar acts recently happened to other members of Congress. Our Congressional leaders may become unwilling to go to public meetings and speak directly to the people.

The saddest and most disappointing thing of all is those in power who will not speak out against this rhetoric of violence, who support it when it suits their purposes. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said so eloquently, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” It was true then, during the struggle for racial justice, and it’s true now.

When will we learn that language has power? That words support action? That suggestion is significant? Let each one of us notice and mention–let’s don’t allow the rhetoric of violence become the status quo. As we think and speak, so we will act. What kind of country are we becoming?