In The Wake of The National Guard Killing, One Question Can't Be Asked

New column by Lee Camp

By Lee Camp

Most Americans would rightly call this week’s murder of a National Guard member (and shooting of another) by a former Afghan military and CIA associate acts of violence. Same for the recent killing of Charlie Kirk. Acts of violence like this consume the country and the media’s attention for weeks if not months. And indeed, they should be covered / discussed / debated.

But — Why don’t we see an equal amount of disgust and condemnation for the violence done by our ruling class, the purveyors of corporate destruction?

Is allowing people to die or fall ill due to lead pipes in Flint, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and thousands of other cities not violence?

Is allowing citizens to lose their lives to cancer from Teflon™ chemicals dumped in their water or from preventable oil spills not violence?

Is allowing tens of thousands to die every year due to our dumpster-fire healthcare system not violence?

Is allowing 15 million to lose their healthcare during a pandemic and therefore fear going to the hospital when they get sick not violence?

Is imprisoning millions of people for years for non-violent crimes not violence?

Is locking up political prisoners like Steven Donziger, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Reverend Pinkney, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Leonard Peltier not violence?

Is dropping a bomb every 12 minutes on innocent people in countries thousands of miles away not violence?

Is allowing millions in this country to go hungry while we throw out 40% of all food not violence?

Is arresting people who try to feed those who are starving not violence?

Is allowing hundreds of thousands to go homeless, living under bridges or on benches or squatting in collapsing structures while this country has trillions of dollars and millions of empty houses — is that not violence?

Is arresting, beating, and persecuting those who try to give those people houses not violence? And bulldozing the homes — is that not violence?

Is causing the Sixth Great Extinction, the mass death of half the world’s wildlife, in pursuit of corporate profit not violence?

Is causing the deaths of tens of thousands of Venezuelans via economic warfare not violence?

Is creating an opioid epidemic by pushing pills on desperate people, ultimately leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands not violence?

And then arresting those who stand up and fight back against the pollution, against the pipelines, against the factory farming, against the war industry — is — that — not — violence?

Of course it is.

It’s violence on a breathtaking scale, far greater than what was done outside the White House this week and far greater than any of us will witness in person. Yet large-scale corporate-endorsed violence, death, and destruction is not only allowable — it’s celebrated. It’s propped up. It’s promoted.

Oil company documents show that they tell cities that oil spills are good for the economy. Other documents show that fossil fuel companies have known about the harm climate change would cause since the 1970s, but they simply saw it as the price of doing business. Corporate sacrifice zones like “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana are well known to be deadly to those who live there, yet it doesn’t matter to the corporations because their money will be green nonetheless. And it doesn’t matter to the politicians because the poor who live in these sacrifice zones have no political power.

The 40% of food that’s thrown out is not a secret.

The arrests of those fighting against the weapons contractors are not secret.

The chemicals dumped in rivers that are killing our children are not a secret.

None of it is secret.

While the man who killed the National Guard member will be severely punished and possibly executed, there will be no punishment for the bought-off politicians who do the bidding of our morally bankrupt corporate America. These politicians and the CEOs they serve are purveyors of violence. They trade in, produce, and reap violence. Meanwhile, they sit on mountains of money — the obscene profits from feeding American lives into the death machine of unfettered capitalism.

All violence is not equal. Some of it is profitable and protected by our society. That kind of violence is the American way.

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