I’ve been holding off talking about the killing of federal judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow’s family in Chicago because, literally, it happened about 8 blocks from my house. A little fucking close to home.
I was coming home from O’Hare the night of the day the story broke, and found a host of television vans with their huge telescoping satellite dishes lining both sides of the road. It wasn’t until the next day when I saw a couple of crosses up in the alley and a couple journalist newsvultures vying for space that I realized this was her house.
This one creeps me out, and it hit me deeply because of the sheer guerilla terrorism of the act. If you have some kind of problem with me, come and fuck with me. You don’t go after the people in somebody’s life who they care about. You just don’t. Random violence is reprehensible in itself, but there’s something deeply jarring, deeply offensive, about going after somebody’s family. It’s not cool. You just don’t fuck with that shit.
It now appears that they’ve found the guy who did it; a pissed-off guy who’s life sucked cause she dismissed his case. Instead of sucking it up and getting his shit together and finding another route, he went into a spiral of depression and despair and lashed out. He took somebody out, or had them taken out; or maybe he’s just been framed, who knows?
For now, what I do know is that murdering somebody’s family, trying to stir up fear in others, is homegrown terrorism. In fact, until 9/11 the biggest threats to our security – and, as a woman who makes use of reproductive health services, I’d say it’s *still* my own personal biggest threat – are pissed off white guys with US citizenship who feel it’s their God-given right to deal out death and judgement whenever they’re pissed off.
You’ve got a social system that isn’t set up to provide help to people, a bullshit masculinity culture that says violence (especially against uppity women) is – if not totally OK – usually justifiable, and a government that turns a blind eye to the fact that women live in fear of getting LEGAL health procedures in the US because of wacko guys who feel that God gave them a dick to point around like the finger of His will, to smite whom He pleases whenever He feels like it.
Wake up, dickwads.
You want to fight terrorism? You want to live in a country where nobody lives in fear?
Get the troops back from Iraq, work on your fucking social institutions, provide some goddamn assistance to people who’s lives are falling apart and who feel they have no way out. Nurture a culture that *REALLY* preaches how valuable each actual LIFE is – you want to save life, protect quality of life, maybe you should start with actual children, go volunteer to teach actual people how to read, spend a couple days a month sorting files for Planned Parenthood. Become a counselor. Help people.
Violently lashing out cause you’re pissed off violates the human rights of an actual person. People who’ve got families. Lives.
Real fucking people.
*That’s* terrorism, and if we’d spend even a quarter of the money dealing with that bullshit as we are bombing foreign countries, we’d be living in a lot less fear of ourselves.
Cause make no mistake: the biggest threat to your security (especially if you’re a woman) is other Americans. The ones who make the laws. Who fund the wackjobs. Who believe it’s their God-given right to control you and your body and everything you give a shit about.
And they’re a fuck of a lot closer than a couple of kids in Baghdad.
