WE MOURN

Whatever confronts me in my personal life, there cannot be the same devastation that is in Arkansas. A gunman shot and killed state Democratic Party chairman Bill Gwatney on Wednesday.

Police shot and killed murderer Timothy Dale Johnson after a high-speed chase. Earlier, Johnson had painted obscene graffiti on the Target store where he worked.

Officers later found a Post-It note with the chairman's name and keys from one of Gwatney's car dealerships at the killer's home.

This is the second attack on those of the liberal persuasion in less than two months. Underlying the attacks are work-related fears, anxieties, and paranoias. The American economy is stressed to its limits and so are those who are unemployed or underemployed. I know the strain of not being sure when the next paycheque will arrive or if my writing career will ever get past piecemeal stage. I've gone through ill health and no money. Health I hopefully retain at this point but there were times in the past where it has been touch and go. Life is sometimes difficult.

However, there is no reason to hurt or kill out of the pain and fear of a down-turned economy. The victims of wage rage are, in a shooter's mind, symbols of the financial devastation in America. These deaths don't touch the core of what is wrong in the United States. The fatalities won't change the mismanagement of the real estate market, nor the human and monetary cost of the Iraq war, or the country's failing infrastructure. Only each person's constructive and patient work will create a difference to solve these problems.

We are all neighbours in the same tough situation. We stick together or fall individually apart.

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