Almanac: At the Capitol

A shooting incident on one bus; a physical altercation on another that leads to the death of a passenger. Violent crime on the rise across the Metro area. What's going on? Is this just a local phenomenon, or part of a larger pattern?

Turns out, it's the latter. New figures reveal that, even though the American population is aging (most violent crime is committed by young people), and even though the overall crime rate has been going down, an increase in violent crime is taking place in cities around the country, especially in the Midwest.

In trying to explain this phenomenon, experts have trotted out the usual collection of usual suspects: The meth scourge, easy access to guns, prisoners sent away 20 years ago for assault and homicide getting out of prison, TV, the growing income disparity, illegal immigrants, etc. The police chief of one California suburb whose murder rate rose 20 percent while its incidents of deadly assault soared 65 percent between 2004 and 2006, commented that, "There's a mentality among some people that they're living out some really violent video game."

Indeed.

But while all these factors ­ and others not enumerated ­ undoubtedly contribute to a new violent crime epidemic similar to the one that began in the mid-1960s and did not abate until the 1990s, there's one big factor that you will not see cited in the mainstream media.

It's the war, stupid. And the insane, out-of-control militarism that fueled the Iraq catastrophe and may very well lead us into an even bigger catastrophe in Iran.

Increases in violence and crime in general, as well as "immoral" and reckless behavior, have been recorded throughout history in societies involved in war. And the longer the war, the worse the effects. That the United States has been at war or frantically arming itself to go to war since 1941 is as good an explanation as any for this country's violent tendencies ­ and a violent crime rate that far outstrips all other industrialized nations.

Not only does war and the glorification of war deliver the message that violence is acceptable ­ and the only manly ­ way to resolve disputes, but in the U.S., military spending (which now exceeds $750 billion a year if you count interest payments on previous expenditures along with current spending) loots resources that might be diverted to more productive ends.

We've all heard the (valid) argument that if the United States had spent just a fraction of what the lunatics in the White House have wasted in Iraq, we could achieve energy independence within a decade. Just as true is that, for want of that huge trough set out each year to feed the military-industrial complex and its willing accomplishes in Congress and the Executive branch, we could easily afford a comprehensive mass transit system, universal health care, and public education capable of doing more than preparing young people to become cannon fodder. In fact, there is a not a single social or political pathology afflicting us today, from the outsourcing of jobs to that growing income gap to our crumbling infrastructure to the hubris of the Imperial Presidency that cannot be attributed in whole or part to our addiction to militarism.

If so, what can Minnesota lawmakers do about it? For one, they can follow the lead of other state legislators around the country and pass a resolution calling upon Congress to bring articles of impeachment against the war criminal sitting in the White House; under the Constitution, if only one state legislature passes such a resolution, Congress must initiate impeachment proceedings. No, George Bush is not the problem, but he is certainly a problem and bringing him and the crooks around him to justice is a necessary step toward curbing the Imperial Presidency and all its temptations to warmongering, corruption, secrecy, and contempt for civil liberties.

Second, the Legislature can pass a resolution calling upon the Governor to refuse any further deployments of Minnesota National Guard troops to the Iraqi bloodbath. While it's true that the Constitution gives the President as Commander-in-Chief ultimate say in Guard deployments during times of war, it is equally true that no elected official in this country need abide by an illegal request; in fact, they are legally bound to resist and expose such requests. By every conceivable standard of national and international law, the war in Iraq is an illegal conflict, a war of aggression, and thus a war crime and a crime against humanity. If Tim Pawlenty just said no to any further demands for Minnesota Guard troops, he'd find himself not only on solid ground legally but, I dare say, politically as well, in step at last with the solid majority of his constituents who want to bring our troops home, now.

Third, the Legislature can continue to try to make up for wasted federal resources by devoting necessary funding to those very sectors, like health care, education, infrastructure, and transit, that have gone wanting these past several decades.

Almost 50 years ago, Dwight Eisenhower warned against the dangers of the Military-Industrial Complex, which, in an earlier draft of his farewell speech, he more accurately called the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex. Today, that complex endangers not just our national security and economic well-being but our very survival as a democratic society. To those who claim that addressing this cancer on the body politic is not a state issue, I say Minnesotans are suffering its affects just as much as residents elsewhere in the country. America was founded as a strong federalist system, with an unusual degree of power reserved to the states. Let's find the courage to use those power in order to bring the beast to bay before it's too late.