Truthout recently posted an interesting take on Arizona in light of last weekend's tragic event.

The essay, "Corruption and Class Struggle: What It's Really Like to Live in Arizona," is by Joel Olson, an associate professor of politics and international affairs at Northern Arizona University and author of The Abolition of White Democracy.

You can read Olson's piece here. A snippet below:

With the passage of the notorious anti-immigrant bill SB 1070 last spring, the outlawing of ethnic studies as of January 1st, the gutting of the school and university systems, the collapsed housing market, the high unemployment rates, and now the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, you might be wondering what it’s like to actually live in Arizona right about now.

In short: it ain’t easy. But it helps to put Giffords’s shooting in historical perspective, which is defined by two things in Arizona: corruption and class struggle. And ironically, this perspective gives me hope about the radically democratic future of my home state.