U.S "Gun Culture"

[Rootsie]

The most self-critical the U.S. ever gets is in instances like the Virginia Tech massacre, when certain people (liberal) reflect that the wide availability of guns might be at least in part responsible. Of course the NRA (National Rifle Asssociation) is immediately asked to weigh in, and does its usual prattle about how it's not the guns, but the bad guys who use them. This is patently ridiculous, because in countries where guns are not easily available, people don't kill each other with them. Duh.

But what is always missing from these so-called moments of reflection is any consideration of the bigger picture: the United States is the world's premier weapons-merchant. The United States is presently conducting two major wars and Lord knows how many covert ones...In short, the United States is the most violent nation on the face of the earth, and instead of inviting people to reflect on that, information junkies are fed psychological profiles of 'the killer', emotional stories about prayer vigils and what-not, and other rubbish. The point is to keep people from considering the big picture.

Our vaunted 'individualism' comes in handy at times like these: we are encouraged to take a prurient interest in the particular oddities of a particular killer's personality. The seemingly endless fascination with Hitler is the classic case: there is the greatest resistance to looking at the Nazis in any sort of historical context. When you do, the Nazis are sadly predictable, alas.

Rather than considering the domestic rot that inevitably develops in any rabidly militaristic state, we lurch from heinous act to heinous act in a sort of panic. In the case of a school shooting psychologists are asked, "What's wrong with these kids?" Instead we should be asking, "What do incidents like these say about us?" Could it be that the violent acts of the weakest and most confused among us somehow bear witness to a society spinning out of control?

[Rootsie]

Over 230 Iraqis died hideously today, over 180 injured. Come and see the blood on the streets, the broken bodies, burnt out hulks of cars, men weeping in grief and rage.  Meanwhile everybody here asks why why why did a sick boy open fire at Virginia Tech. Nobody to make the obvious connections. Nobody to reflect in any legitimate way about a society that creates killers, professional killers, and glorifies them. You want to be remembered, to rise out of your silence and isolation and anonymity, here's how to do it.

[Rootsie]

msnbc April 18, 2007

watch the commentators
dance around the hidden fears:
he was a psychotic psychopath
listen to him---
but don’t listen to him he was crazy
he was unhappy
so we shouldn’t listen
“Hardball goes inside the mind of the guy,
the man who…” not the boy
don’t say the boy
not our boy, not one of us
call him Ishmail
outcast in the desert
the gunman
talking like a prophet
“you have poured trash down my throat,
you have crucified me…
with your gold necklaces
your Mercedes
your vodka and cognac
your debauchery…”
think of a boy, a strange vigilant boy
alone among strangers, coming up alone
“…laced with comments about the rich
…truly creepy, beyond sad…
this statement from the grave…”
his parents can’t help him
for they are strangers too
so he moves through the strange land
alone. our children,
our children are empty
rich poor black white brown
“…imminent danger to self and others…”
the weakest fall first
the weakest fall and some take others
when they go
for those moments maybe he was not alone
“…weakness in our laws
and the treatment of the mentally ill…”
don’t listen to him
don’t listen
250 died hideously in Iraq today
men weeping in fury
at the blood-soaked streets
littered with grotesque hulks of burnt cars
broken corpses
how many would have died in Iraq today
without invaders? without us? without our kids?
these kids of ours back from boot camp tell me
they are killers now
we train them and we train them another way too…
there is something here
something that leaves too many children
empty and flat-faced
something what is it? it is the nothing
the nothing you are left with
when things are all you worship
trash poured down their throats
the boy with dead eyes so many boys
dead in the eyes
“…now you have blood on your hands
that will never wash off…”

“Who’s he talking to?” asks the neighing buffoon
“Who’s ‘you’?”
you, fool, it’s you he’s talking to and
you
and me too

“…When the time came
I did it.
I had to.
…for my children
my brothers and sisters that you fuck.
I did it for them.”

“…someone who doesn’t think
like you and I do…truly the face of evil…
this animal…”  I was waiting for that.

“…You have vandalized my life
…do you know what it feels like
you have crucified me
your trust funds were not enough
your Mercedes were not enough
your gold chains were not enough…”
a reverse sermon on the mount
cursed are the rich
cursed the debauched

“…too much to bear…”
indeed

“You can’t force someone
to take medication, not
in this country…”
said regretfully
this our discourse, our self-talk
medicate the deviant against the horror
of feeling the emptiness that is this is us
banality of evil that sanctions slaughter
and makes it to the church on time
and leave the children to their solitary revelation
of every hypocrisy
and wonder when they break
guns don’t kill people…
and this is still
the greatest country in the world.
this canary in the coal mine
choking on the poison fumes
bought an AK
and blew himself and a bunch of other canaries
away

“How do you tell the difference
between a homicidal killer
and a budding Stephen King?”
horror is after all an American genre
the beast that stalks our dreams
the fear we will not will not name
“…a kind of narcissism
that pervades all of this…”
yes one that renders impossible
the obvious connections
the necessary reflection
the seemly silence
the mea culpa

[three_sixty]

well a discussion like this is very similar to the bleeding heart approach to those who wanted to find justification for the 9/11 attacks by asking "well, why are there terrorists." it is a very valid point- but i think it falls within the "safe" discourse setup around these issues.

the obvious questions need to be asked - the anomolies need to be looked at before we fall for the official line about this story. there have been numerous events like this in the past couple of years - all methodical and obviously well planned and almost ritualistic.

it is scary to go there - but we are there - and we have been there for several years now. psychosis is becoming normalized. pavlov's dogs conditioned.

[three_sixty]

. . . and why did this pop up in the news the next day?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18140697

[warriorqueen]

Meanwhile....young black men continue to murder one another day and night in the streets of u.s. ghettos....minus the media outrage about their lives.  Gun culcha fe true.