I do want to comment on this briefly. Our American culture, especially politics, the media and video games, is filled with violence as the solution to problems, with violence as the means to proving manhood, with military force as the way to "promote democracy" -- i.e., to make sure our "democracy" can have all the resources of other nations the United States needs. In the Middle East that also means making sure we use brutal force, and even nuclear weapons, to make sure our ally Israel can steal all the land, water and oil it needs. In Congress, it means cops with semi (or fully?) automatic weapons making sure those Code Pinkers don't get too effective..
And if China and Russia don't cave to our demands, the United States' military is almost at the point it can First Strike Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons while assuring minimal American loses. (Maybe only a 40 or 50 U.S. cities?)
.
This means the United States would totally control the planet! See "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" By Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006. Geez, in an atmosphere like that is it any wonder a psychologically disturbed young man would grab a gun and start shooting at random?
.
I wholeheartedly agree with most of the analysis from the International Action Center (founded by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark) on Why the Virginia Tech Shootings Happened. Of course I do not blame all "capitalism," but patriarchal state capitalism, i.e., state control of markets to ensure the most dominant males can control society. Excerpts below:
.
What distinguishes this country from the rest of the world? It is neither the most affluent nor the poorest. It is neither the most secular nor the most religious. It is not the most culturally homogeneous nor is it the most diverse.
.
But in one area, it stands virtually alone. It has the biggest arsenal of high-tech weaponry in the world, way surpassing every other country. It has military bases spread all over; most countries have no troops outside their borders. It is conducting two hot wars at the moment, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has sent hundreds of thousands of troops abroad over the last few years.
.
Every day, the public here is supposed to identify with soldiers who burst into homes in Baghdad, round up the people and take them away for “interrogation”—which everyone knows now can mean torture and indefinite detainment. It also sends heavily armed “special ops” on secret missions to countless other countries, like the ones who just facilitated the invasion and bombing of Somalia, or the ones who have been trying to stir up opposition in Iran. This is documented in the news media.
.
The immense brutality of these colonial wars, as well as earlier ones, is praised from the White House on down as the best, the ONLY way to achieve what the political leaders and their influential, rich backers decide is necessary to protect their world empire. Do lots of people get killed? “Stuff happens,” said former war secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “Collateral damage,” says the Pentagon.
.
At home, the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Over 2 million people are locked up in the prison system each year, most of them people of color. When commercial armed security guards are also taken into consideration, the U.S. has millions of employees who use guns and other coercive paraphernalia in their jobs. ...
.
Violence is a big money maker in the mass culture. Television, films, pulp novels, Internet sites, video games—all dwell on “sociopaths” while glorifying the state’s use of violence, often supplemented by a lone vigilante. By the time children reach their teens, they have already seen thousands of murders and killings on television.
.
And these days even more suspense is added in countless programs that involve stalking and terror against women—and increasingly children. As the Duke rape case and so many “escort service” ads show, women of color are particularly subject to exploitation and have little recourse to any justice. And as the murders along the border show, immigrants of color are fair game for racist killers. ...
.
Many liberal commentators are taking this occasion to renew the demand for tougher gun laws. Yes, assault weapons are horrible, but so are bunker buster bombs, helicopters that fire thousands of rounds a minute, and the ultimate—nuclear weapons. Disarming the people is not the answer, especially when the government is armed to the teeth and uses brutality and coercion daily.
.
The best antidote to these tragedies is to build a movement for profound social change, a movement directed at solving the great problems depressing so much of humanity today, whether they be wars or global climate change or the loneliness of the dog-eat-dog society.
No comments:
Post a Comment