On Monday afternoon, blood pulsed onto the parking lot and floor of a Boulder supermarket as life drained from 10 victims of the most recent gun violence. Before the blood dried, a nation riddled with bullets called for thoughts, prayers and, finally this time, legislative action to address gun violence.
It goes far beyond guns, video games or other such symptoms. It's a disease baked into capitalism. It's baked into U.S. imperialism that dominates the globe by force, driving and being driven by capitalism. It's the whole U.S. system that says that might makes right. That a person's whole worth is what they contribute to the capitalist machine that spits them out when everything usable in a person is used up. MLK said something along the lines of, how can I tell young Black men that violence isn't the answer, when their own country sends them to commit violence in other countries to solve our problems? Draw down the U.S. empire. Defund the police. Redirect those resources into providing for the people (especially mental healthcare) and the planet. If and when we can ever achieve a half-way humane society and world, gun violence will solve itself.
An incomplete one at that. Steve, you touched on it with "America has a mental illness" which could be restated as "America is a mental illness." A well hidden one right out in the open. The American way is not truth and justice, but death and destruction as demonstrated by Americans deep love for everything military. Our military defines us, not only abroad but also here with all of the nationalistic displays of supposed patriotism as the National Anthem, flyovers at sports and other events, the martial displays everywhere, death and destruction recruiters in the public high schools, and on and on and on. Too many make too much jack off of that death and destruction.
It is the American love affair with macho military death and destruction, the US Military, that is the mental illness. The rest, such as the most recent shootings are all symptoms of the most deadly disease a country can have.
It goes far beyond guns, video games or other such symptoms. It's a disease baked into capitalism. It's baked into U.S. imperialism that dominates the globe by force, driving and being driven by capitalism. It's the whole U.S. system that says that might makes right. That a person's whole worth is what they contribute to the capitalist machine that spits them out when everything usable in a person is used up. MLK said something along the lines of, how can I tell young Black men that violence isn't the answer, when their own country sends them to commit violence in other countries to solve our problems? Draw down the U.S. empire. Defund the police. Redirect those resources into providing for the people (especially mental healthcare) and the planet. If and when we can ever achieve a half-way humane society and world, gun violence will solve itself.
Amen - in the secular sense!
"But this is the American story. . . ."
An incomplete one at that. Steve, you touched on it with "America has a mental illness" which could be restated as "America is a mental illness." A well hidden one right out in the open. The American way is not truth and justice, but death and destruction as demonstrated by Americans deep love for everything military. Our military defines us, not only abroad but also here with all of the nationalistic displays of supposed patriotism as the National Anthem, flyovers at sports and other events, the martial displays everywhere, death and destruction recruiters in the public high schools, and on and on and on. Too many make too much jack off of that death and destruction.
It is the American love affair with macho military death and destruction, the US Military, that is the mental illness. The rest, such as the most recent shootings are all symptoms of the most deadly disease a country can have.
Couldn't agree more, Duane.
Oh, forgot my link: https://medium.com/reason-in-revolt/capitalism-is-dangerous-for-your-mental-health-b02fd8f56dfe
Thanks for this, Steve.