Shooting at CT Elementary School. WTF AMERICA?!

[LMNO]

Because I'm late to the thread:

On the other hand, I am puzzled by Faust attempting to turn you and I into caricatures of NRA members.

I haven't. I have no idea if you own a gun at all. I just haven't seen anything to shift my view that there is simply no reason to own a gun.

This is why:






But, once again, Cain's posted something brilliant, and I just sound trite.

[LMNO]

Mark Ames finally has a piece up on the shooting.

Sort of.

As I suspected, he felt the shooting didn't fall into the typical school or workplace shootings he discussed, as Lanza was not a student or employee of the place he shot up.

He instead decides to talk about the history of the NRA, gun control, wealth disparities and society in general.

http://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/newtown

So what’s really going on here? Why the crazy? It’s not exactly a revelation to learn that the NRA is run by hick fascist nutjobs, although we quickly forget just how toxic they are without constant reminding. But each time you peel off a layer, it’s more shocking than you expected it be.

But what’s the purpose, what are the deeper ideological politics of that sort of gun-cult fanaticism?

Looking back at Big Business’ violent reaction against the New Deal and the political culture that it created: a more "collectivist" political culture, as the libertarians derisively call it, where people were more deeply involved with each other and their communities, and with that involvement in their politics and communities came greater trust in their communities. That political culture — where people were more involved in their politics and trusted government more than they trusted business — was a big problem, according to pollsters and PR experts hired by business lobby groups in the postwar era, groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce.

Much better is to pour arms unrestricted into the population, give them legal cover and political encouragement to take political matters into their own hands with laws like "Stand Your Ground". That way you wind up creating a political culture of atomized, fear-fueled citizens who think they’re literally at war with each other, and their only way out is to fend for themselves and their family.

One of FDR’s first and most powerful opponents in the 30s and 40s was a New York lobbyist and public relations heavyweight named Merwin K. Hart. He was the brains and organizing force behind far-right big business groups like the American Liberty League, the isolationist America First Committee, and the far-right National Economic Council, fighting labor unions and waging nonstop war on democracy, which Merwin Hart equated with Communism. He also served as PR flak for Spain’s fascist dictator, publishing a fawning book on Franco in 1939 titled "America, Look At Spain" completely whitewashing the hundreds of thousands of Spaniards his client the Generalissimo had just finished slaughtering.

Robert Jackson — the Nuremberg Trials prosecutor and Supreme Court Justice — singled out Merwin K. Hart as one of America’s most dangerous fascists on the eve of World War Two. After the war, Hart became a leading Holocaust denier. He also helped engineer Joe McCarthy’s election victory, and helped spearhead relentless attacks on "collectivism" (in which act together in politics and the workplace, rather than "individually" which is how the bosses prefer it), and against democracy, which Hart claimed was an alien Communist idea subverting American liberty. He proposed "that every person who accepted any form of government help should be denied the right to vote." He also called for impeaching the entire Supreme Court, accusing the justices of being "dedicated to socialism."

In place of democracy and "collectivism" and community activism, Merwin K. Hart promoted "individualism" and fear.

And that naturally led Merwin K Hart into promoting the sort of fanatical gun-politics that shocked the public in his time, but today is accepted as part of the mainstream discourse, as if NRA gun-fanaticism was always in the air, rather than a political project with political ends in mind.

In a 1948 newsletter to his followers later read aloud to shocked House committee members, Hart made a "concrete suggestion" to his members, calling on the head of every American home to "possess himself of one or more guns, making sure they are in good condition, that he and other members of his family know how to use them, and that he has a reasonable supply of ammunition."

And just before he died in 1962, Merwin Hart organized fringe gun groups like the Minutemen -- a Southern California gun-cult that claimed to possess hundreds of automatic weapons and had "information" of an impending invasion by Chinese troops massing on the Mexican border. Together, they successfully killed a bill that would require handgun registration. Hart used language too extreme for that era’s NRA: "Any congressman or senator who votes for the Anfoso [gun] bill knowing its real purpose would disqualify himself from ever again expecting to be called an American."

Because it’s now so deeply ingrained that owning guns is a form of radical subversive politics, the people who still engage in real politics have the pick of the litter. That first became really clear in the depths of the 2008-9 collapse, when a lot of people who thought of themselves as radicals and anarchists made a lot of feckless noise about how they were arming and preparing for the collapse and revolution. They could’ve gone out and organized something and maybe built a politics of people power or even a politics of what they call revolution, a politics that actually changed things. But instead, they locked themselves in their homes and apartments with their guns and fancied themselves political revolutionaries just waiting to be swept up. But no one came. No one bothered or cared. And really, why would any plutocrat or evil government agency bother with the suckers, all harmlessly atomized and isolated and thoroughly neutralized by the false sense of political empowerment that their guns gave them, while you do the real work of plundering budgets, bribing politicians and writing laws even more in your favor?

So while everyone was hiding out in their homes armed and ready for Hollywood finales that never came, in the real world political power was concentrating at warp-speed with zero resistance.

From the oligarchy’s perspective, the people were thoroughly neutralized by the false sense of political empowerment that guns gave them. Guns don’t work in this country — they didn’t work for the Black Panthers or the Whiskey Rebellion, and they won’t work for you or me either.

Which I can't disagree with.  I know I've said, in this very thread, that gun control in the USA is untenable, for social reasons, and for reasons of basic supply and demand.  Too many guns are available, if they were outlawed a black market would easily flourish, in addition to the social unrest issues I've mentioned already.

But I've also said before that anyone who thinks having a gun is defending their rights is a moron, and that letting people own guns is a distraction from how they are taking it up the arse from plutocrats, because "they still have their guns" and so must be free, right?

Bump to bring Cain's post to the new page.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Cain forgets that America is a nation composed of the lunatics that his nation - among others - threw out for being retards.

What the hell did Europe think it was going to get out of this?

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Cain forgets that America is a nation composed of the lunatics that his nation - among others - threw out for being retards.

What the hell did Europe think it was going to get out of this?

At least Australia got convicts. 

[Faust]

Cain forgets that America is a nation composed of the lunatics that his nation - among others - threw out for being retards.

What the hell did Europe think it was going to get out of this?

At least Australia got convicts. 

They were called coffin ships for a reason, you were never supposed to survive. I think europe should ask for it's money back.

[Cain]

Of course, we are all overlooking one simple prevention method to halt school shootings:

God.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I am fascinated by the idea of individualism as a corporate product. It makes more sense to explain that facet of American culture than any other explanation I've heard. It's interesting to me because individualism is fundamentally detrimental to communities, yet it is so strongly ingrained in our culture.

[Elder Iptuous]

i don't see what the failing of the typical explanation is, i.e. the self-reliance required by a frontier society, and a heritage of mistrust of govt.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

i don't see what the failing of the typical explanation is, i.e. the self-reliance required by a frontier society, and a heritage of mistrust of govt.

Bolded part is utter goo and drivel.  The American public worships the government.  Part of that worship is pretending to despise it, which they do poorly.

Americans worship all manner of things that don't actually exist.  Government is pretty much #2.

[Elder Iptuous]

the fact that it is myth hardly invalidates it as reason for individualism in our culture.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

i don't see what the failing of the typical explanation is, i.e. the self-reliance required by a frontier society, and a heritage of mistrust of govt.

The bolded is where the typical explanation fails, because it's complete and utter made-up bullshit. Self-reliance in that context is a fairy tale; survival in frontier conditions requires a strong and cohesive community. The self-reliance mythos came from miners and mining companies moving into new territory with an every-man-for-himself ethic, but it completely falls apart when you examine the survival needs of family settlers moving West. Or the entire history of humanity.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

the fact that it is myth hardly invalidates it as reason for individualism in our culture.

I can accept that as valid; I suspect that it is a myth created and spread by corporate interests who wanted the public to buy into it and act accordingly.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

the fact that it is myth hardly invalidates it as reason for individualism in our culture.

What individualism?  94% of all Americans strongly identify with one of the "two" political parties, and swallow the indentical bullshit.  The individualist has about as much reality in American history as does Paul Bunyan...That is to say, it is an entirely made-up legend (barring the odd psychotic here an there in history).

Even our "rebels" wear a uniform, for Chrissakes.  Conformity, though not as emphatic now as it was after world war II, is an American trait.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

the fact that it is myth hardly invalidates it as reason for individualism in our culture.

I can accept that as valid; I suspect that it is a myth created and spread by corporate interests who wanted the public to buy into it and act accordingly.

Yep.  That's why the Koch brothers created Sarah Palin.

[Cain]

I am fascinated by the idea of individualism as a corporate product. It makes more sense to explain that facet of American culture than any other explanation I've heard. It's interesting to me because individualism is fundamentally detrimental to communities, yet it is so strongly ingrained in our culture.

I believe the New Left has produced a significant amount of literature on this topic.

I haven't read much of it, but the reading I have done suggests that there is a certain element of truth to it.  Though I would suggest it is a specifically oligarchical/plutocratic product, most corporations caring more about making money than stifling dissent.