Wednesday, March 20, 2013

OK, Everybody's Doing It. Let's Politicize on the Sandy Hook Shooting.

Politicizing


All the politicizing on Sandy Hook has brought this post into being.  Pro-Gun, Anti-Gun, or are you aware that the issue is limited Assault Rifles, and Magazine Clips?   Whatever your stance, I won't even touch on the gun legislation.  Today, the 2nd amendment is not my agenda, and this is going to be a bi-partisan presentation of the Sandy Hook shooting, and what we need to do as a society to prevent these atrocities from occurring again.   What I'm going to say is going to be painful, and may make you angry.   However, it needs to be said, because nobody else seems to be saying it.

I would like to offer my condolences to the victims, and the victims' families for their losses.  To anyone who has lost family members to senseless violence:  Your approval of this message is not required, but I sincerely hope to achieve it.   My intent here is to offer up an explanation on why these shootings happen, and a solution on how we as a society can prevent them from happening in the future.   Warning:  I am blunt, honest, and cynical.   After all the beating around the bush, politicization, and homage, I believe candor does the dead respect.   Well, let's get to it, shall we?

To those who would use the deaths of dead kids to push their own political agenda.  I mean this in the most repulsively disgustedly sincere sense when I say, Fuck You, and please don't breed.

To those who want answers; let's find them shall we?   The first thing we need to do is clear our minds of the debate with regards to gun rights.   It doesn't matter what side you take on the issue, let's just set it aside for the moment, and focus strictly on the violence.

Senseless Violence, or is it Senseless?



Here is a map of the worst mass shootings of the past 50 years.  You might notice a trend here, and I must ask.  Why do you think that the US has the most, then Europe?   What makes us different?  Do we not have magical societies with almost every modern convenience known to man?   What is it about our societies here in the US, and Europe where murdering sociopaths go on a rampage every now and again?  

Since I'm a Murican, I'm going to focus strictly on the US.  We could say that Devil Reincarnates are born every now and again, but why mostly in the USA?   Shouldn't Brazil have a few?  You know, for balance?


Let's throw some blame around shall we?   Obviously, starting with the shooter is the first place to lay blame.  He killed them, and he should pay, but he killed himself.  Where's the justice?   Well, since he's not around, let's blame the guns.   Let's blame Right/Left political movements, because they created him.  (The opposite of what you are is who's responsible.)   Let's blame the gays, because homosexuality caused a volcano to erupt in the bible, so obviously it's responsible for this.   I reference the respectable Rev Phelps.  Let's blame anything that we can which will allow us to direct our hurt and loss in the form of anger at something, anything.  

Alright, I can be serious.  Let's place blame.  Let's blame ourselves, and the society that we have created, and continue to support.    We are responsible, and I shall explain how.   Of course the shooter pulled the trigger, and he paid for his crime with his life.   This does not absolve him of the responsibility he has for the act that he committed.   Yet, we created him, and we will continue to create more delusional shooters.  We will continue to create more sane shooters that have a definitive goal.   The aftermath of Sandy Hook brought about a great many murders and murder/suicides.   They weren't publicized nearly as well as Sandy Hook for the specific reason to minimize casualties.   Other people wanted their infamous way out of this world, and the Sandy Hook Shooter gave them the encouragement they needed to pull it off.   So much senseless death, and we're responsible.  How?

In our society, we have devalued life to the point where we throw people away.  Every person has a dollar value attached to them, and we squeeze as much out of everyone as we can while paying them as little as possible. Payment includes, but is not limited to, Dollars/Paychecks, Gratitude, Acknowledgement, and just general human decency.  Berating and dehumanizing a man, and tell him he does shit work, and he will work harder and harder only to be berated more.  Meanwhile he burns out, but that's OK because his proficiency was up 10%.    Then we adopt this attitude that we have to be stone cold around people we don't know.  Our cold businesslike society is prevalent in everything, and our actions reflect that.   Just walking through a department store, we try not to make eye contact, or acknowledge that other people exist.

We created this heartless society.  Poor people are attacked for being poor as if their life takes away from ours.   We have a buy low, sell high capitalistic society where it's good business to take people for everything we can.   We have a general distrust of our fellow human being, and are skeptical to make and trust new friends.  (Despite the fact that most people are inherently good.)   We don't share information freely because information is power, and that gives us the edge.   Life is a rat race, and may the fastest, or most ruthless win.    This is the society we live in, and the society we promote.   Is it any wonder that some people snap, and go on a shooting rampage?   Have you ever snapped after holding something in for a long time.  Not a shooting of course, but yelled at someone up and down for something not nearly as significant as your reaction?   But if you add the amount of times the person you blew up at has done what caused you to blow up, it might even out.  A small dig here, someone set you up to fail there, no raises this year due to cut backs, and so on.

For the past several years, the LGBT Community has pushed hard for anti-bullying legislation, and urged schools to take a stronger stance on bullying.  Why?  A bully takes something irreplaceable from their victim.  They take their humanity.   A bullied person struggles every day to find the courage to face life, and instead of enjoying the sun on their face, or hitting on their crush, a bullied person is afraid to walk around each corner.   Afraid to speak.  Afraid.     For LGBT kids, this makes the suicide rate skyrocket.  Especially when dealing this vile hatred.   Gay kids aren't the only ones bullied though.  The shooters at columbine were horribly bullied for many years.   This would be a good time to blame the bullies for being assholes, wouldn't it?  But I won't.

There has been some good strides made concerning bullies, but not that many.   Schools like bullies.  Society likes bullies.   They don't like the drug using, broken home, going nowhere in life bully, and will punish that kid until he snaps himself.   But we love the jock bully who's going somewhere in life, and will protect him over the victim.   Recently, concerning the Steubenville Rape trials, the media reported heavily how sad it was that two promising young men have had their careers and lives destroyed.   Ummm?  Any mention of, I don't know, the fact that they RAPED someone?   Distributed Child Pornography?   No concern for the victims, but remorse for what the attackers lost.    We as a society support and foster bullies.  The reason being is because bullies make Great businessmen.  Especially the ones that are part of a "team", and are only disturbingly cruel to those who aren't part of the "team".    When a bully grows up, they will callously crush the competition, and leave a trail of destruction as they get to the top.  Once on top, they make money, and lots of it.   They know how to feign following rules, and take on life with a sociopaths lack of integrity.   Then, after customers are taken advantage of, livelihoods lost, and profits are up, we give these guys awards.   When confronted about their unscrupulous business dealings, the socially acceptable answer is "It's just business."

How hard is it to believe that our cold way of life brings about individuals who have been beaten, torn down, ignored, discarded, thrown away, and then laughed at for their misfortune?   How many struggling people have been accused of being a drain on society because they can't find a job?    How many parents are disgusted, and ashamed of their children, then constantly remind them?    How many people go to work day in, and day out to a thankless job where they suffer emotional abuse to keep them satisfied with low wages, and tough work days?    How many people are suffering right now from loneliness because it's hard for them to make friends?    How many people are being abused, and don't even know it because socially, we promote that type of behavior?    How many people do we socially punish for not "fitting in", or being a "team player"?    How many people are going hungry tonight?  How many children?

Is it any wonder why a very small percentage of these people snap, and take lives?   What brings a person to the point to where they feel so worthless, and hate the world so badly, that he/she would kill innocent children, or even anonymous strangers just because it is within their capacity?

What we have to do to change this, and minimize mass shootings. 


If we do not want more loss of life, we need to bring back our humanity.   We need to care for strangers, meet our neighbors, deal honestly and fairly, promote love and acceptance, learn to compromise in our dealings and debates, and put others before ourselves.    And this goes against everything we've been taught which is survival of the fittest, and life is a competition.  Win, Win, Win, we are taught, and we go forth, and give it our all.    Do whatever it takes!  "Whatever" it takes!

This is no easy task, and any powerful person would fight an endeavor to bring back our humanity.  They'll place blame, and try to take the guns.  They'll place blame, and claim we need the guns to protect ourselves. They'll place blame on everything except this Utopian Society we live in, because it's PERFECT, and Glorious.  They will want to keep us wound up tighter than snare drums because we are profitable that way. They want us as a society, and as individuals to be drowning in debt, and suffering with untold agony over how we are going to make next month's rent.   Why?  Because we're earning for money, and that's what it's all about folks.  Money.    Collateral damage be damned!   What's a few dead kids every now and again when beach houses are a plenty?   Money, and Power.  

That is the society we live in, and we can change it.  Changing it will take a lot more work than just passing a law, or getting angry at something.   We have wars to end, hunger to end, hatred to end, legal extortion to end, and the list goes on.   There are so many societies that love their fellow man, who don't go on mass shootings.  Their lives are hard if not harder than ours, but at least they have love for their neighbors.   We don't promote love for our neighbors.   But we can.

We are responsible for the shootings at Sandy Hook.   Our selfish society is responsible for the shootings at Sandy Hook.   Those dead kids are on us.  So are all the other mass shootings in our history.   So are the suicides, and broken families which came about by greed.    We are responsible for the child down the street who is going hungry tonight.

Until we realize that, we can't change anything.  Once we know the cause, then we can change ourselves to promote a better society.

I propose we start changing our society with a simple endeavor.  Let's change the way we ignore everyone, and not make eye contact.  Instead, I propose we work on making eye contact, and giving a smile with a greeting.   After all, that takes just as much effort as avoiding eye contact, and pretending that person is not there.   Who's with me?   It's a simple endeavor to change ourselves, and our society.  Just a simple acknowledgement of existence with a smile and hello.

Let's change our society one smile at a time.


No comments:

Post a Comment