Guns and Empire

[tama]

US is the nexus of the Global Financial Empire, which consumes quarter of global resources with huge "trade deficit" and with biggest army and fighting multiple continuous wars.

And people in US are most hysterical about crime and violence and guns for "self protection".

Any psychological link?

When you hurt others, you hurt yourself?

[graham4anything]

1. More attempts to get people to hide from the fact that 100% of guns need to be off the street

we can't do anything about stuff over there, if we are all shot by rightwing extremists attempting to overthrow our country here.

like they say
people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

we need to rid our streets of 100% of guns, except for the feds. and law enforcement, who leave their guns at the office when their shifts are over

since when are we beholden to the 1%. The NRA is the 1%.
divide 4.3 million total NRA members(and that includes all the dead ones, as they don't bother to keep tally of living ones, just total # of members), by the 330 million people alive
that is 1% rounded.
They have too much power, like a terrorist organization that only speaks for a mere handful of people.
They need to be reclassified as terrorist orgs. and dealt with as such.

Clean up our own streets, rid it of guns
and thank the NRA for allowing total clearance of guns to occur.
They could have done otherwise, but in the end, the NRA committed suicide by its own hands.
It will take a few years to wipe them out, but they already have inflicted themselves and their demise is at hand.

[tama]

2. Noted

Your solution to the fundamentally psychological problem of nation ruled by fear is more totalitarian control.

[graham4anything]

3. It took 6 plus 20 bullets to change the world or how Obi Wan Kenobi saved the universe

what are guns if not instruments of fear, and guns are WMDs and need to be treated as such

It took 6 plus 20 bullets to change the world
Lincoln
JFK
RFK
Dr. King
Allard Lowenstein
John Lennon
CT children


However, was Dr. King in fact, the thought behind George Lucas when he wrote the death scene for Obi-Wan Kanobi?

being that some people can't interpolate correctly, putting it in Star Wars or Star Trek terms seem to get a message across.

you can't expect to have a seed, and think that instantly it will grow into the majestic Redwood tree it becomes. It takes decades and decades

The NRA has shot itself fatally in the biggest ironic movement of all time

all that they have left is name calling, but their power is by the minute, diminshed further and further.


and the seed is growing, bigger and bigger and bigger each day, for those who indeed do see 4-5-6-7-8-9 steps ahead with the horseblinders removed

btw, i don't know about others, but if there could have been drones in history past
and a drone could have outside on an empty street taken care of Lincoln's killer before he got Lincoln
and a drone could have taken out James Earl Ray, so that on that fateful day in Memphis,
when they were pointing to JER, they could have seen him obliterated seconds before he did what he did,
and a drone could have taken out Oswald
and a drone could have taken out SS in the street prior to his entering the kitchen in that hotel on that fateful day
and a drone could have taken out the killers on an empty street of Lennon and Lowenstein
and a drone could have taken out the CT shooter
and a drone could have taken out the madman behind WW2

who would not have said
go for it

as Richard Clarke said (and liberals all over cheered Richard Clarke for his thoughts on Bush after 911 so consistency says liberals should cheer what he says now)-
drones are the singular most humane method yet invented of warfare.

no hyperbole intended.
but 100% of all guns by non law enforcement properly trained, need to be gotten off the streets.
If some bozos want to keep a gun in their home for their private uses, long as it remains only in that home with the full consent of all in that home, nobody is taking away those guns

but the streets need to be rid of guns by anyone but those noted 3 sentences above.

[tama]

4. State Monopoly of Violence

e.g. in the form of demanding banning all weapons for all citizens except police and armed forces cannot be seen separate from e.g. Libya, Syria and also American Revolution.

Imagine, just for a second, that there was a handful of corporate persons controlling money creation and all who are payed money to carry and use weapons and all political power, and that way the handful of corporate persons controlled all people and could rob them at will. Just imagine if something like that ever happened...

[graham4anything]

6. If you don't like a bad leader, don't elect them. 2000 showed what happened when listening

to outsiders

more kids are killed by guns in the street daily/weekly/monthly

all those would be saved if there were not guns in the streets

conflating other issues doesn't hide that fact
and the media on the NRA side inflating paranoidal what ifs also don't change that fact
and also have nothing to do with the issue at all

your gun cannot stop a bunker busting bomb

but your vote can

voting for Ralph Nader caused 2000 to happen, as he kept voters home and away from voting with his paranoidal lies about both parties being the same
as did those who thought Al Gore would have nominated Alito and Roberts and given corporate personhood life.

so vote only for Democratic candidates and those that caucus with them
and get rid of guns from the street

and stop the bad George Wallace mentality and Strom Thurmond or Ron and Rand Paul mentality from continuing

it is amazing that a Rand Paul (son of Ron) who for years the Paul's welcomed the members of neo-Nazi and other racists to their fold, has the audacity to go over to Israel and say he will take away money from them. Well, d'uh, they don't like Israel, yeah, anyone who heard of either Ron Paul or his son for decades knows he is racist and anti-semitic, therefore, imagine wanting to get rid of Israel. Wonders never cease.
Why did Israel even allow him to enter their country???
and yet those are the people that want guns in the USA streets. It is mindboggling.

[tama]

8. I don't have a vote

I'm a "foreigner" just like people in Pakistan and elsewhere all over the globe US imperialism is murdering, maiming and robbing. We don't have a vote.

And we don't buy that the responsibility of ordinary American people starts and stops in voting booth.

[tama]

5. "drones are the singular most humane method yet invented of warfare."

I strongly disagree. The most humane method of killing is hand and teeth and club and knife. Close and brutal and messy and smelly and you feel horrible afterwards.

Technology that makes killing as clean and tidy as FPS video game is not humane at all. It's the opposite. It makes killing too easy, and we don't want to make killing psychologically easy for any humans. That's what technocratic and totalitarian control freaks want.

[graham4anything]

7. Richard Clarke said that talking about drones vs. man to man combat

and most forget, any collateral damage from a drone, those people in all likelihood would have died the same time or in the same war from man to man combat on the ground.

so spewing numbers isn't accurate.

If a drone, say could have saved 20million during WW2 from dying
but someone says 100 innocents would have died along with the leader then
100 innocents? Who is to say those 100 were innocents, and who can say those 100 wouldn't have died anyhow during the same conflict.
So even if 100 innocents died, it would have saved 19million, 999,900 innocents who died at the hands of the leader in WW2.

see?

[tama]

9. You objectify non-Americans as mere numbers

but we are also flesh and blood, love and sorrow.

[graham4anything]

10. you seem to be doing the same to those shot by guns on the streets of the USA

we have to clean up ourselves first and get rid of the gun culture myths of the old wild wild west here

but wars are universal, and long before America existed as the USA, there were wars, and there always will be wars

one can attempt to have less damage and deaths, but one is never going to rid the world of wars, nor should it be the US to be blamed.

The founding fathers here themselves that the gun people so go on about were not nice people.
They kept people as slaves(well, they did not consider the slaves people anyhow)
All men are equal they said, but they did not mean women, nor all men.

it took one 100 years from that to Lincoln
100 years from Lincoln to the signing of the civil rights/voting rights acts
50 more from then to now

and war was around way before all that
(and as said, the settlers here slaughtered the people living here and thought nothing of it).

however, it could be worse.

so no, noone is not feeling for everyone else.
one is being realistic to the world itself

because there are bad people everywhere
and there are bad things happening right here that could be stopped with more protection
and security to protect those that are not on the side of random killings

(which may or may not be as random as they look)

[tama]

11. I'm not picking sides

but listening to both sides of the debate on DU and generally in US. And I see there is lot of dehumanizing of the other side going on both sides.

So I have third point of view, not really as an "outsider" but member of global community, to which also Americans belong whether they realize it or not.

And the way I see it, and as many other DUers see it, the main problem is not weapons for hunting or sports, but for "self-protection". Out of fear.

Fear is psychological state and issue. What is wrong with collective psyche of America, why so much fear, so much guns for "self-protection"?

[graham4anything]

15. Well, like Alan Jackson sang in his thoughts on 9-11(which was IMHO the best non-political 911 song)

"Did you open your eyes, hope it never happened
Close your eyes and not go to sleep?
Did you notice the sunset the first time in ages
Or speak to some stranger on the street?
Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow
Or go out and buy you a gun?
Did you turn off that violent old movie you're watchin'
And turn on "I Love Lucy" reruns?"
(c)alan jackson 2001

(myself I watched I love lucy reruns
and having just been in an area of New Jersey directly hit by Hurricane Sandy, and we had no power for 8 or 9 days, I never once thought about getting a gun
while relatives in other parts repeated lies about riots by (guess who they were fearful of)
that like in Katrina were just lies

And two of the most racist small minded areas in New Jersey and New York (Staten Island and parts of Breezy Point) both attempted to keep out any/all that were not them, regardless of whether they were trying to help or not. And there were NO riots there.

It's all racist hatred.

in the US, it is the same racist hatred that was in the pre-civil wars days
that never ended
(perhaps had LIncoln not been killed, he might have done something about that)

leading to the hatred felt by the south and some democrats after LBJ signed the voting rights acts/civil rights acts, which only happened because JFK was killed by a gun (no matter who did it, he died from a gun) and only LBJ using all his capital signed those acts and others
but it led to the south again becoming more and more racist

and today, with the immigration problem, and the demographic change again we have those small minded people wanting to stop what is inevitable but at least delay it in their warped minds

and the people on that side with guns, showed their feelings in 2010 outside townhalls where they menacingly paraded stroking their weapons and then Rep. Gabbie Giffords was shot and almost killed, and a judge was killed, a political asssassination again

and the people with guns shot an innocent doctor in cold blood in a church

and the people with guns applauded racially motivate applause when Zimmerman shot coward style an unarmed man just to watch him die

and yes, I myself am afraid of these gun nuts who value a gun and a bullet over life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as the fabled declaration states. Being that their gun can kill so many so quickly so random.
(whereas war, at least on both sides, there are reasons that are explainable).I can explain why a binLaden would do what he does, why the PLO does what they do, why Israel does what they do(and Israel had someone who wanted peace, Rabin, and he was shot dead by an Israeli who wanted no peace).

but to get rid of some of the military in the USA, one first gotta get the republicanteaparty mindset gone from being powerbrokers
you can say this president is doing nothing different, but you are wrong, and he can't do much militarily as long as the Republicans like Peter King vote with the other side.

so it takes time(and yes killings).

but you can't say you know for sure that if the US isolated themselves(which is wrong as we are now a worldwide society with the internet, and we can't closet ourselves off) but there would still be war, killings, and most likely more killings than now.
Nobody can say for sure.

I personally would remove the soldiers overseas and retrain them to protect the streets here and 100% remove all guns from our streets.

[tama]

17. Good to hear

"I personally would remove the soldiers overseas and retrain them to protect the streets here and 100% remove all guns from our streets. "

[Bucky]

12. People who hurt hurt people

It's more of a sociological link rather than psychological, but I agree with your premise. The problem with your analysis, however, is to think that any nation could be driven to become a world dominator without having some psychosocial flaw compelling them forward. What moral perversions drove British, Russian, Persian, Ottoman, or Roman hegemony? Would you prefer to live under the paranoid insecurities of a Stalinist world or the relentless acquisitiveness of a Roman society? I think there's a potential for some redemption in the life of a liberal democracy with a philosophy of self-reliance and the right of personal opportunity that mostly didn't exist in the heartless social Darwinism of the British Empire or the static corruption of an Ottoman province.

My point is that with human societies, there's always gonna be someone up on top of the heap giving orders. It may not be perfect, but it is the way humans are. I'd rather the dog on the top of the pile be a society with an imperfect fetish about human rights that thinks of itself as a "world cop" instead of a society with some less altruistic philosophy. When we bitch about America not living up to our ideals, we're playing a part in making the world a better place.

[tama]

13. Good points

We are social animals and it's too limiting (and divisive!) to see psyche just as individual state. Social psychology is valid level of discussion and self-reflection, and as various cultures and social environments nurture and discourage various psychological states, "collective psyche" "psychosocial flaw" etc. are sensible terms.

It's very good to search for the roots of our problems in historical perspective, to understand them more fully. And that search leads at least to birth of agrarian societies and unsustainable farming methods which weaken the carrying capacity of the local ecosystem which in many cases leads to imperialistic expansion to consume other ecosystems in similar unsustainable and destructive way. Now that global financial capitalism is meeting global limits of growth, there is no more room for imperialistic expansion and the system is turning to eating up also it's former bases of strength - "austerity" and IMF taking over now also EU countries. In that regard the whole weight of what we define as "civilization" is at stake here.

What I disagree with is the view that "there's always gonna be someone up on top of the heap giving orders", that power hierarchy is the universal or even normal state of human cultures. That is not true according to data of cultural anthropology which studies also other cultures than civilizations. Most human cultures are and have been in fact egalitarian and anarchic. Of course there are projects where it makes to sense having someone giving orders (e.g. architect guiding the building of house), but in most cultures there are no institutional leaders that can give orders and expect or force others to follow them. Or even more importantly, that they don't have to work for their living but can expect others to work for them, just because they are "leaders". Notice the difference with those bankers etc. who "make money work for them", instead of participating in anything productive, the parasite classes of capitalistic hierarchy.

[Bucky]

14. "other cultures than civilizations"

Undoubtedly small tribal groups have to have democratic features. When Lewis & Clark reached the Pacific coast, they took a vote among their party about where they should camp. They let both Sacajawea and Meriweather Lewis's slave cast votes in that decision. But once back in the US, that slave went back to being a slave.

What I'm talking about are global, or at least regional scale dynamics between different cultural groups. When dealing with an Other, power dynamics quickly come into play. The reason bankers can be assholes to the people who take out loans is because they lack empathy is because they've "Otherized" them. Think about Romney's talk on the 47%. If he knew people who were struggling to pay their bills, there's no way he'd make statements about "I can't teach them to take responsibility for their lives." These people have be Otherized. But then again, they're not part of Romney's "tribe" psychologically speaking. He doesn't have to look any of them in the face to screw them over.

When you get to a level of distance in a society, you can tune some people out of your definition of people. They're just my workers; they're just my consumers. This is how advanced societies create Ebenezers. We talk on DU a lot about how past generations of American industrialists used to be okay about working with unions. In the 50s and 60s management accepted unions as a fact of business and all prospered and the middle class grew. That's a small-d democratic model for society. It worked. But that was a society in which future managers had had the experience of serving in the army with future union members. They had a societal experience of cooperating in small groups on egalitarian bases.

Today corporations tend to be union-busters because there is no shared social experience between the classes. Unions have been Otherized. That same principle applies to the relations between states when you go to global scale politics. I may be nice to my butler, but when it comes to dealing with the powers among the competing nation-states, I feel nothing about bombing the shit out of that other president's butler if I need to assert my power.

[tama]

16. Yes

But it works both ways, hierarchical power positions both atract "otherizers" aka those with inclination to psychopathic behavior and strengthen and bring out the innate potential which is found in each of us. As the infamous Stanford prison experiment clearly shows.

What you say about "regional scale dynamics" is interesting, as US is fighting against Pashtun and armed resistance of Pashtuns joining Taleban. Pashtun culture has ethnic and linguistic aspect, but more importantly "Pashtun" is defined anarchic code of behavior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtunwali, which also many other neighboring non-ethnic Pashtun's have adopted. And I just found about this famous Pashtun anarchist and pacifist, who was said to be greatly influenced by Thoreau, as was his friend Gandhi, but no doubt his reading of Thoreau resonated with his anarchic cultural background and understanding of Pashtunwali:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Abdul_Ghaffar_Khan

As for "others", Pashtunwali stresses the importance of hospitality, which means that if e.g. American soldiers, who has previous day been shooting at a Pashtun village and killing people there, asks hospitality from a villager, he will be given that.

Pasthunwali is obviously an anarchic form of social organization of regional level, but has importance also on global level, as ancient ethical code that is succesfully resisting both Soviet Union and USA.

There are of course many other historical and contemporary examples of regional and now global level anarchic cooperation, Ting of Iceland and Zapatistas-Indignados-Occupy-Idle No More-etc. social movements.