Tragic Events in the News[Coral Cache Backup Link], helped me with my feelings about this, and I'm a grown man.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringedThere are already a good number of public figures and organizations today (nevermind internet commentors like us) who have made it publicly known that they don't seem to notice or care about the first three words.
“These mostly simple machines last forever,” Mr. Moynihan said.posted by tonycpsu at 2:34 PM on December 14, 2012 [112 favorites]
But he wasn’t through.
“On the other hand, we have only a three-year supply of ammunition.”
His solution: Increase the tax on bullets. He wouldn’t raise the tax on ammunition typically used for target shooting or hunting. But he proposed exorbitant taxes on hollow-tipped bullets designed to penetrate armor and cause devastating damage.
“Ten thousand percent,” Mr. Moynihan said.
That would have made the tax on a 20-cartridge pack of those bullets $1,500. “Guns don’t kill people; bullets do,” said Senator Moynihan, a Democrat who died in 2003.
"In times of community or world-wide crisis, it's easy to assume that young children don't know what's going on. But one thing's for sure -- children are very sensitive to how their parents feel. They're keenly aware of the expressions on their parents' faces and the tone of their voices. Children can sense when their parents are really worried, whether they're watching the news or talking about it with others. No matter what children know about a “crisis,” it’s especially scary for children to realize that their parents are scared.posted by Blasdelb at 2:36 PM on December 14, 2012 [195 favorites]
Some Scary, Confusing Images:
The way that news is presented on television can be quite confusing for a young child. The same video segment may be shown over and over again through the day, as if each showing was a different event. Someone who has died turns up alive and then dies again and again. Children often become very anxious since they don’t understand much about videotape replays, closeups, and camera angles. Any televised danger seems close to home to them because the tragic scenes are taking place on the TV set in their own livingroom. Children can't tell the difference between what's close and what's far away, what's real and what's pretend, or what's new and what's re-run.
The younger the children are, the more likely they are to be interested in scenes of close-up faces, particularly if the people are expressing some strong feelings. When there's tragic news, the images on TV are most often much too graphic and disturbing for young children.
“Who will take care of me?”:
In times of crisis, children want to know, "Who will take care of me?" They're dependent on adults for their survival and security. They're naturally self-centered. They need to hear very clearly that their parents are doing all they can to take care of them and to keep them safe. They also need to hear that people in the government and other grownups they don’t eveen know are working hard to keep them safe, too.
Helping Children Feel More Secure:
Play is one of the important ways young children have of dealing with their concerns. Of course, playing about violent news can be scary and sometimes unsafe, so adults need to be nearby to help redirect that kind of play into nurturing themes, such as a hospital for the wounded or a pretend meal for emergency workers.
When children are scared and anxious, they might become more dependent, clingy, and afraid to go to bed at night. Whining, aggressive behavior, or toilet "accidents" may be their way of asking for more comfort from the important adults in their lives. Little by little, as the adults around them become more confident, hopeful and secure, our children probably will, too.
Turn Off the TV:
When there's something tragic in the news, many parents get concerned about what and how to tell their children. It's even harder than usual if we're struggling with our own powerful feelings about what has happened. Adults are sometimes surprised that their own reactions to a televised crisis are so strong, but great loss and devastation in the news often reawaken our own earlier losses and fears – even some we think we might have "forgotten"
It's easy to allow ourselves to get drawn into watching televised news of a crisis for hours and hours; however, exposing ourselves to so many tragedies can make us feel hopeless, insecure, and even depressed. We help our children and ourselves if we’re able to limit our own television viewing. Our children need us to spend time with them – away from the frightening images on the screen.
Talking and Listening:
Even if we wanted to, it would be impossible to give our children all the reasons for such things as war, terrorists, abuse, murders, major fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes. If they ask questions, our best answer may be to ask them, "What do you think happened?" If the answer is "I don't know," then the simplest reply might be something like, "I'm sad about the news, and I'm worried. But I love you, and I'm here to care for you."
If we don't let children know it's okay to feel sad and scared, they may think something is wrong with them when they do feel that way. They certainly don't need to hear all the details of what's making us sad or scared, but if we can help them accept their own feelings as natural and normal, their feelings will be much more manageable for them.
Angry feelings are part of being human, especially when we feel powerless. One of the most important messages we can give our children is, "It's okay to be angry, but it's not okay to hurt ourselves or others." Besides giving children the right to their anger, we can help them find constructive things to do with their feelings. This way, we'll be giving them useful tools that will serve them all their life, and help them to become the worlds' future peacemakers -- the world's future "helpers."
Helpful Hints:
Do your best to keep the television off, or at least limit how much your child sees of any news event. Try to keep yourself calm. Your presence can help your child feel more secure. Give your child extra comfort and physical affection, like hugs or snuggling up together with a favorite book. Physical comfort goes a long way towards providing inner security. That closeness can nourish you, too. Try to keep regular routines as normal as possible. Children and adults count on their familiar pattern of everyday life. Plan something that you and your child enjoy doing together, like taking a walk, going on a picnic, having some quiet time, or doing something silly. It can help to know there are simple things in life that can help us feel better, in good times and in bad. Even if children don't mention what they've seen or heard in the news, it can help to ask what they think has happened. If parents don't bring up the subject, children can be left with their misinterpretations. You may be really surprised at how much your child has heard from others. Focus attention on the helpers, like the police, firemen, doctors, nurses, paramedics, and volunteers. It's reassuring to know there are many caring people who are doing all they can to help others in this world. Let your child know if you're making a donation, going to a town meeting, writing a letter or e-mail of support, or taking some other action. It can help children to know that adults take many different active roles and that we don't give in to helplessness in times of worldwide crisis.
White men from prosperous families grow up with the expectation that our voices will be heard. We expect politicians and professors to listen to us and respond to our concerns. We expect public solutions to our problems. And when we’re hurting, the discrepancy between what we’ve been led to believe is our birthright and what we feel we’re receiving in terms of attention can be bewildering and infuriating. Every killer makes his pain another’s problem. But only those who’ve marinated in privilege can conclude that their private pain is the entire world’s problem with which to deal. This is why, while men of all races and classes murder their intimate partners, it is privileged young white dudes who are by far the likeliest to shoot up schools and movie theaters.Interesting essay that looks at mass shootings from a different cultural angle than most.
If laws controlled guns the way the NRA controls politicians, the US would be the safest country in the world.and
Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I wish mental health care were as easy to get as, say, a gun.posted by spock at 2:48 PM on December 14, 2012 [63 favorites]
After these massacres our public officials regularly vow that a “conversation” — whatever that means — has to take place about guns. After which they throw up their hands and lament that “political reality” dictates that no actual discussion about gun policy could possibly go anywhere. And nothing happens.posted by zombieflanders at 2:51 PM on December 14, 2012 [26 favorites]
This time I want to believe things may be different. This seems like a level of horror that belongs to a whole different category, one that has the potential to shame our public officials into action, as long as we insist that there is no other moral alternative.
There was a hint of this in President Obama’s remarks today. Choking up with emotion, he said: “The majority of those who died today were children. Beautiful little kids between the ages of five and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them. Birthdays. Graduations. Weddings. Kids of their own.”
“As a country we have been through this too many times,” Obama added. “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”
Let’s believe he means it, while simultaneously insisting he prove it. Obama’s statement rose to the occasion emotionally, but the unique horror of today’s events demands that Obama and other public officials rise to the occasion politically.
You’re not supposed to say this on days like today, but political action is exactly what’s needed. The usual voices will try to shut down the debate by warning against “politicizing” the tragedy. But we should “politicize” it, if by that we mean undertaking a discussion about how our elected officials can act to stop this madness.
Gun violence is one area where something approaching a bipartisan consensus has formed among commentators and observers that reform is imperative, even as the only people who continue to refuse to act are those in a position to actually change things. This time, our public officials — the president included — simply must start an actual policy discussion about the appropriate response to the slaughter caused by the easy availability of guns. Not just a “conversation” about how screwed up our culture is or the usual argument over whether Evil and/or mental illness are the real culprits (as the gun rights advocates tell us) that require addressing. It’s easy access to guns that translates the darkest of human impulses, whatever their cause, into the massacre of innocent children.
It's disturbingly similar to the Dunblane primary school massacre that prompted the UK's handgun ban.The children murdered at Dunblane were almost the same age as the suspect in today's killings. I don't think that's meaningful, but it's something which struck me as so saddening.
ESPN has asked its staff to refrain from using the word "shooter" and basically stop tweeting altogether. Good move.I don't think I understand. Is there some question as to whether or not there was a shooter? I understand things like refraining from putting out the name of the person alleged to have done this at least until the cops confirm it, but "shooter"?
It’s Easier For Americans To Access Guns Than Mental Health Services, Sy Mukherjee, Think Progress, 14 December 2012
"Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."NBC did not use the interview.
Following the fatal shooting this morning at a Connecticut elementary school that left at least 27 dead, including 20 small children, sources across the nation shook their heads, stifled a sob in their voices, and reported fuck everything. Just fuck it all to hell.posted by Rory Marinich at 3:00 PM on December 14, 2012 [100 favorites]
All of it, sources added.
Patch exclusive: The man identified in media reports Friday as the shooter has told friends that he thinks his developmentally disabled brother may have committed the crime, Patch has learned.posted by 1970s Antihero at 3:16 PM on December 14, 2012
"Until we stop telling boys that they can not cry, or show emotion, or that they have to be tough and powerful, and in control of people and things; and until we stop sending men the message that we cannot show vulnerability, or express our anger, sadness, disappointment, fear, and rage in healthy way, we will continue to see this kind of hypermasculine aggression, which perplexes only those who do not make the connection between masculinity, violence, and guns."posted by restless_nomad at 3:24 PM on December 14, 2012 [82 favorites]
When the 2nd Amendment was written the most lethal gun available was the musket.posted by spock at 3:26 PM on December 14, 2012 [26 favorites]
Secret Life of Gravy:This was linked in chat this afternoon, I believe by restless_nomad.Why do certain men feel the need to kill their children and their wives before committing suicide? Why do certain men feel the need to go to their ex-wives work place and kill everyone inside, customers as well as colleagues?
Why Most Mass Murderers Are Privileged White Men, Hugo Schwyzer, Role Reboot, 23 July 2012
Sidhedevil:I thought the article was interesting. I had no idea about his controversial status until just now when you wrote that.Well, Hugo Schwyzer should know, having attempted murder himself. Jesus wept.
While Heller won in the SCOTUS case, the majority opinion (written by J. SCALIA) was long and unexpectedly sympathetic to gun control interests. He basically spent a long time explaining that, yes, a total gun ban, in a federal district, is contrary to the 2nd Amendment, here's how you can constitutionally get effectively the same results.How?
But as someone pointed out earlier in the thread, the Supreme Court has indicated those laws can actually be quite broad depending on how they are worded.I'll ask again: How?
But I still find value in attempting to understand why guns repeatedly do not go away, even after horrible events like this, and also in attempting to understand what a real solution would look like in American culture.Could it be that the reason is that no one in the position to do so is doing anything to make guns go away? Seems more plausible to me than mere speculation about the effects of possible policies.
"I am not an important man... I possess only my personal sense of dignity. My life has been reduced to nothing by an intolerable insult. Therefore, I have nothing to lose except my life, which is nothing, so I trade my life for yours, as your life is favoured. The exchange is in my favour, so I shall not only kill you, but I shall kill many of you, and at the same time rehabilitate myself in the eyes of the group of which I am a member, even though I might be killed in the process."The amok syndrome is an extreme instance of the puzzle of human emotions. Exotic at first glance, upon scrutiny they turn out to be universal; quintessentially irrational, they are tightly interwoven with abstract thought and have a cold logic of their own.
Currently I am one of your constituents in New York, but I grew up in the state of Connecticut. As you can imagine, I was shocked and horrified to hear of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School this morning; I have long referred to Connecticut as a nearly idyllically safe place to grow up, and it is heartbreaking that these other children have lost the ability to make that claim.posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:55 PM on December 14, 2012 [4 favorites]
Towards that end, I urge you to ensure that no other child in my home state will ever lose that right; I urge you to take action against the gun lobby in this country and tighten gun control. It's time to tell the gun lobby that the abuses of the 2nd Amendment they've been claiming are NOT more important than the lives of the 18 children who were lost.
Barring some seismic realignment in this country, the gun control debate is all but settled and your side won. The occasional horrific civilian massacre is just the price the rest of us have to pay.posted by jazon at 4:56 PM on December 14, 2012 [20 favorites]
Over and over again, apparently.
The Second Amendment of the Constitution reads as follows:You know, I've never heard an argument that makes sense to me for why the second part of that sentence isn't dependent upon the first part.A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringedThere are already a good number of public figures and organizations today (nevermind internet commentors like us) who have made it publicly known that they don't seem to notice or care about the first three words.
I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.posted by Celsius1414 at 6:51 PM on December 14, 2012 [3 favorites]
every other application I can conceive of would be very illegal.You are complaining about injustices in your country or at your place of employment and being shot at because of that.
“With all the carnage from gun violence in our country, it’s still almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. It has come to that. Not even kindergarteners learning their A,B,Cs are safe. We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again. For every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many of them were five-year olds. President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences to the families in Newtown. But the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem. Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership – not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today. This is a national tragedy and it demands a national response. My deepest sympathies are with the families of all those affected, and my determination to stop this madness is stronger than ever.”I've never been much of a Bloomberg fan, but he's one of the few elected officials refusing to let Obama off the hook with a few tears and another emotional speech. Bloomberg is clearly pointing out that what Obama has been doing on this issue is absolutely nothing. Even if Obama bothers to send a minimal gun control bill to Congress (doubtful), it seems obvious he won't actively fight for it.
As the person who gave it its present title, I simply followed the convention at School shooting. There is near universal agreement on the titles there.It hurts to know that we have a naming convention for these horrific events, that they have happened enough times that we have tables, sortable by name and year and death toll.
But none were more tragic than the accounts of Principal Dawn Hochsprung, who was emerging from a meeting and apparently saw the gunman and warned several colleagues who were about to step into the hallway behind her, and into the shooter's direct line of fire. The last thing one witness recalled was her turning back and yelling a warning to lock the door as she apparently confronted the gunman. A few moments later she was shot.Its a local paper, but they're very diligent about covering stories about the town in detail.
"The people who do these things are people who don’t want contact. They wouldn’t be capable of going out there and stabbing people to death. But there’s such a disconnect when you’re using a gun. You don’t even feel like you’re killing anybody...."That's from someone who should know.
Where I live I rationally believe I have a much greater chance of dying in a car or of a heart attack than by some stranger killing me in the street. Why would any human live in a place that they perceive is so dangerous that they must carry deadly weapons with them at all times?I live in Oakland, California, and a lot of people here are carrying firearms illegally not too far from where I live. In Fruitvale, there are a lot of taco trucks where the owners mostly take cash only. That makes them a target for robbers. So a lot of the taco truck drivers carry a concealed firearm. Illegally, because carry permits in California are very difficult to get in urban areas. I've read over the applications accepted in Alameda County (released under a public records act request) and I didn't see any taco truck owners. Or many people who lived in the flat lands. Nope. Lots of rich business owners and politicians.
I cannot imagine the level of fear that it would take for me to do this. It sounds like being in a horror movie all the time.
Americans cared so little about the Bill of Rights that they suspended about half of it over a decade ago, and no one on either side ever even considers turning it back on any more. But try to tamper with their Second Amendment, or even mention anything about "a well-organized militia," and you'll get millions of people screaming about their fundamental rights.
It won't change. There's always a sizable block of people for whom "The American way of life is non-negotiable". The system is completely rigid - there is no mechanism for change and any leaders who would possibly implement change are weeded out long before they reach the public eye. I really do not believe that anything significant will change until there's a collapse and I simply pray that it's a small enough collapse - that is, that it occurs soon enough before all that is of value about this country has been destroyed - that something of value will be preserved.You know, I too am afraid of the rigidity of the system. I know we've talked a lot about that in the context of the financial sector, and I agree with you that significant change may not happen until there's a collapse. In fact, I think it's likely that significant change won't happen sufficient to avert a collapse.
And so happy Christmas we hope you have funposted by Toekneesan at 5:46 AM on December 15, 2012 [13 favorites]
The near and the dear ones, the old and the young.
A very merry Christmas and a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one without any fear.
War is over if you want it, war is over now.
snickerdoodle: ""Don't own guns because your son might kill you and steal them and use them to kill children" is not really the foundation of any kind of rational public policy.Data point: after a ruthless jerk killed 16 people and wounded 11 in the German town of Winnenden with guns taken from his father's collection, the father was convicted on 15 counts of negligent homicide and 13 counts of negligent battery.
Why not? If I give my car keys to a drunk driver, that's negligent. Why the hell can't people who leave guns where mentally unstable people can get them be charged with negligent homicide?"
Alternet: Your thesis that these rage murders are effectively failed slave rebellions takes you back in your book to consider in some depth the circumstances of slave rebellions in the antebellum South. At what point did the parallels start to dawn on you?posted by clarknova at 8:02 AM on December 15, 2012 [33 favorites]
Ames: I really started with the idea that in every age, there is some awful oppression that is not yet recognized and therefore doesn't exist, but later seems horribly obvious. This became clear to me working in Moscow in the '90s. No one in the "liberal" Western press corps, academia, world financial aid organizations or Clinton Administration had a shred of sympathy for the millions of Russians suffering from so-called "privatization" programs that we rammed down their throats. Literally millions of Russians went to their graves early in the '90s, yet many respectable Westerners openly said that the old generation would "have to die off" before the proper mindset set in to allow full Westernization in Russia.
Those millions of deaths are still not seen as part of something larger and evil. Later I looked at the details of these American rage murders -- they were all similar, mostly normal Middle Americans attacking seemingly "at random." If they weren't psychopaths, which they aren't, then that meant their attacks were very deliberate, that they were attacking something as a response. That's when I decided that it was the culture which was viewing the murders "at random," the culture which refused to see the purpose.
I simply assumed, from experience in Russia, and from looking at modern rage rebellions, that early slave rebellions would be completely misunderstood in their day as random acts of crazed evil just as modern "rage rebellions" are, and from the evidence I uncovered, it seems they were.
Alternet: How much blame do you place on Reaganomics for the changes in the workplace that you argue lead to rage attacks?
Ames: Put it this way: rage murders in the workplace never existed anywhere in history until Reagan came to power. Reagan made it respectable to be a mean, stupid bastard in this country. He is the patron saint of white suckers. He unleashed America's Heart of Vileness -- its penchant for hating people who didn't get rich, and worshipping people who despise them, and this is the essence of Reaganomics.
I hate to sound like a Clintonite here, but let's remember Hillary Clinton became the most hated human being alive because she tried to give most Americans the opportunity to lead longer, healthier lives, while these same Americans adored goons like Sam Walton, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump -- everyone who has dedicated their lives to transferring wealth, health and pleasure from the masses to a tiny elite. Liberals are hated in America precisely because they want to help people, which is seen as "patronizing."
You can see how this kind of cultural insanity, unleashed by Reaganomics after decades of New Deal (relative) harmony, could make someone snap, when the cognitive dissonance suddenly strikes on a very personal level, and you realize that you've been screwed hard by your own dominant ideology.
Alternet:You demonstrate that there is absolutely zero accuracy in the psychological profiles that "experts" have assembled to predict what kind of young student might start another Columbine, and you instead advocate profiling schools that could prompt a deadly massacre. What are some of the tell-tale signs to look for?
Ames: White kids. Just look for white kids, and you'll have a potential Columbine. When I said that the school should be profiled rather than the kid (since the Secret Service and FBI have both concluded no profile of a Columbiner is possible), I meant something larger than just the school campus -- I meant the entire culture. Our culture today is completely insane, the disconnect between how our propaganda says our lives are, and how our lives actually are. And let's face it, white middle-class kids are far more deeply invested in the dominant cultural lies, and therefore more easily destroyed by the rupture when those lies become untenable, than minority urban kids are.
Contradicting earlier reports, Ms. Robinson said Mr. Lanza’s mother, Nancy Lanza, had never been a teacher or a substitute teacher at the school, though she did not specifically say whether she had had any other connection to the place.
Officials said the killing spree began early on Friday at the house where Mr. Lanza had lived with his mother. There, he shot her in the face, making her his first victim, the authorities said. Then, leaving her dead after taking three guns that apparently belonged to her, he climbed into her car for the short drive to the school. Two of the guns were semiautomatic pistols; the other was a semiautomatic rifle.
Outfitted in combat gear, Mr. Lanza forced his way into the school, apparently defeating an intercom system that was supposed to keep people out during the day unless someone inside buzzed them in. This was contrary to earlier reports that he had been recognized and allowed to enter.
Nancy Lanza legally owned a Sig Sauer and a Glock, both handguns of models commonly used by police, and a military-style Bushmaster .223 M4 carbine, according to law enforcement officials who also believe Adam Lanza used at least some of those weapons. ... Nancy Lanza was an avid gun collector who once showed him a "really nice, high-end rifle" that she had purchased, said Dan Holmes, owner of a landscaping business who recently decorated her yard with Christmas garlands and lights. "She said she would often go target shooting with her kids."Well then.
Every country has a sizable contingent of mentally ill citizens. We’re the one that gives them the technological power to play god.posted by ericb at 12:33 PM on December 15, 2012 [11 favorites]
This is all about guns — access to guns and the ever-increasing firepower of guns. Over the past few years we’ve seen one shooting after another in which the killer was wielding weapons holding 30, 50, 100 bullets. I’m tired of hearing fellow citizens argue that you need that kind of firepower because it’s a pain to reload when you’re shooting clay pigeons. Or that the founding fathers specifically wanted to make sure Americans retained their right to carry rifles capable of mowing down dozens of people in a couple of minutes.
... We will undoubtedly have arguments about whether tougher regulation on gun sales or extra bullet capacity would have made a difference in Connecticut. In a way it doesn’t matter. America needs to tackle gun violence because we need to redefine who we are. We have come to regard ourselves — and the world has come to regard us — as a country that’s so gun happy that the right to traffic freely in the most obscene quantities of weapons is regarded as far more precious than an American’s right to health care or a good education.
We have to make ourselves better. Otherwise, the story from Connecticut is too unspeakable to bear.
The argument I keep seeing on FB today (mostly by pro-gun folk) is that it's not a gun problem, it's a lack of mental healthcare problemI've heard pretty much nothing but chirping crickets from the usual suspects amongst my Facebook friends. Literally the only thing from any of them was that one of the most vocal way out there Jesus-bless-my-guns-so-I-can-protect-America-from-the-Kenyan types posted a picture of an ubiquitous "cause" ribbon with the name of the school on it. As if that absolves him.
octobersurprise:You reminded me of something I wrote five years ago in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre. My apologies for the length.Alabama? We're definitely in mucker territory now.
John Brunner was cyberpunk before there was such a thing. Brunner's works are somewhat of a riddle. He wrote prolifically, but much of it is about what you would expect. However, in the decade between 1965 and 1975 Brunner unwittingly originated the cyperpunk genre and wrote five of the most horrifically visionary science fiction novels of the 20th century, viz. The Squares of the City, The Sheep Look Up, Stand on Zanzibar, The Jagged Orbit, and The Shockwave Rider.posted by ob1quixote at 1:03 PM on December 15, 2012 [27 favorites]
Arguably, the Hugo award-winning Stand on Zanzibar is the best of the lot. The book takes place in 2010 as seen from 1968. Many of the themes are hauntingly accurate: rampant consumerism, ubiquitous terrorism and "muckers."
The consumerism depicted in Zanzibar is a reasonable projection from the society of 1968. Even then automakers would introduce "Next Year's Model" in the fall. In Zanzibar the "Next Year's Model" syndrome is markedly more pronounced, but not dissimilar to the way everything from clothes to phones are marketed today.
As for terrorism, Brunner's vision is much sharper here. While there are events that could be considered "terrorist attacks" stretching back into antiquity, most of what we know as terrorism hadn't even happened yet. Munich wasn't until 1972. The first terrorist suicide bomb wasn't detonated until 1981. While we haven't risen to the level depicted in Zanzibar, there is no denying that the tactics of terrorism have seen a dramatic upsurge in the last four decades.
The most disturbing future vision raised in Zanzibar is the mucker. A mucker is a person who has run amok, i.e. they have gone into a frenzy and taken up arms with the intent to kill everyone they meet. Usually, there is little to no warning that a person is about to do this. Muckers are typically not captured alive.
In Zanzibar, Brunner describes a society absolutely petrified of muckers. Many of the people in Burnner's world live tightly packed, but in complete isolation from one another. They sit at home and watch the adventures of "Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere," in which their form and speech are digitally superimposed over the actors, so that they feel like they've gone places without leaving their couch. Kept in terror by newscasts that imply that any of their neighbors might run amok at any time, they arm themselves in self-defense, even though it is widely believed that few who stand against a mucker live to tell the tale.
The reasons people run amok are a mystery, both in Zanzibar and in real life. Psychologists, as they are want to do, come up with all kinds of theories, but none can explain what makes a person want to kill dozens of complete strangers. Crackpots have at various times posited video games, pornography, rap music, comic books, and marijuana as prime causes. Society in general comes up with nothing but excuses, much of which is merely an attempt to deflect any collective culpability for the marginalization of the perpetrator. Like the denizens of Brunner's America, we isolate ourselves psychologically from our friends and neighbors, believe more of what we see on the news than is good for us, and deny any part of fomenting an environment in which such tragic events are all but certain to occur.
Is it not plain to see that while tragic and senseless events do occur, THE MAN exploits them to keep us off balance and constantly starting at shadows? Have we come to this, that we slaughter the innocent, convict the guiltless, welcome the oppressor, and praise the charlatan, such is our ignorance and cowardice? With each passing day we advance to a time when Brunner's nightmare visions come closer and closer to reality. Must we perforce bury our essential human dignity deeper and deeper beneath machinery and deceit simply to survive without giving in to the mucker within all of us? As we march inexorably towards that day when all Earth's people, elbow to elbow and face to face, might be able to stand on Zanzibar if we allow some to wade up to their knees, what happens to humanity itself?
Van Vogt makes the basic observation that the central characteristic of the Right Man is 'the decision to be out of control, in some particular area.' We all have to learn self-control to deal with the real world, and with other people. But with some particular person -- a mother, a wife, a child -- we may decide that this effort is unnecessary and allow ourselves to explode.After recounting another anecdote from Sergei Aksasov's Family Chronicle of his grandfather flying into a senseless rage, Wilson continues:
Aksasov sees his grandfather as a 'noble, magnanimous, often self-restrained man' -- So he is capable of self-restraint. But in this one area of his life, his control over his family, he has made 'the decision to be out of control.' It is provoked by his daughter persisting in a lie; this infuriates him; he feels she is treating him with a lack of respect in assuming he can be duped. So he explodes and drags his wife around by the hair.So how does this behavior extend to mass murder? A later comment is haunting:
The Right Man feels that his rage is a storm which has to be allowed to blow itself out, no matter what damage it causes. But this means he is also the slave of an impulse he cannot control; his property, even the lives of those he loves, are at the mercy of his emotions.I'll just leave it at that; Wilson takes over 600 pages making his case that this kind of behavior is fairly common, readily provoked by certain recognizable situations, and becoming steadily more common and bizarre. These are not people who would normally be recognized as "mentally ill." They are hard working upstanding citizens and they do not consider themselves dangerous; often neither do their victims even after multiple outbursts.
We wouldn't have to repeal the Second Amendment - we could do just what the Patriot Act did to the First, Fourth and Sixth Amendments, which is to temporarily suspend them for the duration of the emergency.is it bad that I can't really tell which side you're on
Ms. Lanza was a gun owner, exercising her 2nd Amendment rights. As is often the case, the guns she presumably had for her own protection were used to kill her. That would be a sad irony usually, but in this case is a brutal tragedy because the guns were then used to murder an additional 26 innocent people.posted by zombieflanders at 4:40 PM on December 15, 2012 [32 favorites]
So, how about this proposal: You know how “pro-life” people always want women to “confront the reality of their choices” by showing them ultrasounds and pictures of fetuses? Well, maybe we could make it a requirement that people buying guns be forced to watch a slideshow of the crime scene pictures from Newtown (or Aurora or any of the thousands of other gun murders per year). Maybe that would drive home the reality of the choice gun owners are making by indulging their gunfighter fantasies.
posted by restless_nomad at 2:21 PM on December 14, 2012 [7 favorites]