The Newtown Massacre, and Political Agendas

The truly horrible Sandy Hill Elementary School massacre in Newtown, CT, is fast turning into a political vehicle for anti-gun forces, throwing the pro-gun crowd on the defensive.

A battle is being fought on the bodies 20 young children and 6 women school employees. (The media has put gunman Adam Lanza's mother, the first person he murdered, as she slept in their shared home, in a separate category as a less worthy victim.)

Immediately after the last “mass” shooting (just 2 killed actually) this time a genuinely mass one, on Friday, 12/14/12. Perhaps the media should stop inspiring these copycat massacres. We have seen this before, copycats attempting (or in this case, succeeding) in aping heavily-reported mass shootings.

The establishment media is really running the ball with this one. For five days running it's on the top of the front page of the NY Times, for example. Saturation coverage in multiple propaganda organs. Is it really that significant? Was the President of the United States assassinated? And the NYT has treated us to daily editorials demanding more gun control.

The BBC aped the U.S. media in obsessive coverage: “The story shaping the world,” was the intro to the broadcast 12/16. Later, as if giving an alibi for the saturation coverage, the announcer stated: “The shock value of this story has given it longevity.” Oh. [Apparently they weren't shocked when the 11-month old son of one of their own BBC employees, a Palestinian in Gaza, was killed in an Israeli air raid a few weeks ago. They waited days to give it more than cursory mention, and then dropped it. We could list many other examples of oddly “non shocking” atrocities that don't incite the BBC.]

And of course the media are pouring over scraps of info about the killer, a 20 year old named Adam Lanza, looking for clues and signs of weirdness. So far we have that he was a shy loner. (The media have treated us to a photo of him looking weird, eyes wide and unsmiling. Let us stipulate that he was “weird.”) The lack of many facts is no impediment to 24/7 repetitive “coverage.”

The direction the “debate” is going is to put anyone who's different under heightened scrutiny as a potential menace to society. Meanwhile it's obvious that the “liberal” segment of the U.S. media is gearing up for a push for tighter firearms and ammunition regulation.

So we'll have scapegoating of nonconformists and increased abuse and persecution of those perceived as different, as the likely result of mass shootings. How else to catch the Adam Lanza's of the world? He was not diagnosed as mentally ill (will any weirdness now constitute “mental illness”?) nor did he have a criminal record.

One obvious truth that the media can't seem to grasp is that people sometimes lose their minds. This is nothing new. People have been going mad for all of recorded history, and no doubt before that. The attitude that this is unusual is totally unrealistic, a denial of a longstanding truth.

And of course, in this case, the killer didn't even own guns. His mother did. Her guns were used to slay her and the 26 others. So what gun purchase restriction could have prevented this?

And even if assault weapons and large magazines are banned, no one would dare try to confiscate the millions of them already in private hands. Seems that the horse left the barn a long time ago.

But I do believe tightening controls could help. This time it looks like things might be different from the other mass shootings that got major attention.

One thing the “responsible” gun owners beloved of NRA propagandists need to be made to understand is that anyone can lose their minds. Including any of them. Just as anyone who is healthy can suddenly become physically ill. Mental illness is no different. It also strikes unpredictably at times. Not everyone who succumbs has a history of mental problems, no more than only people who are sickly get sick. It is not “the other.” It is one of us.

The reactionary propaganda orchestra is repeating the organized and orchestrated line they put out after the Representative Giffords massacre in Arizona: “this is not the time to discuss” gun control. So when is? After the story is old and people have “moved on”? Cynical bastards know that right after one of these shocking outrages is the ONLY time gun control would have any chance at all.

So for example immediately the Wall Street Journal editorial page swung into action, saying “There is time enough for that public debate and all the usual intellectual tensions put in motion by such discussions. But not at this moment.” (In the print edition the day after the massacre, referring not just to gun control but to treatment of and “protections from” mentally ill people, 12/15/12.)) And Murdoch's minions of course got the memo. On Fox “News,” one of the reliable resident reactionaries there, Neil Cavuto, a stablemember of the malign menagerie assembled by arch villain Roger Ailes, cut off Rudolph “Rudy” Giuliani (“America's Mayor!” the “9/11 Hero” himself!) when Giuliani started to make a peep about gun laws. “Now is not the time” Cavuto intoned. Giuliani obediently fell into line.

I do find the obsessive media-orchestrated national grieving somewhat unseemly, Just a few days after the Newtown massacre, ten Afghan girls aged 9 to 13 will killed in an explosion in Nangarhar province. That's just a filler item in the establishment media. (Go to Aljazeera for real coverage.) Like a storm in some distant land.

And the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has counted over 200 children killed in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen by the CIA and Joint Special Operating Command. That's ten times the number the U.S. And some foreign media are carrying on about endlessly who were killed in Newtown, CT. Ten darker skinned children for each Sandy Hill Elementary victim.

There are numerous atrocities by the U.S. military in Iraq, for example, that went unpunished. In Fallujah, for starters. It's too bad the U.S. media sweeps them under the rug, and the American people for the most part are willfully unaware of them, not to mention unmoved.

It's not that I put a higher or inferior value on any child. The U.S. media (and its accomplices like the BBC) are the ones doing that.

This is what we could call selective compassion.

To be sure, people always feel their own pain more acutely than others.

But why are the deaths of children we never knew, or the grief of their parents, who are strangers to us, something we “share”? It is a somewhat artificial empathy that is generated by having the tragedy shoved forcefully under our noses for days on end.

Whereas when scores of Palestinian children are killed by U.S. bombs dropped by U.S. Planes flown by Israeli pilots, that is like cockroaches being squashed. And no, that wasn't “self-defense” by Israel. Israel killed a 15 year old Palestinian boy. That prompted several days of rocket fire into Israel, which hit no one. Then the Palestinians declared a ceasefire. Two days later, the Israelis murdered the military commander of Hamas, who had been trying to negotiate with the Israelis! (No wonder the Israeli have “no one to negotiate with” and “no partner for peace.” They keep killing them. The Israelis don't want to have to agree to give up any territory- in fact they want more.) That in turn caused Hamas and the smaller, more radical groups to resume rocket fire, to which Israel responded with a bombing campaign and threats of invasion. The U.S. Media and other Western propaganda outlets (again, like the BBC) shameless obfuscated and flat out lied about it. NPR claimed, when the Israeli started their aerial bombing campaign, that it was in response to “four days of rocket fire” by the Palestinians, a flat lie. (If it wasn't a lie, than NPR is just a really incompetent, shitty news outfit.)

Then we come to Obama. Obama's contributions to gun control so far: he signed a law allowing concealed guns in national parks. And his DO”J” shelved rules that would have made background checks more effective. (Pure politician that he is, he would never do anything that could jeopardize his reelection.) And despite a 2008 law calling on federal agencies to share information about possible mental illness with the FBI database, it hasn't happened. The VA forwards data about benefit checks going to a trustee due to mental incompetence of the recipient. The Republicans, malign and destructive as always, are working to kill even that. They've introduced a bill called the “Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act.” [“Justice Dept.Shelved Ideas to Improve Gun Background Checks,” NY Times,12/16/12, p 1.]

Recall also that Obama did exactly zero after the Gabrielle Giffords massacre on the gun control front. Not so much as trying to ban large ammo magazines. Obama hasn't even enforced the requirement that prohibited buyers' names get entered into the Federal database by the states. Since the Virginia Tech massacre of six years ago, eight states haven't submitted any names to the database. [But I notice the Federal government has no trouble labeling hundreds of thousands of people as “terrorists” and prohibiting them from flying, among other things.]

But political jellyfish that he is, Obama is floating with the media-created tide and talking vaguely about doing something. Who knows, maybe he'll actually try to. More likely, he'll issue his usual earnest exhortations while leaving it to Congress to actually lead. Which is absurd. 535 leaders? Leading is supposed to be his job.

Meanwhile, the pro-gun zealots are laying low. NBC's Meet the Press invited all 31 pro-gun senators to come on the show the Sunday following the Friday massacre, and not one was willing to show up, the cowards.

However, the National “Rifle” Association did break its silence on Tuesday, 12/18, saying it “is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to make sure this never happens again.” It called this anodyne generality “an important statement.”

An ill-timed Michigan state law allowing pistol packers to carry them concealed into schools (!) and other public places landed on GOP Gov. Rick Snyder's desk. (That's the same dog that just double-crossed the people of his state, after pretending to be against “Right To Work” legislation, he and the GOP state legislature rammed it through.) Snyder felt compelled to veto it. So the handgunners (who already have carry permits) will have to openly display their guns when in public or on school grounds, (I'm not making this up.)

On the other hand, the very principled Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican apparatchik who as a U.S. Congressman was a criminal supporter of the contra terrorists, the Salvadorean state terrorists, and Oliver North (the American Otto Skorzeny) announced his intention to sign state legislation easing restrictions on toting guns around. “I think as we move forward, whatever we do, we don't want to erode the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens,” said he. Of course, Lanza the Newtown killer, Holmes, the Aurora, CO mass murderer, the Virginia tech rampager, the twin teen terrors of Columbine High in Colorado, and many other vicious lunatics were also law-abiding- until they weren't. (Colorado actually weakened gun restrictions after Columbine. Go figure.)

Yes, the U.S. Is mad, in a way. Other nations react to mass shooting with strict gun laws. Not the U.S. I guess the U.S. really is “exceptional.”

Just not in a good way.

"The Horror, The Horror..."

So soon after the last multiple slaying by firearm that received national media coverage (and my post about it) a much worse lethal tragedy has occurred.

The slaughter of young children in the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and 6 of their caretakers, is a terrible, heart-wrenching crime.

That said, there is more to understanding what is going on here then to merely mindlessly partake in the emotional sturm und drang that the media and government officials are leading the populace in, like manipulated sheep.

Not to be misunderstood, as a human being, I feel the awfulness of this event, and can well imagine the terrible pain being experienced by the parents of the 6 and 7 year olds who were gunned down by Adam Lanza, age 20 (when he killed himself as the police approached the school), who is being described as having developmental problems.

There is more to say about this than the endless handwringing and repetition of the same basic facts over and over by the media.

At the risk of being thought churlish, first the huge media coverage, day after day, strikes me as disproportionate. The President of the United States wasn't assassinated.

The crime occurred on Friday, December 14th. As of Monday, December 17, the media is still giving it saturation coverage. (Example: for three days running, the top of page one of the NY Times is dominated by the story, and several full pages inside are covering it.)

Another Day, Another Mass Shooting In America

This time, the usual white male asshole culprit did it in a mall in Oregon. Typically, he then offed himself in cowardly fashion to avoid being called to account for his viciousness. Apparently the tough guy can't handle opprobrium. He killed two, and wounded one. (Not counting himself.)

He was probably mad about gay marriage or marijuana smoking or something. These guys can't tolerate freedom for other people- they always feel freedom for others is oppressing themselves. Their “rebellion” is reactionary, not liberatory.

Instead of smearing the Post Office by calling it “going postal,” it should be called “going NRA.”

AND, with perfect timing, a three judge panel of the U.S. Appeals Court that covers Illinois (the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago) ruled 3-2 that Illinois' ban on concealed guns is unconstitutional. The opinion, overturning a lower court ruling, was written by right wing judge Richard Posner, and cited the recent Supreme Court decision on gun rights and self-defense. The panel gave the state 180 days to write a new law legalizing weapons. But not to worry. As the NRA likes to point out in their celebrations of such decisions this is for law abiding gun owners. So once one of them goes on a mass shooting spree, he'll lose his gun rights.

Mass shootings in America are pretty much accepted as routine now. Here are some recent ones:

October: a guy who can't handle rejection murders his ex-wife in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a spa. For good measure he murders two other women. (Making a statement about his feelings towards women, I suppose. So he exercised his First and Second Amendment rights all in one action! Like Certs- it's a breath mint and a candy mint.) Then he killed himself. (That way, he doesn't have to say he's sorry.)

August: white supremacist kills six at Sikh temple, also in a suburb of Milwaukee. Police have to finish the rabid dog off.

And two weeks before that, the Mad Gunman of Aurora, Colorado, invaded that movie theater showing the latest junk Batman movie, killing 12 and wounding 60. He's in custody.

Ho-hum. So boring.

Remember when mass shootings were exciting? Like Jared Loughner's attempt to assassinate Representative Gabby Giffords? And that Virginia Tech killer- the bodies really piled up that time!

And who could ever forget the Crazy Columbine Kids of Colorado? (Actually most people probably have.)

I think I'll buy myself a bullet resistant vest. Like the latest killer wore. (Along with a white mask.) And like the Aurora Avenger wore.

Thousands of Syrians Must Die So Hundreds Of Westerners May Live (Maybe)

That's the (unstated but obvious) logic behind the reason given by U.S. Government officials via the media for why shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons cannot be provided to the Syrians rebelling against the horrible dictatorship of the Assad gang. These weapons may fall into the hands of "extremists." And then, maybe, used to try to shoot down an airliner. Which involves three hypotheticals: 1) jihadists get the weapons, somehow, 2) use them to shoot at airliners full of white people, and 3) manage to shoot down an airliner.

Thus, the hypothetical possibility of a few hundred Westerners getting killed is reason to consign thousands of Syrians to death due to the aerial bombardments and resulting military advantage of the Assad regime.

Recall that there is one known jihadist attempt to shoot down a "Western" airliner with such a weapon. It was fired at an El Al jet taking off in Africa. It missed.

Of course, the U.S. is a nation that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to spare its soldiers lives. So why not let more Syrians die to avoid any risk at all to a few hundred Westerners?

But now the rebels have obtained anti-aircraft weapons from Assad's captured arsenals, and are using them. So it's time for the hand wringing to begin about jihadists getting those weapons too!

Morsi Overreaches: Western Media Piles On: What He Should Have Done

The Western media has been beating up on Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi for a week or so now, ever since he trumped Mubarak's judiciary and chief prosecutor by assigning to himself the right to ignore the judges' decrees and free himself from their vetoes of his decisions. He announced that this was a temporary, 2-month measure until the Constitutional Assembly wrote a new constitution. He also fired Mubarak's prosecutor. (A long-overdue measure.)

The Western media has painted him as a dictator as a result. (Funny, they never complained about the dictator Mubarak for 30 years.) The real beef is that Morsi heads the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is not considered reliable stooge material for Western imperialism.

Every day, Western media puts on Morsi's critics- but never his supporters. This includes "quality" media like NPR and BBC. Their bias and lack of balance is quite blatant. I'm not taking Morsi's side; I just think that if BBC, NPR, NY Times and their ilk are going to call themselves journalists, they should practice journalism, not state propaganda designed to advance the agendas of their respective governments. Might as well just be openly government propaganda.

The BBC night after night fills its airwaves with critics of Morsi and their on air hacks pile on, hour after hour.

NPR on 11/30 reported that the non-Muslim Brotherhood members of the Constitution-writing body were not present- ignoring that they volumtarily walked out.

On 12/1 NPR said they walked out "because they said their rights were violated." No explanation of what "rights" were "violated." Obviously they just don't like being a minority that is outvoted. But that's democracy, right?

"Democracy" to a Western imperialist means "who we want, wins." See Nicaragua, whose election results were rejected by the U.S. bloc until one produced a Sandinista defeat. Or Palestine, where the victory of Hamas is considered invalid. The U.S. even egged on the Palestinian "Authority" to start a civil war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which the P.A. lost. (Nowadays the media conveniently ignore the facts and claim Hamas "kicked out" the P.A. True, technically, but highly misleading.) Not that I'm pro-Hamas, mind you. As an atheist, I have no affinity for religious zealots of any stripe. (Including Christian and Jewish ones too.)

Morsi should have simply called the regular assembly back into session- the elected parliament that Mubarak's judges disbanded. And called the Mubarak judiciary's bluff on that.