What a coherent summary of the gun evolution in our society. I’m in my early 70’s and grew up at a time when girls had dolls and boys had toy guns. We watched Davy Crockett and Gunsmoke, wore coonskin caps and advanced to BB and pellet guns. I joined the NRA while still in my teens and served both in the military and later the FBI.
Somehow, despite all this I must have had a different belief system; as I haven’t owned a firearm in decades, despise the NRA and am both embarrassed and afraid of what the gun lobby has instilled in our Country. Assault weapons in private hands? Lack of background checks? Little or no comprehensive gun registration or regulation? What a tragic situation which Americans overwhelmingly want corrected yet lobbyists and self serving politicians continue to block. It sickens me and I will do my best to support Gabby Gifford and others in their efforts. Thanks HCR for presenting this and keeping the dialogue going. We are better than this and deserve better from our elected officials.
Frank, I was the one playing with cap guns as a kid and addicted to Bonanza (I had dolls too but they were largely ornamental--but never ask what girls did with their Barbies . . .) but by the time I was 10, the fact that the world was erupting in violence against Black people convinced me that guns were a poor toy (except water pistols when dealing with bad cat behavior) when what we really need is more love, peace, tolerance, and acceptance. So I put away my childish things (not the Barbies though, for a time--don't ask what we girls did with them!) and became an activist for peace. And the NRA, as HCR has pointed out in previous letters, went all-in for gun control because the Black Panthers were arming themselves in order to patrol Black neighborhoods and save Black people.
I would like to point out that the "every person should have a gun" mantra of the NRA and the Gormless Obstructionist Party does not extend to BIPOC. Indeed, supposedly Mr. Wright had an outstanding warrant--the cops had to search long and hard to find it to justify the traffic stop--because he had an "illegal" gun. If he had been white we know he would not have been stopped at all; if he had been white his ownership of a gun would probably not have been questioned and certainly not charged even if he would have been told to register it.
The NRA wants white people to have guns. Gee, I wonder what will happen to the NRA should a whole bunch of Black and Brown people start sporting firearms, especially in those states where open carry is legal, and declare their right to bear arms?
Linda, I am seeing more and more POC with a hand gun strapped to their waist, we are an open carry state, and I love it. Unfortunately, I see more and more white people carrying. It is a bit of a shock to see a weapon in WalMart or the grocery store.l
I understand your feeling, and action, but I think it is rather humorous. What are they so afraid of they must carry a weapon? My observation is that when the urgency of a situation is such that a gun is called for, they would probably shoot themselves.
A friend of my husband's (whose East Coast liberal Jewish upbringing rubbed off after he moved to WA state) who can't decide if he's a wannabe Pirate (of the Caribbean) or a wannabe Mountain Man, once shot his own foot when the pistol he was carrying "concealed" in his pocket fell out of a hole in said pocket. He was in a mall at the time and he's lucky that all that happened was that he got a stiff fine and a trip to the ER. If I'd been in that mall, I'd have screamed bloody murder and tried to get all the parents with small children together for some kind of class action suit. What a dickhead! (You notice I said he's my husband's friend? I can't stand to be around the guy for more than a few minutes, but they've been black powder target shooting and folk music buddies for a long time, so I just butt out.)
My former state representative dropped his handgun on the floor of the statehouse one day, but it didn't discharge and he didn't suffer any consequences (open carry). He did later go to jail, but that was for using a computer to lure a 14 year old (yup, he knew she was 14) for sex and drugs.
Won’t be long now. At least from what I’m reading and hearing. Perhaps, just perhaps, with the Chauvin verdict especially, we might be headed for at least four years of social improvement. So maybe civil war won’t start until there’s a new President.
I agree. More guns mean more deaths, and children pay a heavy price. My point was 'sauce for the goose - - - - - - '. I would think the NRA and other gun nuts hate the idea of black people carrying.
I occasionally got Ken & Barbie naked and then laid him on top of her in their bed. I knew NOTHING about what that meant, but somehow absorbed the idea from my parents (who were very conservative about this subject) who slept in the same bed, or, I don't know why.
No! You're kidding, right? If not, I appreciate your honesty. You must be of very good character. Thank goodness your folks weren't too conservative to consider having children!
I think I had a vague idea (having some better informed friends with whom I "played Barbies") that Ken was missing something essential, but I too did the K&B naked play. I wonder if my lesbian sisters experimented with Barbie and Barbie? (I know there were other names, but I thought Barbies were pretty boring, as I spent my free time either indoors reading or outside playing Cowboys and Indians with the boys and other tomboys. We didn't play with toy guns as much as we just rode our "horses" all over the arroyo and brush covered hill behind our houses exploring.
David, as much more of a “free range kid” than seems to happen today, I also look back and shudder at what my parents never knew we were up to. Nothing evil, just often a bit risky. Imitation of famous rock climbers...
Or how about this in an urban setting: Pittsburgh PA, wet snow coming down hard, school closed, parents at work, me and my buddy Paul (we were 7 and 8 respectively) on a small hill about 15 feet above Fair Oaks Street chucking big juicy snowballs at passing cars. We smacked two on the side and windshield of a plumber's van, so he stopped in the middle of traffic, went to the back of the van and opened it, and before we could decide which way to run he had hurled a decrepit wooden toilet seat at us which sailed about a foot over our heads and into the bushes behind us. He also shouted something at us we were too young to understand before he drove off.
I was more the quiet nerd kid in the basement and my mom had no idea. I did experiments that were set up for batteries (which I couldn't afford) so I used house current. It worked - even the salt going into the water would sizzle as it ionized. Made a carbon arc lite out of 2 graphite pencils hooked to 110 current. (had thick rubber gloves and welder goggles.) I even captured and mounted a black widow spider in my bug collection.
Bonanza, like much of Hollywood, was actually pushing many progressive ideas at the time such as racial equality and justice for all people: Indians, Blacks, Irish, Chinese, religious zealots, etc
Malcom X wanted oppressed people to have guns and btw, the NFAC exists for this purpose, too.
Thank you. I suppose I could have done that myself, but your link inspired me to read about Victor Sen Yung. Quite an exciting life. And an interesting intersection with our current world situation is that his mother died in the 1919 pandemic.
Frank, we need people such as yourself who know guns to lead very public lobbying for gun control, including specific language that fits the actual mechanics of the damn things.
I was astounded to see on PBS News Hour last night that 16 states have no restrictions on gun ownership. That is, you can own a gun without a permit, a background check or having it registered. Sixteen! Silly me, I thought all states had at least SOME form of, if not control, at least a data base of who is a gun owner. Of course I've heard the arguments against registration- "Then the gubmit will be able to just come to your door and take your guns."
When I was into my gun collecting days in Maryland 1966, I got many of them at a quaint little gun shop in Glen Burnie, then the others from Montgomery Ward in Odenton. I don’t recall any waiting period, just paid cash and went out with the rifle or pistol.
Rob, looks like you and I are 'of an age', as they say. Wasn't it in the Nixon years that the Saturday night special became a thing? That was my first awareness of any of the gun control stuff. At the time, in NC, you could have your gun on the seat or somewhere in plain sight without a problem, you just couldn't conceal it. Not sure about permitting. I'm sure the rural boys were still driving their pick ups with the gun racks and their hunting rifles. Someone mentioned the Black Panthers as a catalyst for gun control, but I think that was the late '60s - '68-'69, if memory serves. (But then, 'if you remember the sixties, you weren't there' 😉😊). Both were long before the NRA changed, and turned the Second Amendment into one of the Ten Commandments.
I grew up in a small town in Oregon; the neighborhood I grew up in had two phases of growing up. The first was with Sting-Ray bicycles and adapting them (we made choppers with them; this phase lasted through about the 4th grade.) The second phase was a combination of sports and GI Joes. There was a family that moved in down the street (who happened to be cousins of my best friend in school) that was a blended family with 8 boys and one girl. I hung with the boys; we ended up doing things like sewing tents, sleeping bags, and parachutes for the GI Joe's (My folks wouldn't get me a GI Joe, but I had an "action figure" that was a frontiersman, Bill Buck. But I digress) When we got a bit older, it was sports (football, basketball, and baseball) and hunter safety classes.
Their Dad (Mr. Thomas, always and forever) was adamant that until they were 12, none of the boys ever fired a rifle. Then, it was only after hunter safety that they were allowed to shoot, and then, only out in the woods. My Dad (I am sure) had a conversation with Mr. Thomas (both were Veterans, my Dad WWII, and Mr. Thomas (Korea) about me going with them. I went exactly once, and because I hadn't completed hunter safety, I didn't shoot.
Turns out that 3 of the 8 boys became avid hunters, and only one joined the military. I became a cop.
Ally, I will be in OR in about 10 days (Portland and Albany). Email me at puppyheadcate@gmail.com if you have coffee or birdwatching ideas? Or a chance to hear you play the tuba ;)
Sadly, no performances will be in evidence, unless we choose to have an outdoor park rehearsal (rain in the forecast makes this very unlikely). I will keep you posted.
I really hope this is OK on this site. This is from the One More Time Marching Band, stand video of the sousaphones. Loony Tunes is our "signature song" and what we end every performance with. We had for years a clarinet player that would play a descending chromatic line that sounded a lot light cartoon laughter. When he had to stop playing (at age 89; he was a WWII veteran who jumped into Normandy) I went low where he went high.
Same childhood era....but it did not make us gun owners.....feels like a suspension of logic in so many fronts.....eg. machine guns of any sort are for recreation?
My experience is similar, Frank. Although I still own a pair of shotguns thinking that I might to a little more bird and waterfowl hunting. I passed my last hunting rifle along to a son-in-law more likely to use if for hunting than I am these days. I too was a former NRA member and ask the very same questions that you raise above. I love these HCR pieces and every day I read deeper into the comments and find myself more buoyed up to discover the existence of so many clear thinking folks who are able to sort through these issues cerebrally. Many years ago, when I was 6-8 years old, my grandfather told me that 'your rights go as far as your neighbours nose'. It took me a long time to understand what that meant, but nowadays I don't see how we can have a society without people understanding the principle and coming to grips with the fact that noses in the USA are a lot closer than they used to be.
This is an excellent summary of the cultural magnet holding the pieces of obstruction together.
I honestly believe that these men want so badly to have an enemy to fight. Their sense of masculinity is inextricably bound to movies where the rugged, masculine, white hero faces down evil with firearms.
As you so deftly made clear here, it goes far beyond a gun crisis. We have a crisis of masculinity in this country. Tens of millions of grown men--to say nothing of boys--who have been conditioned to believe that their only worth as men comes from violently defending their families, their homes, or themselves against a vague evil that so often takes shape in the form of their worst bigotries.
I think the crisis is more that we have generations of male adolescents who are are having great difficulty in achieving adulthood and as with many other subjects, we have significantly deformed the meaning of the term "Masculine Adulthood" to avoid having to deal with the initial psychological problem. It is then society as a whole and women.....and other "menacing" groups in particular that pay for price for this "laziness" and distinct lack of political courage.
'incels', I had to look the word up and not absolutely sure I understand them, except, Lordy, another hate group. Let's not count the ways! Great to see you here. I've been busier than usual, so haven't looked to find you until tonight. That will be true this week, too. The Letter today was the most difficult for me to tie down. It jumped around. I needed longer narrative to connect the dots. Others had no trouble, and I read it four times. GOOD V!ERDICT! HR. 1 next!
Several years ago, immediately following a mass killing, a gun-control group re-published an ad from a gun magazine pitching a semi-automatic assault rifle. In large print over a photograph of the kind of weapon that had just been used to murder a group of innocents, the ad shouted, "Consider your man card re-issued."
In think you're right. I had a great friend, a very smart and well-read college drop-out musician, actor, auto-didact sort of guy who was always defending himself and his family against some "vague evil", but at the same time he was rational enough to admit that he was "ill" and "not a happy camper" and he would usually apologize after some offensive bigoted outburst and used to try to make up for bad behavior with extravagant generosity, always picking up the tab, that sort of thing. We could discuss anything - I thought - but then one day he sent me an apologetic email telling me he could no longer be my friend because he thought his 2 boys might hear our endless discussions and get some wrong political ideas from me, that I was somehow a danger to them, and should neither answer his email or attempt to get in touch with his wife or kids. So I honored his wishes and never saw or heard from him again, but I think he was a clear case of "insecurity in manhood", caused perhaps by psychological abuse by his father when he was a child and preferred playing the piano and reading Tolstoy to helping his macho dad with the family excavation business. He died 4 or 5 years after our parting of the ways. It's really dispiriting how many loose ends never get tied up if you live long enough.
I had a similar but slightly different experience re-connecting for a short time with a childhood friend who had in his adult years become Fundamentalist. He pretty much said exactly the same things about what my influence might do. It's really an unspoken admission on their part that they know they're wrong, that they know their arguments and beliefs can't withstand independent objective discussion and analysis.
As I read the part about him not wanting you to get in touch with him, his wife, or his kids, I had the fear that the rest of the story was going to be him murdering his family and then turning the weapon on himself. I wonder how his widow and children are faring now?
Think about this: the reason what you say, Charlotte, is true is that millions of men were sent off to WWII, VietNam, et al. and came back to the U.S. completely traumatized by warfare. How many of these veterans came back and sat around the campfire to tell us tales of bravery & nobility? None, you say? Because maybe it was inexpressibly horrific and therefore could not be resolved. My friend is writing her PhD thesis on the idea that this unresolved trauma IS expressed in the movies Hollywood made post-wars and the men who were the tortured heroes and how Westerns were popular because it showed the lone man succeeding in a world of chaos. It's another piece of this very complex puzzle we find ourselves trying to solve.
If you want to do a historical analysis, most of modern America is the result of unresolved post-Civil War PTSD. Something like 2/3 of the men in America went off to that. PTSD after that war was known as "reverie." But if you look at history, before the civil war, temperance and other similar social crusades are either non-existant or tiny. But after the war, when these guys are self-medicating with drinking and their wives and children are experiencing the effects of that, suddenly Temperance becomes a movement. They don't know anything about what's making these guys the way they are other than their drinking, no understanding of what's driving the drinking, so they concentrate on stopping the drinking.
Also, as is now well-known, the social ills that come with PTSD, the family violence, the abuse, the addictions, if left untreated are passed into the next generations, who simply see all that as 'the way things are" because they were raised with it, and then it passes down and passes down.
Being an historian, a veteran, and also coming from a family defined by this and knowledgeable of its past history - who was who and what did they do - I can confirm this in the family. We actually have a missing generation as a result. Most people my age, if they have Civil War ancestors, they are great-great-grandfathers. Mine are great-grandfathers. Of the four great-grandfathers, three were teenagers when they went off. One - my paternal/paternal great-grandfather - was captured at Cold Harbor and spent a year in Libby Prison as a POW, a pretty awful fate that most didn't survive; he came home and from what I can determine "went missing" in his family, despite marrying and having a son. My maternal/paternal great grandfather spent his 16th birthday in the Battle of Gettysburg and then in combat through the rest of the campaign in Northern Virginia, which was the bloodiest fighting ever seen before the trenches of the Western Front. His daughter married the first one's son, and their son was my father.
The paternal/maternal great grandfather went off to the war when he ran away from home at 14 and became the youngest drummer boy in Sherman's March to the Sea, an event as bloody and awful as rumor has it that it was. After the war, drenched in blood and a severe alcoholic by 16, he went west where he became a "buffalo hunter" (i.e., buffalo destroyer for the railroad) and indian fighter. I have a photo of him, circa 1878 when he was 28 and even with 19th century photography one can see the spider veins in his nose. He married, had nine children, and I have photos of the family in later years where he's the center of the photograph and everyone around him has the look in their eyes of being in the presence of a ticking timebomb. His third son - who became my grandfather and a person I was always somewhat afraid of without knowing why, married the daughter of the one of the four great-grandfathers who went to war but didn't directly experience combat that I have been able to discover, though he was on Sherman's staff. from these two came my mother - the enemy of my life; it took me into my late 30s to finally understand that her idea of "motherhood" had nothing to do with the word, and everything to do with being the daughter raised in violence. Her mother, also a victim, was the one adult in my family with whom I got along and from whom I got much. My father was withdrawn, as was his father who I never met, like his father, though he did without knowing it put some good things out, though we only became friends in the final 15 years of his life. Of we three children, I was the one who resisted and got the hell out at the first opportunity. My brother and sister never had a chance; he died of drugs and alcohol and she's killing herself with valium.
I don't present this as Woe is Me or Ain't I Great. I do point out that I know a helluva lot of people my age who can tell similar stories without perhaps all the historical fact about how and why. But the historical record is there that things were not like this before the Civil War. It took mass violence, untreated, followed by mass violence in the lives of the children of that (World War I) and mass violence in the lives of their children (World War II) - all untreated because they didn't know what it was. It was only with the mass violence my generation faced (Vietnam), that PTSD and some form of treatment came to be recognized.
You have all of that festering over the generations, recreating itself, and the only thing that surprises me is that things aren't worse today.
TC, as you say, war is hell and unresolved intergenerational trauma does not get enough recognition as a multi-faceted issue to address. The Civil War is a matter of scale. Mass violence is a nearly universal phenomenon historically and worldwide, in some ways seemingly having been necessary for survival (from the POV of the victors or rescued), and puzzling that things are not worse. The lasting effects take a long time to become recognized, and they touch on tender spots. Nonwoefully, thank you for telling your story.
My response to that is and always has been that we (the citizens of the world) need to find a different way to deal with conflict. War is not now, never has been, and never will be the answer to any question. I know that there are women who will support war-making, but I hope that the majority of us abhor the idea and will always feel in the deepest part of our being that it is wrong. Because of a combination of genetic wiring and conditioning, it has historically been easier for men to take that path, but I hope that as more and more women enter politics and are not trying to emulate men, but have more humane, women-centered agendas, that war will eventually be considered the heinous crime to all involved that it is, always has been, always will be until we eradicate it completely.
Growing up, I always argued that my male classmates were unfairly being drafted to serve in Vietnam - that we all should be subject to the draft. This was not because I wanted to go to war, nor because I thought we should be in VN, but because it was so patently, obviously, indisputably unfair that they were threatened with that horror and we were "protected" against it. Now that there are so many women in the military, it is clear that we didn't need that protection; however, now we have traumatized women coming back from war along with the men. We humans need to end this lunacy!
My husband is convinced that our entire country is dealing with the unresolved trauma of 9/11. I agree with him and find myself still caught up in the horror and grief of that day whenever the calendar rolls around to it. This year is the 20th anniversary and I am not eager for its approach.
More on the subject of toxic masculinity - please, please read No Visible Bruises by Rachel Louise Snyder. This, in my opinion, should be required reading.
As an immigrant, I have never understood the American love of the Second Amendment -- to me, it represents the worship of a weapon of war and of death.
I remember in 2000 when The National Rifle Association's president, Charlton Heston, holding a rifle, said that if the government ever tried to take away his gun they would have to wrench it from his "cold, dead hands." That sent shivers down my spine! To this day, when I think of it, I cringe! It was and is an ugly, distorted image of a man willing to die for a weapon of death -- one that should not be sold to any human being in times of peace.
In 1964, I was a military advisor in a Vietnamese Infantry unit. At the time I had never witnessed a violent death up close. But I was a true lover of those TV cowboy shows. I actually thought, in those days, that most bullet wounds were survivable. One day, in Vietnam, one of our soldiers was shot in the stomach. We carried him for three anguishing hours before he died. I remember being surprised and thought he was just unlucky. Later that year, I saw so many bullet deaths, my mind has been forever changed, and that was before the AR-15/M-16. We are a really, really stupid country. I am not hopeful that it will all change for the better.
Bless you, sir. I am moved by your recollection and understanding of it. I am only 73 and I feel that our national road has been darker than it was for long time now. With the civil rights legislation, provision of the Great Society and the aftermath of Vietnam it really did seem brighter for awhile. Let us hope that the tide is turning. I send best wishes to you through the invisible string that binds all who are able to hope for better.
Don, I am so sorry that you had to witness that horror - I'm sorry that anyone has had, continues to have to - but thank you for writing about it here. Those who have not served need to know the trauma their compliance in supporting wars has on those who survive to come home.
I feel the same way. I don’t understand it at all. To me the Western and guns seem so outdated. Those who believe that we live in that type of world seem delusional to me. I can see being able to keep the delusion alive if I were to live in Montana or South Dakota but most of the country is very populated. I also do not understand how something as dangerous as a gun is not seen as a potential health hazard. Just having a gun around opens up a Pandora’s box of bad possibilities. I just don't get it.
My friend is writing her PhD thesis on the correlation between men who have returned from VietNam and WWII having been traumatized but get no relief back home. They can't resolve their trauma and how the movie industry is reflecting that unresolved trauma in their depiction of cowboys and other heroes like Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life."
My dad was a WWII vet, dropped on Normandy early on the morning of D-Day, as a pathfinder, to lay out communications ahead of the invasion. He was in the 101st airborne, a paratrooper. He was shot by friendly fire and ended up a POW in a German "hospital" until allied troops freed him. I am certain he suffered from PTSD his entire life, because he had nightmares from time to time, always about the war. But there was NEVER a gun in our home. None of my siblings nor I have ever owned a gun. None of the grands do either. I have been "taught" by a young friend to shoot his BB gun and I was "taught" by a professional gun instructor how to shoot a pistol for the purpose of pretending I was shooting it in a stage play. Neither of those experiences gave me any desire to ever shoot again, much less own a gun. Needless to say, I do not "get" this love affair with guns that so many have in this country.
I, too, had to learn to to handle a gun for a play. My character disassembled, cleaned, reassembled, and loaded a revolver - and later fired it backstage. It was a very grim play that ended in suicide. I didn't like guns much before doing that play; I now have a visceral hatred of them.
I hope your friend can talk to vets & get them to share their "bad" stories. My dad was a WWII ball turret gunner. I didn't know that until 2000! He never talked about it. He was recalled for Korea & stayed in the AF for 20+ years. He retired when they started sending B52's to Guam for bombing Viet Nam. He said that 2 wars was enough.
I went to a community college with a lot of VN vets & they only opened up when they had been drinking. My husband & his buddy only shared the funny boot camp & base camp stories. Spouse was still having nightmares when we got together- 3 years after he was back.
I always felt that I was a chickenshit for feeling this way, but I refused to date vets. Friendship? Great! A relationship? No, thank you. I knew I couldn't handle living that close to someone who had that in his brain. Relationships with men of my generation was problematic enough without the added stress of being a supportive mate to someone who is so damaged by the choice our government made to send boys and young men (and many women in non-combat roles) to interfere in a place we had no right to mess with because of a stupid fear of the spread of "communism".
Our national discourses on gun ownership are so skewed and distorted, it's difficult to enter into them. Almost 50 years ago, I wrote my senior thesis on cross cultural murder patterns. The murder pattern in the U.S. was dominantly of people being murdered by people who knew them, not being murdered at random or by strangers. Mass murders in recent decades have put a dent in those statistics, no doubt, but people in the U.S. are still far more likely to be murdered by someone who they know. For women, this is most often, by their intimate (male) partner. The idea of gun ownership for personal protection appeared to be more of a myth than a reality. I did find one statistic that has stayed with me for the rest of my life--an armed home owner who attempts to stop an armed criminal in their house is six times more likely to be killed than an unarmed householder. Gun ownership leads to more murders. All I have written so far in this reply is about ownership of guns, like rifles and hand guns, which is what U.S. homeowners owned in the 60's and early '70's. The automatic weapons that have proliferated in recent decades have the sole purpose of killing many people quickly. They are weapons of war, developed by the military. How they ever became legal is a crime against the people.
“The automatic weapons ... How they became legal...”
The weapons you are likely referring to are actually not automatic. They are semi-automatic. Automatic weapons have been illegal for non-military use since 1934.
Picky, picky.
A large capacity magazine in a semi-automatic weapon does facilitate killing lots of people without reloading.
The idiot in Dayton OH that killed 7-9 people including his own sister before he was shot by quick thinking and very brave police as he was about to enter a bar that was packed with people had a drum magazine attached to his rifle that could hold 100 rounds, that meant he could have fired 100 times without reloading. I am a gun owner and a hunter as well as a former competitive shooter, the most any deer rifle I’ve ever owned would hold was 5 rounds and I have never used more than 3. The best elephant rifles held 2 rounds, if that wasn’t enough you’d be dead anyway. Rifles are for hunting game big and small 5 rounds are more than I have ever needed in a lifetime of hunting and competitive shooting. Large capacity magazines, be they 10 or 100, are useful only for killing people and have no use outside of the military. They should be banned and there should be a bounty offered for people that have them to turn them in. I say this as a former Green Beret 60’s era weapons specialist and combat veteran.
I agree. I suppose if progress on this issue is destined to be slow and incremental, 100-round drum magazines is as good a place as any to start getting it done.
In case anyone is wondering.... Semi-automatic means you must pull the trigger once for each shot; there is no need to do anything but aim and pull the trigger, one bullet for each victim if you have your wits about you. Luckily, mass-murderers often do not have their wits about them, or the death tolls would be even higher. Some of the most popular mass-murder weapons are semi-automatic rifles based on the M-16, an automatic rifle introduced by the US military in 1964 for jungle warfare (as in Vietnam), which became the basic infantryman's weapon in 1969. It is designed for the rapid killing of human beings, nothing else.
As I recall, it had a 20-round clip (though we were instructed to only put in 19 bullets to avoid jamming) and could fire off all 20 - or 19 - in just a couple of seconds if we held the trigger down., This meant that if you (I use the impersonal "you" because I was never in any sort of combat anywhere) were in close combat so intense there was not time to raise the weapon and aim it, you could switch it to automatic - "click!" and shoot from the hip into a group of enemy soldiers. If you actually needed to do that, it often meant the situation was so dire that your own death was imminent, because the enemy was likely doing the exact same thing with their AK-47s or whatever. Another problem is that an M-16 with an empty clip is pretty useless until you remove the empty one and insert a new one and then, if I remember correctly, cock the weapon by grabbing a gizmo and pulling it toward you and then pushing it back and resuming shooting. Ya gotta be really quick.
My point is that in a supermarket or at a former workplace having an automatic weapon gives no particular advantage over having a semi-automatic unless the place is really crowded. A shooter taking his time and firing one shot at a time strikes me as a more dangerous mass-murderer than one blasting away for a couple of seconds on automatic, but as my only actual experience with any of this was two summer months of basic training in the US Army at Fort Leonard Wood MO (Fort Lost in the Woods!) in 1972, I cannot say for sure. I remember that we spent many long hours at a variety of firing ranges out in the middle of hot, humid, mosquitoey nowhere, standing, kneeling, lying down or standing in a foxhole shooting at roughly human-torso sized targets that popped up and down at various ranges. I was a terrible shot (I blame it on the sweat always running down over my army-issue glasses. Sure, that must have been it!) and had to try several times before achieving a minimal level of proficiency (marksman), though I did raise eyebrows by knocking down all my targets at "night fire" when we were shooting tracers at invisible pop-up targets with little lights flashing on and off . The best shot in our training company - a few yards to my left - missed all his targets. Hmmm, I wonder why?
Anyway, bottom line, anyone who breathes a sigh of relief that at least truly automatic rifles are illegal (or anyone else who whines about how hard it is to organize a decent MAGA militia without automatics) has never experienced the seductive feeling of power shooting an M-16 set on "semi". For what it's worth, I have never so much as held a gun in my hand since 1972.
Ah, yes, Ft. Leonard Wood. I did my basic there in 1966. We were using M-14's (semi-automatic, single shot) at that point and had M-14s overseas as well. I enjoyed the target shooting in basic and fired expert. But I never wanted to own a weapon after my four years in the army. Enough was enough.
Fortunately, I didn't have to shoot anyone. And I didn't get shot. But, as you know, the army can call up any soldier for line duty at any time. Some of my friends are still having trouble from their actions and their injuries.
Thanks Ellie, that's what Drill Sergeant Jordan told on us the first day of Basic Training, and he meant it. While I can now safely call the M-16 a gun (after all, a rifle is a type of gun), I'm sure my tendency to call it a weapon shows how effective the Army's indoctrination of young soldiers can be, and was in my case.
There are two reasons why I like Letters from an American so much. Heather Cox Richardson is brilliant in being able to combine history and current affairs into a narrative that is compelling and of the moment, and the people who comment add many individual insights that also add a lot to the original idea. Great reading all around!
I agree with you wholeheartedly, Linda, and over the past several months I have become an HCR addict. But I wish there were people on the other end of the political spectrum reading the Letter from an American, making comments, responding and really thinking about a lot of things most of us here take for granted. Even the middle seems hardly to exist anymore.
Is there a rightwing equivalent anyone might recommend? I sometimes feel I am failing to live up to a civic duty to at least consider the other side's points of view, but I cannot stomach FOX news, even now.
I was addicted from the first of her newsletters that I read. On a lot of stuff I don't know that the other side has a substantive point of view. But if/when she ever writes about immigration, look for my responses. I have absolutely no antipathy towards immigrants. But the flood of low/no-skilled immigrants over the last 40-plus years has resulted in low/no-skilled Americans going from earning a decent middle class living to living in the gutter, and from the environmental point of view our country has four times what would be a sustainable population. We are the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita resource use and greenhouse emissions, and thus, the worst place on the planet to put more people.
During the Clinton Admin, the late Barbara Jordan ran a commission on immigration reform. Her recommendations: cut immigration roughly in half (at this point I'd cut immigration down to around 250,000 annually rather than 550k), and strict enforcement of immigration laws--among other things, to make sure African Americans would be able to get jobs. And back then, a lot of Democrats thought similarly. Alas, she died soon after she filed her report, and her recommendations were never acted upon. Had they been acted upon, I doubt the former guy would have gained the White House.
Hi David. I appreciate your comment and have noticed before that immigration is your issue, so to speak, and that a number of other commentators have taken issue with your take on it. I think it is a difficult problem that I should understand better than I do, so I am not inclined - now - to either agree or disagree with you that there may be a causal relationship between high numbers of immigrants and the decline of the American middle class. I suspect this is more complex than "reduce immigration = bring back the middle class" but I am willing to hear you out and discuss this with you at length in the future. But where I am (Italy) it will soon be midnight, I have just heard the "guilty" verdict from the Chauvin trial in Minneapolis and I need to get some sleep.
I agree Barbara Jordan's untimely death was a big loss to our country, but I guess I am more interested in what may happen tomorrow than running "if only" scenarios about the recent past. In any case, we should never have elected Trump, and the big problems he embodies are not going away any time soon, I'm afraid.
We'll have more chances to exchange views on this and all the rest.
David, here's a succinct article which should help you understand the fate of America's formerly middle class low/no-skilled workers. It's really quite simple. The point about mentioning Jordan was more to say that much of the Democratic Party was not so long on the other side of this issue, and I would add that just now, Biden's approval rating for handling immigration is the worst of any issue, in the negatives, and if we (Democrats) persist in pushing for more rather than less immigration, we risk losing Capitol Hill in the midterms and the White House in '24.
If you're on vacation, enjoy the hell out of Italy!
I just heard the guilty verdict myself. It's so nice to get some good news!
I just listened to the phone call between POTUS, V-POTUS, FLOTUS, and the family of George Floyd (Twitter link on the Guardian website). The news is good, but I'm crying for all the families who did not receive that measure of justice. Tears of happiness mixed with profound sadness.
Me too, Lanita. Lots of tears, both of relief after the verdict and of grief—for lives lost and for the tragedy of the systemic racism that continues. Be sure to hydrate.
David, immigration is certainly a complicated issue. First of all, if we had a civilized foreign aid policy, there wouldn't be so many immigrants from Mexico and Central American countries. When the U.S. supports dictators and foreign aid means supplying munitions to them, we can expect hordes of refugees coming from those repressed countries. As I recall, Bush Jr. wanted to open up the borders and allow workers to come north. (Repubs. always want cheap labor.) Of course, he's rich, and the immigrants won't affect his standard of living. Also, Hillary as SoS supported the oppressive dictator in Guatemala (overthrowing a democracy if I remember correctly).
Ref. the number of refugees/immigrants coming to the U.S., yes, the number of them does affect and lower wages for local workers. I saw such a case directly many years ago. I was an adolescent in 1962 and went with a friend to visit Miami. We had hoped to get jobs for the summer but to no avail. We spoke with some local laborers about the job situation there. We were told that large groups of Cubans were fleeing Cuba and came to the U.S., Miami specifically. The minimum wage then was $1.25 an hour as I recall. Many of the minimum wage jobs were filled by Black Americans. The Cubans came into Miami and worked for half the minimum wage (about 62 cents an hour). Employers were happy because it increased their profits. Black Americans were not so happy because they lost their jobs. Black Americans and Cubans developed an enmity between them over the issue, and it may continue to this day. Capitalists do tend to pit one group against another. Their objective is to get the highest profit possible and pay the lowest amount possible in expenses. That's the nature of the beast.
Hi David. Can you clarify or expound on the “ strict enforcement of immigration laws--among other things, to make sure African Americans would be able to get jobs.” part for me. Are you saying that the jobs immigrants take are jobs that should go only to African Americans? Im having trouble with what this “sounds” like.
Also, if we didn’t have immigrants, particularly from South of the Border, many of the foods we eat and services we enjoy would be unaffordable to the average American. Politicians always talk tough when running for office only to look the other way after elections. IM0, they don’t want to lose donations from businesses that benefit from cheap labor.
Work visas should be a welcomed thing. I’m not sure what the best solution is so it’s good that I’m not in charge!
Hi Evelyn. Barbara Jordan explicitly referenced the low employment level among African Americans. I'm not, and I'm sure she wasn't saying those jobs should go exclusively to African Americans, but they have been hit particularly hard with unemployment.
Bernie Sanders talked about this in '15, and I think he specifically referenced young African Americans, Latinos, and whites, in an interview with Vox where he referred to open borders as a "Koch brothers program."
Actually, food would cost all of about ~$25 more for the average American family if crop pickers were paid decent wages. Crop picking constitutes a very small percentage of the cost of produce.
As for the services, I'm not sure which you're referring to, but in my affluent neighborhood in the Boston area, there are a lot of immigrant workers working lawn services and probably cleaning services, and I'm sure none of my neighbors would suffer if they had to pay higher wages.
When the country basically outsources by importing the cheap labor, the value of that labor drops. As one example, in the '80s, meat packers could earn $50/hr and they were basically middle class. Now, they get barely over minimum wage, working under atrocious conditions. That's because since 1990, immigration has added 43 million--two NY state population equivalents plus 3 million--well over half of these low/no-skilled.
It's because profit-seeking drives employers, who relentlessly drive down labor costs unless workers organize to win union support. Beware the neo-Malthusan trojan horse.
There's no neo-Malthusian Trojan horse, if I'm understanding correctly what you're referring to.
A major part of driving down of labor costs involves encouraging more immigration. The flood of low/no-skill immigrants is a big part of what undercut unions. It's much harder to undercut them when labor is tight. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who in the '90s and '00s was the primary advocate on Capitol Hill for reducing immigration told me that a couple of fast food execs tried to buy him off of the issue, offering to keep his campaign coffers full if he would shut up about the issue. He wasn't for sale.
Similarly, big biz GOPers generally, and the Chamber of Commerce pushed for more immigration, to keep wages down.
Workers have done much better during periods of low immigration, such as the post WWII period.
Another view is that many of these jobs that immigrant workers fill seem to be considered as not good enough for American workers. I remember watching a documentary about the lack of migrant workers & hearing how American workers just did not want those jobs. It wasnt a question of whether they were white or POC, the jobs were a) too hard or b) didnt pay enough!
There is no job category with immigrant workers where there are no American workers, and all but crop picking have more American workers than immigrant workers.
But here's the thing: If you're an immigrant from a third world country, even sh!t wages by US standards seem quite substantial, where from the point of an American worker, the wages are sh!t. You're always going to be on the edge.
The attraction of immigrant workers--especially those here illegally--is that they are very easy to exploit. Illegally present crop pickers in parts of the Central Valley get literally $2-$3/hour. (See The American Way of Eating, by TRacie McMillan. As part of her research, she worked among these ag workers--which she could do because she spoke some Spanish, and Spanish speakers were running the crews.)
Thanks for clarifying what you “weren’t” saying David. I read this article from your link and several others. POVs go every which way so it seems it depends on whatever side one chooses.
Is that &25 more for a trip to the store, a week, month, year, or lifetime?
Regarding the article I posted, and others with different points of view, it's econ 101 that when there's an oversupply of a resource, the value diminishes. That includes labor. And when labor markets have been tight, as in the 3 post wwii decades, workers have done comparatively well. Cesar Chavez understood this and used to denounce illegal immigrants to INS for that reason.
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Today's Letter provides a clear history of where we are today as a nation. "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 infringed." One sentence ratified 230 years ago (1791) now makes me think twice before heading to my local grocery store.
Such an extraordinary disconnect between the opening clause and the main statement. Such an abyss between the customs and conditions of 1791 -- when a gentleman wore pistols in the same way as his descendant might wear a suit and tie -- and those prevailing today. Such a gulf between the weaponry of the period and today's semi-automatics.
One deranged and unregulated individual today could put paid to an entire militia company armed with muskets.
At the. Time there was no standing army and volunteer brigades were raised "in times of troubles" and often to kill Native Americans. Perhaps a side issue currently for many...but not for me..i'm currently reading Fergus Bordewich's "Killing the white man's Indian" written in 1996 and Louise Erdrich's recent "The Nightwatchman" and would recommend them both to you all
That's what made me write -- looking back over the wars that tore Europe apart, starting when the Prussians took Paris -- of "Violence that spared North America, but not all the continent's inhabitants".
Not all the continent's inhabitants...
I was thinking of the last "Indian wars", the ending of a genocidal tide that dragged on until a century ago.
I was thinking of the lynching culture, the Jim Crow laws, the pogroms against black citizens (in effect stripped of all the rights and defenses enjoyed by citizens).
Then, this extraordinary continuation of slavery right into the 20th century -- soon to be repeated by Nazi industries' brutal use of slave labor:
If you read this account by Douglas A. Blackmon, starting with his article in (yes) the Wall Street Journal and leading up to his book SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME, you'll realize that there was a Gulag in America at the same time as Stalin was launching projects like the White Sea Canal or the construction of the Moscow metro, using massive slave labor.
Thank you, Peter, for your perspective and the recommended resources.
Two decades ago I arranged for a Mashpee Wampanoag (and others) to discuss the state of Amer Indian affairs at Brandeis U. One question referred to the end of the Indian wars; his reply was that they have never ended. But the most memorable part was when he laughed at the question (not the student who asked). It was the most mirthless laugh imaginable.
When i asked my brother about it as he lives in Vancouver, he brushed the question away as it "annoyed him to hear about it all the time" . Mind you his favourite literature these days is the medieaval latin writings of Britsh monks! So his response was probably a-political!
I just listened to a replay of an interview of Louise Erdrich on Fresh Air. I recommend listening to it. What a compelling woman whose story, and books, are stunning and stark and beautifully written and spoken about.
Morning/Afternoon, Stuart!! Not a side issue to me, but what I need to be informed of is by whose authority is a "well regulated militia." My point being the January 6 incident had two "militia" groups whose intent was to overthrow the existing government, later to be hailed by the "people" for their patriotism?
Afternoon, Lynnell. I think that the point now is that there is no conceivable reason to have a militia of any sort that is not controlled by the government now that there are both the permanent army and the National Guard.
Lynell, you probably know this, but those groups are self-styled "militias." In any empirical definition they are simply armed gangs. The 2nd Amendment's militias were the only local and national defense forces; hence their requirement to be well-regulated. There were widespread fears at the time that a national government (or tyrant) could use a standing army to cow or attack the populace. Hence we got the National Guard (militias) under the control of the states--unless called into service to defend the country.
Hey, Tom. I understand what you say is what it is supposed to be. It's those armed with military style weapons who embrace "alternative realities" that are worrisome.
I've just started the former but so far he is concentrating firstly on the idea that the Non-Native American population should perhaps pay more attention to reality rather than their mythic appreciations which have floundererd from murdering savage to natural man neither of which reflect either how the Native American community sees itself or any reality on the ground. He then goes on to look at what was happening on the reservations in the 1990s and compares this experience with his childhood visits in the 1950s. He concentrates then on the Tribes that have effectively reconstituted the identity and considerable levels of independant power over their own affaires following the policy changes in introduced under Nixon and continued subsequently. More later as my reading advances....the autheor is a journalist and not a historian.
There is a quiet sentiment brewing out here in the Western US. Talk of reparations in the East is now echoed with the return of ancestral lands to descendants of Native Americans. Funny that this is not covered more in the media. A wonderment, indeed.
The Canadians really got into this when their Supreme Court decided that the treaties signed with George 111 and which had not specifically been declared null by law were still valid......giving the native's a massive share of land in British Columbia for instance. Prior to that I worked with the people negotiating the Cree's James Bay Agreement (creating the Cree Government and Cree social and educational services with the Quebec Government in the late 70s which handed the Cree Nation a very significant degree of Autonomy and control over their own ressources. I thereafter worked with the Inuit Development Agency (Independant Inuit government-owned) finding international markets for their, fresh water, NorthWest Passage and Labrador fisheries. They are certainly getting there!
Fergus Bordewich is quite a good popular historian, i.e. not a professional academic. His study of Radical Republicans, "Congress at War," nicely complements HCR's "To Make Men Free."
Aftermorning. Lynell!! I just commented on the guilty verdicts in the Chauvin trial. I'm less than 100% after my first Covid vaccine today, but still willing to go out to a nearby justice rally if something's on. Good Trouble!
Congrats on getting your first shot! Stay hydrated. (I’ve cried with relief a couple times following the verdict). Things are going in the right direction.
I have always thought the word "militia" was the crux of the Amendment, not free-will gun-toting. In the pre-Revolutionary days, it was forbidding to take up arms against Britain, thus the response to another country's prohibitions. America did form a milita called "The National Guard." I continue to think the SCOTUS is deeply at fault for its interpretation.
Morning, Lynell. I enjoyed the Professor's rendition of the history of gun use in the US. Still formulating my reply, as the coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
Thank you. I had a former recruit walk into an LGBTQ event that had a rainbow banner up that said "Be an ally". He wrote a very nice post about it, and about me.
There was a time early in the pandemic when I thought that it might be possible we would culturally redefine what it was to be a hero. The qualities exhibited by selfless healthcare workers who against overwhelming odds sacrificed so much, including their safety and potentially their health, physical and mental, demonstrating enormous compassion daily caring for others. All celebrated that care, compassion, competence, and dedication. The term healthcare heroes was on everyone’s lips. People daily demonstrated their support for those sacrificing so much in service to others. Despite all the tragic consequences of the pandemic I thought perhaps that redefinition of the image of what it meant to be a hero was a positive.
But I found those hopes dashed by a President and his millions of supporters who celebrated all those toxic masculinity characteristics unhelpful to the redefinition of hero I hoped for. He used the word strength in almost every sentence never pairing it once with the word character. He demonstrated no respect for the heroes fighting the pandemic and it's consequences, instead demeaning and belittling them. Rather he celebrated those pushing against science, truth, and knowledge. The cowboy hero was again celebrated pushing out the healthcare hero. Instead of making a sacrifice for others being celebrated, millions celebrated toxic individualism.
Yet one more hope for a better future crushed under the feet of the Trump masses by their ignorance and selfishness.
We are seeing an uptick in people being drawn to the health care professions as a result. I have been very worried that it would have the opposite effect. So all is not lost. There are still many with a calling to do good in our world!
Bruce Carpenter, Your comment (comet) reached me as a laser. You appeared to leave Brown v. Board of Education, Senator Barry Goldwater, the cowboy and the NRA, etc., in the dust to address basic values, which seem to have been overcome by capitalism, by the powerbrokers, power-brokers of money and power.
You took us to life and death in the most fundamental way. It is in the deepest sense where we all go. As we consider guns is our society, where else is there to go? It was a spiritual journey as well moving from the nurses, aides, therapists and doctors who care for us to mythic cowboys and toxic individualism. Thank you Bruce.
I would like us to reflect on out-of-control Capitalism; It is a major factor in this gun crazy country and on our values. Race and Guns have been used to manipulate the American people in the battle between Democratic Principles v. control of power and the accumulation of wealth. Consider the differences between FDR and to a lesser degree Truman and Eisenhower v. Nixon, Reagan, George W and Trump. Where would be if Walter Mondale could have beaten Reagan? What has prevented meaningful Climate Change? Why has racism endured for more than 4 centuries? Why is gun violence out of control? There have been other BIG LIES in this country before Trump, some of them part of our economic/political system. The battle of control for the Union may have reached the breaking point. Is it too late? Some cooperate giants realize this; it would be catastrophic for them, as well.
The later chapters of that history must still be written, Bruce. I think that heroism has been redefined, but it must be remembered and foregrounded. Your comments help.
Totally agree. I had the same feeling about bonding around first responders, health care workers, etc. Trump sure made that go away in a hurry. Really sad.
Here in Texas the state legislature is about to pass what is called the Constitutional Carry law allowed people to carry handguns openly or concealed without a permit. Don't you love the name they tagged this with. Sort of like "Voter Integrity" as a euphemism for voter suppression.
Contemporary America- where getting a gun is easier than getting a vote. I don't suppose it bothers those who like things that way round, but it does have a considerable impact on how people over on this side of the pond view the country.
In the minds of the gun-owners it increases the importance of their vote as it allows them to intimidate those that disagree with them and stop them voting.
So lets link yesterdays HCR letter to today’s. Yesterday she detailed the progress of the Republican party which we see as circling the drain and today the notion that we are in a gun battle for the country that the Republicans have designed with the help of the Cowboy myth, western independence, and state’s rights over national efforts to reform. Or something like that.
Both of these letters are dealing with trends in the country that are founded on the slight of hand that says ‘if you are accused of something the best defense is to accuse your accusers of the same offense.’ Oddly this works. There is a psychology that says the thing that upsets us most in others is when they mirror a problem we, ourselves have that we are actively trying to deny. In this case we can get strident, obstreperous, and escalate any situation toward violence just to keep ourselves from having to recognize our problem.
Have you ever held a gun in your hand? A loaded gun? How about a loaded gun in your living room? Or a loaded gun when you are angry? How do you think a teen-ager or now we are talking about pre teens, feels when holding a gun and having the emotions of that time of life? When I hold a loaded gun I feel fear. I think this is what a lot of us would feel but others feel power, empowered rage, and a turn from impotence toward capacity. This is the same myth that the cowboy rides on. The cowboy pointing at the fearful liberal holding their gun with two fingers is the same picture as the state’s right’s small government advocate pointing at what they see as the socialist.
Thing is, none of this analysis matters. Our system is so complicated, so entrenched, so encumbered with personality on both sides and so enslaved to profit that any level of comprehension is just for the comfort it might or might not bring the individual.
In many cases I have come down to contemplating the question of whether incremental change can bring about the transformation required. In Medicine, in politics, in law enforcement, in finance I have a hard time seeing the needed changes happening by even steady small incremental steps because it is the special interest group against the necessarily distracted majority. Special interest energy is basically what has gotten us here. It seems to be the bane and downfall of democracy.
At this point we are reduced to writing letters against those who are sending checks. We squeaked in a president while states representatives feel comfortable acting against a clear majority of their constituents. They are loudly aligning with their source of funds confident that this will enable them to remain in power. They are supporting states moves for voter suppression while tangling up and diluting the For The People Act that we may never see an actual vote on. In my opinion this is the only business that is before the country. But there is this idea that persistent reasonable government is going to change what? The underlying manipulative intent of a minority empowered by the systematic entrenchment that they have taken decades to build? Really? That is what we think?
HCR yesterday, asked where to the repubs think this is all going. It is still a good question. The only context where this makes any sense to me is that of addiction. Within the twisted logic of addiction it all does actually make sense and where it is going is one more day of addiction. Having personally witnessed addiction and recovery and relapse and recovery day to day I know the difficulty of arising from this insidious posture of self-destruction. I also know the instinct that modeling reasonable behavior hoping it rubs off is a hopeful but laughable misunderstanding of the addicted reality. It is vastly easier to spread the addiction than to confront it. And enabling through tolerance in any form is just playing to the disease.
Summarizing the 9000 ft. view must give me some comfort I guess. It sure doesn’t reveal a new path that can be followed.
I appreciate your point of view & find the comparison to addiction interesting. I've led a charmed life in that I have no personal exposure to addiction. Your comment gives me something to think about.
Your comparison to addiction makes sense to me too. I don't have a personal connection to it, but have friends who have and I've read a bit about enablers. As I recall, rather than fall into the co-dependency trap, the recommendation was to allow the addict to "hit rock bottom." I'm not sure how we as a country can pull back enough to allow the addicted party to bottom out. What exactly would that entail? What would we need to do differently?
Our problem is that allowing the addicts to "hit rock bottom" is likely to bring our whole society down, rather than the smaller circle affected by allowing one addict to go as low as possible. I doubt we could survive that.
It made me want to put up one of those big cork boards,get some push pins and colored string, and start tying everything you wrote about together. Barry Goldwater, Brown v. Board of Education, Socialism, and cowboys. Now that's some historical bouillabaisse!
Your way of looking at history is fascinating and unique. Brava professore!
Herb, if that is your inclination, I recommend "Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun" by the amazing Erik Larson (his first book!) which goes deep on some of the items HCR tied together here to trace the causal steps behind one particular shooting.
This is a solid historical summation as far as it goes. This is about politicians, guns, and laws. What isn't mentioned is the effect that media has played in this historical thread. Starting in late 1930, mostly, up until today there has been a constant glorification of antisocial behavior. Not only are guns glorified but those who use them for good or evil are as well. In order to attract bigger audiences and advertising revenue TV and film, primarily, have gotten more and more graphic showing explosions, blood splatter, torture, revenge, and mayhem constantly numbing audiences to the horror of violent death. Hell, cartoons blow up kittens, anvils crash on coyotes, eyes get poked, noses bloodied, and everyone gets blown to bits...and we have put our children in front of these things to babysit while we make supper, sip wine, and talk on the phone...or, just chill out because we have been working all day. We can't send our kids out to play anymore because of the predators we have allowed to roam our communities, so they sit home and swill violence and grow numb. Death and blood has no meaning until it is in your town, house, school, church, synogogue or mosque. Then it's real but nothing can be done because the people who make our laws...hell, who inhabit our executive branches...are also numb to blood, guts, and mayhem. And, of course, corporate irresponsibility and greed complicate this path. Tougher laws and enforcement are needed but they are not enough. We need to deal with the effect that media glorification of violence has on this unique American cultural characteristic.
The Guardian reported a study recently done in England that showed the age at which English children are allowed to go outside and play unsupervised has increased by two years, to now about 10 1/2. And I thought I was a helicopter parent!
Seriously, I was lucky to be in a small town where everyone watched out for everyone's kids, subsequently, we all had a lot of freedom. By the time I was 8 I would leave the house in the morning and returned in time for supper. Usually I was less than a mile away, but not always :-)
Same for my two brothers and me. My father would whistle loudly, a signal that meant home for dinner NOW. Another day spent entirely outside was over. Looking back, I see what a fabulous way it was to grow up.
Did I mention the forts and hide-outs we kids would make? Finding two graves in the woods, and wondering how that happened? I mean, a big slab over two graves! As children, of course, we had no idea of the fairly recent (within 30 years) history of our little island. That gravesite could have been the pyramids of Egypt, timewise. We had no clue.
Michael, your comment made me smile, because my dad also had a 'special whistle' that said, "Come home now". If I wasn't down at the dock, with a line in the water, I would hear him and head home. But fishing came first, so I was glad I was out of range then! LOL
My dad also had a badass whistle. He'd put two fingers or a finger and a thumb in his mouth and make the most ear-piercing, long distance whistle of all the dads in the neighborhood. We were never able to get out of range!
I agree with many of your sentiments. The majority of them in fact. But this not being able to let our children play outside due to some boogeyman is rarer than we have been trained to think. For gods sake
In the congested east and west coast, I believe this boogeyman myth has legs. While we always had boogeymen, we didn't know about them until mass media reminded us every day of kidnappings, trafficking, molestations, and such...even in our schools and churches as well our streets. The perception is stronger than the reality, maybe.
Yes they exist. Sadly in most places children playing out need supervision for protection from boogey men. I encountered them even back in the 60’s and it’s only gotten much worse.
We were constantly reminded not to accept rides in cars from, not only strange men, but even from the fathers of our friends - if our parents didn't know and trust them. I think my parents knew they were out there, my mother in particular, because she was raped by a group of teenaged boys when she was only nine. And my father never thought very highly of the urges of other men. Of course, he also thought all women who joined the military were "hussies", so that tells you he had big sin issues around any kind of independence for women.
How awful about your Mom. I’m so sorry. 💔 I was fortunate to be able to always escape possibly because I was so suspicious but it takes it’s toll to not be free to move about safely. There are so many reports on social media of men trying to grab children in Alaska recently. Sad to have to teach kids to be so wary of others.
This thought has been niggling at my brain all day and your description of these daily doses of murder and mayhem forces it to the surface: not only were all those mythical cowboys of yore always gun toters, but there were always two distinct types. The "good" cowboy rode a white horse and wore a white hat. The "bad" cowboy rode a black horse and wore a black hat. the medium has always been the message (or massage if you will), as Marshall McLuhan said.
Heather MacLean in her book Democracy in Chains makes a compelling case for her argument that the Republican Party is under the control of wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals. She notes that the intellectual framework for the guiding principles of this ‘movement’ comes primarily from the ideas and vision of James McGill Buchanan an economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1986 for his work on “Public Choice Theory”. To oversimplify the “Public Choice Theory” amounts to the balance between private interests and public interests and, to oversimplify even further, the conflict between the ‘makers’ and the ‘takers’.
She notes that this vision has evolved over the last 70 years but took root in its current form during the 1970s and 1980s when Charles Koch reasoned that the vision properly financed and given enough time would suit his purposes of creating a political environment that had no regulations whatsoever and allowed for a totally unfettered market. He managed this by developing intellectual command posts through the funding of ‘think tanks’ like the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute and program chairs at George Mason University that espoused the neoconservative view. Most importantly, though, was his funding of the right-wing political infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). ALEC was founded in 1973 and SPN was founded in 1980. These organizations are the most important political influencers in our nation today as evidenced by the incredibly rapid response by so many states to submit voter obstruction bills following the Georgia senate elections in January.
I think that MacLean’s argument connects dots and the connection is that Republican politicians can do whatever they want regardless of their constituents’ preferences because they are beholden to the plutocrats whose only interest is in a free market and a continuation of their personal wealth. The means to achieve this does not matter as even though they are in the minority it is the minority interests rather than minority rights that they are committed to protect.
They now have 40 plus years influencing state politics which in effect has significant control over what takes place in local and national politics so they are firmly entrenched in our political future. The 2020 election was a close call as, in my view, it represented a tipping point for our democracy. Buchanan’s view was not to change who makes the rules but to change the rules themselves. This vision was not a support of our constitution or our democracy. To fulfill the view requires only that the interests of the elite and ‘qualified’ individuals are protected and that could be accomplished more easily by an autocracy or plutocracy rather than a democracy. In 2020, incredibly, the Republican Party had no platform! That meant that the substance of their policies were dependent only on the wishes and whims of Trump. Trump’s wishes and whims were substantively consistent with the plutocrats as his actions (reduction of personal and corporate taxes, reduction or elimination of regulations and federal agencies, weakening of the public school infrastructure, ignoring public health restrictions to maintain an open market) were perfectly aligned with their interests. His racism, misogyny, xenophobia and authoritarian actions mattered not.
As Dr. Richardson points out the majority of Americans do not support the political actions taken by our representatives over many issues including gun control, voters’ rights, immigration, public health requirements, infrastructure, police reform, etc. There is only one solution to this problem in my view and that is we must ensure one person, one vote. We can’t expect this to occur through our political system (as exemplified by the controversy that is erupting over H.R.1 (For the People Act) so we must actively support the on the ground efforts by organizations like Stacey Abrams Fair Fight Initiative. These organizations are knocking on doors to encourage people to vote and providing guidance as to how to inform themselves in determining what is important in that decision.
The 2020 election saved us from a tipping point but the reality is that it is only a temporary escape. The fundamental forces that have no concern about our nation retaining our democracy are firmly in place and will be very active in the 2022 election to right their cause. We do have much to be optimistic about with an administration that is promoting a role for our government that is making it a part of the solution, with the many grass root organizations that have sprouted nationwide to address the need for people to get out and vote and for the emerging intellectual framework that is supporting the values of our democracy through historians like Dr. Richardson and Dr. MacLean and economists like Dr. Jeffrey Sachs (sustainable development) and Paul Krugman (economic development) and scientists like Dr. Johan Rockstrom (planetary boundaries).
You are right. It is part and parcel of the same strategy used by the Koch brothers and the family foundation of Richard Mellon Scaife and the Mercer family. The Federalist Society has taken on extreme importance in the selection of judges in the federal court system up to and including the Supreme Court. Their impact is very consistent with Buchanan's vision that to affect change one must change the rules rather than those who make the rules. There is nothing more direct in changing rules than those who decide what the rules are.
By the way, I just realized that I cited Heather MacLean as the author of Democracy in Chains and that is incorrect. The author is Nancy MacLean. She like Professor Heather Richardson is an American historian and is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University.
I was just reflecting today that the very name of that society is misleading - regardless of the historical link to the writers of the Federalist Papers - because they (along with Hamilton, Madison, Jay, et alia) espouse a very strict adherence to such a narrow interpretation of the Constitution (going as far as to say that the Bill of Rights was unnecessary, let alone any subsequent amendments) and the role of government, that it is clear they actually hate having a strong centralized/federal government. The idea of a select group of "elites" (wealthy white men) ruling a less educated, less wealthy, relatively powerless under class is perfect for achieving their aims.
We once took our boys to a hockey tournament and there was a gun show nearby. The hotel forbid any hockey sticks on the property for fear of potential damage - yet people were walking around the lobby with all sorts of guns...
Nearly every month there is a "gun show" at our county fairgrounds. Whenever I have the opportunity, I gently uproot their ubiquitous signs and lay them down on the parking strips in which they have been set up. This is not vandalism, just gentle obstructionism to something I violently oppose only on the inside. I've thought of picketing the shows, but I really don't want to be shot at by angry lunatics. Perhaps I will look for a likeminded group willing to risk their lives in such a manner...
I don’t think racial hatred is that deep: poverty brings out our back up behavior. If these gun toting, reactive, uneducated bumpkins could earn a living, their family life would improve and they wouldn’t bother to complain so much.
I saw her TED talk on this topic late last year and pre-ordered the book & audiobook. The talk is a good 14-minute introduction the book. It sold me, obviously...
I suggest Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: How we go to our discontents. As I did, you may well come to a different consideration of rasism and the depth of it, Susan.
Fred 100%. "Caste" is an instant classic upon publication. It shows how deep is the hate, but more than that, how deeply ingrained are the traditions and habits that reinforce caste. There are so many passages where I think "so that's what was really happening" and, more important, "Now I see how I'm part of the problem!" And new thinking can shatter old traditions.
SOOOOOO TRUE!!! One of my patients (white, age 78) kept insisting that she had never in her entire life ever seen any instance of racism. I told her that as a Chinese-American girl in California growing up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s that throughout my school life I had been mocked, taunted, physically kicked and punched by classmates who made fun of my being Chinese, even though I was born and raised here and spoke American English without any accent... it's really stunning how many non-POC disbelieve that racism is real.
With the recent (important) focus on Black Lives, it is too easy to lose sight of the racism against all Americans who are not of white European ancestry. I volunteered in an after-school program in a middle school in Seattle in the late 90's and worked with a teacher's aide of Philipine extraction who talked about the East Asian and Southeast Asian students in our program as not being "regular" students. I was confused by who were the "regular" students and I was very disturbed to learn that he meant only the white students in that school - as though the majority of students at that school didn't count as regular because they were not white. This came from a school employee who was not white himself. He had been indoctrinated with the narrative that posited him and the majority of students in that school as "others", rather than as the mainstay of that school. As a white woman, I felt such shame that this idea had been implanted in his mind, that he and anyone in America who is not white is not a "regular American".
Thank you for your reply. I do understand that people can't relate until they've had that experience for themselves. I'm sorry that you had that experience with the frame shop clerk. In this day and age it seems incredible that there are people out there who react differently based only on color/ancestry. I hope that the next generation will do better.
I've been here from the beginning & had to ask too when someone recently started abbreviations things. Sorry no one answered....I don't get through all the comments ts most days....
Here in TX, a state legislator has proposed open carry -- no permit required. I know people who are licensed to carry a concealed weapon, because they think that they will be the "good guy with a gun" in a shoot out. Are there any examples of that? I recall an instances of a supposed "good guy" shooting a bystander and fleeing the scene.
Over the weekend, I drove by flags at half mast. I couldn't think of anyone famous (except Prince Philip) for whom the flags would be lowered ... then I recalled the multiple shooting events of the previous few days....
Yes, we seem to have become almost numb to them on the conscious level but what does the barrage of daily violence do to our psyches? Here in Florida, my neighbors have their own personal shooting ranges in their back yards and I have to listen to semi automatic guns being fired. It sets my nerves on edge. We live on one and a half to two and a half acre parcels, and yet this is lawful. It’s surreal.
I agree. The neighbors across the street from the barn where my horses are, are the same. Hours of it, every Saturday. Even the horses are getting used to it.
I'm also out in a semi-suburban, semi-rural area with frequent shooting practice. Washington may be a blue state, and my town is the blue capital of a blue state, but out here in the semi-boonies, guns, boy racers (to use a British term for young men who express their masculinity with loud unmuffled engines speeding), and speed boats are a fact of life.
What a coherent summary of the gun evolution in our society. I’m in my early 70’s and grew up at a time when girls had dolls and boys had toy guns. We watched Davy Crockett and Gunsmoke, wore coonskin caps and advanced to BB and pellet guns. I joined the NRA while still in my teens and served both in the military and later the FBI.
Somehow, despite all this I must have had a different belief system; as I haven’t owned a firearm in decades, despise the NRA and am both embarrassed and afraid of what the gun lobby has instilled in our Country. Assault weapons in private hands? Lack of background checks? Little or no comprehensive gun registration or regulation? What a tragic situation which Americans overwhelmingly want corrected yet lobbyists and self serving politicians continue to block. It sickens me and I will do my best to support Gabby Gifford and others in their efforts. Thanks HCR for presenting this and keeping the dialogue going. We are better than this and deserve better from our elected officials.
Frank, I was the one playing with cap guns as a kid and addicted to Bonanza (I had dolls too but they were largely ornamental--but never ask what girls did with their Barbies . . .) but by the time I was 10, the fact that the world was erupting in violence against Black people convinced me that guns were a poor toy (except water pistols when dealing with bad cat behavior) when what we really need is more love, peace, tolerance, and acceptance. So I put away my childish things (not the Barbies though, for a time--don't ask what we girls did with them!) and became an activist for peace. And the NRA, as HCR has pointed out in previous letters, went all-in for gun control because the Black Panthers were arming themselves in order to patrol Black neighborhoods and save Black people.
I would like to point out that the "every person should have a gun" mantra of the NRA and the Gormless Obstructionist Party does not extend to BIPOC. Indeed, supposedly Mr. Wright had an outstanding warrant--the cops had to search long and hard to find it to justify the traffic stop--because he had an "illegal" gun. If he had been white we know he would not have been stopped at all; if he had been white his ownership of a gun would probably not have been questioned and certainly not charged even if he would have been told to register it.
The NRA wants white people to have guns. Gee, I wonder what will happen to the NRA should a whole bunch of Black and Brown people start sporting firearms, especially in those states where open carry is legal, and declare their right to bear arms?
Linda, I am seeing more and more POC with a hand gun strapped to their waist, we are an open carry state, and I love it. Unfortunately, I see more and more white people carrying. It is a bit of a shock to see a weapon in WalMart or the grocery store.l
When I see a person with a weapon in the supermarket, or any other shopping place. I walk out.
I understand your feeling, and action, but I think it is rather humorous. What are they so afraid of they must carry a weapon? My observation is that when the urgency of a situation is such that a gun is called for, they would probably shoot themselves.
A friend of my husband's (whose East Coast liberal Jewish upbringing rubbed off after he moved to WA state) who can't decide if he's a wannabe Pirate (of the Caribbean) or a wannabe Mountain Man, once shot his own foot when the pistol he was carrying "concealed" in his pocket fell out of a hole in said pocket. He was in a mall at the time and he's lucky that all that happened was that he got a stiff fine and a trip to the ER. If I'd been in that mall, I'd have screamed bloody murder and tried to get all the parents with small children together for some kind of class action suit. What a dickhead! (You notice I said he's my husband's friend? I can't stand to be around the guy for more than a few minutes, but they've been black powder target shooting and folk music buddies for a long time, so I just butt out.)
My former state representative dropped his handgun on the floor of the statehouse one day, but it didn't discharge and he didn't suffer any consequences (open carry). He did later go to jail, but that was for using a computer to lure a 14 year old (yup, he knew she was 14) for sex and drugs.
I'm still being a Covid hermit, but I'd do the same.
Me too.
Lord help us when the idiots start shooting.
Won’t be long now. At least from what I’m reading and hearing. Perhaps, just perhaps, with the Chauvin verdict especially, we might be headed for at least four years of social improvement. So maybe civil war won’t start until there’s a new President.
Fred, I think I understand your viewpoint. But I see nothing to celebrate in higher rates of gun owning and their public display.
I agree. More guns mean more deaths, and children pay a heavy price. My point was 'sauce for the goose - - - - - - '. I would think the NRA and other gun nuts hate the idea of black people carrying.
Hi Linda. Nice comment. But, since you mention it twice.... what did you you girls do with your Barbies? Just curious....
Oh, we sewed clothes for them. Heeheeheeheeheehee . . .
Is that all?
I occasionally got Ken & Barbie naked and then laid him on top of her in their bed. I knew NOTHING about what that meant, but somehow absorbed the idea from my parents (who were very conservative about this subject) who slept in the same bed, or, I don't know why.
No! You're kidding, right? If not, I appreciate your honesty. You must be of very good character. Thank goodness your folks weren't too conservative to consider having children!
I think I had a vague idea (having some better informed friends with whom I "played Barbies") that Ken was missing something essential, but I too did the K&B naked play. I wonder if my lesbian sisters experimented with Barbie and Barbie? (I know there were other names, but I thought Barbies were pretty boring, as I spent my free time either indoors reading or outside playing Cowboys and Indians with the boys and other tomboys. We didn't play with toy guns as much as we just rode our "horses" all over the arroyo and brush covered hill behind our houses exploring.
My girls had barbies. As far as I know, they only cut their hair and dismantled them occasionally.
And when I think of how many things I did without my parents' knowledge....
David, as much more of a “free range kid” than seems to happen today, I also look back and shudder at what my parents never knew we were up to. Nothing evil, just often a bit risky. Imitation of famous rock climbers...
Or how about this in an urban setting: Pittsburgh PA, wet snow coming down hard, school closed, parents at work, me and my buddy Paul (we were 7 and 8 respectively) on a small hill about 15 feet above Fair Oaks Street chucking big juicy snowballs at passing cars. We smacked two on the side and windshield of a plumber's van, so he stopped in the middle of traffic, went to the back of the van and opened it, and before we could decide which way to run he had hurled a decrepit wooden toilet seat at us which sailed about a foot over our heads and into the bushes behind us. He also shouted something at us we were too young to understand before he drove off.
I was more the quiet nerd kid in the basement and my mom had no idea. I did experiments that were set up for batteries (which I couldn't afford) so I used house current. It worked - even the salt going into the water would sizzle as it ionized. Made a carbon arc lite out of 2 graphite pencils hooked to 110 current. (had thick rubber gloves and welder goggles.) I even captured and mounted a black widow spider in my bug collection.
I'm telling!
Have you heard of drawing and quartering and autos-da-fe?
I was curious so I Googled it. It seems that mutilating Barbie's is a thang...
My daughter that did this has 4 children. Scary, huh
Bonanza, like much of Hollywood, was actually pushing many progressive ideas at the time such as racial equality and justice for all people: Indians, Blacks, Irish, Chinese, religious zealots, etc
Malcom X wanted oppressed people to have guns and btw, the NFAC exists for this purpose, too.
Yeah--it was because Little Joe was so cute. Especially his tight trousers . . . I'm shallow!
Adam was much more cerebral and thus attractive in a unisex way
Yes but then he got "married" and left the show!
The Dead Milkmen also have a great contribution to the issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj58VpC-zHQ
Guadalcanal Diary wins the prize for best punk-western tribute.
"I wish I Killed John Wayne"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xexn0vZ5bfs
Have you heard the Dan Blocker song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Jj5XnIVc4
Manifest destiny, religion and westward expansion and conflict get covered here in "the Marlboro Man":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96zYdR2YEZY
I always wanted to know more about Hop Sing.
You got it, Lanita.
https://www.google.com/search?q=hop+sing+bonanza&source=hp&ei=fGB_YJWwD-XS5NoPjd6b0Ag&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYH9ujGsbSBGE3jMxX9CRI0VNogcPBi5H&oq=hop+sing+bonanza&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgYIABAWEB4yBggAEBYQHjIGCAAQFhAeOgoIABDqAhC0AhBDOgoILhDqAhC0AhBDOggIABDqAhCPAToRCC4QsQMQgwEQxwEQowIQkwI6CAgAELEDEIMBOgUIABCxAzoLCC4QsQMQxwEQowI6CAguEMcBEKMCOggILhCxAxCDAToLCC4QxwEQrwEQkwI6AgguOggILhDHARCvAToFCC4QsQM6DgguELEDEMcBEK8BEJMCOgQIABAKOgQILhAKOgUIABDJA1CUFliANGCmPmgBcAB4AIABaYgBzgmSAQQxNS4xmAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdperABCg&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwiV3v_v-Y3wAhVlKVkFHQ3vBooQ4dUDCAk&uact=5
Thank you. I suppose I could have done that myself, but your link inspired me to read about Victor Sen Yung. Quite an exciting life. And an interesting intersection with our current world situation is that his mother died in the 1919 pandemic.
“Supposedly”?
Frank, we need people such as yourself who know guns to lead very public lobbying for gun control, including specific language that fits the actual mechanics of the damn things.
I was astounded to see on PBS News Hour last night that 16 states have no restrictions on gun ownership. That is, you can own a gun without a permit, a background check or having it registered. Sixteen! Silly me, I thought all states had at least SOME form of, if not control, at least a data base of who is a gun owner. Of course I've heard the arguments against registration- "Then the gubmit will be able to just come to your door and take your guns."
No restrictions for anyone, or just for white people?
When I was into my gun collecting days in Maryland 1966, I got many of them at a quaint little gun shop in Glen Burnie, then the others from Montgomery Ward in Odenton. I don’t recall any waiting period, just paid cash and went out with the rifle or pistol.
Rob, looks like you and I are 'of an age', as they say. Wasn't it in the Nixon years that the Saturday night special became a thing? That was my first awareness of any of the gun control stuff. At the time, in NC, you could have your gun on the seat or somewhere in plain sight without a problem, you just couldn't conceal it. Not sure about permitting. I'm sure the rural boys were still driving their pick ups with the gun racks and their hunting rifles. Someone mentioned the Black Panthers as a catalyst for gun control, but I think that was the late '60s - '68-'69, if memory serves. (But then, 'if you remember the sixties, you weren't there' 😉😊). Both were long before the NRA changed, and turned the Second Amendment into one of the Ten Commandments.
I grew up in a small town in Oregon; the neighborhood I grew up in had two phases of growing up. The first was with Sting-Ray bicycles and adapting them (we made choppers with them; this phase lasted through about the 4th grade.) The second phase was a combination of sports and GI Joes. There was a family that moved in down the street (who happened to be cousins of my best friend in school) that was a blended family with 8 boys and one girl. I hung with the boys; we ended up doing things like sewing tents, sleeping bags, and parachutes for the GI Joe's (My folks wouldn't get me a GI Joe, but I had an "action figure" that was a frontiersman, Bill Buck. But I digress) When we got a bit older, it was sports (football, basketball, and baseball) and hunter safety classes.
Their Dad (Mr. Thomas, always and forever) was adamant that until they were 12, none of the boys ever fired a rifle. Then, it was only after hunter safety that they were allowed to shoot, and then, only out in the woods. My Dad (I am sure) had a conversation with Mr. Thomas (both were Veterans, my Dad WWII, and Mr. Thomas (Korea) about me going with them. I went exactly once, and because I hadn't completed hunter safety, I didn't shoot.
Turns out that 3 of the 8 boys became avid hunters, and only one joined the military. I became a cop.
Ally, I will be in OR in about 10 days (Portland and Albany). Email me at puppyheadcate@gmail.com if you have coffee or birdwatching ideas? Or a chance to hear you play the tuba ;)
It would be fun to meet anyon from this community out there. Or here. We should start a MeetUp group 😃
Sadly, no performances will be in evidence, unless we choose to have an outdoor park rehearsal (rain in the forecast makes this very unlikely). I will keep you posted.
Cathy 100%! Dear Ally, would you consider sharing a recording of your sousaphone music?
I really hope this is OK on this site. This is from the One More Time Marching Band, stand video of the sousaphones. Loony Tunes is our "signature song" and what we end every performance with. We had for years a clarinet player that would play a descending chromatic line that sounded a lot light cartoon laughter. When he had to stop playing (at age 89; he was a WWII veteran who jumped into Normandy) I went low where he went high.
https://youtu.be/q8dJMJySOd4
I do have a couple recordings.... If I can figure out how to attach them to an email, I'd do it.
Same childhood era....but it did not make us gun owners.....feels like a suspension of logic in so many fronts.....eg. machine guns of any sort are for recreation?
My experience is similar, Frank. Although I still own a pair of shotguns thinking that I might to a little more bird and waterfowl hunting. I passed my last hunting rifle along to a son-in-law more likely to use if for hunting than I am these days. I too was a former NRA member and ask the very same questions that you raise above. I love these HCR pieces and every day I read deeper into the comments and find myself more buoyed up to discover the existence of so many clear thinking folks who are able to sort through these issues cerebrally. Many years ago, when I was 6-8 years old, my grandfather told me that 'your rights go as far as your neighbours nose'. It took me a long time to understand what that meant, but nowadays I don't see how we can have a society without people understanding the principle and coming to grips with the fact that noses in the USA are a lot closer than they used to be.
An inch at a time...
This is an excellent summary of the cultural magnet holding the pieces of obstruction together.
I honestly believe that these men want so badly to have an enemy to fight. Their sense of masculinity is inextricably bound to movies where the rugged, masculine, white hero faces down evil with firearms.
As you so deftly made clear here, it goes far beyond a gun crisis. We have a crisis of masculinity in this country. Tens of millions of grown men--to say nothing of boys--who have been conditioned to believe that their only worth as men comes from violently defending their families, their homes, or themselves against a vague evil that so often takes shape in the form of their worst bigotries.
Insecurity in manhood drives the bulk of this.
“Toxic masculinity” is the crisis, IMO.
otherwise known as patriarchal poison?
I think the crisis is more that we have generations of male adolescents who are are having great difficulty in achieving adulthood and as with many other subjects, we have significantly deformed the meaning of the term "Masculine Adulthood" to avoid having to deal with the initial psychological problem. It is then society as a whole and women.....and other "menacing" groups in particular that pay for price for this "laziness" and distinct lack of political courage.
"Ammosexual"
. . . are often incels too.
'incels', I had to look the word up and not absolutely sure I understand them, except, Lordy, another hate group. Let's not count the ways! Great to see you here. I've been busier than usual, so haven't looked to find you until tonight. That will be true this week, too. The Letter today was the most difficult for me to tie down. It jumped around. I needed longer narrative to connect the dots. Others had no trouble, and I read it four times. GOOD V!ERDICT! HR. 1 next!
They didn't volunteer; they can't "get any."
'They didn't volunteer'? I'm more baffled than before!
Several years ago, immediately following a mass killing, a gun-control group re-published an ad from a gun magazine pitching a semi-automatic assault rifle. In large print over a photograph of the kind of weapon that had just been used to murder a group of innocents, the ad shouted, "Consider your man card re-issued."
https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-guns-are-advertised-in-america-2012-12#adam-lanza-brandished-a-bushmaster-ar-15-when-he-murdered-27-women-and-small-children-in-newtown-this-is-how-that-weapon-is-marketing-to-the-general-public-magazine-ads-equate-owning-the-gun-to-being-a-man-1
Tears.........
Some would call it toxic masculinity.
Add to it.....masking
That other threat to their “manhood”
In think you're right. I had a great friend, a very smart and well-read college drop-out musician, actor, auto-didact sort of guy who was always defending himself and his family against some "vague evil", but at the same time he was rational enough to admit that he was "ill" and "not a happy camper" and he would usually apologize after some offensive bigoted outburst and used to try to make up for bad behavior with extravagant generosity, always picking up the tab, that sort of thing. We could discuss anything - I thought - but then one day he sent me an apologetic email telling me he could no longer be my friend because he thought his 2 boys might hear our endless discussions and get some wrong political ideas from me, that I was somehow a danger to them, and should neither answer his email or attempt to get in touch with his wife or kids. So I honored his wishes and never saw or heard from him again, but I think he was a clear case of "insecurity in manhood", caused perhaps by psychological abuse by his father when he was a child and preferred playing the piano and reading Tolstoy to helping his macho dad with the family excavation business. He died 4 or 5 years after our parting of the ways. It's really dispiriting how many loose ends never get tied up if you live long enough.
I had a similar but slightly different experience re-connecting for a short time with a childhood friend who had in his adult years become Fundamentalist. He pretty much said exactly the same things about what my influence might do. It's really an unspoken admission on their part that they know they're wrong, that they know their arguments and beliefs can't withstand independent objective discussion and analysis.
As I read the part about him not wanting you to get in touch with him, his wife, or his kids, I had the fear that the rest of the story was going to be him murdering his family and then turning the weapon on himself. I wonder how his widow and children are faring now?
Think about this: the reason what you say, Charlotte, is true is that millions of men were sent off to WWII, VietNam, et al. and came back to the U.S. completely traumatized by warfare. How many of these veterans came back and sat around the campfire to tell us tales of bravery & nobility? None, you say? Because maybe it was inexpressibly horrific and therefore could not be resolved. My friend is writing her PhD thesis on the idea that this unresolved trauma IS expressed in the movies Hollywood made post-wars and the men who were the tortured heroes and how Westerns were popular because it showed the lone man succeeding in a world of chaos. It's another piece of this very complex puzzle we find ourselves trying to solve.
If you want to do a historical analysis, most of modern America is the result of unresolved post-Civil War PTSD. Something like 2/3 of the men in America went off to that. PTSD after that war was known as "reverie." But if you look at history, before the civil war, temperance and other similar social crusades are either non-existant or tiny. But after the war, when these guys are self-medicating with drinking and their wives and children are experiencing the effects of that, suddenly Temperance becomes a movement. They don't know anything about what's making these guys the way they are other than their drinking, no understanding of what's driving the drinking, so they concentrate on stopping the drinking.
Also, as is now well-known, the social ills that come with PTSD, the family violence, the abuse, the addictions, if left untreated are passed into the next generations, who simply see all that as 'the way things are" because they were raised with it, and then it passes down and passes down.
Being an historian, a veteran, and also coming from a family defined by this and knowledgeable of its past history - who was who and what did they do - I can confirm this in the family. We actually have a missing generation as a result. Most people my age, if they have Civil War ancestors, they are great-great-grandfathers. Mine are great-grandfathers. Of the four great-grandfathers, three were teenagers when they went off. One - my paternal/paternal great-grandfather - was captured at Cold Harbor and spent a year in Libby Prison as a POW, a pretty awful fate that most didn't survive; he came home and from what I can determine "went missing" in his family, despite marrying and having a son. My maternal/paternal great grandfather spent his 16th birthday in the Battle of Gettysburg and then in combat through the rest of the campaign in Northern Virginia, which was the bloodiest fighting ever seen before the trenches of the Western Front. His daughter married the first one's son, and their son was my father.
The paternal/maternal great grandfather went off to the war when he ran away from home at 14 and became the youngest drummer boy in Sherman's March to the Sea, an event as bloody and awful as rumor has it that it was. After the war, drenched in blood and a severe alcoholic by 16, he went west where he became a "buffalo hunter" (i.e., buffalo destroyer for the railroad) and indian fighter. I have a photo of him, circa 1878 when he was 28 and even with 19th century photography one can see the spider veins in his nose. He married, had nine children, and I have photos of the family in later years where he's the center of the photograph and everyone around him has the look in their eyes of being in the presence of a ticking timebomb. His third son - who became my grandfather and a person I was always somewhat afraid of without knowing why, married the daughter of the one of the four great-grandfathers who went to war but didn't directly experience combat that I have been able to discover, though he was on Sherman's staff. from these two came my mother - the enemy of my life; it took me into my late 30s to finally understand that her idea of "motherhood" had nothing to do with the word, and everything to do with being the daughter raised in violence. Her mother, also a victim, was the one adult in my family with whom I got along and from whom I got much. My father was withdrawn, as was his father who I never met, like his father, though he did without knowing it put some good things out, though we only became friends in the final 15 years of his life. Of we three children, I was the one who resisted and got the hell out at the first opportunity. My brother and sister never had a chance; he died of drugs and alcohol and she's killing herself with valium.
I don't present this as Woe is Me or Ain't I Great. I do point out that I know a helluva lot of people my age who can tell similar stories without perhaps all the historical fact about how and why. But the historical record is there that things were not like this before the Civil War. It took mass violence, untreated, followed by mass violence in the lives of the children of that (World War I) and mass violence in the lives of their children (World War II) - all untreated because they didn't know what it was. It was only with the mass violence my generation faced (Vietnam), that PTSD and some form of treatment came to be recognized.
You have all of that festering over the generations, recreating itself, and the only thing that surprises me is that things aren't worse today.
TC, as you say, war is hell and unresolved intergenerational trauma does not get enough recognition as a multi-faceted issue to address. The Civil War is a matter of scale. Mass violence is a nearly universal phenomenon historically and worldwide, in some ways seemingly having been necessary for survival (from the POV of the victors or rescued), and puzzling that things are not worse. The lasting effects take a long time to become recognized, and they touch on tender spots. Nonwoefully, thank you for telling your story.
When pacifists, or people trying to limit war, decide to forget that some men thoroughly enjoy war, they are making a bad mistake.
Doris Lessing
My response to that is and always has been that we (the citizens of the world) need to find a different way to deal with conflict. War is not now, never has been, and never will be the answer to any question. I know that there are women who will support war-making, but I hope that the majority of us abhor the idea and will always feel in the deepest part of our being that it is wrong. Because of a combination of genetic wiring and conditioning, it has historically been easier for men to take that path, but I hope that as more and more women enter politics and are not trying to emulate men, but have more humane, women-centered agendas, that war will eventually be considered the heinous crime to all involved that it is, always has been, always will be until we eradicate it completely.
Growing up, I always argued that my male classmates were unfairly being drafted to serve in Vietnam - that we all should be subject to the draft. This was not because I wanted to go to war, nor because I thought we should be in VN, but because it was so patently, obviously, indisputably unfair that they were threatened with that horror and we were "protected" against it. Now that there are so many women in the military, it is clear that we didn't need that protection; however, now we have traumatized women coming back from war along with the men. We humans need to end this lunacy!
My husband is convinced that our entire country is dealing with the unresolved trauma of 9/11. I agree with him and find myself still caught up in the horror and grief of that day whenever the calendar rolls around to it. This year is the 20th anniversary and I am not eager for its approach.
Add to it.....masking
That other threat to their “manhood”
Maskholes
Bah
More on the subject of toxic masculinity - please, please read No Visible Bruises by Rachel Louise Snyder. This, in my opinion, should be required reading.
Are your Tweets often referenced in articles? (your last name sounds familiar). I'm not on Twitter, but feel like I've seen them. Glad you're here!!!
Spot on!
J Robison has not set up an account and can’t be blocked.
As an immigrant, I have never understood the American love of the Second Amendment -- to me, it represents the worship of a weapon of war and of death.
I remember in 2000 when The National Rifle Association's president, Charlton Heston, holding a rifle, said that if the government ever tried to take away his gun they would have to wrench it from his "cold, dead hands." That sent shivers down my spine! To this day, when I think of it, I cringe! It was and is an ugly, distorted image of a man willing to die for a weapon of death -- one that should not be sold to any human being in times of peace.
In 1964, I was a military advisor in a Vietnamese Infantry unit. At the time I had never witnessed a violent death up close. But I was a true lover of those TV cowboy shows. I actually thought, in those days, that most bullet wounds were survivable. One day, in Vietnam, one of our soldiers was shot in the stomach. We carried him for three anguishing hours before he died. I remember being surprised and thought he was just unlucky. Later that year, I saw so many bullet deaths, my mind has been forever changed, and that was before the AR-15/M-16. We are a really, really stupid country. I am not hopeful that it will all change for the better.
We're the most backwards of the major industrialized western nations--for that and a bunch of other reasons.
Oh, Don, may you live to see better times.
It had better be quick. I'm 87 years old.
Bless you ❤️
Well, you lived to see Derek Chauvin convicted on all charges today.
Bless you, sir. I am moved by your recollection and understanding of it. I am only 73 and I feel that our national road has been darker than it was for long time now. With the civil rights legislation, provision of the Great Society and the aftermath of Vietnam it really did seem brighter for awhile. Let us hope that the tide is turning. I send best wishes to you through the invisible string that binds all who are able to hope for better.
Don, I am so sorry that you had to witness that horror - I'm sorry that anyone has had, continues to have to - but thank you for writing about it here. Those who have not served need to know the trauma their compliance in supporting wars has on those who survive to come home.
I feel the same way. I don’t understand it at all. To me the Western and guns seem so outdated. Those who believe that we live in that type of world seem delusional to me. I can see being able to keep the delusion alive if I were to live in Montana or South Dakota but most of the country is very populated. I also do not understand how something as dangerous as a gun is not seen as a potential health hazard. Just having a gun around opens up a Pandora’s box of bad possibilities. I just don't get it.
A lot of medical professionals do see it as a public health hazard
Oh the gun owners in the western part of South Dakota are definitely the old West thinkers.
My cousins use a small spare house on their ranch to store their firearms. Otherwise, they are awfully nice.
I'm with you Rowshan. Perhaps it is the perspective from another country - in my case Canada. American obsession with guns is unfathomable.
Thank you, for saying so. I get some filthy looks at other times when I mention my position on guns.
I'm a born American and I don't understand that either.
My friend is writing her PhD thesis on the correlation between men who have returned from VietNam and WWII having been traumatized but get no relief back home. They can't resolve their trauma and how the movie industry is reflecting that unresolved trauma in their depiction of cowboys and other heroes like Jimmy Stewart in "It's a Wonderful Life."
My dad was a WWII vet, dropped on Normandy early on the morning of D-Day, as a pathfinder, to lay out communications ahead of the invasion. He was in the 101st airborne, a paratrooper. He was shot by friendly fire and ended up a POW in a German "hospital" until allied troops freed him. I am certain he suffered from PTSD his entire life, because he had nightmares from time to time, always about the war. But there was NEVER a gun in our home. None of my siblings nor I have ever owned a gun. None of the grands do either. I have been "taught" by a young friend to shoot his BB gun and I was "taught" by a professional gun instructor how to shoot a pistol for the purpose of pretending I was shooting it in a stage play. Neither of those experiences gave me any desire to ever shoot again, much less own a gun. Needless to say, I do not "get" this love affair with guns that so many have in this country.
I, too, had to learn to to handle a gun for a play. My character disassembled, cleaned, reassembled, and loaded a revolver - and later fired it backstage. It was a very grim play that ended in suicide. I didn't like guns much before doing that play; I now have a visceral hatred of them.
I hope your friend can talk to vets & get them to share their "bad" stories. My dad was a WWII ball turret gunner. I didn't know that until 2000! He never talked about it. He was recalled for Korea & stayed in the AF for 20+ years. He retired when they started sending B52's to Guam for bombing Viet Nam. He said that 2 wars was enough.
I went to a community college with a lot of VN vets & they only opened up when they had been drinking. My husband & his buddy only shared the funny boot camp & base camp stories. Spouse was still having nightmares when we got together- 3 years after he was back.
I always felt that I was a chickenshit for feeling this way, but I refused to date vets. Friendship? Great! A relationship? No, thank you. I knew I couldn't handle living that close to someone who had that in his brain. Relationships with men of my generation was problematic enough without the added stress of being a supportive mate to someone who is so damaged by the choice our government made to send boys and young men (and many women in non-combat roles) to interfere in a place we had no right to mess with because of a stupid fear of the spread of "communism".
Our national discourses on gun ownership are so skewed and distorted, it's difficult to enter into them. Almost 50 years ago, I wrote my senior thesis on cross cultural murder patterns. The murder pattern in the U.S. was dominantly of people being murdered by people who knew them, not being murdered at random or by strangers. Mass murders in recent decades have put a dent in those statistics, no doubt, but people in the U.S. are still far more likely to be murdered by someone who they know. For women, this is most often, by their intimate (male) partner. The idea of gun ownership for personal protection appeared to be more of a myth than a reality. I did find one statistic that has stayed with me for the rest of my life--an armed home owner who attempts to stop an armed criminal in their house is six times more likely to be killed than an unarmed householder. Gun ownership leads to more murders. All I have written so far in this reply is about ownership of guns, like rifles and hand guns, which is what U.S. homeowners owned in the 60's and early '70's. The automatic weapons that have proliferated in recent decades have the sole purpose of killing many people quickly. They are weapons of war, developed by the military. How they ever became legal is a crime against the people.
“The automatic weapons ... How they became legal...”
The weapons you are likely referring to are actually not automatic. They are semi-automatic. Automatic weapons have been illegal for non-military use since 1934.
Picky, picky.
A large capacity magazine in a semi-automatic weapon does facilitate killing lots of people without reloading.
The idiot in Dayton OH that killed 7-9 people including his own sister before he was shot by quick thinking and very brave police as he was about to enter a bar that was packed with people had a drum magazine attached to his rifle that could hold 100 rounds, that meant he could have fired 100 times without reloading. I am a gun owner and a hunter as well as a former competitive shooter, the most any deer rifle I’ve ever owned would hold was 5 rounds and I have never used more than 3. The best elephant rifles held 2 rounds, if that wasn’t enough you’d be dead anyway. Rifles are for hunting game big and small 5 rounds are more than I have ever needed in a lifetime of hunting and competitive shooting. Large capacity magazines, be they 10 or 100, are useful only for killing people and have no use outside of the military. They should be banned and there should be a bounty offered for people that have them to turn them in. I say this as a former Green Beret 60’s era weapons specialist and combat veteran.
I agree. I suppose if progress on this issue is destined to be slow and incremental, 100-round drum magazines is as good a place as any to start getting it done.
And "conversion stocks" are widely available that get round this limitation without problem.
It does indeed, Harry.
In case anyone is wondering.... Semi-automatic means you must pull the trigger once for each shot; there is no need to do anything but aim and pull the trigger, one bullet for each victim if you have your wits about you. Luckily, mass-murderers often do not have their wits about them, or the death tolls would be even higher. Some of the most popular mass-murder weapons are semi-automatic rifles based on the M-16, an automatic rifle introduced by the US military in 1964 for jungle warfare (as in Vietnam), which became the basic infantryman's weapon in 1969. It is designed for the rapid killing of human beings, nothing else.
As I recall, it had a 20-round clip (though we were instructed to only put in 19 bullets to avoid jamming) and could fire off all 20 - or 19 - in just a couple of seconds if we held the trigger down., This meant that if you (I use the impersonal "you" because I was never in any sort of combat anywhere) were in close combat so intense there was not time to raise the weapon and aim it, you could switch it to automatic - "click!" and shoot from the hip into a group of enemy soldiers. If you actually needed to do that, it often meant the situation was so dire that your own death was imminent, because the enemy was likely doing the exact same thing with their AK-47s or whatever. Another problem is that an M-16 with an empty clip is pretty useless until you remove the empty one and insert a new one and then, if I remember correctly, cock the weapon by grabbing a gizmo and pulling it toward you and then pushing it back and resuming shooting. Ya gotta be really quick.
My point is that in a supermarket or at a former workplace having an automatic weapon gives no particular advantage over having a semi-automatic unless the place is really crowded. A shooter taking his time and firing one shot at a time strikes me as a more dangerous mass-murderer than one blasting away for a couple of seconds on automatic, but as my only actual experience with any of this was two summer months of basic training in the US Army at Fort Leonard Wood MO (Fort Lost in the Woods!) in 1972, I cannot say for sure. I remember that we spent many long hours at a variety of firing ranges out in the middle of hot, humid, mosquitoey nowhere, standing, kneeling, lying down or standing in a foxhole shooting at roughly human-torso sized targets that popped up and down at various ranges. I was a terrible shot (I blame it on the sweat always running down over my army-issue glasses. Sure, that must have been it!) and had to try several times before achieving a minimal level of proficiency (marksman), though I did raise eyebrows by knocking down all my targets at "night fire" when we were shooting tracers at invisible pop-up targets with little lights flashing on and off . The best shot in our training company - a few yards to my left - missed all his targets. Hmmm, I wonder why?
Anyway, bottom line, anyone who breathes a sigh of relief that at least truly automatic rifles are illegal (or anyone else who whines about how hard it is to organize a decent MAGA militia without automatics) has never experienced the seductive feeling of power shooting an M-16 set on "semi". For what it's worth, I have never so much as held a gun in my hand since 1972.
Ah, yes, Ft. Leonard Wood. I did my basic there in 1966. We were using M-14's (semi-automatic, single shot) at that point and had M-14s overseas as well. I enjoyed the target shooting in basic and fired expert. But I never wanted to own a weapon after my four years in the army. Enough was enough.
Fortunately, I didn't have to shoot anyone. And I didn't get shot. But, as you know, the army can call up any soldier for line duty at any time. Some of my friends are still having trouble from their actions and their injuries.
Unless I missed it, the word "gun" appears once in your commentary for bullet-spewing-weapons.
Ft. Gordon, GA taught Army recruits in Basic Training that your M-16 was your "weapon," and you sure as hell better not call it your "gun."
Thanks Ellie, that's what Drill Sergeant Jordan told on us the first day of Basic Training, and he meant it. While I can now safely call the M-16 a gun (after all, a rifle is a type of gun), I'm sure my tendency to call it a weapon shows how effective the Army's indoctrination of young soldiers can be, and was in my case.
Why did they say it's not a "gun?"
Well, yes, that's true. That's what guns do: spew bullets. Your point?
Yes, what IS the point??
True. Thank you for the correction.
Hopefully you earned honors for your thesis, Pam.
A firearm in a household is much more likely to be used on a member of the household than on an intruder.
Indeed.
There are two reasons why I like Letters from an American so much. Heather Cox Richardson is brilliant in being able to combine history and current affairs into a narrative that is compelling and of the moment, and the people who comment add many individual insights that also add a lot to the original idea. Great reading all around!
I agree with you wholeheartedly, Linda, and over the past several months I have become an HCR addict. But I wish there were people on the other end of the political spectrum reading the Letter from an American, making comments, responding and really thinking about a lot of things most of us here take for granted. Even the middle seems hardly to exist anymore.
Is there a rightwing equivalent anyone might recommend? I sometimes feel I am failing to live up to a civic duty to at least consider the other side's points of view, but I cannot stomach FOX news, even now.
The only one I can stomach and listen to that POV is Chris Wallace on his FOX News Sunday show.
I was addicted from the first of her newsletters that I read. On a lot of stuff I don't know that the other side has a substantive point of view. But if/when she ever writes about immigration, look for my responses. I have absolutely no antipathy towards immigrants. But the flood of low/no-skilled immigrants over the last 40-plus years has resulted in low/no-skilled Americans going from earning a decent middle class living to living in the gutter, and from the environmental point of view our country has four times what would be a sustainable population. We are the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita resource use and greenhouse emissions, and thus, the worst place on the planet to put more people.
During the Clinton Admin, the late Barbara Jordan ran a commission on immigration reform. Her recommendations: cut immigration roughly in half (at this point I'd cut immigration down to around 250,000 annually rather than 550k), and strict enforcement of immigration laws--among other things, to make sure African Americans would be able to get jobs. And back then, a lot of Democrats thought similarly. Alas, she died soon after she filed her report, and her recommendations were never acted upon. Had they been acted upon, I doubt the former guy would have gained the White House.
Hi David. I appreciate your comment and have noticed before that immigration is your issue, so to speak, and that a number of other commentators have taken issue with your take on it. I think it is a difficult problem that I should understand better than I do, so I am not inclined - now - to either agree or disagree with you that there may be a causal relationship between high numbers of immigrants and the decline of the American middle class. I suspect this is more complex than "reduce immigration = bring back the middle class" but I am willing to hear you out and discuss this with you at length in the future. But where I am (Italy) it will soon be midnight, I have just heard the "guilty" verdict from the Chauvin trial in Minneapolis and I need to get some sleep.
I agree Barbara Jordan's untimely death was a big loss to our country, but I guess I am more interested in what may happen tomorrow than running "if only" scenarios about the recent past. In any case, we should never have elected Trump, and the big problems he embodies are not going away any time soon, I'm afraid.
We'll have more chances to exchange views on this and all the rest.
Have a good one.
David, here's a succinct article which should help you understand the fate of America's formerly middle class low/no-skilled workers. It's really quite simple. The point about mentioning Jordan was more to say that much of the Democratic Party was not so long on the other side of this issue, and I would add that just now, Biden's approval rating for handling immigration is the worst of any issue, in the negatives, and if we (Democrats) persist in pushing for more rather than less immigration, we risk losing Capitol Hill in the midterms and the White House in '24.
If you're on vacation, enjoy the hell out of Italy!
I just heard the guilty verdict myself. It's so nice to get some good news!
I just listened to the phone call between POTUS, V-POTUS, FLOTUS, and the family of George Floyd (Twitter link on the Guardian website). The news is good, but I'm crying for all the families who did not receive that measure of justice. Tears of happiness mixed with profound sadness.
Me too, Lanita. Lots of tears, both of relief after the verdict and of grief—for lives lost and for the tragedy of the systemic racism that continues. Be sure to hydrate.
I'm with you. It is damn sad for those families.
David, immigration is certainly a complicated issue. First of all, if we had a civilized foreign aid policy, there wouldn't be so many immigrants from Mexico and Central American countries. When the U.S. supports dictators and foreign aid means supplying munitions to them, we can expect hordes of refugees coming from those repressed countries. As I recall, Bush Jr. wanted to open up the borders and allow workers to come north. (Repubs. always want cheap labor.) Of course, he's rich, and the immigrants won't affect his standard of living. Also, Hillary as SoS supported the oppressive dictator in Guatemala (overthrowing a democracy if I remember correctly).
Ref. the number of refugees/immigrants coming to the U.S., yes, the number of them does affect and lower wages for local workers. I saw such a case directly many years ago. I was an adolescent in 1962 and went with a friend to visit Miami. We had hoped to get jobs for the summer but to no avail. We spoke with some local laborers about the job situation there. We were told that large groups of Cubans were fleeing Cuba and came to the U.S., Miami specifically. The minimum wage then was $1.25 an hour as I recall. Many of the minimum wage jobs were filled by Black Americans. The Cubans came into Miami and worked for half the minimum wage (about 62 cents an hour). Employers were happy because it increased their profits. Black Americans were not so happy because they lost their jobs. Black Americans and Cubans developed an enmity between them over the issue, and it may continue to this day. Capitalists do tend to pit one group against another. Their objective is to get the highest profit possible and pay the lowest amount possible in expenses. That's the nature of the beast.
Hi David. Can you clarify or expound on the “ strict enforcement of immigration laws--among other things, to make sure African Americans would be able to get jobs.” part for me. Are you saying that the jobs immigrants take are jobs that should go only to African Americans? Im having trouble with what this “sounds” like.
Also, if we didn’t have immigrants, particularly from South of the Border, many of the foods we eat and services we enjoy would be unaffordable to the average American. Politicians always talk tough when running for office only to look the other way after elections. IM0, they don’t want to lose donations from businesses that benefit from cheap labor.
Work visas should be a welcomed thing. I’m not sure what the best solution is so it’s good that I’m not in charge!
Hi Evelyn. Barbara Jordan explicitly referenced the low employment level among African Americans. I'm not, and I'm sure she wasn't saying those jobs should go exclusively to African Americans, but they have been hit particularly hard with unemployment.
Bernie Sanders talked about this in '15, and I think he specifically referenced young African Americans, Latinos, and whites, in an interview with Vox where he referred to open borders as a "Koch brothers program."
Actually, food would cost all of about ~$25 more for the average American family if crop pickers were paid decent wages. Crop picking constitutes a very small percentage of the cost of produce.
As for the services, I'm not sure which you're referring to, but in my affluent neighborhood in the Boston area, there are a lot of immigrant workers working lawn services and probably cleaning services, and I'm sure none of my neighbors would suffer if they had to pay higher wages.
When the country basically outsources by importing the cheap labor, the value of that labor drops. As one example, in the '80s, meat packers could earn $50/hr and they were basically middle class. Now, they get barely over minimum wage, working under atrocious conditions. That's because since 1990, immigration has added 43 million--two NY state population equivalents plus 3 million--well over half of these low/no-skilled.
https://americancompass.org/the-commons/worker-power-loose-borders-pick-one/
It's because profit-seeking drives employers, who relentlessly drive down labor costs unless workers organize to win union support. Beware the neo-Malthusan trojan horse.
There's no neo-Malthusian Trojan horse, if I'm understanding correctly what you're referring to.
A major part of driving down of labor costs involves encouraging more immigration. The flood of low/no-skill immigrants is a big part of what undercut unions. It's much harder to undercut them when labor is tight. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who in the '90s and '00s was the primary advocate on Capitol Hill for reducing immigration told me that a couple of fast food execs tried to buy him off of the issue, offering to keep his campaign coffers full if he would shut up about the issue. He wasn't for sale.
Similarly, big biz GOPers generally, and the Chamber of Commerce pushed for more immigration, to keep wages down.
Workers have done much better during periods of low immigration, such as the post WWII period.
Another view is that many of these jobs that immigrant workers fill seem to be considered as not good enough for American workers. I remember watching a documentary about the lack of migrant workers & hearing how American workers just did not want those jobs. It wasnt a question of whether they were white or POC, the jobs were a) too hard or b) didnt pay enough!
There is no job category with immigrant workers where there are no American workers, and all but crop picking have more American workers than immigrant workers.
But here's the thing: If you're an immigrant from a third world country, even sh!t wages by US standards seem quite substantial, where from the point of an American worker, the wages are sh!t. You're always going to be on the edge.
The attraction of immigrant workers--especially those here illegally--is that they are very easy to exploit. Illegally present crop pickers in parts of the Central Valley get literally $2-$3/hour. (See The American Way of Eating, by TRacie McMillan. As part of her research, she worked among these ag workers--which she could do because she spoke some Spanish, and Spanish speakers were running the crews.)
Thanks for clarifying what you “weren’t” saying David. I read this article from your link and several others. POVs go every which way so it seems it depends on whatever side one chooses.
Is that &25 more for a trip to the store, a week, month, year, or lifetime?
$25 more per year. Thank you for catching that.
Regarding the article I posted, and others with different points of view, it's econ 101 that when there's an oversupply of a resource, the value diminishes. That includes labor. And when labor markets have been tight, as in the 3 post wwii decades, workers have done comparatively well. Cesar Chavez understood this and used to denounce illegal immigrants to INS for that reason.
Good show, Linda. You Maine-iacs should stick together!
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Today's Letter provides a clear history of where we are today as a nation. "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 infringed." One sentence ratified 230 years ago (1791) now makes me think twice before heading to my local grocery store.
"Well regulated..."
Such an extraordinary disconnect between the opening clause and the main statement. Such an abyss between the customs and conditions of 1791 -- when a gentleman wore pistols in the same way as his descendant might wear a suit and tie -- and those prevailing today. Such a gulf between the weaponry of the period and today's semi-automatics.
One deranged and unregulated individual today could put paid to an entire militia company armed with muskets.
At the. Time there was no standing army and volunteer brigades were raised "in times of troubles" and often to kill Native Americans. Perhaps a side issue currently for many...but not for me..i'm currently reading Fergus Bordewich's "Killing the white man's Indian" written in 1996 and Louise Erdrich's recent "The Nightwatchman" and would recommend them both to you all
That's what made me write -- looking back over the wars that tore Europe apart, starting when the Prussians took Paris -- of "Violence that spared North America, but not all the continent's inhabitants".
Not all the continent's inhabitants...
I was thinking of the last "Indian wars", the ending of a genocidal tide that dragged on until a century ago.
I was thinking of the lynching culture, the Jim Crow laws, the pogroms against black citizens (in effect stripped of all the rights and defenses enjoyed by citizens).
Then, this extraordinary continuation of slavery right into the 20th century -- soon to be repeated by Nazi industries' brutal use of slave labor:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89051115&t=1618916908695
If you read this account by Douglas A. Blackmon, starting with his article in (yes) the Wall Street Journal and leading up to his book SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME, you'll realize that there was a Gulag in America at the same time as Stalin was launching projects like the White Sea Canal or the construction of the Moscow metro, using massive slave labor.
HUMAN DIGNITY SHALL BE INVIOLABLE.
Thank you, Peter, for your perspective and the recommended resources.
Two decades ago I arranged for a Mashpee Wampanoag (and others) to discuss the state of Amer Indian affairs at Brandeis U. One question referred to the end of the Indian wars; his reply was that they have never ended. But the most memorable part was when he laughed at the question (not the student who asked). It was the most mirthless laugh imaginable.
In Washington State and the Pacific NW (including Canadian BC, and further east) there is an ongoing genocide of Indigenous women.
When i asked my brother about it as he lives in Vancouver, he brushed the question away as it "annoyed him to hear about it all the time" . Mind you his favourite literature these days is the medieaval latin writings of Britsh monks! So his response was probably a-political!
I just listened to a replay of an interview of Louise Erdrich on Fresh Air. I recommend listening to it. What a compelling woman whose story, and books, are stunning and stark and beautifully written and spoken about.
Morning/Afternoon, Stuart!! Not a side issue to me, but what I need to be informed of is by whose authority is a "well regulated militia." My point being the January 6 incident had two "militia" groups whose intent was to overthrow the existing government, later to be hailed by the "people" for their patriotism?
Afternoon, Lynnell. I think that the point now is that there is no conceivable reason to have a militia of any sort that is not controlled by the government now that there are both the permanent army and the National Guard.
Lynell, you probably know this, but those groups are self-styled "militias." In any empirical definition they are simply armed gangs. The 2nd Amendment's militias were the only local and national defense forces; hence their requirement to be well-regulated. There were widespread fears at the time that a national government (or tyrant) could use a standing army to cow or attack the populace. Hence we got the National Guard (militias) under the control of the states--unless called into service to defend the country.
Hey, Tom. I understand what you say is what it is supposed to be. It's those armed with military style weapons who embrace "alternative realities" that are worrisome.
Agreed! Maybe a bumper sticker: "Please constrain your alternate realities to your video games"?
Stuart, I second your recommendation of Louise Erdrich. Haven’t read Bordewich.
I've just started the former but so far he is concentrating firstly on the idea that the Non-Native American population should perhaps pay more attention to reality rather than their mythic appreciations which have floundererd from murdering savage to natural man neither of which reflect either how the Native American community sees itself or any reality on the ground. He then goes on to look at what was happening on the reservations in the 1990s and compares this experience with his childhood visits in the 1950s. He concentrates then on the Tribes that have effectively reconstituted the identity and considerable levels of independant power over their own affaires following the policy changes in introduced under Nixon and continued subsequently. More later as my reading advances....the autheor is a journalist and not a historian.
There is a quiet sentiment brewing out here in the Western US. Talk of reparations in the East is now echoed with the return of ancestral lands to descendants of Native Americans. Funny that this is not covered more in the media. A wonderment, indeed.
The Canadians really got into this when their Supreme Court decided that the treaties signed with George 111 and which had not specifically been declared null by law were still valid......giving the native's a massive share of land in British Columbia for instance. Prior to that I worked with the people negotiating the Cree's James Bay Agreement (creating the Cree Government and Cree social and educational services with the Quebec Government in the late 70s which handed the Cree Nation a very significant degree of Autonomy and control over their own ressources. I thereafter worked with the Inuit Development Agency (Independant Inuit government-owned) finding international markets for their, fresh water, NorthWest Passage and Labrador fisheries. They are certainly getting there!
Morning, Charlie!! I have read some news articles about reparations for Native Americans out West. If I can find them again, I'll let you know.
Don’t you know
Fergus Bordewich is quite a good popular historian, i.e. not a professional academic. His study of Radical Republicans, "Congress at War," nicely complements HCR's "To Make Men Free."
Thanks, TPJ. My list is getting ever longer.
Thank you, Stuart. Bordewich's book led me to add to my Mount Books:
Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong (Indigenous Americas) by Paul Chaat Smith
Thanks for this title too, Ellie.
To me, the Second Amendment has gained the status of the Word of God and has expanded its definition by leaps and bounds since its enactment.
Boy Howdy, Claudia, ain't that the truth.
"Boy Howdy", Lynell, I thought I was the only living American who still says that!
Aftermorning. Lynell!! I just commented on the guilty verdicts in the Chauvin trial. I'm less than 100% after my first Covid vaccine today, but still willing to go out to a nearby justice rally if something's on. Good Trouble!
Congrats on getting your first shot! Stay hydrated. (I’ve cried with relief a couple times following the verdict). Things are going in the right direction.
Tears of conscience flow freely today.
Tears of conscience, tears of sadness for missed opportunities, tears of community in sync with what is right.
Hey, TPJ. Feel better...we need you! Take lots of Vitamin C. It may not help but it won't hurt, or so they say.
I have always thought the word "militia" was the crux of the Amendment, not free-will gun-toting. In the pre-Revolutionary days, it was forbidding to take up arms against Britain, thus the response to another country's prohibitions. America did form a milita called "The National Guard." I continue to think the SCOTUS is deeply at fault for its interpretation.
Morning, Lynell. I enjoyed the Professor's rendition of the history of gun use in the US. Still formulating my reply, as the coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
You are a valued ally, Ally.
Thank you. I had a former recruit walk into an LGBTQ event that had a rainbow banner up that said "Be an ally". He wrote a very nice post about it, and about me.
With you, Ally!
Morning, Ally!! Still pretty early for you.
HRC did in 1,202 words what would take Ken Burns 8 1-hour episodes. ;-). Damn!
"HCR" I meant but you knew that. Double damn!
There was a time early in the pandemic when I thought that it might be possible we would culturally redefine what it was to be a hero. The qualities exhibited by selfless healthcare workers who against overwhelming odds sacrificed so much, including their safety and potentially their health, physical and mental, demonstrating enormous compassion daily caring for others. All celebrated that care, compassion, competence, and dedication. The term healthcare heroes was on everyone’s lips. People daily demonstrated their support for those sacrificing so much in service to others. Despite all the tragic consequences of the pandemic I thought perhaps that redefinition of the image of what it meant to be a hero was a positive.
But I found those hopes dashed by a President and his millions of supporters who celebrated all those toxic masculinity characteristics unhelpful to the redefinition of hero I hoped for. He used the word strength in almost every sentence never pairing it once with the word character. He demonstrated no respect for the heroes fighting the pandemic and it's consequences, instead demeaning and belittling them. Rather he celebrated those pushing against science, truth, and knowledge. The cowboy hero was again celebrated pushing out the healthcare hero. Instead of making a sacrifice for others being celebrated, millions celebrated toxic individualism.
Yet one more hope for a better future crushed under the feet of the Trump masses by their ignorance and selfishness.
We are seeing an uptick in people being drawn to the health care professions as a result. I have been very worried that it would have the opposite effect. So all is not lost. There are still many with a calling to do good in our world!
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC)just now
Bruce Carpenter, Your comment (comet) reached me as a laser. You appeared to leave Brown v. Board of Education, Senator Barry Goldwater, the cowboy and the NRA, etc., in the dust to address basic values, which seem to have been overcome by capitalism, by the powerbrokers, power-brokers of money and power.
You took us to life and death in the most fundamental way. It is in the deepest sense where we all go. As we consider guns is our society, where else is there to go? It was a spiritual journey as well moving from the nurses, aides, therapists and doctors who care for us to mythic cowboys and toxic individualism. Thank you Bruce.
I would like us to reflect on out-of-control Capitalism; It is a major factor in this gun crazy country and on our values. Race and Guns have been used to manipulate the American people in the battle between Democratic Principles v. control of power and the accumulation of wealth. Consider the differences between FDR and to a lesser degree Truman and Eisenhower v. Nixon, Reagan, George W and Trump. Where would be if Walter Mondale could have beaten Reagan? What has prevented meaningful Climate Change? Why has racism endured for more than 4 centuries? Why is gun violence out of control? There have been other BIG LIES in this country before Trump, some of them part of our economic/political system. The battle of control for the Union may have reached the breaking point. Is it too late? Some cooperate giants realize this; it would be catastrophic for them, as well.
The later chapters of that history must still be written, Bruce. I think that heroism has been redefined, but it must be remembered and foregrounded. Your comments help.
Totally agree. I had the same feeling about bonding around first responders, health care workers, etc. Trump sure made that go away in a hurry. Really sad.
Here in Texas the state legislature is about to pass what is called the Constitutional Carry law allowed people to carry handguns openly or concealed without a permit. Don't you love the name they tagged this with. Sort of like "Voter Integrity" as a euphemism for voter suppression.
Contemporary America- where getting a gun is easier than getting a vote. I don't suppose it bothers those who like things that way round, but it does have a considerable impact on how people over on this side of the pond view the country.
In the minds of the gun-owners it increases the importance of their vote as it allows them to intimidate those that disagree with them and stop them voting.
Very true and very threatening.
In plain and simple language it is a disgrace.
Orwellian
The legislature in Tennessee is doing the same thing.
Just the latest in legislation meant to deceive by its title.
So lets link yesterdays HCR letter to today’s. Yesterday she detailed the progress of the Republican party which we see as circling the drain and today the notion that we are in a gun battle for the country that the Republicans have designed with the help of the Cowboy myth, western independence, and state’s rights over national efforts to reform. Or something like that.
Both of these letters are dealing with trends in the country that are founded on the slight of hand that says ‘if you are accused of something the best defense is to accuse your accusers of the same offense.’ Oddly this works. There is a psychology that says the thing that upsets us most in others is when they mirror a problem we, ourselves have that we are actively trying to deny. In this case we can get strident, obstreperous, and escalate any situation toward violence just to keep ourselves from having to recognize our problem.
Have you ever held a gun in your hand? A loaded gun? How about a loaded gun in your living room? Or a loaded gun when you are angry? How do you think a teen-ager or now we are talking about pre teens, feels when holding a gun and having the emotions of that time of life? When I hold a loaded gun I feel fear. I think this is what a lot of us would feel but others feel power, empowered rage, and a turn from impotence toward capacity. This is the same myth that the cowboy rides on. The cowboy pointing at the fearful liberal holding their gun with two fingers is the same picture as the state’s right’s small government advocate pointing at what they see as the socialist.
Thing is, none of this analysis matters. Our system is so complicated, so entrenched, so encumbered with personality on both sides and so enslaved to profit that any level of comprehension is just for the comfort it might or might not bring the individual.
In many cases I have come down to contemplating the question of whether incremental change can bring about the transformation required. In Medicine, in politics, in law enforcement, in finance I have a hard time seeing the needed changes happening by even steady small incremental steps because it is the special interest group against the necessarily distracted majority. Special interest energy is basically what has gotten us here. It seems to be the bane and downfall of democracy.
At this point we are reduced to writing letters against those who are sending checks. We squeaked in a president while states representatives feel comfortable acting against a clear majority of their constituents. They are loudly aligning with their source of funds confident that this will enable them to remain in power. They are supporting states moves for voter suppression while tangling up and diluting the For The People Act that we may never see an actual vote on. In my opinion this is the only business that is before the country. But there is this idea that persistent reasonable government is going to change what? The underlying manipulative intent of a minority empowered by the systematic entrenchment that they have taken decades to build? Really? That is what we think?
HCR yesterday, asked where to the repubs think this is all going. It is still a good question. The only context where this makes any sense to me is that of addiction. Within the twisted logic of addiction it all does actually make sense and where it is going is one more day of addiction. Having personally witnessed addiction and recovery and relapse and recovery day to day I know the difficulty of arising from this insidious posture of self-destruction. I also know the instinct that modeling reasonable behavior hoping it rubs off is a hopeful but laughable misunderstanding of the addicted reality. It is vastly easier to spread the addiction than to confront it. And enabling through tolerance in any form is just playing to the disease.
Summarizing the 9000 ft. view must give me some comfort I guess. It sure doesn’t reveal a new path that can be followed.
I appreciate your point of view & find the comparison to addiction interesting. I've led a charmed life in that I have no personal exposure to addiction. Your comment gives me something to think about.
Your comparison to addiction makes sense to me too. I don't have a personal connection to it, but have friends who have and I've read a bit about enablers. As I recall, rather than fall into the co-dependency trap, the recommendation was to allow the addict to "hit rock bottom." I'm not sure how we as a country can pull back enough to allow the addicted party to bottom out. What exactly would that entail? What would we need to do differently?
Our problem is that allowing the addicts to "hit rock bottom" is likely to bring our whole society down, rather than the smaller circle affected by allowing one addict to go as low as possible. I doubt we could survive that.
That's what I can't wrap my brain around.
This letter was a doozie!
It made me want to put up one of those big cork boards,get some push pins and colored string, and start tying everything you wrote about together. Barry Goldwater, Brown v. Board of Education, Socialism, and cowboys. Now that's some historical bouillabaisse!
Your way of looking at history is fascinating and unique. Brava professore!
I’d like to call it historical giambotta
Do people still use “Professoressa”? Not sure whether that’s antiquated in the 2020s. Maybe one of our Italian expats will chime in. 🇮🇹🇺🇸🏳️🌈
Herb, if that is your inclination, I recommend "Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun" by the amazing Erik Larson (his first book!) which goes deep on some of the items HCR tied together here to trace the causal steps behind one particular shooting.
This is a solid historical summation as far as it goes. This is about politicians, guns, and laws. What isn't mentioned is the effect that media has played in this historical thread. Starting in late 1930, mostly, up until today there has been a constant glorification of antisocial behavior. Not only are guns glorified but those who use them for good or evil are as well. In order to attract bigger audiences and advertising revenue TV and film, primarily, have gotten more and more graphic showing explosions, blood splatter, torture, revenge, and mayhem constantly numbing audiences to the horror of violent death. Hell, cartoons blow up kittens, anvils crash on coyotes, eyes get poked, noses bloodied, and everyone gets blown to bits...and we have put our children in front of these things to babysit while we make supper, sip wine, and talk on the phone...or, just chill out because we have been working all day. We can't send our kids out to play anymore because of the predators we have allowed to roam our communities, so they sit home and swill violence and grow numb. Death and blood has no meaning until it is in your town, house, school, church, synogogue or mosque. Then it's real but nothing can be done because the people who make our laws...hell, who inhabit our executive branches...are also numb to blood, guts, and mayhem. And, of course, corporate irresponsibility and greed complicate this path. Tougher laws and enforcement are needed but they are not enough. We need to deal with the effect that media glorification of violence has on this unique American cultural characteristic.
Words of my mother....
Go out and play
Go out and play
Go out and play!
GO
OUT
AND
PLAY!!!!!
Sounds so simple....but sets the tone for the rest of your life....
PS. thanks Mummy
My mother: “You’re underfoot! Go out and play.” Thanks, Mom, too.
The Guardian reported a study recently done in England that showed the age at which English children are allowed to go outside and play unsupervised has increased by two years, to now about 10 1/2. And I thought I was a helicopter parent!
Seriously, I was lucky to be in a small town where everyone watched out for everyone's kids, subsequently, we all had a lot of freedom. By the time I was 8 I would leave the house in the morning and returned in time for supper. Usually I was less than a mile away, but not always :-)
Same for my two brothers and me. My father would whistle loudly, a signal that meant home for dinner NOW. Another day spent entirely outside was over. Looking back, I see what a fabulous way it was to grow up.
Me too - my parents didn’t have a reason to worry about us - and we were able to enjoy an idyllic childhood.
I moved 60 miles outside a large city to give my daughters a similar experience. SO glad I did that for them!
Did I mention the forts and hide-outs we kids would make? Finding two graves in the woods, and wondering how that happened? I mean, a big slab over two graves! As children, of course, we had no idea of the fairly recent (within 30 years) history of our little island. That gravesite could have been the pyramids of Egypt, timewise. We had no clue.
Nothing better than building forts and treehouses.
Michael, your comment made me smile, because my dad also had a 'special whistle' that said, "Come home now". If I wasn't down at the dock, with a line in the water, I would hear him and head home. But fishing came first, so I was glad I was out of range then! LOL
My dad also had a badass whistle. He'd put two fingers or a finger and a thumb in his mouth and make the most ear-piercing, long distance whistle of all the dads in the neighborhood. We were never able to get out of range!
Ouch! I'd forgotten that Dad had the same whistle. Mom rang the dinner bell.
I agree with many of your sentiments. The majority of them in fact. But this not being able to let our children play outside due to some boogeyman is rarer than we have been trained to think. For gods sake
Let our children go out and play.
In the congested east and west coast, I believe this boogeyman myth has legs. While we always had boogeymen, we didn't know about them until mass media reminded us every day of kidnappings, trafficking, molestations, and such...even in our schools and churches as well our streets. The perception is stronger than the reality, maybe.
Yes they exist. Sadly in most places children playing out need supervision for protection from boogey men. I encountered them even back in the 60’s and it’s only gotten much worse.
We were constantly reminded not to accept rides in cars from, not only strange men, but even from the fathers of our friends - if our parents didn't know and trust them. I think my parents knew they were out there, my mother in particular, because she was raped by a group of teenaged boys when she was only nine. And my father never thought very highly of the urges of other men. Of course, he also thought all women who joined the military were "hussies", so that tells you he had big sin issues around any kind of independence for women.
Women, children, Blacks, Indigenous, AAPI -- so many varieties of The Talk.
T Coates, Between the World and Me
How awful about your Mom. I’m so sorry. 💔 I was fortunate to be able to always escape possibly because I was so suspicious but it takes it’s toll to not be free to move about safely. There are so many reports on social media of men trying to grab children in Alaska recently. Sad to have to teach kids to be so wary of others.
This thought has been niggling at my brain all day and your description of these daily doses of murder and mayhem forces it to the surface: not only were all those mythical cowboys of yore always gun toters, but there were always two distinct types. The "good" cowboy rode a white horse and wore a white hat. The "bad" cowboy rode a black horse and wore a black hat. the medium has always been the message (or massage if you will), as Marshall McLuhan said.
Well said.
Absolutely true.
Indeed.
Heather MacLean in her book Democracy in Chains makes a compelling case for her argument that the Republican Party is under the control of wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals. She notes that the intellectual framework for the guiding principles of this ‘movement’ comes primarily from the ideas and vision of James McGill Buchanan an economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1986 for his work on “Public Choice Theory”. To oversimplify the “Public Choice Theory” amounts to the balance between private interests and public interests and, to oversimplify even further, the conflict between the ‘makers’ and the ‘takers’.
She notes that this vision has evolved over the last 70 years but took root in its current form during the 1970s and 1980s when Charles Koch reasoned that the vision properly financed and given enough time would suit his purposes of creating a political environment that had no regulations whatsoever and allowed for a totally unfettered market. He managed this by developing intellectual command posts through the funding of ‘think tanks’ like the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute and program chairs at George Mason University that espoused the neoconservative view. Most importantly, though, was his funding of the right-wing political infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). ALEC was founded in 1973 and SPN was founded in 1980. These organizations are the most important political influencers in our nation today as evidenced by the incredibly rapid response by so many states to submit voter obstruction bills following the Georgia senate elections in January.
I think that MacLean’s argument connects dots and the connection is that Republican politicians can do whatever they want regardless of their constituents’ preferences because they are beholden to the plutocrats whose only interest is in a free market and a continuation of their personal wealth. The means to achieve this does not matter as even though they are in the minority it is the minority interests rather than minority rights that they are committed to protect.
They now have 40 plus years influencing state politics which in effect has significant control over what takes place in local and national politics so they are firmly entrenched in our political future. The 2020 election was a close call as, in my view, it represented a tipping point for our democracy. Buchanan’s view was not to change who makes the rules but to change the rules themselves. This vision was not a support of our constitution or our democracy. To fulfill the view requires only that the interests of the elite and ‘qualified’ individuals are protected and that could be accomplished more easily by an autocracy or plutocracy rather than a democracy. In 2020, incredibly, the Republican Party had no platform! That meant that the substance of their policies were dependent only on the wishes and whims of Trump. Trump’s wishes and whims were substantively consistent with the plutocrats as his actions (reduction of personal and corporate taxes, reduction or elimination of regulations and federal agencies, weakening of the public school infrastructure, ignoring public health restrictions to maintain an open market) were perfectly aligned with their interests. His racism, misogyny, xenophobia and authoritarian actions mattered not.
As Dr. Richardson points out the majority of Americans do not support the political actions taken by our representatives over many issues including gun control, voters’ rights, immigration, public health requirements, infrastructure, police reform, etc. There is only one solution to this problem in my view and that is we must ensure one person, one vote. We can’t expect this to occur through our political system (as exemplified by the controversy that is erupting over H.R.1 (For the People Act) so we must actively support the on the ground efforts by organizations like Stacey Abrams Fair Fight Initiative. These organizations are knocking on doors to encourage people to vote and providing guidance as to how to inform themselves in determining what is important in that decision.
The 2020 election saved us from a tipping point but the reality is that it is only a temporary escape. The fundamental forces that have no concern about our nation retaining our democracy are firmly in place and will be very active in the 2022 election to right their cause. We do have much to be optimistic about with an administration that is promoting a role for our government that is making it a part of the solution, with the many grass root organizations that have sprouted nationwide to address the need for people to get out and vote and for the emerging intellectual framework that is supporting the values of our democracy through historians like Dr. Richardson and Dr. MacLean and economists like Dr. Jeffrey Sachs (sustainable development) and Paul Krugman (economic development) and scientists like Dr. Johan Rockstrom (planetary boundaries).
Don't forget the Federalist Society: Forty years of promoting conservative justices.
You are right. It is part and parcel of the same strategy used by the Koch brothers and the family foundation of Richard Mellon Scaife and the Mercer family. The Federalist Society has taken on extreme importance in the selection of judges in the federal court system up to and including the Supreme Court. Their impact is very consistent with Buchanan's vision that to affect change one must change the rules rather than those who make the rules. There is nothing more direct in changing rules than those who decide what the rules are.
By the way, I just realized that I cited Heather MacLean as the author of Democracy in Chains and that is incorrect. The author is Nancy MacLean. She like Professor Heather Richardson is an American historian and is the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University.
Sally Camp "Don't forget the Federalist Society"
I was just reflecting today that the very name of that society is misleading - regardless of the historical link to the writers of the Federalist Papers - because they (along with Hamilton, Madison, Jay, et alia) espouse a very strict adherence to such a narrow interpretation of the Constitution (going as far as to say that the Bill of Rights was unnecessary, let alone any subsequent amendments) and the role of government, that it is clear they actually hate having a strong centralized/federal government. The idea of a select group of "elites" (wealthy white men) ruling a less educated, less wealthy, relatively powerless under class is perfect for achieving their aims.
We once took our boys to a hockey tournament and there was a gun show nearby. The hotel forbid any hockey sticks on the property for fear of potential damage - yet people were walking around the lobby with all sorts of guns...
Wow.
Nearly every month there is a "gun show" at our county fairgrounds. Whenever I have the opportunity, I gently uproot their ubiquitous signs and lay them down on the parking strips in which they have been set up. This is not vandalism, just gentle obstructionism to something I violently oppose only on the inside. I've thought of picketing the shows, but I really don't want to be shot at by angry lunatics. Perhaps I will look for a likeminded group willing to risk their lives in such a manner...
Before LFAA I never realized the depth of racial hatred in this country ...
Read, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. I've had to go back and read it a second time, this time with a highlighter.
I don’t think racial hatred is that deep: poverty brings out our back up behavior. If these gun toting, reactive, uneducated bumpkins could earn a living, their family life would improve and they wouldn’t bother to complain so much.
Oh, it is. It is deep within us, and has been "carefully taught".
Truth!!"
Please read, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee.
Reading it now. She has a good argument re: how we all lose because of racism. Important reading.
I saw her TED talk on this topic late last year and pre-ordered the book & audiobook. The talk is a good 14-minute introduction the book. It sold me, obviously...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaCrsBtiYA4
Just listened. Great speaker, inviting one to listen carefully without asking.
I suggest Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: How we go to our discontents. As I did, you may well come to a different consideration of rasism and the depth of it, Susan.
Fred 100%. "Caste" is an instant classic upon publication. It shows how deep is the hate, but more than that, how deeply ingrained are the traditions and habits that reinforce caste. There are so many passages where I think "so that's what was really happening" and, more important, "Now I see how I'm part of the problem!" And new thinking can shatter old traditions.
Agree completely. Structural precedes attitudinal.
SOOOOOO TRUE!!! One of my patients (white, age 78) kept insisting that she had never in her entire life ever seen any instance of racism. I told her that as a Chinese-American girl in California growing up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s that throughout my school life I had been mocked, taunted, physically kicked and punched by classmates who made fun of my being Chinese, even though I was born and raised here and spoke American English without any accent... it's really stunning how many non-POC disbelieve that racism is real.
With the recent (important) focus on Black Lives, it is too easy to lose sight of the racism against all Americans who are not of white European ancestry. I volunteered in an after-school program in a middle school in Seattle in the late 90's and worked with a teacher's aide of Philipine extraction who talked about the East Asian and Southeast Asian students in our program as not being "regular" students. I was confused by who were the "regular" students and I was very disturbed to learn that he meant only the white students in that school - as though the majority of students at that school didn't count as regular because they were not white. This came from a school employee who was not white himself. He had been indoctrinated with the narrative that posited him and the majority of students in that school as "others", rather than as the mainstay of that school. As a white woman, I felt such shame that this idea had been implanted in his mind, that he and anyone in America who is not white is not a "regular American".
Filipino. I couldn't remember the correct word and was too lazy to look it up. Came into my lame brain this morning.
Thank you for your reply. I do understand that people can't relate until they've had that experience for themselves. I'm sorry that you had that experience with the frame shop clerk. In this day and age it seems incredible that there are people out there who react differently based only on color/ancestry. I hope that the next generation will do better.
Minds are moving; hearts are racing; souls are stirring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxvVk-r9ut8
We need a folder for LFAA Soundtrack, curated by TPJ.
LFAA - Law Firm Antiracism Alliance?
letters from an american
I had to look it up too and got that alliance
didn't jive, so I lurked until I learned what it meant
so obvious, couldn't believe I didn't figure it out
welcome aboard!
Duhhhhhhhhh.........
I know. I felt the same way.
No one answered me when I asked the same question...so I looked it up and got the same answer you did.
And all the time it was staring at us like the hand in front of our face: Letters From An American
Easier to type
I've been here from the beginning & had to ask too when someone recently started abbreviations things. Sorry no one answered....I don't get through all the comments ts most days....
Here in TX, a state legislator has proposed open carry -- no permit required. I know people who are licensed to carry a concealed weapon, because they think that they will be the "good guy with a gun" in a shoot out. Are there any examples of that? I recall an instances of a supposed "good guy" shooting a bystander and fleeing the scene.
Over the weekend, I drove by flags at half mast. I couldn't think of anyone famous (except Prince Philip) for whom the flags would be lowered ... then I recalled the multiple shooting events of the previous few days....
What is so ghastly is that the shootings are now so commonplace that we can forget them. I’m not criticizing you; I am the same.
Yes, we seem to have become almost numb to them on the conscious level but what does the barrage of daily violence do to our psyches? Here in Florida, my neighbors have their own personal shooting ranges in their back yards and I have to listen to semi automatic guns being fired. It sets my nerves on edge. We live on one and a half to two and a half acre parcels, and yet this is lawful. It’s surreal.
I agree. The neighbors across the street from the barn where my horses are, are the same. Hours of it, every Saturday. Even the horses are getting used to it.
I'm also out in a semi-suburban, semi-rural area with frequent shooting practice. Washington may be a blue state, and my town is the blue capital of a blue state, but out here in the semi-boonies, guns, boy racers (to use a British term for young men who express their masculinity with loud unmuffled engines speeding), and speed boats are a fact of life.