Uh, No. Rep. Dingell, Democrat from MI, started all of this. Even after Regan was shot, Dingell tried to kill the Brady Act. Anyhow, NY Times has a huge expose this morning on how Dingell supported, funded and used the NRA, growing it into the behemoth it became. A Democrat.
"John Dingell was comfortable with firearms at an early age: When not blasting ducks with a shotgun, he was plinking rats with an air gun in the basement of the U.S. Capitol, where he served as a page. " Who shoots rats in the Capitol Building at age 18 or so? A psychopath, that's who.
I read that article too, now that Dingell's papers have been released 8 years poshumously. But, I don't think it is a case of either or. One can also read Prof. Kathleen Belew's book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, where she also explains the single-White-male-racist-mass killer as part of a bigger plan to take over the world and make it all White.
I think that the 3 discussions work together to explain different parts of what is making us #129 on the World Peace Index, whereas Iceland is #1, Norway #17 and many of the European countries and New Zealand, Singapore and Japan fall somewhere in-between.
Hartmann's article explains the sociological reasons for people to go out and kill, and certainly Ronald Reagan reversed Roosevelt's new deal, which had made us in line with other wealthy countries for social benefits and governmental role in supporting the people. People would have been more content following WWII. Reagan undid that which created the sociological conditions for dissatisfaction in life. Dingell made the NRA political and powerful with them entering politics by endorsing candidates, and flagging any pending legislation that might be against the NRA agenda, as a member of its board. He also guided them on how to defeat it. Belew is looking into the world of White Supremacists and the agenda that they have developed here and globally. In fact, it so little is known about this agenda, that she and others co-wrote a book for journalists so that they could understand what they are seeing and report more accurately when mass shootings happen globally. It is called A Field Guide to White Supremacy. Both of her books discuss a White Supremacist global conspiracy which she claims began after the Vietnam War as a result of the dissatisfaction that certain soldiers had with the outcome and their desire to finish what was started in Asia, here at home. The drive to end "socialism." Understanding this helps to understand the way that the racist tropes that Reagan trotted out resonate with a these ex-military, and the White Supremacist communities that they come from.
I agree with you on your broader take on this. My point about Dingell is that there are Psycho/Sociopaths on both sides of the aisle and there's a point where you just have to say, 'This guy is one sick dude.' Read 'The Sociopath next Door', a great book that describes various cases of sociopathology from a psychiatrist's perspective. One guy in the book, 'Skip' is his name, fits Dingell's personality to a tee. And Kathleen Belew has appeared on the PBS NewsHour several times and is one of the most knowledgeable people on this White Supremacy movement which never disappeared, really. Since the KKK started up during Reconstruction and then its resurgence in the 1920's .... On and on. There are millions 'out there'; they never went anywhere.
1. Iceland is no. 1 because it is a small nation, isolated in the north Atlantic and it is protected by well armed democracies and allies. An isolated nation without valuable resources and not a threat to anyone.
2. There are or were indeed a handful of ignorant Vietnam vets (and I was one of them), who believed that their sacrifice was betrayed, by pressure from the left.
I lost my team, their names are in inscribed the area for Sep to Oct 1967 on the wall.
So many lost friends, because we were born before WW2 or during the atomic bomb hysteria where we were brainwashed into duck and cover. Out fear was communism, and we felt betrayed. And good cause the sacrifice was in vain. There are now fast food franchises like McDonalds in Saigon, (Ho Chi Minh city)as well as international banks. So what did we sacrifice for, I can only think Jane Fonda was prescient
And Exxon Mobil has an exclusive contract to produce and market the oil from Giul of Tonkin, the same area that Navy pilots were told to unload unexploded bombs. Which
produced excellent seismic readings for detection of salt domes and oil
My world view is 180 degrees now (though still not a commie or Marxist.who was a proto libertarian)
You should have specified which Dingell, Debbie Dingell is a fierce gun control advocate. I had to google Brady Act and Dingell to find out it was John D Dingell, Jr
If you read The NY Times article, you would see that Dingell did soften his position over the years but only slightly. His wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell is also quoted as saying that she and her husband did not agree on guns (she is pro-gun control).
After one of the many mass school shootings in the USA, I read a discussion of mass shootings here, then in Germany and then in other countries. What I learned is that a lot is known about who does this, but not a lot about prevention. Of course, lack of access to guns somewhat mutes this, although in Germany there have been knife attacks and crossbow attacks too. Still, their tighter gun laws, make it harder to have a gun at hand to fulfill these fantasies of suicidal-homicide. I have read that shootings have gone down, and I would say that an more hopeful outlook on the economy and some stability may contribute to this. Humane is human is the mantra that helps to live by. I think Biden represents this.
Your use of the phrase "indiscriminate killing" is most unfortunate because your entire article lists statistical evidence which points to the contrary. The killers are almost entirely male and white people who believe their downward socioeconomic trajectory is caused by the machinations of whom? Women, Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Hispanic immigrants, children of successful middle/working class Americans (or what is left of them). This is most certainly not evidence of "indiscriminate killing." Both serial killers and mass killers follow easily identified patterns in their self appointed tasks. Tasks which are intended to Improve society. Listen to them; they say it outright. Then they act accordingly.
You are most perceptively correct when you point out that this is a social class phenomenon exacerbated by inequality. It is furthermore a phenomenon traceable to our distant past.
The most famous and admired public figure in Wallachian history is the 15th century aristocrat Vlad Tepes. Today there are cities named after him. His nick-name was Vlad The Impaler. His father's name was Dracul. His killing exploits (without the use of firearms) makes our mass killers look like kindergarteners.
The celebrated 15th century French aristocrat Baron Gilles De Rais ( Marshal of France and the brains behind Joan of Lorain-Arc) tortured, raped and killed so many children, in so many unimaginably devilish, bloodthirsty ways that he literally filled the basements of his estates with the bones of children from the surrounding countryside. The Baron De Rais was so prolific in his mission of death that some French villages were deprived of an entire future generation of citizens.
Both Dracula and De Rais had a stated mission: to kill members of an uppity class of people whose economic position in society was, in their view, marginally improving.
Now, please allow me to say that I love to read your stuff and almost always agree with it. But here your explanation is lacking historical context, provides no Sociological/Psychological nexus underlying your statistics, and finally, your logic flirts with contradiction.
Hard to find fault with the logic of this chapter. However, it gives readers the impression that it was TV Cowboy Reagan who decimated the middle class. While Reagan got the ball rolling, it was Clinton who engineered the export of millions of manufacturing jobs overseas - much of it to China. Clinton is every bit a neolib capitalist.
It is not likely that all the lost jobs will eventually come back home and the middleclass will reform. Members of Congress will have to set aside their personal greed to kill Citizens United before that happens.
Mr. Tomonthebeach; My metaphor for Bill Clinton is this: "He was the best republican President since Grover Cleveland."
If you are unfamiliar with Amerikan history you might be confused by my metaphor.
But it is not my intention to cause confusion. So I must say that Cleveland and Clinton conducted amazingly similar careers; which can be easily verified by a cursory examination of the records both of those chameleons.
Financial insecurity and poverty cause much stress and anxiety, which over a long time can cause health problems both mental and physical. There is too much me and to little we in America. The Atlantic conveyor belt is predicted to stop between 2025 and 2095. That means that most babies born today will experience much more suffering even. I am definitely pro-choice and lean towards sterilizing all humans until we become civilized. The human race had a chance to either use their brains or lose their brains. Either this fate has been genetically or environmentally caused. Only changing the environment children were raised in could have brought about different results. Even now almost all humans are still in denial
What about RELIGION, Thom? You've nailed the Supreme Court, the Republican Party, and the N.R.A. What keeps the Baptists silent? And the Catholics? If the churches can pose as the so-called "moral authorities" of society, why are they not leading the outrage against today's real demons? Thank you!
Uh, No. Rep. Dingell, Democrat from MI, started all of this. Even after Regan was shot, Dingell tried to kill the Brady Act. Anyhow, NY Times has a huge expose this morning on how Dingell supported, funded and used the NRA, growing it into the behemoth it became. A Democrat.
"John Dingell was comfortable with firearms at an early age: When not blasting ducks with a shotgun, he was plinking rats with an air gun in the basement of the U.S. Capitol, where he served as a page. " Who shoots rats in the Capitol Building at age 18 or so? A psychopath, that's who.
I read that article too, now that Dingell's papers have been released 8 years poshumously. But, I don't think it is a case of either or. One can also read Prof. Kathleen Belew's book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, where she also explains the single-White-male-racist-mass killer as part of a bigger plan to take over the world and make it all White.
https://www.kathleenbelew.com/
I think that the 3 discussions work together to explain different parts of what is making us #129 on the World Peace Index, whereas Iceland is #1, Norway #17 and many of the European countries and New Zealand, Singapore and Japan fall somewhere in-between.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-peaceful-countries
Hartmann's article explains the sociological reasons for people to go out and kill, and certainly Ronald Reagan reversed Roosevelt's new deal, which had made us in line with other wealthy countries for social benefits and governmental role in supporting the people. People would have been more content following WWII. Reagan undid that which created the sociological conditions for dissatisfaction in life. Dingell made the NRA political and powerful with them entering politics by endorsing candidates, and flagging any pending legislation that might be against the NRA agenda, as a member of its board. He also guided them on how to defeat it. Belew is looking into the world of White Supremacists and the agenda that they have developed here and globally. In fact, it so little is known about this agenda, that she and others co-wrote a book for journalists so that they could understand what they are seeing and report more accurately when mass shootings happen globally. It is called A Field Guide to White Supremacy. Both of her books discuss a White Supremacist global conspiracy which she claims began after the Vietnam War as a result of the dissatisfaction that certain soldiers had with the outcome and their desire to finish what was started in Asia, here at home. The drive to end "socialism." Understanding this helps to understand the way that the racist tropes that Reagan trotted out resonate with a these ex-military, and the White Supremacist communities that they come from.
I agree with you on your broader take on this. My point about Dingell is that there are Psycho/Sociopaths on both sides of the aisle and there's a point where you just have to say, 'This guy is one sick dude.' Read 'The Sociopath next Door', a great book that describes various cases of sociopathology from a psychiatrist's perspective. One guy in the book, 'Skip' is his name, fits Dingell's personality to a tee. And Kathleen Belew has appeared on the PBS NewsHour several times and is one of the most knowledgeable people on this White Supremacy movement which never disappeared, really. Since the KKK started up during Reconstruction and then its resurgence in the 1920's .... On and on. There are millions 'out there'; they never went anywhere.
Great comment. I would add two things.
1. Iceland is no. 1 because it is a small nation, isolated in the north Atlantic and it is protected by well armed democracies and allies. An isolated nation without valuable resources and not a threat to anyone.
2. There are or were indeed a handful of ignorant Vietnam vets (and I was one of them), who believed that their sacrifice was betrayed, by pressure from the left.
I lost my team, their names are in inscribed the area for Sep to Oct 1967 on the wall.
So many lost friends, because we were born before WW2 or during the atomic bomb hysteria where we were brainwashed into duck and cover. Out fear was communism, and we felt betrayed. And good cause the sacrifice was in vain. There are now fast food franchises like McDonalds in Saigon, (Ho Chi Minh city)as well as international banks. So what did we sacrifice for, I can only think Jane Fonda was prescient
And Exxon Mobil has an exclusive contract to produce and market the oil from Giul of Tonkin, the same area that Navy pilots were told to unload unexploded bombs. Which
produced excellent seismic readings for detection of salt domes and oil
My world view is 180 degrees now (though still not a commie or Marxist.who was a proto libertarian)
You should have specified which Dingell, Debbie Dingell is a fierce gun control advocate. I had to google Brady Act and Dingell to find out it was John D Dingell, Jr
If you read The NY Times article, you would see that Dingell did soften his position over the years but only slightly. His wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell is also quoted as saying that she and her husband did not agree on guns (she is pro-gun control).
NYT is behind a pay wall. Also the editorial staff of the NYT is conservative, and some have proven to be Trump Humpers, barely disguised.
Uh, no.
No what? NYT is not behind a pay wall? My wife had a subscription, but it expired.
After one of the many mass school shootings in the USA, I read a discussion of mass shootings here, then in Germany and then in other countries. What I learned is that a lot is known about who does this, but not a lot about prevention. Of course, lack of access to guns somewhat mutes this, although in Germany there have been knife attacks and crossbow attacks too. Still, their tighter gun laws, make it harder to have a gun at hand to fulfill these fantasies of suicidal-homicide. I have read that shootings have gone down, and I would say that an more hopeful outlook on the economy and some stability may contribute to this. Humane is human is the mantra that helps to live by. I think Biden represents this.
Your use of the phrase "indiscriminate killing" is most unfortunate because your entire article lists statistical evidence which points to the contrary. The killers are almost entirely male and white people who believe their downward socioeconomic trajectory is caused by the machinations of whom? Women, Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Hispanic immigrants, children of successful middle/working class Americans (or what is left of them). This is most certainly not evidence of "indiscriminate killing." Both serial killers and mass killers follow easily identified patterns in their self appointed tasks. Tasks which are intended to Improve society. Listen to them; they say it outright. Then they act accordingly.
You are most perceptively correct when you point out that this is a social class phenomenon exacerbated by inequality. It is furthermore a phenomenon traceable to our distant past.
The most famous and admired public figure in Wallachian history is the 15th century aristocrat Vlad Tepes. Today there are cities named after him. His nick-name was Vlad The Impaler. His father's name was Dracul. His killing exploits (without the use of firearms) makes our mass killers look like kindergarteners.
The celebrated 15th century French aristocrat Baron Gilles De Rais ( Marshal of France and the brains behind Joan of Lorain-Arc) tortured, raped and killed so many children, in so many unimaginably devilish, bloodthirsty ways that he literally filled the basements of his estates with the bones of children from the surrounding countryside. The Baron De Rais was so prolific in his mission of death that some French villages were deprived of an entire future generation of citizens.
Both Dracula and De Rais had a stated mission: to kill members of an uppity class of people whose economic position in society was, in their view, marginally improving.
Now, please allow me to say that I love to read your stuff and almost always agree with it. But here your explanation is lacking historical context, provides no Sociological/Psychological nexus underlying your statistics, and finally, your logic flirts with contradiction.
But in the mean time
Keep on trukkin
Gerald F. Dobbertin Ph.D
Hard to find fault with the logic of this chapter. However, it gives readers the impression that it was TV Cowboy Reagan who decimated the middle class. While Reagan got the ball rolling, it was Clinton who engineered the export of millions of manufacturing jobs overseas - much of it to China. Clinton is every bit a neolib capitalist.
It is not likely that all the lost jobs will eventually come back home and the middleclass will reform. Members of Congress will have to set aside their personal greed to kill Citizens United before that happens.
Mr. Tomonthebeach; My metaphor for Bill Clinton is this: "He was the best republican President since Grover Cleveland."
If you are unfamiliar with Amerikan history you might be confused by my metaphor.
But it is not my intention to cause confusion. So I must say that Cleveland and Clinton conducted amazingly similar careers; which can be easily verified by a cursory examination of the records both of those chameleons.
Financial insecurity and poverty cause much stress and anxiety, which over a long time can cause health problems both mental and physical. There is too much me and to little we in America. The Atlantic conveyor belt is predicted to stop between 2025 and 2095. That means that most babies born today will experience much more suffering even. I am definitely pro-choice and lean towards sterilizing all humans until we become civilized. The human race had a chance to either use their brains or lose their brains. Either this fate has been genetically or environmentally caused. Only changing the environment children were raised in could have brought about different results. Even now almost all humans are still in denial
What about RELIGION, Thom? You've nailed the Supreme Court, the Republican Party, and the N.R.A. What keeps the Baptists silent? And the Catholics? If the churches can pose as the so-called "moral authorities" of society, why are they not leading the outrage against today's real demons? Thank you!