Why isn't he in jail?

[Jd seattle]

Thinking about it now that is probably one of the keys to these problems. Maybe saying “I might as well die now” and other more cryptic phrases implying similar things on social media shouldn’t be seen as “teens being teens”. There is only two reasons for saying that kind of stuff out loud. Either you want attention or your calling out for help. This is what needs to be focused on as well.

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[JanS]

also…remember, Jd, kids keep their twitter accounts , etc., social media in general private from their parents. His friends saw the posts, but maybe not mom and dad. And the friends noted that it was weird, but opted to not tell anyone? I don’t know if that’s the case, but I can picture that scenario.

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[JoB]

let’s be real here

many teens have moments where they think all of the things he wrote

what is different today is that kids write about them.

and we get to see them after the fact when a tragedy like this happens

if there had been no tragedy this kid’s writings would have been put down to teen angst

what is so troubling is that teen angst is so easily turning into teen murder because of the availability of guns that do maximum damage while allowing the shooter the easy out of instant death…

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[TanDL]

Interesting opinion about proper securing of weapons by gun owners in the Seattle Times this morning: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024895186_westneat29xml.html

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[dobro]

The problem is not teen angst. That’s been around forever. Teens in other countries experience it,too. Here in the USA, the problem is that they have easy access to guns. The solution will be some way of controlling their access to guns and creating a path of legal liability for those that allow such access. Any ideas on how we do that?

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[JoB]

TanDL

great link.. thanks

it certainly speaks to the point..

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[Jd seattle]

So when I talk about safe storage laws and penalties it is met with criticism about enforceability, but the Sesttle times talks about it and it’s great and speaks to the point?

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[JTB]

Jd, I think it’s obvious the issue of enforceability comes to the fore when violations become evident. Checking in on people’s storage procedure otherwise would certainly be an undue intrusion on privacy as far as I’m concerned. But, if an gun owner is to be responsible for safe storage, then their ownership of the firearm has to be clear. That makes registration a necessary element of safe storage. I suppose some communities might like to verify the storage procedure as a condition of final purchase (somewhat like electrical and plumbing inspection before final approval) but we’ll never see anything like that in my lifetime. I do think that having meaningful penalties is essential for the laws to have much impact on modifying behavior even though some here are reasonably skeptical about deterrence. So perhaps confiscation and disqualification from additional purchases for fist offenses should be considered. I realize the resistance to most of that would be strong on the part of the gun lobby. But I’m not convinced they’ll ever promote truly responsible gun ownership in a meaningful manner. I’d be happy to be wrong, but I think we know catering to that crowd is a dead end.

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[JoB]

Jd

you talk about safe storage instead of ….

i see it more as part of a package that would make it possible for responsible gun owners to go on owning their guns

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[dobro]

“So when I talk about safe storage laws and penalties it is met with criticism about enforceability, but the Sesttle times talks about it and it’s great and speaks to the point?”

The problem is not the Seattle Times vs JD. Safe storage is a good idea but it doesn’t solve the problem. The solution will be some way of controlling teens access to guns and creating a path of legal liability for those that allow such access. Any ideas on how we do that?

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[wakeflood]

I gotta’ say, this and several other recent threads in this blog, combined with what I pick up in the media these days sure has me down.

This country is falling apart in so many ways, I can barely begin to count them.

Most of the underlying reason IMHO is that we’ve allowed ourselves to have our capacity for critical thinking tempered with a little humility, torn away. Gone like a sheet from a clothes line on a windy day.

It’s been replaced by fear, stubborn selfishness, hubris, and a false patriotism.

History will judge us to be ignorant fools who had it all and were just too damn self-centered to nurture our bounty and heritage and share it with our fellow men. For the benefit of all.

Maybe somebody will discover a vaccine to this plague, this virus that has enveloped our hearts and minds. I want to be hopeful but man, it gets harder every day. Or maybe another generation will sweep the streets clean of our arrogance and salvage something from the scraps we’re preparing for them now. What a terrible, pointless waste.

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[JanS]

wake…it’s been a “them” and “us” for quite sometime…whether it’s guns, NRA, Ebola, what have you. I get whiplash from shaking my head and headaches from rolling my eyes. People who I have known since childhood, professionals, like a teacher, married to an Internist, still believe the right wing propaganda re: ebola, and spread it on Facebook. I’ve stopped arguing. It serves no purpose. And it’s truly sad, indeed. My hometown has become a hotbed of Rep. right wing rubbish that always goes back to “we have no leadership” and Obama…and might I yell once more “Benghazi”. Chin up…Christmas is coming ;-)

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[dobro]

“It’s been replaced by fear, stubborn selfishness, hubris, and a false patriotism.”

Exactly. We had problems before 9/11 of course, but that event and the ridiculous response to it turned us into a nation of pants-pi**ing cowards and fear ridden fools. The folks that make money off the fearmongering have had a field day. It’s been a festival of war profiteering, “homeland”

(a Nazi term) security bureaucracy creating,record gun selling,civil liberty smashing insanity that shows only small signs of abating. The school shootings are just a symptom of the madness that afflicts us.

I do think that it will take another generation to get us past all this. It is a bit sad to think that our generation won’t get to see it but there are many things that have changed recently that give me some hope.

On that cheery note, I think I’ll crank up the World Series game 7! Go KC!

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[wakeflood]

Thanks for the smile, Dobro! Go Royals!

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[JanS]

so sorry about the Royals ….next year?

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[dobro]

Well, it was a great game anyway. And MadBum, yikes, what a pitcher! Well done SF and a great Cinderella year for the Royals. Maybe next year the M’s…

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[JoB]

out of the mouth of Nash of Crosby Stills and Nash

paraphrased from a morning Joe broadcast hyping his new book…

be the best person you can be… look around you in your own environment and ask yourself what you can do and do it ..

that may not seem like a lot.. but it’s a solid place to start

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[JTB]

Wake, I believe we are experiencing the results of a steady decline in the role of popular democracy to provide political enfranchisement of ordinary people. In the past, the role of political parties was to translate the voice of its constituents into public policy. Today the parties have become primarily office-seeking in an attempt to occupy government with little regard for representational integrity and instead scheming to sway those on the margins through all sorts of blatant pandering and deceit. The ways people identified with common interests and organized around them to empower political parties I think has been more clear in Europe which has tended to have more varied party affiliations than what we have here. But I think the same breakdown of traditional collective connections and identification is true for all of the advanced Western economies. I’m looking into a number of writings that attempt to address different notions of why that has happened and what it means for future political action, but I think there’s no doubt it has taken place.

One economist who has addressed the citizen as consumer points to how in the United States, “the middle classes, who command enough purchasing power to rely on commercial rather than political means to get what they want, will lose interest in the complexities of collective preference-setting and decision making, and find the sacrifices of individual utility required by participation in traditional politics no longer worthwhile.” I think there is some irony there in that what we might consider to be Individualization when viewed from a political perspective is actually isolation and impotence. That trend toward increasing consumerization is referred to by the economist Costas Lapavitsas as the “Financialization of Life” as he delves into the wearing consequences of neoliberalism on ordinary people.

I think it is going to require a return to collective political action to address the needs of most people in contrast to the interests of the elite. That will be particularly challenging because in the aftermath of the huge tax breaks that enabled massive capital accumulation that is largely invested in speculation rather the productive growth, the prospect of reigning it back in is fraught with the possibility of upheaval and instability due to capital flight. Of course, we’re already seeing companies relocate in order to isolate even more income from tax obligations. Lapavitsas has a series of talks on Real News Network in which he raises the notion of putting public resources (taxes) to work in institutions that return wealth to the public by establishing public banks, producers, etc. I’ve only looked at his broad idea so I don’t know how he expands on it. I know I’d rather fund and insure a community bank that makes conventional loans to consumers and businesses rather than be on the hook for Goldman Sachs’ adventures. Of course an alert reader will observe his suggestion smacks of socialism :-).

There’s no doubt that we’re living in one of those periods of profound transition like we read about in history books. Certainly gives me an appreciation that living in the midst of such a change is a lot more unsettling than one would ever imagine while looking a charts of “stages of social organization through history.”

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[wakeflood]

And what goes around, comes around. :-)

It is interesting that we’ve got some significant changes to the dynamic this time around. From earliest purchased representational gov’t, right up through Tammany Hall, there wasn’t the same technological capacity to divide and conquer that once existed. Nor the ubiquity that the corporofascists have crafted these last 40yrs.

It’s a weirder and more intense prison that the masses have allowed to be built around them this time. And all the propaganda that Orwell envisioned – now on steroids – and pumped directly into our daily existence.

It’s gonna’ get bumpy sometime soon.

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