Good Guys with Guns are Not...

In yet another reckless and meaningless shooting spree, this time in Colorado Springs, CO a heavily armed man shot three people before being killed by the police. Halfway across the country in Chicago, a customer at a Mexican market who was carrying a licensed concealed weapon shot a man who was trying to rob the market. Both of these shootings took place on Saturday, the day before Halloween, Colorado Springs in the morning and Gage Park, Chicago that night. While firearm murders are routine and occur so regularly that the latest ones barely last more than a day as news, the contrast between these two incidents is rather striking and cries out for some examination.

Guns; as tools of death, as valuable merchandise, and as a worldview are the perfect alignment of fear and power among oligarchs and the mob. Rarely do popular and elite opinion combine around an issue the way they do with firearms. Regular people spontaneously jump to the defense of gun manufacturers in every instance of gun violence when they assert that buying as many as they want is their right. Despite billions spent propagandizing the masses on other right wing bugaboos, regular people rarely jump to the defense of other giant corporations with the same kind of enthusiasm.

Recently the enthusiasm has jumped from merely owning guns and being able to buy as many as they can without any restrictions, to actually using them. Whether the uptick in demands to open carry, concealed carry, and "stand your
ground" began with the scumbag George Zimmerman or the election of Barack Obama, there has been a definite shift from demanding the right to hunt deer to the right to hunt humans.

There is a clear implication in comments about the foiled robbery in Gage Park, Fox and Friends wrote that this was "Proof good can come from guns." Because... well, this is what the robber looked like. His name was Reginald Gildersleeve and he was not a bright kid who was going to college in the fall as many other shooting victims lately are described. No, he was kind of a bad guy with a long record of criminality. So good riddance says just about everyone commenting with one hand while the other seductively strokes their gun or concealed-carry permit.

There was a joke in the 1970's that a conservative was a liberal who'd been mugged. So many of the commenters I saw were pontificating on how awesome it would have been to pull the trigger on Mr. Gildersleeve. The Chicago Tribune reported that the police were unlikely to file charges against the shooter. The comment sections exploded with self righteous indignation. "Charges? That guy deserves a medal!" Was the oft-repeated refrain. The gun enthusiasts like to state that Chicago has the most strict gun laws in the country and that they don't do any good because 'Obama's home town is horrifically violent'. While that is a lie on many levels, what kind of a double standard is that? Gun nuts screech about how violent Chicago is, but cheer when a black guy is murdered while trying to rob a store? 

Anyway, it turns out that Gildersleeve didn't actually have a real gun. It was a paintball gun.

However, in Colorado Springs the killer was wandering around the neighborhood carrying an AR-15 but no good guy with his own gun was there to stop him. And the police were actually powerless to do anything before Noah Harpham took aim and opened fire because wandering around carrying an AR-15 is perfectly legal in Colorado Springs and many other places in our 21st Century Wild West. 

Of course, these insane perversions of law means that Harpham was a "good guy" right up until the millisecond before shooting random passersby. As opposed to Gildersleeve, who was a bad guy from the moment he got out of bed that morning, even though he wasn't actually carrying a weapon. But his killer was a licensed and perfectly legal vigilante even after repeatedly shooting an unarmed man because, gosh darn it you just can't trust those people in the city. 

So everyone make sure you study this handy guide for the next time an upstanding citizen is walking around the neighborhood in your area carrying a semi-automatic rifle.

The Hamburger Revolution: Crossroads

From the Department of the Painfully Obvious: Cliven Bundy is a racist, along with being a deadbeat millionaire, and lately a domestic terrorist.

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

 

The only part of this passage that was remotely surprising was about abortion. Perhaps the rural bigots out West are a little different from the Midwestern variety, but having spent an inordinate and painful amount of time around the latter at various jobs I can say it is the lack of abortions and contraception that most sticks in their craw. Perhaps it has to do with population density?

"Freedom" Mr. Bundy keeps using that word, but one gets the feeling it means something very different to him than the way Merriam-Webster defines it. The idea of "having something to do" as freedom is about the only possible connection Bundy's rant on race could even tangentially have with his "war" on the Federal Government. You know, the one he refuses to recognize and whines is illegitimate.

It is truly delicious, reading the authoritarian right walk back their support for this "patriot" and Chez at Banter has been cataloguing all the ways these rats are abandoning their paunchy hero now that he touched the third rail. Left unsaid, of course, is why openly expressing the ignorant belief that all African-Americans should be lumped in with the problems that some individuals face is a bad thing, beyond common decency and all that silliness about "liberty and justice for all." Generalizations about an entire group of people are very tricky to make, educated professionals can sometimes draw conclusions about tendencies by running statistical analyses. But even in those cases the data can only find evidence of those tendencies. Why liberals and other rational, humane people shrink from generalizing about race, or sexual orientation, etc. is that the constant in the equation is inherent, people are born with dark skin or light skin, blue eyes or brown; they do not choose to do so. It is easier to generalize about beliefs and ideas, therefore you can get stronger correlations with ideology. Unfortunately, even with ideology you can get crossed wires. Take what Rachel Maddow presented last night:


We must first examine what Fox News is; at its core Fox is the propaganda arm of the Republican party. It's job is to elect republican candidates, defend them once in office, and undermine the Democratic party and liberalism by character assassination or guilt by association. Fox will therefore grab at any shiny object that fulfills this function, or appears to. Dr. Maddow exposed the lie that all right-wingers are in absolute lockstep, that there are people out there more disgusting than Sean Hannity. I was worried I would have to go all the way back to Bacon's Rebellion and the foundation of slavery in America to get where Dr. Maddow brought us. Phew!

So why is open racism, as espoused by Cliven Bundy, bad for Fox and the Republicans? Simple economics. The vestige of middle class America, safe from the world in their tucked away suburbistans and hanging on by their fingernails, forms at least a plurality of conservative voters. They like to believe they are above vulgar racism and shy away from open declarations such as Bundy's. Suburban conservatives and their even more remote cousins in exurban McMansions are the beloved demographic of advertisers, the Americans who have slightly more income than required for subsistence. I'll admit it looked like this bulwark of polite society seemed to have been overrun with the emergence of the tea party and its myriad racist appeals, but Fox did manage to gloss that over and pretend did not happen to reassure the skittish suburbanites who do not want to support an openly racist party. However, it keeps popping up.

Therefore, despite what Sean Hannity et al. may or may not believe personally they must take pains not to offend this group. Because billionaires and white trash do not an electoral coalition make. Also, it is hard to sell gold, cars, or "erectile dysfunction" pills to Walmart shoppers.

The Hamburger Revolution

This story just keeps on giving.

History is the study of, chronicling of, analysis of, and appreciation of; change. History only exists because change occurs and humans are able to record those changes. It may be a fallacy to think of "timeless" cultures, hunter-gatherers or peasant societies, as having no history because nothing changes but this is something all human societies face from time to time. The small-minded occasionally fall into a trap of thinking tradition is good for no other reason that it is tradition, we have always done it this way therefore it is the best way. Never challenging why the tradition exists, questioning where it came from, or whether there are better ways of doing things. This is almost a textbook definition of conservatism, do not ask questions, do not assume you know better than those who came before you. What is occurring in Nevada on Cliven Bundy's "ranch" however, is nothing short of revolutionary and as far from conservatism as you can get.

I really need to throw some links up because this story and the media circus around it, specifically the right-wing authoritarian infotainment complex (thank you Bob Cesca), is by now so vast that it is difficult to know where the cattle end and the hamburger begins. NBC has a pretty decent running collection of facts on the story here that also contains quite a few facts helpful for getting your head around the weirdness. This site will also connect you to the hard news report from Reuters for the basics. Media Matters for America has been trying to keep a collection of fox news spin, though this is admittedly a herculean task. I was trying to keep up with the discussion at the Daily Banter on Cesca's excellent analysis. And Thom Hartmann's show pointed out some of the less-than-polite realities glossed over by most media coverage, putting a slightly different emphasis on what's at stake by always referring to "millionaire" Cliven Bundy.

But Steve Benen at Rachel Maddow's show put it pretty well when he wrote: "it’s unsustainable to think a group of well-armed extremists can simply block the enforcement of American laws in the United States... that’s not how the American system works. Indeed, that’s not how any system of government can ever work."

Might makes right is the law of the jungle. When the Federal Government, which theoretically has a monopoly on violence in society, decides to back down in the face of an armed mob for whatever reason the government then abdicates its place as the law and becomes just another actor in American power relations. And while Hartmann is absolutely correct in noting the class and wealth angle, money is secondary to power here. Though it is way above my pay grade to make a serious argument on that note. Money is power and power is money, one begets the other and vice-versa. Power to use others, to disregard and hold in contempt anything laws or will that conflicts with self-interest. These are the issues that all other distractions like race, immigration, the proper role of government, etc. attempt to deflect from.

Hamburgers. Is there a more potent symbol of Americana? I love them, so do you probably. But I, like anyone with even a basic understanding of economics, the environment, or biology, know that beef is a very inefficient and wasteful source of protein. Beef cattle are high-input, high-waste, poor conversion rate animals requiring a huge amount of space to raise without a correspondingly high investment of capital. Cheap hamburgers and all of the market distortions necessary to put them in Americans' stomachs is a self-evident example of why so-called "conservative" economics are complete BULLSHIT if you'll pardon my French. The artificially low grazing fees on public land are one instance of the perverse agricultural policies America has evolved since FDR and the New Dealers first tried to regulate the chaotic way food gets to your table many moons ago.

I have an acquaintance here in Wisconsin who's family owns and operates a dairy farm. The difference between a Midwestern dairy farm and a Western cattle ranch is so great that it is hard to believe they are raising almost the same kinds of animals. Bundy and other ranchers out there ought to be thanking fate, the government, and the machinations of history for putting them in such a fortunate position. Instead of being grateful for his incredibly low operating costs relative to farmers in the civilized portion of the United States, we get to witness the petulant arrogance that only a true Child of Darkness can display.

I realize this is getting rather long but there are two great American thinkers whose ideas reflect quite well on this story. When Reinhold Niebuhr first introduced the idea of Children of Darkness he was referring mainly to ambitious people seeking power within a state or government structure. These individuals recognize no law or restriction that conflicts with their own self-interest. The Children of Darkness do what they please unless restrained by some more powerful force. Cliven Bundy likes to portray himself on his many television appearances as a humble man seeking only to be left alone but the length and duration of his refusal to play nice puts the lie to this image. He is a selfish bastard who refuses to recognize any interests other than his own, and does not care how his actions affect others.

The other is University of Wisconsin historian Frederick Jackson Turner. Turner's Frontier Thesis has been the fount of so much cowboy folklore ever since he first introduced it in 1893. All of our American ideals about democracy, liberty, egalitarianism, and rugged individualism sprang from frontier society in Turner's thinking. As long as there was a frontier in America, virtuous pioneers would boldly move there and build society on their own according to the resources, climate, and temperament of the area. By this process the American frontier steadily moved west and then inland from the West Coast. Of course this process also brought along another, seedier, American ideal; speculation and the first claim mentality. Unscrupulous parasites have been ripping off productive Americans since veterans of the Revolution were compensated in bonds. Nearly worthless at issuance, those bonds gained value when bought up by speculators who then lobbied the government to redeem them at face value. But pioneers could grab the best land and pass it on to their heirs, leaving the less valuable land for late coming settlers, and garbage to remain public.

Turner believed the frontier had closed in 1890 and became concerned that innovation and democracy would suffer. What it could have meant was that we were going to have to start getting along and leave the cowboy crap behind. Unfortunately there are still these relics around like Bundy who act as though they are not only beyond the reach of civilization but above the law as well. A century ago, people living at the margins could pretend they are not part of a larger society but not anymore.

So, we have a private army of heavily armed vigilantes ready to fire on government officials and possibly die, for a deadbeat cowboy who thinks he is still living in the Nineteenth Century. Why did tradition freeze at the point of maximum selfishness for Cliven Bundy? History and most of America left this cowboy business behind a long time ago. Clinging to it in defiance of the law does not make Bundy a hero, it makes him a leech. Perfectly happy to keep the goods of raising his moos in a modern society, but claiming he still has the "perfect liberty" of a pioneer. Heads I win, tails I still win.

And we are letting him get away with it.

Never Again

I get angrier every year on this day. I am never exactly sure why, it could be the recognition of everything that came after the disaster, it could be the zeitgeist of pseudo-patriotism, or perhaps the outpouring of saccharine sentimentality from people. The anniversary has morphed into nostalgia, WTMJ just asked viewers "What's your most vivid memory of 9/11?" Facebook is inundated with recollections of where the writer was that day. Every news channel plays up the memory, ahistorically, as though context is meaningless. That context was that the United States at the time was being run by the most corrupt, incompetent, venal, bunch of gangsters in our history. The American experience of 9/11/01 should include a commitment to never, ever, again let the fabric of our nation be so torn apart.

Of course, it is impolite to remind people of this. As though living through the corruption, war crimes, and devastation once was enough. Americans need to remember though, just how close we came to dictatorship and collectively vow not to let it happen again. A giant hole seems to have built up around 9/11 to the point that right-wing commentators sometimes try to get away with asserting that "no terrorist attacks occurred on US soil during the Bush administration." The entire business: the wars, the torture, the rendering, the privatization of government operations, the debt, the deficit, the tax cuts, the corporate colonization of Iraq and its oil, the witch hunts of dissent, the color-coded terror alerts, the no-bid contracts, and the marketization of fear were just what the Nineteenth Century Austrian foreign minister Klemens von Metternich called "politics by other means." The total war on liberalism taken to its highest form by the most vile foes of democracy and good government this country has ever seen.

Right-wing sociopaths in this country have long memories for the slightest errors committed by Democratic administrations, but reminders of real crimes by right-wing heroes are met with either unbelievable screeching or refusal to even admit they happened. If somehow the admission by a bush official that "you don't roll out new products in August" (in reference to the buildup for war in Iraq and the beat down of anyone expressing doubts) ever got as much repetition as the throwaway line by Rahm Emmanuel that you never let a good crisis go to waste, America might find the resolve to resist making aggressive war on other countries "just because."

Let the hate flow through you



Is it even a surprise? An extremely divisive case begets an extremely divisive reaction to the verdict. A case that provides an horrific instance that not only is extreme polarization causing the United States to be ungovernable, but lawless as well. When anyone can pick up a gun, shoot anyone who "threatens" them, real or imagined, and get away with it; that is the state of nature imagined by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan. A war of all against all.

The FB post where I took this meme from was decidedly anti-Martin, but this one is decidedly double-edged. Take this comment by "B. Oblamer" on a Politico story:

The jury did a fine responsible job and found for the defense based on the overwhelming evidence. A very fair trial. 

And this was a very, very tame one.

Later, a decidedly liberal philosophy professor I know posted the exact meme, somehow I do not think he would suffer the fools, now "instant lawyers" and experts on legal defense all over the interwebs, very gladly. Lawyers deal with the law, however poorly the laws are constructed or for whose benefit they are enforced. Even the above comment from "Oblamer" who probably put as much intellectual punch into that derp which his hamster brain could muster, manipulates anyone who reads it. "Responsible... fair... overwhelming evidence," this has got to be the racists' finest hour. Not only did they vicariously murder a proxy Barack Obama, but they got away with it. Cue the victory lap of gloating.

Just survey the comment section of any news story on the subject, this one from Daily Banter is representative. His/her name is Michale, this individual has deemed it their mission to respond to absolutely every comment even slightly critical of the jury's decision. If there is a single person fitting the "instant lawyer" description implied by the above meme, this is it. All I can say is in a million years I could not hope to have the kind of free time to waste that this individual has spent in the past few days locking down any chance of honest and rational debate. What kind of passionate hatred could drive this commitment? How much is he/she being paid by some authoritarian outfit to spend this much time here? Just a small sample.

cfdman  said:                                                                                                 

Let’s examine the undisputed evidence:

1. The man thought the teen looked suspicious.

2. The man called the police to report his suspicions about the teen.

3. The man was told by the police not to chase and pursue the teen.

4. The man decided to chase and pursue the teen anyway.

5 . The man was carrying a loaded gun.

6. The teen was not carrying a gun.

7. The teen was not carrying any weapon.

8. The teen was carrying candy.

9. The teen was not committing any crime.

10. The teen was not trespassing, as he was walking toward his father’s
condo....

17. But for the man chasing and pursuing the teen, there would have
been no physical confrontation.

18. But for the physical confrontation, there would have been no fight.

19. But for the fight, the man would not have shot the teen.

20. But for the shot, the teen would be alive.

Michale replied: "Your list of "undisputed evidence" is very much in dispute..
3. The man was told by the police not to chase and pursue the teen.
The man was ADVISED by a police operator not to follow the SUBJECT. A police operator has absolutely NO authority to tell on sight security personnel ANYTHING..
4. The man decided to chase and pursue the teen anyway.
Inaccurate. The man, at that point, turned around and started to return to his vehicle. In other words, he followed the advice of the police operator, even though he was under absolutely NO legal obligation to do so.
11. The man and the teen met in a physical confrontation.
Inaccurate. The teen initiated aggravated assault (with Hate Crime special circumstance) against the man while the man was returning to his vehicle.
12. The man and the teen fought, wrestled to the ground, and punches
were exchanged.
Inaccurate. No punches were exchanged. Martin was the only one throwing punches.
14. The man shot the teen while both were on the ground.
Inaccurate. The man shot the teen while the man was on the ground and the teen was on top of the man. 
17. But for the man chasing and pursuing the teen, there would have
been no physical confrontation.
Accurate as far as it goes. It is equally accurate to say that there would have been no confrontation if the teen hadn't doubled back and attacked the man. It's also equally accurate that there would not have been any confrontation if the teen hadn't been kicked out of school for drugs and violence.
20. But for the shot, the teen would be alive.
And if the teen hadn't attacked the man, the teen would ALSO be alive.."
He/she continued:

"One problem with your scenario.
Martin attacked Zimmerman.
That tiny little, but oohh so important detail completely decimates your argument.."

The comment thread goes on and on with this individual injecting these kinds of faux legal sounding shout-downs everywhere. I scanned through page after page of this crap. How many of these idiots are out there? They have just been waiting and waiting for the chance to frame their racism through a legal case like this. "No, I'm not a racist, I am supporting the 'justice' system." For authoritarians, this is a dream come true, wonderful cover to aggress against the enemy, the ability to openly and honestly express their prejudice couched in legalese, and prostrate themselves to authority when they like the result. So, in response I say: "Are there any circumstances under which you can support the verdict, actively, not just passively accepting the outcome, and not be a racist?" I ask because I honestly cannot think of any. and flipping the circumstances of the crime around... Would he/she be asserting the opposite as vehemently, or would he/she suddenly notice that GZ is not white enough?

And how stupid does all that gloating look in light of the fact that GZ was acquitted, not exonerated. There was enough reasonable doubt not to convict, this was not a vindication. Thank goodness for all the racists that tomorrow will bring a new outrage and everyone will move on (sarcasm font) and not notice how completely full of shit people like Michale are in their whacked out assertions.

Boston Double Standard

Another day, another tragedy. I hate writing that and as my heart goes out to the victims of yesterday's bombing, I pray I will not need to write them again. And again, the speculation machine is in full force. Even worse to me is seeing the vitriol and wrath directed toward official enemies. No one, repeat, no one at this time knows who set and detonated these bombs at this time and no amount of assertion by alex jones or the new york post will validate the fears of high scoring right wing authoritarian followers. No folks, a Saudi national is not in custody and under guard at the hospital as of this writing. However, a double standard big enough to drive a truck through has already emerged. Twenty six people gunned down in Newtown, CT and an obnoxiously vocal minority screams against rational steps to curb the availability of weapons used in that massacre. But three people blown up at the Boston Marathon and this is the first thing I see in my facebook feed:

I hope someone is dumb enough to take credit for yesterday in Boston.... and when then they do, our waste of a president better come with full force and furious anger in response.

Attack America on patriot's day...? THATS YOUR ASS!

I wish that would be true but all I see is red dawn an he's up shaking hands with the assholes
 

The second indent was a comment. So, 26 dead by firearms and authoritarians blame mental illness, video games, lack of guns, the President's daughters. Anything but the tools of violence and death. Three dead and many wounded by bombs and many on the right are ready to bomb anyone they can find in retaliation. Their only worry is that "our waste of a president" will not respond forcefully enough to satiate their bloodlust.

The first thing through my mind was, "and if the perpetrator turns out to be a lot more like you than like a dark-skinned middle-easterner?" If this was the work of an American "patriot" (ho ho) lashing out in rage at the heart of liberalism (Boston) on "patriot's day" (tax day), then what? Most low scoring authoritarians, i.e. normal people, wanted the President to go "full force and furious anger" to finally do something to curb gun violence, and my friend above called Barack Obama a tyrant for the tepid weaksauce offered in the executive orders. Again, this is also speculation but the double standard is a slimy, gaping hole.

There are reactions like the one above all over the internet. I am making no predictions about what actually happened or who was responsible and will eat my words if it does turn out to be a "saudi national" after all. I just wanted to comment on the obvious, shocked initial reactions to this tragedy, as though retribution and revenge at this point serves any purpose other than soothing the ego. And to the radical right-wingers salivating over revenge... be careful what you wish for.