"State repression, unbridled self-interest, an empty consumerist ethos, and war-like values"

[marmar]

by Henry Giroux


Ten people were killed and seven wounded recently in a mass shooting at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon. Such shootings are more than another tragic expression of unchecked violence in the United States, they are symptomatic of a society engulfed in fear, militarism, a survival-of-the-fittest ethos, and a growing disdain for human life. Sadly, this shooting is not an isolated incident. Over 270 mass shootings have taken place in the US this year alone, proving once again that the economic, political, and social conditions that underlie such violence are not being addressed.

State repression, unbridled self-interest, an empty consumerist ethos, and war-like values have become the organizing principles of American society producing an indifference to the common good, compassion, a concern for others, and equality. As the public collapses into the individualized values of a banal consumer culture and the lure of private obsessions, American society flirts with forms of irrationality that are at the heart of every-day aggression and the withering of public life. American society is driven by unrestrained market values in which economic actions and financial exchanges are divorced from social costs, further undermining any sense of social responsibility.

In addition, a wasteful giant military-industrial-surveillance complex fueled by the war on terror along with America’s endless consumption of violence as entertainment and its celebration of a pervasive gun culture normalizes the everyday violence waged against black youth, immigrants, children fed into the school to prison pipeline, and others considered disposable. American politicians now attempt to govern the effects of systemic violence while ignoring its underlying causes. Under such circumstances, a society saturated in violence gains credence when its political leaders have given up on the notion of the common good, social justice, and equality, all of which appear to have become relics of history in the United States.

In the face of mass shootings, the public relations disimagination machine goes into overdrive claiming that guns are not the problem, and that the causes of such violence can be largely attributed to the mentally ill. When in actuality, as two Vanderbilt University researchers, Dr. Jonathan Metzl and Kenneth T. MacLeish, publishing in the American Journal of Public Health observed that “Fewer than 6 percent of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness.” ...............(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/murder_usa_why_politicians_have_blood_on_their_hands_20151002

[fasttense]

1. I think people should have the right NOT to be shot.

But I guess the gun manufacturers' rights to sell arms is greater. You and your children get to be a target of some crazie so that a gun corporation can make a few more dollars. Capitalism at it's best?

[matt819]

2. Great essay

Not that it will make a difference, but it's s good read.

It seems that our elected leaders can't deal with gun violence in schools. That pretty much tells you how they think about education, students, and safety.

It is damn near inevitable that we will eventually see violence in state legislature, maybe even congress, and Wall Street. Maybe, just maybe, that will mean something to the craven sociopaths.