On the contrary, according to Ames. Besides labeling the killings uprisings, he has the audacity to invoke slavery to describe the working environment that's evolved since the Reagan years.
"Reagan's legacy to America and modern man is not the victory in the Cold War, where he simply got lucky." (Remember Ames has an inside view of Russia.) Instead it's "one of the most shocking wealth transfers in the history of the world..."
"Historians," he conjectures, "may look back at this time and wonder why there weren't more murders and rebellions."
Regarding school shootings, he reminds us of what many forget: When Reagan was running for president in 1980, he pledged to abolish the federal Department of Education. But by exactly what mechanism does school carnage become a toxic byproduct of the economy?
Ames explains. While, for example, the "Top 20" universities remain the same in number, the entrance bar is constantly raised because of an ever-expanding pool of applicants.
Furthermore, "The kids are stressed out not only by their own pressure at school, but by the stress their parents endure in order to earn enough money to live in [a prestigious] school district....Everyone is terrified of not 'making it' in a country where the safety net has been torn to shreds."
But it's not enough for Ames to justify the shootings to a certain extent and comparing the millennial work environment to slavery. He gives the reader even more bang for his or her buck. Ames concludes Going Postal by going out on a limb and tracing the killings back to one infamous moment in American history.
The Reagan years and the rocketing stock market of the nineties convinced most Americans they were rich people waiting to happen. They became too proud, Ames says, to identify themselves as the working people they remained in the interim. But those who are old enough to remember Reagan's first term can't help but feel the sting of Ames's coup de grace at some level.
"When Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers in 1981," he asserts, "he told America he was literally willing to kill us all [in plane crashes, presumably] if we didn't give in to his wealth-transfer plan....The air controller's union broke -- and so did a whole way of life."
Ames renders the shooting incidents with the skill of a crime novelist. But while many in the competitive world of crime writing escalate the violence from one death to serial murders, Ames, as dictated by his subject, has no choice but to top them with serial massacres.
It's no reflection on the author, but the horror wears you down. After a while, it begins to seem like there are as many bullets flying around the country as there are cockroaches crawling around.
At times, Ames works too hard to convince us of his thesis, when the facts speak for themselves. But it's only in the service of giving voice to a generation of workers left to twist in the wind without unions, their children buffeted by the harsh realities of the No Child Left Behind Act.
Virginia Tech generated as much hand-wringing as any shooting. And it resulted in the passage of an important gun-control act, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Erecting obstacles to gun ownership is a no-brainer. Closing gaps in mental health care as well as remedying misinterpretations of privacy laws (like those that left the Virginia Tech killer's deteriorating condition untreated) are steps in the right direction, too.
But it's hard not to agree with Ames that failing to address the structural issues of, no, not society -- but the economy -- will continue to impose intolerable strains on Americans.
As long as the gap between the rich and the rest of us continues to widen, social shootings will remain the meltdown of choice for many. Just like suicide bombings in the Middle East.
Russ Wellen is the nuclear deproliferation editor for OpEdNews. He's also on the staffs of Freezerbox and Scholars & Rogues.
"It's hard to tell people not to smoke when you have a cigarette dangling from your mouth." -- Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
are more susceptible to stress- related violence just because of their nature. Women can also do that but they can have other vents and in many cases they are psychologically more mature. As for the causes defined in the paper those are all true, sorry. The negative psychologicla wave is enormous and no Michelob can stop it. Russ citates another author and thus there was no much compassion stated but we all here surely feel compassion towards innocent victims. Meanwhile we also feel black rage towards those who not only ignore the negative psychology but even use it to promote wars, atrocities and mayhem directed towards others.
I think, Mr. Ames is right. Thanks, Russ
by
Mark Sashine (51 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3454 comments)
on Monday, January 7, 2008 at 1:41:56 PM
Bullying is referenced here a couple times. It needs to be addressed at a foundation level. In the US workplace bullying is rampant. Studies indicate that workplace bullies are split 50/50 men and women. But workplace violence due to due to bullying is in one sense just the tip of the iceburg as the issue is so widespread and there is no recourse.
EEO protections in the US (gender, age, disability, religion, etc.) are very narrowly defined and must be related directly to the protected category. But a manager who happens to dislike people with brown eyes can make a brown-eyed person's life at work miserable with complete impunity.
Currently their are 13 states in the US with anti workplace bullying laws in various stages of the legislative process, but to date there is no law in place. Most other countries in the western industrialized world have legal recourse for for workplace bully vicitms.
Still workplace violence (probabably unlike school incidents), while too frequent, is an extreme exception as a reaction to bullying when one considers the incidence rate of bullying in the workplace in the US. Some studies indicate one in six workers have experienced this, but a recent Zogby poll stated as many as one in three have faced bullying indicating a systemic problem ( http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1353 ).
Other indicators point to a climate or business culture in which bully behaviors are accepted or encouraged. One report showed that in 50 percent of cases HR did nothing on behalf of a bully target, and that in more than 30 percent of cases HR supported or helped the bully. An unfortunate situation and cost to business as findings are that bully targets are usually the top performers. In the vast majority of cases conditions simply force vicitms to resign and go away. ( per Workplace Bully and Trauma institute http://bullyinginstitute.org/research/wbiresearch.html ).
But instead of going to the root of all of these measures by dealing with the bullies and protecting workers at that stage, the US corporate culture addresses security and protection from workplace violence. By then it's too late. 'Security' is a popular buzzword and fear sells it. But insuring dignity in the workplace is the only approach that will come close to preventing cases of bullying so severe that the victim turns to violence, usually toward themselves, sometimes toward others.
Well said. Bullying is abuse. There's child abuse and spousal/partner abuse and racism and hatred of gays/transgenders and on and on. When a society accepts abuse as a norm, it allows those without consciences and caring to wreak havoc and, often, to take power. America has more citizens per capita incarcerated, 2.2 million on any given day, with projections for this to rise. Of those imprisoned, corporations are getting virtual slave labor out of 1.7 million. A huge segment of our population rallies around capital punishment. A third of our population supports torture and unilateral aggression. Is this America the Beautiful? I think not. This is moral sickness. We've got some work to do.
by
Pat Williams (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 82 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 2:29:24 AM
IF YOU LOOK AT WHERE THESE CRIMES HAPPEN ALMOST ALL ARE UNDER GUN CONTROL. IN OTHER WORDS THE PEOPLE WHO DO THE SHOOTING PICK A PLACE WHERE THE OTHER PEOPLE DON'T HAVE GUNS. IT GO BACK TO GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE. THE MORE GUN CONTROL THE MORE KILLING.
by
RICHARD SHADE (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 460 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 2:37:55 AM
The problem is that workplace shooters aren't the bullied.
They're the bullies. They're the ones who everyone thinks is likely to do violence and who use that perception. Look at all their work records and you'll wonder why the thing that jumps out is the "sheer number of" infractions and disciplinary actions according to Gavin de Becker an author on the subject of violence. School shooters are not the bullied either, if they were you'd expect the poor and black to be overrepresented and they're not.
As for the idea that Reagan "America he was literally willing to kill us all [in plane crashes, presumably] if we didn't give in to his wealth-transfer plan" the planes got _safer_ NOT more dangerous.
In fact the whole questions a beat up, more people died of mistaken police shootings than from school or workplace shootings, but nobody was terrified of that. Well maybe the blacks but they don't count do they?
The shootings were nothing like slave rebellions. They were at worst "rebellions" of the privileged who didn't think they were privileged enough. The white, employed (or sons of employed) people basically whining about how tough they had it with firearms.
by
Michael Price (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 33 comments)
on Friday, January 11, 2008 at 12:27:30 AM
6 comments
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