January 7, 2008 at 08:41:10

School, Mall and Workplace Shootings: Why So Many?

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By Russ Wellen (about the author) Page 2 of 3 page(s)

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But institutions, like the state whose instrument they are, have a way of steamrolling the little guy. In fact, good old American bullying is at the heart of Going Postal. But, we remonstrate, hasn't bullying in the workplace and schools become a thing of the past since civil rights laws and an ambient political correctness?

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.

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Russ Wellen is the nuclear deproliferation editor for OpEdNews. He's also on the staffs of Freezerbox and Scholars & Rogues.

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