MASS MURDER AND AMERICAN HISTORY
By Robert C. Koehler
901 Words
“Screw your optics, I’m going in.”
This is bigger than hate, this latest mass shooting, last weekend, at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, in which, oh my God, 11 more innocent souls died at the hands of a home-grown terrorist.
The president’s anti-immigrant tweets may have been in grotesque synchronicity with the killer’s: “Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border. . . . This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!” And they no doubt fed the climate in which Robert Bowers acted, but this is bigger than Donald Trump. He may be the trigger, but the weapon has been ready and waiting for a long time.
Every mass shooting happens in a context, and every mass shooting cries out that we must examine the social infrastructure of dehumanization and violence.
“Yet this too needs to be contextualized as a current manifestation of the racist foundations of our country,” Rabbi Michael Lerner wrote the day after the murders, reminding us of such matters as slavery, Native American genocide and the wars of the last half century.
“This pattern of violence and demeaning of ‘the Other’ has become so deeply embedded in the culture of the U.S. that only a true consciousness transformation will undermine its prevalence in both major political parties.”
“Screw your optics, I’m going in.”
These are the words I can’t get out of my head — the killer’s final post on his social media platform before he took his guns and headed off to the Tree of Life Synagogue. This is war talk — or rather, the pretend war talk of a boy playing with guns . . . a boy who has become an adult and now has real guns and a “real” enemy — the immigrants swarming into our country, aided by the Jews — and he’s about to leap to glory and save his people.
Maybe the problem of American violence begins here, in the fantasy of armed rescue and armed salvation. In this fantasy mindset, the default plot device of ten thousand mediocre movies and TV shows, the only consequence of violence is that it eliminates the bad guy.
Boyhood is all about glory, but boys grow up and learn a deeper reality — unless they don’t. And American militarism requires that Americans stay in their early adolescence psychologically, making a shift not in their understanding of other people but only in the weapons used against them. Beyond the entertainment industry and the gaming industry is the Department of Defense, which sustains itself by recruiting children before they grow up and teaching them to hate — and kill — the Other. The United States Army actually has a website devoted to hooking kids as young as 13. It’s called America’s Army, a gaming website with the message that war is awesome.
As I wrote some years ago, the site is “the very essence of America’s own arrested development: We command the world’s largest arsenal and throw our weight around with an adolescent swagger. Neocons famously declared ‘high noon’ with Saddam Hussein. If militarists had to face long-term or even short-term accountability for the damage they wreak, war would be obsolete in an eye blink.”
And war always, always, always comes home. Indeed, its consciousness pervades the social order. It grabs a mind and won’t let it go.
And those who want to wage war on their own, without the inconvenience of having to follow someone else’s orders, are free not merely to define their own enemy but also to assemble their own stash of weapons and, when they are ready, “go in” and wreck some lives. This is America, where we have the freedom to kill one another.
And . . .
This is the clincher. We are not allowed, in any official way, to be aware of this. While we pour maybe as much as a trillion dollars a year into Things Military, the amount of money devoted to research into the causes of social violence is, by congressional edict, zero. This has been true since 1996, when Congress, at the intense urging of the NRA, passed the Dickey Amendment, which in essence cut off any federal funding for research into the causes of gun violence.
Specifically, this piece of legislation, part of the federal government’s 1996 omnibus spending bill, bans at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using any federal money to conduct research that “may be used to advocate or promote gun control” — which is a built-in catch-22. Because research into gun violence is likely to reveal the need for gun control, the research cannot be federally funded.
As the New York Times pointed out: “The result is that 22 years and more than 600,000 gunshot victims later, much of the federal government has largely abandoned efforts to learn why people shoot one another, or themselves, and what can be done to prevent gun violence.”
And this is the context in which politicians peddle fear and war. Fear of immigrants is hardly new, hardly the invention of Trump. It has long been a component of American racism. As Trump threatens to dismantle the 14th Amendment and sign an executive order terminating birthright citizenship (an election ploy as the midterms grow nearer), we might want to reflect on good old Executive Order 9066, which Franklin Roosevelt signed in 1942 — and just like that, with a stroke of the pen, forced some 117,000 Japanese-Americans into concentration . . . excuse me, internment camps for the next three years.
We could also remember all the European Jews who were not allowed into the United States as they tried to flee Hitler, as we reflect on the nation’s moral shortcomings. This history, so lacking in official atonement, is available to anyone who wants to project blame on a specific Other. Indeed, there is no nationalism — white or otherwise — without an Other to fear and, every so often, kill.
“Screw your optics, I’m going in.”
The mass shootings will continue. We all know that. And we can’t undo our history. But we do have a choice: We can face it squarely and look beyond it, toward love, toward forgiveness, toward an understanding of our presumed enemies. When we do so, the hard part begins. We also start understanding ourselves.
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Robert Koehler, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor.
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D. L. Evans Bank
For Immediate Release
November 1, 2018
John V. Evans, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of D.L. Evans Bank, is pleased to announce the appointment of Bruce Ashcroft as Senior Vice President Utah Area Manager.
Bruce has thirty-three years of banking experience, covering positions from Credit Analyst, Commercial Loan Officer, and Branch Manager, to Director of Regional Credit. He has the comprehensive knowledge in the banking industry and strives to extend his service to as many customers as possible.
Bruce engages in his community by serving on the Board of Directors for the Utah Certified Development Corporation, as the Board Chair of the Utah Arthritis Foundation, and was formerly on the Board of the National Arthritis Foundation as well as the Utah Juvenile Diabetes Association and Junior Achievement. He loves cars and enjoys spending time with his family raising Quarter Horse Reiner’s. Bruce achieved his Bachelor’s Degree from Utah State University and is a graduate of the Pacific Coast Banking School.
He looks forward to building new and expanding current relationships he has developed in the Northern Utah area. Bruce invites his customers, friends, and family to reach him by phone at (801) 541-3835.
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US Attempts to Blockade Southern Border Breaks Domestic and International Law
Today’s proposals would penalize Central American survivors of violence and abuse in the refugee and migrant caravan; Represent an ineffective policy that addresses crisis symptoms, not root causes.
NEW YORK, Nov 1, 2018 – The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to today’s proposals from the US Administration, which aim to obstruct and further limit the rights of asylum-seekers among caravans. This exacerbates the symptoms, instead of addressing the root causes of this crisis: a protracted and dangerous situation in the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador). The region’s situation has been compounded upon for years, resulting in a trans-generational experience of persistent violence, conflict, and natural disasters since the 1930s.
The IRC stands firmly against this proposal, and remains concerned by the conditions facing asylum-seekers, particularly women and children who are most susceptible to trafficking, rape, and other violence along the route to safety.
Jenn Piatt, Senior Director of Refugee Resettlement & Asylum Policy and Advocacy, said:
“Once Again, the Administration is demonstrating that it does not have an adequate understanding of the crisis in the Northern Triangle countries. The conditions in these countries are forcing women, children, and families to flee for safety. Limiting access to asylum does nothing to resolve the crisis there. Likewise, stationing thousands of troops at the US border will not stabilize the region. The Administration today is missing the mark - these proposals are ineffective and will cost the American taxpayer an untold sum.
“It is impossible to apply for asylum without physically arriving to the US border or interior. The US helped create international refugee law after the tragedies of World War II, for the very purpose of ensuring that refugees would never again be turned back to harm. Under the current and proposed policies, the US risks violating non-refoulement, the most fundamental principle of refugee law.
“US law also clearly grants asylum seekers the right to apply for asylum. The IRC calls on the Administration to refocus its efforts on violence prevention – and working with Northern Triangle governments and civil society actors to build their ability to protect their communities, respond to their needs, and eventually make life liveable in the Northern Triangle. In the meantime, pursuing policies that inflict trauma on families and deport them to countries where they face harm will only add to wide-scale instability, and insecurity.”
Violence in El Salvador and The Northern Triangle
In 2016, El Salvador and Honduras were two of the top 10 most dangerous countries outside of armed conflict, with the highest murder rates in the world. In 2017, more than nine women and girls were killed in El Salvador every single week with 469 total femicides, and an overall average of 10.8 homicides per day – a figure that does not account for disappearances, who are presumed to be dead. These figures are significant in a country of only around 6 million.
The IRC is working with local government and civil society actors to fortify and improve support to the most vulnerable individuals and families, as well as spreading information on how to access these valuable services. Additionally, for those in extreme cases of forced displacement and violence, IRC is helping them to restabilize their lives with emergency cash assistance. We have seen firsthand the critical situation that results in people fleeing north.
Meghan Lopez, Head of Mission in El Salvador, said –
“Combining this year’s homicide numbers with missing person numbers, 2018 is on track with the levels of violence seen in 2015 – the most deadly year in Salvadoran history since the civil war. The rate of gender-based violence has also increased, with 67 of every 100 women having experienced violence in their life.
“Fleeing is a dire choice for any family. They are forced to choose between facing certain death or a desperate journey north – protected by other families in the caravan. Yet we know that individuals will not stop fleeing until the root causes of violence are addressed, and military troops or scare-tactics will not dissuade them, because currently there is no place scarier than their homes.”
Violence in the Northern Triangle is not a new phenomenon; It is a trans-generational experience permeating every aspect of people’s lives. In El Salvador, where the IRC currently works, the current gang crisis was preceded by earthquakes and a civil war, and prior to that there were repressive military dictatorships and ethnic genocide.
Learn about and support the IRC’s work in El Salvador and in the United States here.
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For more information, or to schedule an interview, please contact Sean Piazza, Sean.Piazza@rescue.org
ABOUT THE IRC
The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is at work in over 40 countries and 25 offices across the US helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future, and strengthen their communities. Learn more at www.rescue.org and follow the IRC on Twitter & Facebook.
