GOOD MAN WITH A GUN
We probably could challenge the flamboyant statement heard too often of “a good man with a gun is the only thing that will stop a bad man with a gun”. Apparently not. It seems that, predictably, 50-year-old men are as frightened of a bad man with a gun, as are 10-year-old girls. I surely would be.
A case can also be made that the carnage on the highway should also be addressed. Use of vehicles by some people seem similar to the attitude toward guns. Could advertising be a reason?
In Upstate NY, for example, we had a Congressman who attempted to raise the speed limit on commercial vehicles that travel on public roads among families, school buses, teenagers, and ETM, in order to increase commercial profits.
Where do young men get these propensities toward violence?—
https://popularresistance.org/arsenal-of-autocracy/ –These are good times to be an arms maker. Not only are tens of billions of dollars in new military spending headed for the coffers of this country’s largest weapons contractors, but they’re being praised as defenders of freedom and democracy, thanks to their role in arming Ukraine to fight the Russians.
—end of popularresistance info–
https://portside.org/2022-05-27/love-affair-between-hollywood-and-pentagon –But for the Navy, Top Gun was more than just a movie. It was a recruitment bonanza.
Hollywood knows how to sell the life of a soldier. Top Gun paints the life of an elite pilot as mostly a real-life video game, with young men competing to top the charts at the academy. (The rankings were a fiction invented for the film, though the school is real.) In a sort of coda to the story, the pilots do engage in real combat — but we never know who the enemy is, barely get an explanation as to the mission, and mostly see them pulling off daring maneuvers to great acclaim. And in 1986, the US wasn’t engaged in a real-life war. Vietnam was becoming a more distant memory for young people. Who wouldn’t want to be a hero?–end of portside info–
As a personal observation and having lived through the time and place, young men returning from Vietnam seemed to set aside guns as an intense interest, generally speaking. The impact of serving in actual war may have been apparent, without translating into mass murder. Something has changed. And on that topic, having been raised in “rural America”, almost all young boys in our neighborhood owned or had access to guns, without using them to solve some inner conflict. This doesn’t imply that violence didn’t happen, but to the extent of murder, especially of total strangers, seemed nearly zero.
In the Southern Tier of NYS, we are blessed with a large number of good men. This guy seems to be one such. Congratulations with warmest enthusiasm —-
https://www.facebook.com/740142585/videos/pcb.10161981060122586/1942140275977158 –https://www.facebook.com/eliot.fiks/posts/10161981060122586 — The honeymoon continues
–end of facebook info–
Perhaps we could recognize role models of males other than that of capitalistic hierarchical Establishment—— From naturalhistorymuseum.org —
Coming out the Other Side: Notes on an Eight-Year Expedition into Natural History
Spirit of the Waters Totem Pole Journey
Whale People at the Gathering of Eagles
Take Action: call on the U.S. government to honor the treaties and remove the dams so the salmon and Northwest cultures can thrive.—-end of naturalhistorymuseum info–
As one who knows several men who bear the marks in their chests from the ritual of Sundance ceremonies, one wonders if the failures of some boys is recognition of the help of ritual to move from boyhood to manhood. Girls and women don’t have such issues because nature quite certainly does the work regardless of individual wish. Some thoughts—
*American hierarchy inflicts control upon others more than within oneself
*Physical ritual has been replaced in our culture by educational or mental process
*People aren’t economic units, people are physical beings
*The culture that in America seems to have best supplied ritual for passage from childhood to adulthood has been destroyed, or nearly so, by hierarchical Establishment
*Biden has spit out like poison, the word competition, when he could instead use the word cooperation
*Military service in the USA isn’t about protecting the homeland, but is about imperialism….again, controlling others
*Religion seems self-interested, to the extent that one has heard we “must find a religion and stick to its precepts”
*Anyone who has seriously delved into religion will know that following the traces of each far enough back, one eventually alights upon something that is mostly natural history
From lakotalaw — I write today about an exciting project our team has taken on: the creation of an unparalleled online archive of DAPL-related media such as this that will make the water protector movement accessible to students, journalists, and activists all over the world. When we’re finished, anyone will be able to dig into an enormous amount of raw source material about the historic events that transpired at Standing Rock several years ago.
In coordination with various academic partners, we’re well down the road to building the infrastructure needed to launch this engine. We’re also conducting outreach to tribal community colleges to build more partnerships. The human family — for time immemorial — needs to know what happened. We’re doing our part to make that happen.
As many of you know, back in 2017, my colleague Chase Iron Eyes — an attorney and a former candidate for Congress from North Dakota — faced the potential of 6 years in prison for posting on Facebook. Chase used social media to help organize the last effective protest of the NoDAPL effort, at a place called “Last Child’s Camp.” For this, North Dakota tried to put him in prison and strip his law license. But they failed, in part because our lawyer team defended him vigorously in court.
Meanwhile, in the process of defending Chase, our attorneys gathered an enormous amount of media — everything from videos to documents, which, taken together, tell the remarkable story of a tribal nation defending itself against the world’s most powerful industry: Big Extraction.
The only way that history ever reflects the view of underdogs like Standing Rock is when people like you — like all of us — work together to document events from the perspective of those normally ignored. Our online DAPL archive will tell the story of the many water protectors who put their bodies on the line to protect air, water, and the sovereignty of tribal nations. Mni Wiconi (“water is life”)!
Wopila tanka — thank you for standing with us as we move forward on many fronts!
DeCora Hawk
Field Organizer
The Lakota People’s Law Project—-end of lakotalaw info–
C-Span hosted discussion this morning that included several callers who touched upon the education of boys. Sundance ceremonies could be beyond the ken of many of us, but simple training into adulthood surely should include hands-on training in making one’s life function respectably, including concern for those around one. This could begin with simple,dedicated, and honorable recognition in Shop Class. Currently and probably due to greed by loan companies and universities, training of this sort is denigrated to funnel the most students down the path of capitalistic hierarchical Establishment self-interest. This is disgraceful.
From MRonline — https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?e=2833cdb99b&u=36ce609ae68971b4f060ad9c7&id=8f691c411b —
On African Liberation Day Biden’s troop deployment to Somalia confirms Africa is not free
Retired U.S. general calls for “coalition of the willing” for naval conflict with Russia
The U.S. unilateral sanctions against Russia will produce a global food disaster
–end of mronline info–
Once upon a time, the USA supported Corporate Charter Revocation. — From Ralph Nader——– https://mailchi.mp/nader/is-corporate-criminal-law-heading-for-extinction-bwyutg3x07?e=cfd1bea9b5 —
Crimes without criminals was not a subject for study when I was in law school. The two were seen as part of the same illegal package. That was before notorious corporate lawyers and a cash register Congress combined to separate economic, health and safety crimes from corporate accountability, incarceration and deterrence.
The litany of corporate wrongdoing ranges from polluting the air and drinking water, dumping microplastics that end up inside human beings, promoting lethal opioids that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, providing millions of accounts or products to customers under false pretenses or without consent, often by creating false records or misusing customers’ identities, (Wells Fargo), manufacturing defective motor vehicles, producing contaminated food, allowing software failures resulting in crashes of two Boeing 737 MAX’s with 346 deaths. (See, Why Not Jail? By Rena Steinzor).
People don’t need law professors to see what’s happening to them and their children–end of ralphnader info–
https://twitter.com/Strandjunker/status/1530284282572333058 –In 1988, the federal government banned metal-tipped lawn darts because a single child died from one. –end of tweet—
The US Constitution doesn’t seem to sanction elections run by political Parties, and to permit control of political debates by political Parties seems equally corrupt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ7kn2-GEmM —
Ross Perot in 1992 on NAFTA and the “Giant Sucking Sound”
Centralization is the lifeblood of the R&D duopoly. It’s the way to enforce capitalism onto workers in 2022.
———————–We can do better———-