With the shooting in Canada yesterday and another today in Washington State at a school, I think it's appropriate to have a thread about it, them and the frequency of these things now a days. It seems like the kids now have seen so many of them it's become a shrug with a thought process similar to what they'll pick for lunch that day, commonplace in other words. It makes me sad as well as really glad I don't have kids. What are we leaving them? Some good, a lot of bad and even more shit that could be a hell of a lot better. FOCUS: Talk about the shootings in general, how you feel when you click on your PC or your TV and see yet another has happened and so on. For me, as a viewer, the sadest thing about these news stories is the footage of the students being shuffled outside with their hands up and tears streaming down their cheeks.
I just don't understand how you can get to a place in your head where you think that smoking a few people is a good idea, quickly followed by smoking yourself. A friend of mine has a daughter who was shot at close range in the chest with a shotgun at the college in Washington earlier this year, both of them are suffering horribly today. She wrote a few weeks ago about how right after her daughter had been shot a girl had come over to help her and they called my friend with a blood soaked phone because the daughter thought for sure she was dying and she wanted to tell her mom she loved her. The fear, pain and agony she described when she got that call was bone chilling to me. Everytime I hear of a school shooting I get that feeling again because I know that someone is going to get that call today, it is worse for my friend and her daughter because the live it and relive it everyday in their heads and while they sleep.
I think everyone should watch this, especially the Mainstream Media. I don't know if I could articulate things any better. While this speaks directly to the "video games cause violence" argument that came out at the time, it's advice that should be heeded in any of these situations.
Hits the nail right on the head with a ten pound hammer. It was mentioned the other day and I agree, the way the Canadians released the statement after the parliament shooting is one of the better releases in recent times. This world is getting more and more toxic as time goes by.
That's just it, the world isn't getting more fucked up... just those that are reporting on it are. Well, that's not exactly true... sure, there are some fucked up things going on, but it's being spread and perpetuated by the news more than any time in the past. And they aren't news agencies any more, they are competitors vying for eyeballs, and are exploiting fear, uncertainty, and doubt to get those eyeballs. It's the worst kind of competition. Want the world to become a way better place, almost instantly? Shut off the news. Interpret the world for what it is via your real-life experience, not through the fear-mongering of someone out to manipulate and shock you into watching. Bill Hicks did a great bit on this about newmen and marketers.
I should have been a little more specific. You've said exactly what I meant by saying the world is getting more toxic. The media is perpetuating the idea that the world is falling apart and by doing so is making it a reality as people buy into the trash that is being spread. This is a clip that has been doing the rounds on my Facebook feed and it drives me nuts that people are just wholesale buying into it without looking below the surface. It disgusts me how seemingly intelligent people just write off their experiences and swallow the snake oil. I've been a massive fan of Bill Hicks since I saw him on the inside cover of a Tool album when I was a teenager and not just because I thought he was insanely funny but because some of the ideas he had were so very much on the money.
There are obviously mental health issues at play in those situations that people who don't share them can't understand. This is the part where I say I wish that mental health issues were more easily addressed in this country. Insurance coverage and destigmatization maybe. It sounds cool to say "Take away all the guns" because it's a great knee jerk reaction...but guns don't do this. Broken people do this. Until we can help broken people, they're going to find the tools, regardless of the legality.
The fact that we do so little for broken people is exactly what the problem is without question. When I lived in NY there were three major facilities on Long Island that housed and treated the mentally ill, Kings Park Psychiatric Center, Pilgrim State Psychiatric Center, and Central Islip Psychiatric Center. By the late 80s, only Kings park was left and that was scaled down to a geriatric facility. CI is now part of a college campus, and the other two, I believe, are just abandoned. This could have changed. I haven't been there in a while, but I can't imagine it has. Despite the fact that mental health care at the time those facilities were being run was at best substandard and at worst barbaric, at least there was SOME place working on and housing the mentally ill. When I was a CNA I had a client in his early 20s with a LOT of mental health issues. He and his family had to move from California to NC because the mental health treatment was so bad there. Despite his mental health issues he was a pretty smart guy and always complained that he couldn't understand the cuts they had made in their mental health coverage. Luckily for him he had his mom and father to lean on. I can't imagine what would have happened to him otherwise. It makes absolutely no sense how mental health issues are dealt with. It is itself, in a word, insane.
It wouldn't surprise me if these two shootings -- with the short time between them, and the juxtaposition in how different countries/respective main stream medias handled them -- causes some major change in the US. Canada: "Let us mourn our fallen soldier, celebrate his life, and honor the hero who saved others from meeting the same fate. Oh, and this is the name of this asshole who did it, he might be related to terrorism. But he's a fucking shitstain and irrelevant so we aren't gonna cover that. Back to talking about the victim and the hero." US: "BREAKING NEWS!!!! School shooting!!! We don't have accurate information right now but we're gonna report it anyway and just say 'allegedly' before everything to cover our asses. Look at this psycho!! Let's talk to his entire family, friends, people who attended the same school as him, and mayor of his town to get their opinion on what they think of this alleged KILLER!!! He allegedly killed somewhere between 1 and 57 people, and we will report back to you as more information comes in. HOW IN THE WORLD DID THIS ALLEGED KILLER GET A GUN?!?!?!!! More breaking news after this extended commercial break."
Now it's time for hatchet control!!!! Case in point. Crack heads have been pulling this shit for years. And now every crack head is gonna wanna be this hatchet-wielding crack head. Dear, US mainstream media: We have a large population. As in any population, people will occasionally do bad things. The more people we have, statistically, the more frequently these "bad things" will happen. The less you talk about those cuntfucks, the less people will want to duplicate them. I know your revenues may hurt a little at first, but it's just a matter of re-training your audience. Imagine if you re-trained them to want positivity instead of doom and gloom? Sincerely, for fuck's sake's, Everyone
I think it'll get worse before it gets better, because as people get sick of it and turn it off, they'll try to be more and more extreme to lure people in. I just wish that somebody somewhere had the balls and bankroll to put together a proper, no bullshit news channel to compete with them. No hyperbole ("You too may have Ebola, find out at 11!"), no "war room" to cover "Poop Cruise 2013" or the latest Sun Chips Stealth Bag Technology... just the fucking news. And when they didn't know, they wouldn't guess... they wouldn't try and fill dead air for 23.5 hours in a day repeating shit while making shit up.
As an australian? There's a small awful part of me that is a little bit happy every time there's a shooting incident in the us. I know, that makes me sound awful. But I want to do an exchange program to Berkeley for uni, and every australian parent who freaks out and won't let their kid go to the U.S. because a school shooting is in the news is another step closer to me getting a scholarship that makes it affordable for my broke ass. In general? Oh my god, it's awful. But it bothers me on roughly the same level as kids dying in Africa, or a traffic accident involving people I don't know. It's sad, but I'm emotionally crippled and not unduly bothered. I speculate that the news focus and hysteria and the refusal to even try and mitigate gun availability in the US contributes to the problem, and I think giving news coverage equally to kids dying of malaria and malnutrition and a press lead level of outrage that isn't so insular would do wonders to reduce the rate of incidence. But mostly? As a shallow narcissist, I want an exchange scholarship.
This comes up everytime someone posts that Bill Hicks rant, but son of a bitch, I hate the stupid fucking anti-advertising and marketing rant. A ridiculous overgeneralization because some anti-establishment rallying cry. Cause marketing laundry detergent or orange juice, or garbage bags is really as fucking evil and vilifying as marketing cigarettes or unhealthy kids food. Shit is just ignorant. HOWEVER, his point about the media, and now the rise of clickbait and catchy headlines, is spot on.
Which is exactly why the last "Anchorman" movie should have struck a very serious chord with everyone watching it.
I'd completely forgotten to mention that in my last post but i completely agree, as funny as I thought it was I think it was a much better movie than the first because of how well they put that point across that mainstream news is all just pandering for ratings using any excuse possible.
To me, it wasn't a comedy. It was like "Animal Farm;" take it as funny if you want to, but it goes so much deeper than that. Easily Will Ferrell's best performance.
I just feel that the discussion on mass shootings has become so politicised and so personal that people are no longer willing to honestly discuss and seriously consider the factors leading to mass shootings. Some people want to blame to the media for the irresponsible way that news companies focus on and create anti-heroes out of mass shooters. Yet many of those same people will refuse to even consider the various studies and academic literature discussing links between greater gun control and a reduction in mass shootings. Others want to ram through gun control without paying any attention to the complete lack of mental health treatment in the US and the terrible stigmatisation of the mentally ill in Western society. Others want to blame mental illness without discussing the previous factors (or considering how blaming the mental illness of mass shooters further stigmatises the mentally unwell and makes it harder to discuss mental illness constructively). The news media consistently blames video games for mass shootings without providing any evidence at all. Meanwhile, gamers refuse to even consider the academic research linking exposure to violent media (film and video games) to increased aggression and anti-social behaviour in children (of course that still doesn't provide evidence of a connection to mass violence). I guess I'm just waiting for the day when we stop and say: "There are a lot of things causing mass shootings and some of them might be things you consider fundamental to our society. If we want to stop these events then we have to look at it all. Yes, even the ideas you politically disagree with. We have to discuss all of it."
Intellectual honesty is hard. Like Shrek said - ogres are like onions. They're layered. This problem is a helluva onion...and guns and their availability are only the outer layers. Getting into the heart of it is going to require some tears because staring into that mirror and having those discussions is harder than most of us ever want to come close to doing. We are more comfortable having something tangible to blame, pointing the finger at the guns than we are acknowledging that we've got three more pointing back at us, silently demanding we take responsibility for what we've allowed ourselves to become.