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Watch this video of a Florida man who walks into a school board meeting and talks to –then shoots at– school board members.
I’ve linked to the full version, I chose this one because I want people to see and hear what his comments are before the shooting. And I want people to hear the responses of the school board members as they are held at gun point.
This is NOT, I repeat, NOT how I think that desperate unemployed people should confront the people who they think are responsible for their current situation.
When I read about someone talking about getting out the pitchforks and torches or guillotines I want them to pause a bit and consider how real violence would be carried out in modern America. This is what it would look like. And the response to threats of violence will be just like at the end of this video, only more graphic.
I’ve been reading the comments on the video at various sources and they range from comments about the school board’s members calm response to the shooter to supporters for a “2nd Amendment solution”.
You may want to read this story in the New York Times that provides some background and links to the man’s Facebook page where he posted this entry:
My Testament: Some people (the government sponsored media) will say I was evil, a monster (V)… no… I was just born poor in a country where the Wealthy manipulate, use, abuse, and economically enslave 95% of the population. Rich Republicans, Rich Democrats… same-same… rich… they take turns fleecing us… our few dollars… pyramiding the wealth for themselves. The 95%… the us, in US of A, are the neo slaves of the Global South. Our Masters, the Wealthy, do, as they like to us…
The media will focus on the individual story then move to the next celebrity news tidbit. Like a shark they consume visuals and keep moving looking for the next striking bit of “news”. What I would like to discuss is what economic despair can lead to and what we can do to and to alleviate it.
I would also like to discuss other non-violent methods we can take to hold people accountable for their actions that lead to economic despair.
18 Comments
recommended — thank you spocko. we must find non-violent ways to hold those who are pillaging our nation for their personal profit accountable. actions have consequences.
When there is no hope anger erupts. I sympathize with the anger but not the expressing of it with violence! There is a better way. Yes a long road but better than violence.
And we should be careful w/ the violent rhetoric.
There should be no violence but it has long been a tradition in this country to use guns when angry. This man is at the end of his rope and in my opinion, this will not be the last incident of this type. When will someone look at the cause of this type of thing and admit that it is being caused by the desperation of people?
When a person such as this man chooses to take desperate measures, the media focus is always on the violence and never on the circumstances leading to it, both personal and societal. At best, they’ll label him ‘troubled’, most will paint him as a psycho but none will bother to even think why or how a human being gets to this point. If we cannot understand such actions, how can they possibly be avoided in future?
Exactly! There are so many of us at the edge of the table just like he was. It is a shame that a country as rich as America has come to this.
I remember seeing the news of suicides and soup lines when G. H. Bush was in office. It is almost as if time is repeating itself.
The violence will be the focus until there are a critical mass of shootings. Then it will be “What is to be done?” My prediction that their will need to be at least 3 shootings with bigger and bigger body counts and and higher status victims before a trend is established. The events will give the rich a reason to use more private body guards.
In America it’s not when the next shooting will be, but “How many killed and how big will it be?
I’ve thought about the way that during the civil rights movement the threat of violence was dealt with. Did a threat of violence against racists (or actual violence toward them) help the cause?
A lot of us have been talking about unemployment and how we get the stories of the umemployed in front of the media and powers that be so that things change. Will this act make any change? Other than the death of this guy? The media will cut out his message. Already they have cut to the last 15 seconds of the shooting rather than his few painful comments.
I know that when the right shows up to an Obama meeting with their guns they are threatening overt violence, is that effective? They think it is, because they just want to “show that they still have their second amendment rights!”
Would Tea party people, who have reached the end of their rope on an issue, use their guns like this guy? They often threaten to.
Maybe they should own this violence. I’d wager that they don’t, they will distance themselves from others in pain. Even out and out Tea partiers, and Glenn Beck watchers are disavowed when they get violent. I’m not going to embrace violence. I want people to see just how ineffective it is so we can stop talking about guillotines and start focusing on other pressures that work.
We need more Chamber pots, damn it, not bullets…! Guaranteed to get their attention…! ;-)
The ‘original’ NBC attack…! ;-)
According to the AP, no one besides the gunman was injured. TBH, from watching the video it’s clear that the man could have caused great harm to others if that had been his purpose.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40664031/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
The real villians are the politicians, media blowhards and “experts” who refuse to support a full employment economy. The keepers of this “new normal” and those that control them from behind the scenes are the real enemies of humanity.
What to do? Infecting them with a sense of humanity sometimes helps. Ode to Joy was written during turbulent times. As were Imagine and Give Peace a Chance.
And after watching that sad video, a counter balance is a good idea.
Muppets Ode to Joy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcUxwpOQ_A
This artist doing advocacy for the homeless gets it(homeless man Under Pressure):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYXKaAzEJrk
If all else fails, just shut things down.
From what’s being said in the video it sounds like
1. They cut property taxes
2. They cut school budgets
3. Then they pushed a sales tax on the public
The man’s facebook comment about the “Global South” makes sense. Moving taxes off of rich property owners and onto the backs of the poor via sales taxes is Plantation Economics.
The school boards idea of “fair” is 20% unemployed and soon to be homeless.
Thanks for the thoughtful and sobering post. We do need to seek, and employ non-violent methods of protest.
When people have no stake in a society, burning it down is of no consequence to them. Violence comes in many forms. Economic violence is as painful as physical and mental violence. How many children are reduced to eating potato chips for breakfast due to the current economic violence? The illusion of American fairness is six feet under. Just like that guy.
Thanks for the post. I saw a snippet of this somewhere on the Internet with the usual b.s. sentitious nonsense, which mainly went to *glorifying* the violence, rather than focusing on what really *caused* this citizen to behave this way.
I *deplore* this man’s method & all violence. Yet our corporate fascist society glorifies violence constantly, encourages it in many ways subtle and not so subtle, and the guns & ammo industry is ever rapicious in deluding citizens to buy more & more weapons just “because.” Is it any wonder that this citizen did this?
I deplore his method, but I do wish more attention would be paid to the underlying causes. It will NOT happen the corporate-owned fascist media, that’s for sure. Thanks for bringing it to our attention here.
A very different take from the MSM coverage that I’ve seen. wsws.org:
In general, the board members, along with Jones, the security guard, acquitted themselves remarkably well. They demonstrated a good deal of personal courage during the incident and demonstrated a considerable degree of sympathy in its aftermath. Much to the surprise of the media, “Husfelt even had kind words for the family of the man who shot at him. ‘My heart goes out to his family,’ he said. ‘He had made up his mind that he was going to die today.’”
Jones spoke along the same lines, explaining, “I just want to let the Duke family know that my heart goes out to you.”
The lack of rancor speaks to a certain shift in public mood, as increasing numbers of ordinary Americans fathom the toll the economic devastation is taking.
According to the new Rockefeller Foundation report Ninety-three percent of American households suffered at least one “substantial economic shock” in the 18-month period from March 2008 to September 2009 and that economic insecurity has worsened since the mid-1980s.
Thanks for the link to that article Cuddlefish.
The article about this at Huffington Post got over 2,000 comments. Lots of back an forth about guns.
And the courage of the head of the school board was clear, it makes sense that he then later had sympathetic words for the family.
I’ve noted that one of the characteristics of the right in this country is a lack of empathy for people who are out side their immediate family or their “tribe”.
It will be important for lots of people to marginalize the unemployed in as many ways as possible so they don’t have to act on their behalf. And so they won’t have to say, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”
Very troubling indeed and considering the final response to such a strategy of confronting very real troubles by the population would be the beginning of the end of our societies social fabric .
Violence is, for more reasons than can be written here , the wrong response . But please keep in mind that the US has carried out violence on a scale incomparable to what this man has and unleashed forces responsible for taking more than a million lives while leaving several times that number wounded and several times that number again refugeed .
I have posted my feeling about what we are confronted with and what I believe the only viable solution to it on a diary today as well . Please join the conversation and make suggestions or criticisims and let start a dialogue about what we can do , non violently, to conront these problems together .
http://my.firedoglake.com/freeman/2010/12/17/dancing-with-tyrants-or-why-civil-disobedidience-is-now-the-only-way-forward/
I will be absent for a few hours because I am on my way to a posada with my neigbors de Mexico but will return later . Thank for your post and I look forward to discussing your ideas . Ciao.