Horror in Aurora

By Greg King

[Submitted to Portside by author]

It's happened again.  We've had Columbine, Virginia
Tech, Fort Hood, Tucson. Now we have Aurora.
Place and institution names which will make us
shudder when we hear them from now on.  Actually,
for most of them, from some time back.  Mass
murder has become almost de rigueur, if one is to
use a yuppie phrase.  In that same vein, we can
almost talk about the massacre du jour.  What has
happened to our country?

It seems to me that it's only in the last 40 years or
so that we've had almost frequent slaughters on our
streets and in our buildings.  This can't, or
shouldn't, be considered a "normal" thing.  What
explains it?

From video/computer games to movies and tv
shows to the very real violence of the authorities in
the ghettos and barrios, alongside the kids who are
killing each other in those places, to the state-
sponsored violence of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan
and a lot of places around the world where our
Special Forces are suppressing terrorism, real or
manufactured, violence has become endemic to our
culture.  We're inured to it, or a lot of us are, in any
case.

Part of the reason for the civilian sides of the
violence may be how anonymous, insignificant and
completely irrelevant to the larger forces moving in
society many of us feel.  We see Jamie Dimon of JP
Morgan Chase, the Bank of England, UBS and the
Republican governors and legislatures, sometimes
some Democrats as well, making vitally important
decisions which directly impact our lives.  We march
and shout slogans in Madison, on Wall Street and in
London, Madrid, Athens or Geneva and nothing at
all changes for the better. Rather, things change for
the worse.

If tens or even hundreds of thousands of people
marching, chanting and forcefully acting in the
streets can't seem to affect events really at all, what
is left to us?  I think this partly explains the
random, senseless violence. Along with serious
mental disorders, a desire to have some effect, any
effect, to matter, even in a grisly, horrific way, may
partly explain events in Aurora, Tucson, Fort Hood,
etc.

I mentioned attempts to change things in Europe
that have seemed futile.  They have had their share
of senseless violence there, too.  And in Japan and
China, for that matter.  There are key differences,
though.  They've had far fewer instances of mayhem
in those countries.  I think this can be attributed
both to the strict gun control in most of those
locales and the social-democratic reforms put in
place over the years in Europe and even in Japan.
There were Communist social safeguards in China.
Some survive, but they are becoming a dog-eat-dog
society similar to ours in all-too-many ways.

What does this mean?  If you can't just walk down
the street and buy a gun, with little control, it's not
as easy to enact fantasies of blowing people away.
Also, if there's more of a chance of your having a
social safety net to catch you, free education
through university, very affordable national
healthcare, you're not apt to be as desperate and
hopeless as many Americans now are.  Desperate
people do desperate things.

Europe, Japan and China are heading the way of the
United States, some places faster than others.
China may have a few more social safeguards for a
while longer.  But at least as far as Europe and
Japan go, austerity and neoliberalism and rending
their safety nets.  Soon, all over the world, there'll be
socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.  A tiny
elite of very wealthy people at the top will be doing
just fine, thank you, while the rest of us mow their
lawns, take care of their children, drive them
around, fill or guard their prisons or fill research
labs, hospitals and other higher service-industry
jobs.

Not being able to put bread and milk on the table
can drive anyone to desperate acts.  However, so
can that feeling of being inconsequential and
powerless -- more of a middle-class disease, as
exemplified by the graduate student who just killed
at least twelve people and wounded fifty-nine in
Aurora, Colorado.  What can we do to lessen these
horrific instances?

For starters, we can kick the NRA out of the way and
enact strict gun control laws.  We can reverse the
austerity fad and provide ourselves and our
neighbors with places to live, food to eat, medical
care, a good education and meaningful, well-
compensated work.  How do we ever get to that
point?

We go door-to-door in our neighborhoods, cubicle-
to-cubicle or bay-to-bay in our workplaces, desk-to-
desk in our schools.  We talk to our neighbors,
coworkers and fellow students.  We help them to
realize that their lives are just as precious, just as
vital to that "vast, eternal plan" or in any case the
stringing together of contingencies, as Jamie Dimon,
the Koch brothers, Donald Trump, etc.  Once people
realize that, "Yes!  I'm important!", they/we will no
longer settle for fourth-or-fifth best.  They'll want the
proverbial level playing field that has so often been
mentioned.  They'll want their babies to mature
without suffering from malnutrition.  They'll want
affordable housing and healthcare.  They'll want
well-supplied and well-staffed schools.  They'll want
to share power with their coworkers and neighbors
in their factories, mines, offices and communities.

Once people have that self-respect, that degree of
genuine control over their own lives, they won't feel
so powerless, so inconsequential.  They won't so
often get and act on the impulse to blow their
neighbors away.  And maybe, just maybe, there'll be
good mental health treatment facilities staffed by
caring professionals who will help them cope with
the feelings they cannot control.  Perhaps then we'll
have much more social peace than we have now.
People's lives won't be ended way-too-prematurely
and senselessly.  Instead, we'll have "all the people
sharing all the world."

___________________________________________

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