Cho,
Lanza, Bales, Ridgway and the One Percent
| by
John Stanton
“Too
much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence
and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our
gross national product ... if we should judge America by that -
counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to
clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors
and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of
our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It
counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for
police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman’s rifle
and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify
violence in order to sell toys to our children.
Yet
the gross national product does not allow for the health of our
children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play.
It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our
marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of
our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage;
neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our
devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except
that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about
America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”
Robert F. Kennedy, executed in 1968
( December 17, 2012, Virginia, Sri Lanka Guardian) The
American Suicide Gunman has joined the ranks of the Jihadist Suicide
Bomber. Both are products of their cultures.
And
the naysayers in the USA claim that the country does not produce
anything of value anymore.
That
is incorrect.
Americans
are Earth's number one, hands-down top dog killers. Americans produce
the world's top murderers/suicide gunmen (both government sanctioned
and freelance). We play the most violent games with glorious
military/paramilitary overtones and undertones. We populate the globe
with advanced weaponry either selling it to the good, the bad and the
ugly or we use it to destroy seen and unseen enemies and things.
We
even wipe out wolves with glee justifying the slaughter on behalf of
those most American of Americans, the rancher and farmer. According
to the New York Times in December of 2012, “Yellowstone National
Park’s best-known wolf, beloved by many tourists and valued by
scientists who tracked its movements, was shot and killed on Thursday
outside the park’s boundaries. The wolf, known as 832F to
researchers, was the alpha female of the park’s highly visible
Lamar Canyon pack and had become so well known that some wildlife
watchers referred to her as a rock star. The animal had been a
tourist favorite for most of the past six years. “She is the most
famous wolf in the world,” said Jimmy Jones, a wildlife
photographer who lives in Los Angeles and whose portrait of 832F
appears in the current issue of the magazine American
Scientist.
Wildlife
advocates say that the wolf populations are not large enough to
withstand state-sanctioned harvests and that the animals attract
tourist money.”
American's
nearly drove their own mascot, The Bald Eagle, to extinction.
The
USA, in fact, does not discriminate in its creation and use of
violence. Everything is literally “game.” We treat ourselves just
as violently as, say, we treat the Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians,
Afghans, Wolves, Children, et al. We do not, in fact, take good care
of each other in the USA. In fact, the One Percent is setting itself
the task of cutting away unemployment benefits, social security,
medicare and public education. Such is the ruse of the alarmist
Fiscal Cliff. The moniker should be the Auterity Cliff.
At
any rate, when a nation believes in the puffery and propaganda of
mainstream media (One Percent Owned and Operated) allowing its
leaders to engage in wars of folly around the globe, while its own
infrastructure collapses, it is clearly symptomatic of a serious
national cognitive malady. Americans are so immersed in themselves
and the unreality of nonsensical things that they just “don't want
to talk about IT.”
IT
is the reality of life in all its splendor and disgust. War,
politics, economics, crime, cultural dynamics and a host of other
critical subjects are ignored or hidden from view. Dancing
with the Stars
gets more discussion time than the latest US military casualties in
Afghanistan (Mike Guillory and Nelson Trent on December 14, 2012) or
a police officer shot down in the line of duty (Chris Parson of
Missouri on December 15, 2012).
Now
late in 2012 there is much grief, as there should be, over the child
killings at Sandy Hook in Newtown Connecticut. A narrative will be
found or made, of course, to sooth the collective consciousness.
Mental disability is on call as it always is. The American Flag is
lowered yet again. Might as well keep it at half mast since more
madness is sure to follow.
What
Next?
What
is the USA going to do in response to Adam Lanza's killing spree?
What strategies, operations and tactics can be designed and employed
stop the next suicide gunman who will no doubt attempt to set a new
domestic record for confirmed kills?
The
battlefield is literally everywhere now, even at the bucolic K-4
level of Newtown, Connecticut. National security has truly gone
“beyond traditional distinctions” as President Obama stated in
his National Security Strategy of the USA, 2010. Obama probably did
not have in mind the classroom. But the USA is still officially a
nation at war and remains under a state of emergency. How to defeat
the Killer Elite of America before they strike (5th
Generation Warfare)?
As
it is now, the standard script is being followed. Talking heads on
national television networks will try to sooth the mass
consciousness. Pundits and think tank dwellers yack away. More guns
will be sold. The pro-gun and anti-gun lobbyists and lawyers will be
flocking to state and federal government offices to protect their
client's interests (jobs too). Politicians will cry and rant.
Congressional resolutions will be passed condemning Lanza. Security
professionals will swoop down on anxious school administrators with
shake and bake security systems that include forced entry and
ballistic/blast resistant doors and windows. Turnkey security
solutions will include cameras connected to profiling software like
TRAPWIRE.
Perhaps
no one under 18 should allowed to handle a gun unless the
parent/guardian is legally bound to accept liability for the child's
actions to include prison or being stripped of all assets. Soon, a
“Sandy Hook Law” creating higher hurdles for gun owners/sellers
will appear at the state or federal level. It will be ineffective of
course.
Should
all schools be required by the Department of Homeland Security to
have a TSA type security system in place?
How
about genetic testing of all newborns to determine the probabilities
for mental disabilities? Tag those who show a disposition for mental
health trouble with RFID's and include those students who seem remote
and quiet. Load 'em up with chemicals.
Maybe
homeschooling through the Internet and World Wide Web is an option?
Revamp the Education Industrial Base. No more warehousing kids at the
K-12 level.
Better
still, take a good hard look at America's culture of violence which
has been amplified by over a decade of mind numbing war and
bloodthirsty video games.
A
national discussion must ensue.
American
All Star Killers
Staff
Sargent Robert Bales of the US Army walked off his base in
Afghanistan early in 2012 and executed 16 Afghan nationals. That
figure included nine children and three women. Apparently he was
under stress after seeing comrades killed in action. He had received
a severe concussion of the type a number of American contact football
players are subjected to over the course of their playing years from
youth to high school and college to professional levels.
Seung-Hui
Cho executed 32 members of the Virginia Tech college community in
2007. Additional casualties included 17 wounded. Cho committed
suicide after the carnage.
Adam
Lanza executed 26 Sandy Hook Elementary students and staff in
December 2012. The Newtown, Connecticut slaughter included 20
children aged 10 and under. Lanza committed suicide after murders.
Gary
Ridgway, The Green River Killer, was convicted of executing at least
49 people (confirmed kills said the prosecution) in Washington State
during the mid-1980's. Prostitutes and runaway adolescents were his
primary prey. Ridgway lives in prison.
The
Office of the Presidency of the United States of America, the
Commander-in-Chiefs' Office, reserves the right to detain without due
process and/or execute American citizens under section 1021 (b)(2) of
the National Defense Authorization Act. According to Judge Katherine
Forrest (USDC, New York) writing in September of 2012, “the stakes
get no higher: indefinite military detention--potential detention
during a war on terrorism that is not expected to end in the
foreseeable future, if ever. The Constitution requires
specificity--and that specificity is absent from § 1021(b)(2).”
The
Commander-in-Chiefs' Office also blesses the use of remotely piloted
aerial vehicles to execute alleged terrorists. Yet data shows those
most often remotely murdered are civilians. “Civilian casualties
accounted for 74 percent of the death toll...” based on a study of
24 remotely piloted aerial vehicle attacks from 2008 to 2011. Women
and children are included in the 74 percent figure. That data was
analyzed and reported on by Gareth Porter of Truthout in August 2012.
Creative
Destruction at Home and Abroad: The One Percent Doctrine
The
MIT Center for International Studies reports that between 2003-2011
150,000 to 400,000 Iraqi civilians were collaterally killed by US
military forces. The 2003 invasion of Iraq resulted in at least 1.5
million internally displaced in Iraq with another 1 million fleeing
to Syria, now the site of another bloodbath involving outside powers
and sectarian strife.
According
to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention there were 16,799
homicides in the USA in 2011. Murder is the 15th
leading cause of death in the USA. The weapon of choice used in
11,493 of those homicides was a handgun or rifle.
The
US led the world in arms sales in 2011 accounting for nearly 80
percent of the world's total sales. According to the Campaign to Ban
Landmines From
1969 to 1992, the United States exported 4.4 million antipersonnel
mines, mostly to Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon,
Mozambique, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Somalia, and Vietnam. US made or
supplied APLs have been found in 32 countries, including Afghanistan.
According
to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, “About 6.98 million people
were under some form of adult correctional supervision in the U.S. at
year end 2011. This was the equivalent of about one in 34 U.S. adults
(or about 2.9 percent of the adult population) in prison or jail or
on probation or parole...”
Zoltan
Grossman of Evergreen College reports that since 1890 the US has used
military or paramilitary forces some 140
times
including the violent suppression of American Labor Unions and
protests against racial discrimination. US forces executed 300 Lakota
Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1890. US Marines were sent to
Chili, Argentina, and Haiti to protect business interests from
1891-1892. From 1918 to 1922 US forces were sent to fight the
Bolsheviks in Russia. The US fought against Serbia in 1919 on Italy's
behalf. In 1943 in Detroit, Michigan, the US Army was sent in to
quell an African American rebellion.
“The
US Justice Department on Tuesday announced a $1.9 billion settlement
with British-based HSBC on charges of money laundering on a massive
scale for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. The deal was
specifically designed to avert criminal prosecution of either the
bank, the largest in Europe and third largest in the world, or any of
its top executives. Even though the bank admitted to laundering
billions of dollars for drug lords, as well as violating US financial
sanctions against Iran, Libya, Burma and Cuba, the Obama
administration avoided an indictment by means of a deferred
prosecution agreement.
Not
a single leading executive of a major bank has been prosecuted, let
alone jailed, for fraudulent activities that triggered the present
crisis, leading to the destruction of millions of jobs and the
decimation of working-class living standards in the US and around the
world. The Treasury Department, headed by former New York Federal
Reserve President Timothy Geithner, and the Office of the Comptroller
of the Currency, the federal regulatory agency charged with policing
major banks including HSBC, vetoed any prosecution on the grounds
that a serious legal blow to HSBC would jeopardize the financial
system,” said the World Socialist Website.
There
are 16.4 million poor children in the USA according to the Child
Defense Fund. “Nearly eight million are uninsured and more children
were killed by guns in 2008-2009 than US military personnel in both
the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to date.”
John
Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security
matters. His most recent book is The Raptor's Eye, Reports from
Washington, DC, the Capitol of the American Empire (the usage of
capitol is taken from the book The Hunger Games.
