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Saturday, July 21, 2012

Summer Sequels


Calhoun’s Cannons for July 21, 12,

Summer Sequels

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.
                                                               Joan Didion

            It’s all Hollywood now, nothing but damned sequels.  Columbine, Virginia Tech, Luby’s cafeteria in Texas (23 people were taken out there. You forgot that one, didn’t you?), Congresswoman Giffords, Ft. Hood, now Aurora, Colorado, a mass shooting at a Batman premier.  Here we go again. Another damned summer sequel! 
          Same assault weapons, same high-fire, large magazine cop-killer handguns, same angry crazy guy, same dead people, same floor awash in blood and bullets, same ritual of faux cries of shock and outrage, same 24/7 cathartic TV coverage (great for the ratings!). And always the same hack dialogue, the sad-faced pols asking us to pray for the families of all the dead people, the excited, shocky survivors declaring how grateful they are that God was looking out for them, at least. 
            Then comes the braying calls for better gun control and the same old questions:  Why do we allow the country to be awash in weapons of war?  Of course, there’s never a serious answer to that question, but it has to be asked.  Like in old war movies you just know the guy who pulls out a photo of his family will be the next to die.  It’s a cliché but it just has to be in the script. 
            Yes, it’s all a hackneyed formula, but the AK-47 question is needed to segue to the NRA and its wholly owned Congresspeople who trot on stage to declaim their battle cry:  Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. This is followed by talk-radio voices from the heartland who declare that if all those people attending that Batman movie had been carrying weapons of their own, the shooter would have been taken out in a matter of seconds, which is even more blood fantasy: The Hollywood vision of a theatre filled with highly trained snipers, our very own American Leatherstockings, who can shoot the eye out of a squirrel in a tree on a hill six miles away and do that even in a dark theatre filled with tear-gas and chaos.  That’s a fantasy script that regularly plays out in the heads of so many out of shape, middle-aged American males who have been watching too many Liam Neeson movies.
              Yes, Folks, it’s another episode of The All-American Komic Kabuki Theatre of Blood with a script as preordained as a Noh theatre piece.  It never changes. It’s all damned sequels now.  But we never get tired of the reruns.  Not Americans.  Like little children who want Mommy to read the same story over and over and over again, we can’t get enough of this particular story --big guns, lots of big guns, we love those, and the Rambo, Bruce Willis, Falling Down, Yippee-ki-yi Guy who doles out rough justice to all those people who’ve done us wrong, we love that guy! He’s our contemporary Deerslayer, once described by that sniffy Englishman, D.H. Lawrence, as “A man who keeps his moral integrity hard and intact.  An isolate, almost selfless, stoic, enduring man, who lives by death, by killing, but is pure white.”  Yep, that’s our secret inner vision:  Every man armed, out there on the edge of the Indian-infested wilderness, stoic, a killer. Give us AK-47s or give us death!
            And the violence.  We love that, too. We need that killing like a coke-head needs that spoon up his nose, then another and another, we just can’t get enough.  We’re a culture filled with anger, paranoia and fear, addicted to the pornography of violence, living on the rage and adrenaline. Faster pussycat, kill-kill!
            In a sane world, this state of affairs would cause despair in a normal person.  Or prompt serious evaluation of the culture.  Or even an intervention. But despair and questions and interventions only function if there’s hope that things can change.  Since things will never change here, despair is pointless.  So are questions.  And things will never change because the sad truth is this:  Americans love their guns more than they love their children, more than they love their friends and neighbors, more than they love their fellow citizens, more than they love even themselves. 
            Since that’s the case, the only sane response is laughter. Silly us.  We’ve turned ourselves into a bloody rerun of a bad movie that’s now on a constant replay loop.  Whack-a-Mole and we’re the moles. Of course, in a sane world, America would be declared insane and locked up in a mental hospital to keep her from doing harm to herself and others and be given treatment to restore her to health. Sadly, that isn’t about to happen, because we do not live in a sane world.
            So, grab your car keys. I hear there’s a gun sale at Wal-Mart. Time to stock up.  
           
             

18 comments:

Sandra Gore said...

Saw on France24.com (thatz 24-hr English language world news I watch on internet) that the Paris Premiere of Knight was cancelled due to the shooting. Red carpets and all were rolled up and put back on the trucks.
Overreaction to danger, respect for the dead and injured, or sensitivity to France's own share of mass violence?
BTW, this comes almost exactly one year after Norway (Jul 22)
They keep telling us that video games don't make people more violent...

Billy Dunne said...

I'm waiting for Wayne LaPierre to release a statement blaming Obama for the shooting as part of his grand conspiracy to take everyone's guns in his second term.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Dunne....seems ABC News (an organization unabashedly pro-Obama) had other thoughts.........

From ABC News:

ABC News and Brian Ross are apologizing for an "incorrect" report that James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado theater shooting, may have had connections to the Tea Party.

"An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect," ABC News said in a statement. "ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted."

In a similar statement released minutes earlier, ABC News said the report was "incorrect" but did not include the apology. "Several other local residents with similar names were also contacted via social media by members of the public who mistook them for the suspect," the initial statement read.

ABC's apology comes after Ross reported this morning that there is "a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site... talking about him joining the Tea Party last year."
"Now, we don't know if this is the same Jim Holmes," Ross cautioned "but it's Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado."


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/07/abcs_brian_ross_apologizes_for_blaming_colorado_shooting_on_the_right.html#ixzz21HAgSnk9

Billy Dunne said...

You're seriously comparing Brian Ross and ABC News to Wayne LaPierre and the NRA, the most powerful lobby in America? Good grief. By the way, ABC News apologized for the dope Brian Ross and his rush to judgement. Wake me when the NRA apologizes for the 30,000+ gun related deaths in this country each year.

Anonymous said...

It's funny. Most conservatives are pro-life, but when it comes to their acceptance of looser gun restrictions, they seem to be unapologetically pro-death.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Dunne,

My intent is not to compare anyone; including the political opposites represented by Mr. Ross to Mr. LaPierre.

The post was response to your observation that folks of a particular political persuasion might try to assign blame to innocents to achieve political gain; which is exactly what what Mr.Ross did. Mr. Ross correctly recanted.

I too find it disturbing that the horror of this tragedy is dehumanized when political posturing clouds the truth.

Anonymous said...

Ann: Thank you for a well written piece with just the right amount of emotion included. Many gun-rights advocates absolutely refuse to discuss in any form any talk of modifying any of our current gun laws because they feel that the Second Amendment would be further compromised by any additional restrictions; they will not engage in dialog, in their mind, they are right and any further discussion is just a ploy (in their mind) to "take away" their "absolute right" to owning almost any firearm they wish.
What I find interesting is comparing our situation with that of Canada, both in the ratio of firearms to citizens as well as the number of deaths per capita attributed to firearms. Every single weapons is required to be registered, every single person who wishes to own a firearm has to have a permit to own. If they wish to be a collector and buy more guns, they have to obtain a "Possess and collect" permit which is a little harder to get. When applying for any firearms permit, a signature has to obtained by either the current spouse or life partner, or a past spouse or life partner. If that signature cannot be obtained, the police investigate the applicant even deeper. Is it possible that such registration helps reduce the number of gun related deaths in Canada?
Bob from San Luis.

Anonymous said...

Very few blacks or Hispanics in Canada.

Anonymous said...

The head nutcase wants to bring attention to the murderous deeds of another nutcase and blame ownership of guns for the misdeeds.

Churadogs said...

Anon said: "Very few blacks or Hispanics in Canada." There, I suspect, is one of the key "dark hearts" of our collective gun obsession -- fear of murderous rebelling slaves armed with cane knives. That dark fear is responsible for the dog whistle music that lies unspoken at the heart of our national anthem. Actually it's the song that lies in the dark, fearful heart of so much of our collective souls.

Canada is a far more sane country. I suspect their chronic stress levels are far, far lower than Americans. They have a far stronger social safety net than we do, better overall health care, for example, so that might account for some of it. It is also a far more "civil" society, which helps curb the crazy.

Until "gun people" are willing to explore their twin fears of rebelling slaves and impotence (both unconscious sexual and social/financial/impotence)it won't be possible to have a sane dialogue regarding guns. So the killing will continue.

If you want to read an extraordinary book on another mass killing, read "Columbine." The process for the narrative going wrong will likely happen in this case (early false mis-information gets locked into myth and no matter how it's corrected later, the false narrative sticks forever (cf Sarah Palin's lie about "death panels") The book is a stunner, took years to write and research and is an extraordinary read. I highly recommend it. Should be out in paperback by now. Get it, read it and watch to see how closely this case parallels the Columbine shooting as the facts begin to unspool and cohere.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps you, Ann, should move to Canada. You are a sorry case of what is wrong with the United States of America. There is no conspirital "dark fear .. responsible for the dog whistle music that lies unspoken at the heart of our (the USA) national anthem." YOU appear to want to spew you venon under your liberal version of free speech. Will woman, please move to Cananda and then tell us just how free you feel. Canadians do have gun and they use them generally to hunt and kill animals. Why don't you pour out your heart for that year round killing?

This conumtry does have problems, a very large portion brought on by drugs and the violence accompaning that trade. but then YOU never rail against the use of drugs? Why not?

Why don't you propose your way to control illegal immigration, a great deal of it bringing in more drugs. Where do you get your "recreatonal" drug? Grown in LO or supplied by the Mexican cartel?

Ann, you really are an old lady out of touch with reality. Please do move to Canada!

Billy Dunne said...

Very funny response above from Anon 7:23. What exactly is a "liberal version of free speech?" As opposed to, say, a "conservative version of free speech?" And who doesn't love the dusting off of the infamous "America, love it or leave it" reply. Priceless.

But it's good to see the above anon 7:23 supports legalization of drugs ("This conumtry does have problems, a very large portion brought on by drugs and the violence accompaning that trade.") and the Dream Act ("Why don't you propose your way to control illegal immigration, a great deal of it bringing in more drugs. Where do you get your "recreatonal" drug? Grown in LO or supplied by the Mexican cartel?") Good for you Anon in showing that there are effective ways of handling problems without the proliferation of guns and violence.

Anonymous said...

Looks like Ms'd Calhoun is taking a convoluted trip to attack private gun ownership and somehow say that Canada has effective gun control.

Apparently the best approach to stopping random violence would be to stop manufacturing weapons and confiscate all private weapons in America. Sure sounds easy to me.

Of course Hollywood might also be prevented from making violent movies and by extension, stop all violent computer games.

Is that how they prevent violence in Canada?

Alon Perlman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alon Perlman said...

Oh it is a sequel, most certainly not news. A statistical occurrence. News perhaps in Colorado, where someone knows someone. Not even news in Southern California where the PhD track Perp grew up.
As for outcome ? If there is an alteration in gun own ownership and registration laws, then this would become, retroactively, news.
What’s left as Ann points out if I understand it correctly is a post mortem of the initial news analysis. The overlaying of significance. The seeking of meaning in something that is inherently meaningless.
Not” What went wrong”, as in how did this quiet loner slip under the radar, and obtain this weaponry. (answer “Quiet Loner”). But what went wrong in the initial reporting. Because talking about itself seems to be what the media is best at nowadays.
How do you reconcile the next two?
“In the age of widespread social media, no trace of Holmes could be found on Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter or anywhere on the Web. Either he never engaged or he scrubbed his trail. (Associated Press)”
And;
Where the “reporter” Brian Ross “Finds the person” and declares this is so and so’s (Jim Holms of Aurora) web page. “No less of a source than Google told me so”.
So, Brian Ross is an idiot. But the journalists speculating on “what is schizophrenia” are not operating out of a ethos of responsibility either. The accuracy of reporting now is dependent on the itchiness of the trigger finger on the “return” button after the perp’s name is loaded into the search engine’s chamber. This calls for outlawing computers, at least in the hands of reporters.
ClassicJimbo aside, you can’t blame the actor Liam Nielsen, but at a stretch….maybe it was actor John Holms who psychologically traumatized the nation enough to cause the need for a bigger and bigger gun. And though violent video games may later show to play a role – though perhaps it was an insufficient access rather than the excessive in this case.
Speaking of speculation; That would be a thought- Arm an entire theater, turn off the lights and figure out later how many bullets poured into the vicinity of the initial muzzle flash. I would expect post mortem reports of 20% of injuries self inflicted on the draw… Self whacking moles.
Nice summation of a sad situation where electing wry humor is the sane way to go.
From the music to “bowling for Columbine”.



“They can see no reasons
'Cuz there are no reasons
What reasons do you need?”

BoomTown Rats “I don’t like Mondays”

Billy Dunne said...

From Anon 3:20:

"Many gun-rights advocates absolutely refuse to discuss in any form any talk of modifying any of our current gun laws because they feel that the Second Amendment would be further compromised by any additional restrictions; they will not engage in dialog, in their mind, they are right and any further discussion is just a ploy (in their mind) to "take away" their "absolute right" to owning almost any firearm they wish."

From Anon 1:40:

"Apparently the best approach to stopping random violence would be to stop manufacturing weapons and confiscate all private weapons in America. Sure sounds easy to me.

Of course Hollywood might also be prevented from making violent movies and by extension, stop all violent computer games.

Is that how they prevent violence in Canada?"

Perfect. From point A to point M. All black and all white. From sane and sensible regulation to "they want to confiscate all private weapons in America."

Perfect.

Anonymous said...

Isn't that the whole point?

Guns only allowed in the hands of the military and the police?

Surely all those without a need to murder another person will gladly turn in their guns. Except those rational medical cannibus farmers who only seek to protect their crops? Meth chefs? Gang bangers? Yes, we need to let those "professionals" guide us to the light. In the meantime, please don't try breaking into my house to rob my family.

Churadogs said...

Billy makes the point perfectly: From point A to point Z in one jump. That's one of the major problems with this issue and illustrates, to me, the irrational nature of this issue. (That and the childishly mindless, "Move to Canada . . or France . . or Russia , etc.") The very words "gun control" seem to trigger a weird form of fear-induced "road rage" in many people; the rational brain shuts off. Oddly, we already have "gun control" now, a wide variety of rules and regs and restrictions. Therefore the question under discussion SHOULD be, Do our present "controls" work? Can they be improved? If so, how? Are there other restrictions we we need to think about, like eliminate assault-type weapons, and high volume magazine clips, cop-killer type weapons? (And here's the odd one, "Why should civilians be able to freely buy police-style "crowd control" canisters of tear gas and military/police kelvar protection wear? And what sane, law-abiding human needs 6,000 bullets? Are deer now forming armies and shooting back when we hunt them that we would need "deer control" tear gas canisters and 6,000 bullets?)

And there's questions like, "Considering the number of daily run-of-the-mill homicides and suicides by guns, is there more we can be doing to prevent these? What and how? Other rational, civilized, sane democracies don't have our high kill rate. What is it about Americans that keeps the killing so high?

All of those questions and more need to be asked and answered. And none of them go from A to Z in one jump. Unless the rational mind has shut down and the lizard brain is in control.

Which begs one last question: Does America want to be a Lizard Brain Country? The choice is ours to make.