Guns

After the tragic shooting yesterday in San Bernardino which left 14 dead and 17 more injured, we are once again throwing around statistics about guns and posturing on gun rights and gun control. It's par for course after every mass shooting.

I'll have to give credit -- Vox.com, better than any media site out there -- mainstream and/or other wise -- gave the most fair and balanced take on gun control numbers, explaining the various methodologies employed in analyzing multi-victim shootings of 4 people or more. Vox, along with the Guardian, posted comparable firearm death rates in the United States and other countries around the world. But that is aside the point.

The New York Daily news, for its December 4th edition, posted a provocative cover late Wednesday night as a rebuke against politicians who posture with "Prayers for...", all the while not really doing much to combat the issue.

There's a far bigger issue than the availability of guns, and that issue gets amplified if you look closer at The Guardian's statistics of firearm ownership and firearm rates around the world. To understand gun violence, you ultimately have to evaluate the sociopolitical climate that readily accepts gun violence as a means to resolve and/or control conflict, whatever it may be.

From the gang-ridden streets of Chicago, to the domestic disputes of Houston, and the unspeakable tragedies of various mass shootings around the country, individual(s) have utilized guns to settle scores, assert dominance, or prove some sort of point. It is the decision-making process that concerns me more than anything, and it is an indication of culture.

Believe it or not, homicide rates in the United States are lower than they were 20 years ago. According to a poll that was sourced by Vox.com, only 12% of Americans actually know that -- most believe that homicide rates are as bad if not worse than years past. Media coverage and social media conversations largely skew perceptions in my opinion, and many may not really remember how bad homicide rates in the United States were.

In the early 1990s, New York would have 2,000 homicides a year; Los Angeles as late as the early 2000s had over 1000 homicides a year; Chicago would clock in anywhere from 600 to 900 homicides a year; and Houston would regularly exceed 500 homicides a year. However, intervention programs, stiffer sentencing, aging, peace, lack of a drug epidemic, and better policing has led to significant drops in homicides. New York and Los Angeles are pacing for fewer than 400 homicides; Houston is pacing for fewer than 300; and Chicago's homicide numbers will still be half of what they were 20 years ago. A lot of that is due to changes in cultural, sociopolitical, and demographic climates.

I never argue in favor of or against gun control. It's an argument that distracts from the real core issues -- social climate, the cultural acceptance of resolving conflict with a gun, and the actual decision-making process. Our discussion really needs to encompass what kind of intervention, outreach, treatment, and cultural changes would be necessary as effective forms of prevention, if any.

The bottom line on Donald Trump

For some, it is fairly easy to be appealed to Donald Trump. After all, he is bringing his brash public personality to politics. He says politically incorrect things. He's appealing to disenchanted, angry white conservatives. He's bringing a brass and controversial style to presidential politics that hasn't been seen since George Wallace ran for the highest office in the land in 1968.

Trump has to be given credit -- he tapped into an upset constituency and he gets a break because he is more of a pop culture icon than an actual politician. As many political pundits keep predicting (and hoping for) his demise -- his support has proven resilient. Even though he says fairly egregious things. Even though he exaggerates. Even though he supports lies. Even though he is unapologetic in his appeal the most xenophobic and racist parts of the Republican Party base.

It should be known that I have no dog in this fight, per se. Clinton isn't centrist enough for my taste. Sanders liberal and progressive politics will just entrench more partisanship in Washington. Kasich is the most likable GOP candidate, but he lacks the political savvy to really stand up against the most extreme elements of the GOP; Cruz is too partisan. Carson is too ignorant.

And then there's Donald Trump.

Trump's success is the manifestation of two things: a much more politically extremist Republican Party and the GOP's inability to stop prostituting conservative anger for votes. He's more or less the endgame monster that the party made when it began to reject effective, centrist governing in the 1970s. Trump is not a game-changer; he is not "shaking things up"; he is proving to lack a degree of maturity that should be expected out of a politician, especially one that is going to be entrusted to most powerful political office on earth.

Trump's success, if you will, so far is because of the emotional statement that his campaign represents. In an election that is short on candidates being effective at actually governing (Sanders, Clinton, Cruz, and Rubio have no signature legislation; Firiona, Carson, and Trump have zero political experience), it's not surprising that voters are supporting candidates by wearing the hearts on their sleeve. The world and this country is too dynamic to really have an American president that is either drunk on partisanship or drunk on their own ego.

Here's the truth: Trump will be undone due to the primary rules of the Republican Party that favor much more pragmatic candidates. Nomination races are not won so much by popular votes in the primaries as they are by the delegates that are sent to the National Convention. The last five Republican nominees for President -- Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, and George H.W. Bush -- all came from the more pragmatic half of the Republican Party. Moreover, Trump's campaign has little political experience and their battles will be lost due to the GOP's system on delegates.

This is why I maintain that the Republican nominee for President will be either Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, or John Kasich.

I won't go so as far as Donald Trump being the worst thing to ever happen to the Republican Party.  However, his divisive and pandering rhetoric that appeals to the most angry, xenophobic, and racist parts of the Republican Party base is the last thing that the American political scene needs.

American politics has become too partisan, too extremist, too tribal. Politicians care too much about grandstanding, self-aggrandizing, jockeying, and posturing rather than governing and that troubles me. Americans are willing to support candidates on emotion rather than nuanced fact or critical thinking, and it's scary. Trump's candidacy is a manifestation of the most disgusting parts of American politics and he represents a symbol of what is wrong with American politics today -- from politician to constituent.

When the truth becomes useless in politics

All politicians lie. That's par for course. Political campaign seasons are exercises in rhetoric. Appealing to certain constituent bases is par for course, too. It's seen as necessary by pundits and operatives as a way to allow for a campaign to gain some sort of traction. What I am seeing in this 2016 election, at least on the Republican side, is appalling.

Let me first start off by saying, this election is not about "outsiders" versus "insiders" as much of the politicos, the candidates themselves, and some of the voters try to frame it to be. This is clearly about resentment, largely among white, Christian, social and fiscal conservatives that has manifested over an entire presidential term and the politicians (career and amateur) that are aiming to capitalize on said resentment.  

Then again, angry white, Christian, social and fiscal conservatives is a permanent part of the Republican voter base just like unsatisfied social justice liberals is a permanent part of the Democratic voter base. Candidates of both parties campaign relentlessly on ideological discomfort and dissatisfaction, the public eats it up, and the public manages to continuously divide itself into paralyzing hyper-partisan factions that believe that they're right and everybody else is wrong.

I digress.

What you're seeing in the GOP (and I'm picking on them more on than the Democrats because it so brazen) is not too surprising. After all, Richard Nixon successfully used it in his "law and order" campaign that propelled him to victory in 1968 even though he ended up governing as more of a moderate than what would his outward conservatism implied. Ronald Reagan pulled it off with resounding success in 1980, despite the fact he ended up doing, as president, the vast majority of what he complained (spending, raising debt ceiling, racking up debt) about his 1964 career-making speech.

I should say it is not necessarily a symptom of party politics, but rather a reactionary political style. The Democratic Party before 1960 was more reactionary and outwardly racist than the GOP could ever be accused of being and many Democratic politicians -- including George Wallace, Orval Faubus, Strom Thurmond, and James Eastland -- used conservative white resentment as a resistance tactic to the American Civil Rights Movement in the South. But even then, however, governing and legislating took precedent over endless political jockeying. 

This 2016 campaign season has taken on a different tone, however. It's no longer about governing, really. It's emotional. Democrat Bernie Sanders is running a campaign that's an emotional response to perceived unfairness and immorality in capitalism (or, as detractors would say -- an unfulfilled left-wing fantasy). Republican Donald Trump is running a campaign that's an emotional response to an unfulfilled, right-wing fantasy that is deeply rooted in racial and religious discomfort and, yes, resentment.

However, in a political campaign season where lies and exaggerations is apparently wholly permissible (and encouraged) now, its unsurprising that candidates like Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson have managed to gain traction. Both are vociferous in their lying and their immature, armchair approaches to foreign policy, yet they managed to strike a nerve with bitter conservative voters who resent "political correctness", are disgusted with "social justice", and are dismissive of pragmatism. It didn't matter how untrue their statements were. They appeal to these voters' emotions.

But welcome to the Post-Truth Political System -- a clear result (and indictment) of our incessant drive to draw lines in the sand at every turn.  We assemble into partisan factions, and instead of legitimately engaging in problem solving to actually progress with the realities of society, we choose to endlessly try to score ideological points to no real avail. We champion underdogs, conspiracy theories, "outsiders", claim heightened enlightenment because we're going against the "mainstream" grain, but we end up being as foolish, if not more, than the "mainstream" that we rail against. If you really need evidence, feel free to check out the 2016 presidential race.

If you were expecting me to give a nod to Chuck Todd for grilling Donald Trump this past Sunday on Meet The Press, I'm not. Meet The Press is a joke and hasn't been worth a damn since Tim Russert served as moderator.

Protest and progress in Chicago

US Rep Bobby Rush (D - ILL), left, and Rev. Jesse Jackson protest on Black Friday, November 27, 2015 in Chicago ( Credit: NBC News).

Protesters took to the streets on Chicago's Magnificent Mile along the famous Michigan Avenue to protest, what they feel to be, a year long cover-up by city officials and the Chicago Police Department, in the shooting death of 17 year old Laquan McDonald. McDonald was killed last year after CPD officer Jason Van Dyke shot him 16 times while McDonald was in the middle of the street with a knife in his hand. Van Dyke was rightfully charged with first degree murder.

I already know the argument -- "If he didn't do this...", "If he didn't have the knife in the hand...", "If he wasn't being a thug..." It's the usual inductive reasoning that generally follows the vast majority of fatal confrontations between cop and suspect. At the end of the day, the real question that should be asked was whether or not that level of aggression was absolutely necessary. After all, Van Dyke fired most of the shots after McDonald was already laying on the ground.

But officials did not do themselves any favors. The dash cam video basically contradicted the story that CPD told the media 13 months ago. The city paid the family a multi-million settlement (without a law suit) a few months ago in the hopes of sweeping this under the rug in the wake of an election. And the city still tried to prevent the release of the video until they were virtually forced to.

Anyway, protesters demanded, among other things, resignations of key city and Cook County officials, including mayor Rahm Emanuel, CPD superintendent Garry McCarthy, and State Attorney Anita Alvarez. All three more or less said that they weren't resigning, McCarthy being the most adamant, citing the fact he never quit on anything and he has the full support of Emanuel. The City Council Black Caucus also said it would seek a vote of no confidence against McCarthy. In addition, protesters, led by Rev. Jesse Jackson and U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), also demanded a Department of Justice inquiry into, not only the shooting, but the entire Chicago Police Department.

This is the latest chapter between the ugly relationship between the black communities of Chicago and the police department of the nation's third largest city. Really, this is the latest chapter in the mediocre relationship that seems to commonly exist between black communities and law enforcement. But what makes today so...interesting, is what also happened roughly at the same time the protests were taking place.

Chicago Police announced that they have arrested Corey Morgan in connection to the gang war slaying of 9 year old Tyshawn Lee, who was killed on November 2 after being led into an alley by a group of men and shot at point blank range. Morgan is currently being held without bond as prosecutors argued that Morgan would be a continued threat to society, mentioning that he would be willing to kill grandparents, parents, and kids in relation to a shooting weeks earlier that killed his brother and wounded his mother.

McCarthy noted that Morgan committed this act "in concert" with two others -- one who was already in custody but declined to name, and the other being Kevin Edwards, who is still at large. Lee's father, who is a suspected gang member in one of the feuding gangs in Lee's Auburn-Gresham neighborhood, has not been very cooperative with police, even though he denied to the Chicago Tribune some of the allegations against him levied by police -- but stopped short of denying gang membership.

Tyshawn Lee (Credit: ABC7-Chicago)

Chicago has been plagued this year by retaliatory violence, a key reason why Chicago is on pace to surpass last year's homicide numbers. A social commentator on CNN pointed to the cut in funding to Ceasefire Illinois, an anti-violence organization made famous by The Interrupters documentary that relied on employees -- many whom were ex-felons -- to go into the streets as mediators to prevent beefs from becoming deadly. While Northwestern University did note that that violence prevention programs helped curb gun violence in Chicago's neighborhoods, the program has been under considerable scrutiny in recent years due to criminal charges being filed by some of its employees. Chicago Police wasn't too fond of the program either -- McCarthy, in ending its relationship with the organization, cited the fact that the group didn't work close enough to law enforcement.

McCarthy made strong statements at the press conference, saying that the gang has signed their own death warrant and promised an aggressive campaign to wipe out both gangs. Lee's death is widely seen as a new low in Chicago, a city where violence is common as gangs wage war over turf and drug corners in many areas of the city, including the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood on Chicago's south side that is regarded as one of the city's most violent.

I found the juxtaposition fascinating, and I use that term with the utmost neutrality. Tensions between black communities and law enforcement led to a purported "code of silence", in which people will not talk to police out of fear and/or distrust, even if talking would put heinous individuals behind bars. But people, according to McCarthy, did talk to police and he credited the outreach for allowing CPD to arrest Morgan.

Yesterday, we saw two things:

Chicagoan blacks see the McDonald case as a reinforcement of their distrust of the Chicago Police Department and understandably took to the streets to protest what really did amount to a cover-up.

On the other hand, we also saw a glimpse of what can happen when these communities, as slighted as they feel, work with the police to help them capture vile human beings like Morgan that are willing to exact revenge against another gang member by slaying a child.

In the end, however, there has to be honesty on both sides.

Chicago Police and the City of Chicago has to be honest with the public when one of their officers egregiously fucks up and hold him responsible because it is the right thing to do, not because an obvious cover-up unraveled. This is especially true when in many of these black neighborhoods, as Crain's Chicago Business Rich Miller wrote, will see police officers (with guns) more often than their city councilman. CPD must do everything in its power to establish a cooperative relationship with the communities of their police beats -- both rich and poor. In addition, politicians cannot afford to choke off funding for, nor can CPD dismiss the value of, vital anti-violence and violence prevention programs that can make a difference in these communities.

On the other hand, protesters, as angry as they may be, need to understand that they too must do what they can to encourage their communities to cooperate with the police, especially in regards to violence. "Snitches get stitches" or "snitches end up in ditches"... I get that and it is a lot easier said than done. There's also a whole argument to be had about the socioeconomic environment of this poor neighborhoods that facilitates the cycle of violence, but that's a completely different story for a different post. But a positive relationship (well, at least better than the current state of it which is just absolute shit) only works if it's facilitated on both sides.

Since we're demonizing everybody...

After hearing about the same anti-Muslim group posting the names and addresses of "Muslims" and "Muslim sympathizers" in Irving, including an Irving city councilman, I had an epiphany.  I guess it is now the in-thing to do demonize an entire demographic just because of the actions of certain disgusting individuals, and answer for the action of said disgusting individual(s), even if they had no connection with said disgusting individual(s) aside from coming from the same overall demographic.

So...

Allow me demonize every white person in the United States for the actions of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers for the human rights abuses they laid upon blacks, Chinese, Japanese, Latinos, and Native Americans including discrimination, bigotry, enslavement, and lynching. I expect them to answer for the actions of their previous generations, despite the fact they had nothing to do with the atrocities of yesteryear and the main perpetrators are either close to dying, just died, or already have been long dead and decomposed into bones and dust.

Allow me to demonize every inner city black person that I can think of because of the violent, disgusting, criminal acts that some inner city black suspects have committed. After all, I expect every inner city black person -- man, woman, child, old, decrepit, doesn't matter -- to answer for the actions of those that bought into the "thug life", even if none of them had anything to do it.

Allow me to demonize every Latino that decided to cross the border as an "illegal" or "undocumented" immigrant, even though there are millions of Latinos in the United States that were actually born here legally, pay taxes, and are productive members of society. Yes, let me demonize them to the point that I am going to paint them as a scapegoat for all "the jobs they took from Americans", how they "burden the taxpayer with more shit", or how they contradict all the values that come with "being an American".

Allow me to demonize every Asian person for being a total pain in the ass to deal with in customer service, despite the fact that there are many factors such as cultural and language barriers that may play a role in said testy transactions, let alone how my own fucked up attitude could actually exacerbate the problem. After all, the ones that are not combative at all have to answer for the ones that are extremely difficult and raise hell over nothing.

Allow me to demonize every Christian for being a representative of a bigoted religion, despite the fact it is how they interpret the central word(s) of Christianity that shape their belief personal system and their lifestyle, even to the point of being a judgmental and inconsiderate human being. The Christians that are charitable and considerate of others, including their civil rights, should have to answer for the ones that will either openly call for the restriction and violation of the civil rights and human rights of others as well as express an irrational fear of those that they blatantly refuse to reasonably attempt to understand.

Allow me to demonize every Jew for being a representative of the great Jewish banking, financial, nationalist conspiracy, which ranges from the historical Rothschild family purportedly juggling entire international finances with their fortune to being annoyingly rich, gilded, and "special". Never mind the fact that there many individuals that are secular Jews, non-religious Jews, and probably even more Jews that debunk the aforementioned stereotypes, yet have to answer for the "stereotypical" Jews that they may have nothing to do with.

Allow me to demonize every Muslim for being a terrorist, even though the clear fucking majority of Muslims in the world are law-abiding individuals that live a life that is pretty common to nearly every other human being on earth. They too fall in love, go to school, get a job, and be productive members of society. However, the actions of a violent fraction of Muslims that justify their horrific actions with a fucked up interpretation of the Qu'ran and political Islam in general should speak for other 1.5 billion Muslims in the world today (and most aren't even Arab!).

Allow me to demonize every fucking cop in the world, despite the irrational and disgusting actions of a few. Allow me to sit here and blatantly ignore the fact that there are many police officers out there that are committed to upholding the law, making a positive impact in their communities, and focus on quality police work instead of bullying entire neighborhoods filled with a demographic they not only fail to understand, but don't even care to attempt to even gain understanding.

In fact...

Allow me to demonize _______________________ for _______________________, and every single fucking one of them should have to speak for the actions that ________________________.
And so on ________________________.

So now, hopefully, after you see the sheer fucking stupidity of demonizing entire swaths of populations, demographics, and professions for the actions of a corrupted few, maybe, just maybe, we can resolve issues with reasoning, education, and critical thought and not irrational fears and foolish conclusions.

The foolishness of Islamophobia

Believe it or not, I was raised a Christian, granted, I was not much of a Bible thumper or a churchgoer. However, looking back, it was more of me just following along with family tradition than my own personal enlightenment. I stopped identifying as a Christian at 15. A year later, I stopped identifying as a deist. None of it was due to some lack of faith, but rather, it never made sense to me to spend my life worshiping a deity out of dogma. 

Part of that reason was due to me learning that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all worship the same god, with Christianity being originally an evolution and ultimately a rejection of Judaism and Islam being an evolution of both Christianity and Judaism as a rejection of both. For the past couple of millennia, Christians, Jews, and Muslims have persecuted each other, waged wars against another, and debated with each other in the name of galvanizing, polarizing tribalism with political and socioeconomic twists at every turn.

Despite my rejection of belief in really anything, I am not an atheist of the variety of Dawkins and Harris where religious adherents need to be saved with reason and logic. That's a quixotic and damning endeavor -- there's quite a few people out there that have made the resolution in their lives that they need to believe in something bigger, more perfect, and more incorruptible than themselves and score points with that figure. Sometimes the push is benevolent, other times, not so much. In other words, you'll probably rarely ever see me bash Christianity, Islam, or Judaism at least the religion itself; it is up to its adherents to interpret the belief systems to the best of their understanding.

Interpretations can be positive. Faith based charities. Faith based community initiatives. I mean hell, just the other day, I read about how churches were helping to address the growing problem of homelessness in suburban Dallas. Other times, especially when religious teachings and interpretation are synthesized with politics, it can be damning -- even to the point of being deadly.

I've been mulling this in recent days as I've watched Islamophobia rear its ugly head after the terrorist atrocities in Paris and the debate surrounding Syrian refugees. Over the past few days, I've seen and heard some of the most ridiculous shit -- a dozen protesters outside of a mosque in Irving; Fox Business commentators apparently comparing Syrian refugees to dogs; incessant fear mongering about refugees; and really disgusting rhetoric from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Obama is now catching hell about his irritated response at an international summit last week about the Islamophobic rhetoric being spewed out over refugees by the Republican Party. Then again, folks are looking for a certain fire from Obama...that's simply not in the former law professor turned politician.

As France, the United States, and Russia embark on an indiscriminate bombing campaign, many are clamoring for an aggressive response against ISIL in response to the terrorist attacks in Paris. The United States has been increasing activity against ISIL, including successfully killing "Jihadi John", which was regarded by analysts and the United States themselves as more of a moral victory rather than anything of real tactical significance. Mainly because ISIL, while a political extremist group, simultaneously functions as a sophisticated criminal organization.

I've resisted being Islamophobic as an atheist. Being an Islamophobe prevents anyone from being able to seriously understand what even leads to terrorism in the first place. Islamic terrorists claim they commit acts of atrocities because their religion permits it, but the reality is that terrorism is an irrational, criminal, and disgusting response to issues that are rooted in politics and socioeconomics -- more so than the religion itself. It's amazing to me that a handful of brutal and damaging acts by only a handful of a given population can seemingly become a microcosm of everything that's wrong about all of a religion's adherents and a personified metonym of the things we fear most. 

Terrorism is a grave concern to me. National security is a grave concern to me. But the demonizing of an entire population due a narrow-minded understanding of global affairs is an bigger worry for me. It has become disgusting to me, even as an atheist, to see a wide swath of innocent, law-abiding human beings vilified as a sociopolitical punchline; as if it's their responsibility to answer for the violent and sick individuals that don't even speak for them.

Islamic terrorists and their sympathizers are motivated by political and socioeconomic conditions that have been spurred by years of foreign policy blunders by the West, domestic policy fuck-ups by their own home countries, socioeconomic disadvantages, and political upheavals. These issues have shaped the region not for the past decade, not for thousands of years, but just since World War I. 

The way anyone understands the world at large and the reality of their surroundings is always going to be shaped by what they are willing to and able to understand. We'll gleefully scratch the surface of deep rooted issues and reach the most flawed conclusions possible because that what we're able to do. However, we will at times refuse to ask questions that may yield answers that render us uncomfortable and challenge our deepest convictions, no matter how foolish they are -- irrational Islamophobia included.

Casually Observing Volume 3: Violence, Social Isolation, and Santa Barbara County

After reading through the comments about the events surrounding the heinous act of violence that took place at Isla Vista, California, I figured I would write something that would attempt to put this into proper context, considering we often lose it whenever there’s incidents of gun violence.

This is not about gun rights. This is not about gun laws. This is about is about Elliot Rodger, a young man just four years younger than myself, that decided to resort to violence to achieve his objective – to wreak havoc and gain vengeance for years of social (and apparently sexual) isolation. Saying that he had access to guns is too easy to attempt to rationalize why the tragedy was able to take place and why it was not able to be prevented. The fact that his family knew of his videos, reported to police, and police, after an apparent welfare check, really could not find anything that would even hint at something like this occurring is frustrating and painful, yet ultimately cannot fully explain what took place. But that’s the nature of random acts of violence and their aftermath: we try to explain why so that there could apparently be some sort of action that could take place to prevent something like this from happening. However, we never really have an honest discussion about what really leads to people to believe that aggressive acts of violence is indeed the ultimate (and only) solution to whatever personal issues that they have.

On the surface, based upon what has been reported, we know what drove Rodger to do what he did: he believed, for whatever reason, that he always got the short end of the stick of any interpersonal relationship he’s ever had and thus, saw it as a metaphorical motivation for a personal vendetta that he had against society.  However, what we don’t necessarily understand at this point – and quite frankly, we probably never will – is at what point did Rodger decide that a blaze of violence was his only of getting the revenge that he was seeking. I mean sure, the psychologist pundits will be quoted profusely in the upcoming days and weeks ahead as the media takes a look at these events, as well as other well publicized mass shootings that have taken place in recent years, and they will allude to a criminal psychological profile in which the majority of the public will have very little critical understanding of, but it never tells the whole story.

Yet, resorting to violence to settle scores is indeed part of a social fabric, not just here but in many places around the world. Why Elliot Rodger murdered six people as a way, in his mind, to prove whatever point he was trying to make, is the same reason why (maybe not explicitly, but damn sure implicitly) someone got gunned down over “beef” on the streets of Chicago, Detroit, or St. Louis. Why Elliot Rodger believed that violence was a vehicle for self-empowerment after years of lacking it, is the same reason why, in some form or fashion, political groups and full blown terrorist organizations kidnap, rape, and kill for the purpose of displaying their power. And whether it was Isla Vista this year, the Washington naval yard in 2013, Aurora and Newtown in 2012, Virginia Tech in 2007, Seattle in 2006, the D.C. sniper shootings during 2003, or the high school shootings of the late 1990s and early 2000s, something snapped in these men that ultimately led them to turn to violence and claim lives as a way to achieve their vile catharsis.  

Casually Observing - Volume 2: The Realities of Capitalism

I've had a series of unfortunate events occur to me the past few months that has made me think about the state of being poor and poverty in general. It's magnified by a similar series of unfortunate events happening to the people I know.

This post is not going to be an appeal for help (I don't ask for help) and this isn't even a criticism of capitalism or an endorsement of it or any other alternative socioeconomic system, but more or less a condensed reflection on socioeconomics in general. However, I'm going to try to condense this into a blog post more so than a lengthy essay that few of you would probably have time to read. (The full blown essay is coming whenever I launch my full personal website in January).

Capitalism is a very, very complex economic system. It's as fair as it is unfair, as rewarding as it is punishing, as galvanizing as it is heart wrenching. The successful capitalist formula is not rooted in the promise of growth and prosperity, but in the fact the system's success is based on the reality that is it not necessarily all inclusive. It's allure is in what is not guaranteed. If you remember the infamous speech given by Michael Douglas' character Gordon Gekko in 1987's Wall Street, his "Greed is good" sermon is fairly true: the bottom line premise about it is that success can be brought when you are motivated by wants and needs.

Being a finance major, I know enough about economics to know that markets work very well with little government interference: the market is nothing more than just a needs and wants matrix (or, as Adam Smith called it "the invisible hand"). Government policy generally interferes with that matrix -- sometimes beneficial, sometimes harmful. However, free market capitalism comes with a caveat -- that part that as my staunch libertarian friend calls the "mathematical outcome" of living with mediocre incomes due to either being consistently unlucky in the labor market, a myriad of preventable or unpreventable personal afflictions, or a nasty combination of both. This "outcome" results into turning to those that will be willing to provide them assistance, whether it would be friends, family, government programs, or what is increasingly becoming under greater scrutiny in major metropolitan areas such as Houston -- high-interest, short term loans.

Keeping that in mind,  I want to mention briefly a opinion piece that was written recently by a director from the Texas Civil Rights Project that was posted in the Houston Chronicle. The column, which detailed a week long experiment that participants had to live on $31.50 a week for food -- which is roughly the per person allotment for the current food stamp program. Both James Harrington, the writer of the post, and those that left comments had a point -- $31.50 a week for food is hard, but it can be done if people as one put it, "knew how to shop". However, shopping for food is not an exact science and shopping methods may or may not be able to be replicated across all areas and all 50 states. Additionally some states tax groceries (i.e., Oklahoma), have varied nutritional needs, and so on. 

My point? It's easy to say something can be done when you yourself is able to do it. Consequently, it's easy to say something can't be done when you feel that you can't do it. It's this dichotomy that is a component part of the age old debate between interventionist government programs and free market fundamentalism (and I don't mean that derisively).

But that's the reality of capitalism. Despite widely believed (more correctly, accepted) convictions of how successful capitalism has been, it also needs to be noted that successes do have consequences that can be perceived as positive and negative. If capitalism had no perceived negative consequences, then socialism would have never materialized. If capitalism had no perceived negative consequences, then many of the socioeconomic justice movements that have popped up over the past two centuries plus would have never occurred. 

But as I said, capitalism's allure comes from the lack of the guarantee. It gives people hope. It gives people excitement. A lot of free market champions get turned on by it. However, as I mentioned before, capitalism's gifts of grace has come with many Trojan horses of despair. I will say this however -- to credit capitalism with "solving" many of the world's perceived problems is fair, yet not completely accurate; the same thing could be said with blaming capitalism for "creating" many of the world's problems is fair, but not completely accurate.

Casually Observing - Volume 1: Viral Videos, Cussing Toddlers, Social Norms and Environments

When I finally move my site, Casually Observing will be glorified blog category where I post short commentaries on the issues of the day. However, I do admit in this post I largely digressed from this planned model; hopefully, you will take the time to read it anyway.

Time for me to play amateur sociologist and social commentator again. You better line up your criticisms of this piece!

You have probably seen by now the infamous video of the cussing black toddler that was shot and later posted on Facebook by a known gang member in Omaha, where it was found by the Omaha Police Department, who later reposted it on their website. Not surprising, the fact that the toddler was cussed at by the three off screen adults and prodded to say vulgar things back as well as the OPD posting the video and saying that the video served as an example of the start of the "thug cycle" was met with widespread outrage.

While the OPD claimed that the point of posting the video was to ignite discussion in the community, which may or may not be completely true, others saw it as police blatantly trying to degrade black parenting. It's universally agreed that the parenting of that child is pretty abhorrent. Ultimately, Omaha's children protective services ultimately removed the toddler and his siblings from the home, as more issues surfaced and it became obvious that the children's welfare came into question.

I could sit here and join the chorus of criticism, but I would probably not offer much beyond what has already been said. But I will make a point about what was actually seen: this was less about a "thug cycle" and more about a child's environment.

Whether it is the wealthier suburbs or the poorer parts of more urbanized areas (I'm no longer going to use the term "inner city" as a metonym for "poor areas" because that is no longer truly accurate if you consider the gentrification of the past two and a half decades), a child's environment shapes their upbringing and ultimately the direction that they go in their life. It's a pattern that repeats itself, considering that the parents' environment while they were growing up shaped their direction in life, including how they raise their children. The video was a prime example of that: whatever environment they grew up in shaped their adulthood, and in their adulthood, they found it appropriate to video themselves cussing at a child and coaxing the child to cuss back, and post it on Facebook as crude, minstrel-like entertainment.

Of course, this could be an instance of spur of the moment bad judgment, but most of the time it is not: this has probably happened many, many times before and they just now decided to catch it on video. As evidenced by the removal of the toddler and the other children in the house (including reports that the toddler was actually injured by shrapnel from gunfire), it was an all around poor environment.

This is well known among child psychologists, criminologists, and sociologists, however, in the general public, analysis and learning at least about cause and effects of the social environment are eschewed in favor of quick judgment, derision, and dismissal. And that's fine -- something like that video should be met with derision; but we don't really learn and appreciate why it's wrong until we actually look at why and what led to that even happening.

Am I trying to sound the alarm? Not exactly; I think it would be criminal of me to make this into a microcosm more than I already have; yet, I will say that environments almost act like a circuit when in conjunction with social norms. Social norms, are of course, are beliefs that govern society, at least in regards to acceptable and unacceptable conduct in that said society. More often than not, suburban areas, wealthier urban areas, and those with comfortable incomes, would often emphasize stability more so than survival (at least, what they consider to be "survival"), because the latter has already been achieved. Impoverished areas, crime-ridden areas, and lower-incomes will value survival more, considering survival is not perceived to be guaranteed. As such, the environments that fuel "stability-first" and "survival-first" personal worldviews will govern social norms, which will then continue to fuel that given environment.

Of course, the obvious question is what the fuck does social norms and social environments have to do with a kid that was cussing on a cellphone video that went viral?

The answer?


As I mentioned earlier, how a child is reared is going to be determined by an interchange of social norms and social environments. If a child is being raised in a climate that the environment and norms is geared towards survival, the outside observer that values stability above all is probably going to see a parenting style that will be looked at as either less than ideal or absolutely despicable. Believe it or not, it would be looked at the same vice versa; and is part of a greater explanation of why sometimes when populations from poorer areas move into more affluent areas, the survivalist-worldview cultivated in a less stable environment will follow them.

For the children's sake that was removed from the home, I hope that it will lead to a more stable home, either by way of the family doing what's necessary to improve the environment of which these kids were raised, or by way of the state placing them somewhere that they can be stable.

But of course, I'll save that part for another post.

On Labor Day

Across the various platforms I've been blogging on for the past few years, I never wrote on Labor Day. I was either too consumed with work, too consumed with school, or in this case both. However, I figured I would take time out from work (yes I am at work right now) to make a small post about Labor Day.

This won't be about Paul Krugman's latest lament about the American right or Eric Cantor's tweet insinuating that Labor Day is about business owners and not about the workers. What I will discuss is labor then and labor now.

Labor Day's genesis began in earnest with a proposal by either the Central Labor Union or the American Federation Labor (depending on your desired source). While 30 states had already begun to commemorate Labor Day by 1894, it was until that year when the US Congress made Labor Day a federal holiday -- a blatant political conciliatory move after the federal government under President Grover Cleveland intervened in the Pullman Strike. 

The Industrial Revolution brought a new degree of social and economic issues (which is always going to be a reality with any economic system) that arose from increased urbanization and a desire by business owners to produce as much as they can by any means necessary, workers well-being be damned. Unsurprisingly, laborers began to mobilize against poor working conditions through strikes and/or unionization, which employers sought to do anything and everything to avert. Here in the States, it lead to three of the more infamous incidents of labor violence in the late 19th century -- the Homestead Strike, the Haymarket Riot, and the Pullman Strike.

Labor unions reached their peak membership in the 1950s, but reports of corruption, stricter union laws, the shift to a service economy, the shift from production to finance being the benchmark of corporate economic success, and increased globalization have all contributed, in some form another, to a decline in union membership that has persisted since 1960. While nearly a third of public sector employees are members of unions, less than ten percent of workers in the private sector are members of a union. Furthermore, these days, only half of Americans support organized labor.

However, despite the changes over time, contemporary employees and employers should be grateful for the changes ushered in by the labor movement. Employees can be grateful for vastly improved working conditions, from reasonable hours to benefits; employers can be grateful to advocates of the labor movement because it forced them to innovate and become more efficient at production. Whether that innovation actually benefits workers is left to the eye of the beholder -- we can certainly argue either way.

I know that I have rambled, but I wanted to shove history into this post because it is far too important, especially when thought in conjunction with the issues faced today: a shrinking world where the labor pool has no borders, slowing the growth of wages and earnings in the hotly competitive secondary and tertiary sectors of the global economy; the aforementioned shift from production to financial positioning and capital structure that creates a new round of agency concerns and conflicts between management, stockholders, bondholders, and employees; and increased automation that continues to, little by little, erode the position of everyday workers that have a lot of their tasks being replaced by electronic processes. Not to mention, Labor Day is emerging as the latest holiday that shifted from mere observance to yet another major retail holiday -- me currently being here at the dealership is an example of it.

But here's the bottom line: labor back then is not too different than labor now, because as long as this is a predominantly capitalist system, little will change. Business owners and managers will always seek to meet and exceed purported benchmarks and indeed, it is often the white collar and blue collar workers that are the most affected by its consequences, whether it is being forced to work more or less hours, taking on more responsibilities, or unfortunately losing their jobs. However, it is these workers that make our world function and it is not just limited to employees of companies; this includes managers, mom and pop shops, and the self-employed. 

Labor day shouldn't be about a narrative about "the worker versus the man", it should be about positive collaboration and cooperation between workers and employers, businesses and suppliers, and businesses and customers that make for a better business. (Redundant, yes, but I would imagine you'd get my point.)

The NSA Leak: A Lesson In Human Nature, Opportunistic Behavior, and Altruism's Levee

Almost overnight, Edward Snowden went from being a former NSA computer technician to civil libertarian demigod. Snowden, identified (with permission) by the UK newspaper The Guardian and The Washington Post as the informant that leaked information to the newspaper about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs of collecting records from phone and Internet companies, has been predominantly lauded for his actions. Snowden's actions are a prime lesson in human nature, the reality that we are all opportunists, and altruism's levees can and will always be subject to a breach.

The Guardian's Simon Jenkins in his praise of Snowden that "[t]he US and Britain today are as invulnerable to military conquest as ever in history" and writes that the Western counter-terrorism crusade has developed into a machine that undermines freedom by its relentless use of fear and paranoia. He's right, and this has been proven throughout history. When entities, countries rather, reach that proverbial zenith of power, they will attempt anything and everything to maintain the status quo that has entrenched itself with that assumed power. While we may be astonished at the means at which the United States is willing to do it, and by no means I am endorsing these tactics, it should really come as no surprise. The feeling of control is the antidote against paranoia, and this is true from government to our own personal lives. It's almost like a vicious cycle -- accumulate power and wealth, celebrate the success and benefits of it, become paranoid of it ending, then in response to that paranoia, attempt to alleviate it by trying to accumulate more power and wealth: all for it to repeat again. In a way, it's one seriously fucked up self-fulfilling prophecy.

My personal feelings on the War on Terror? This is not a conspiracy theory, this is just absolute, rock bottom truth: it's more than just a counter terrorism program, it's about doing anything and everything to maintain the United States' position in the scope of world politics. Campaigns to achieve and then maintain positioning is nothing new -- the European powers did it, ancient Asian empires did it, Hitler did it, Hirohito did it, and the United States is doing it as well. However, what has galvanized the public these days is the latest chapter of the information revolution -- leaks, or more specifically, how well we can acquire information that nobody would have really thought it would have been possible to acquire. In the end though, it is a testament to the fact that as human beings, we're opportunistic. As new discoveries are made in regards to how we can secure an advantage over one another, covert programs, whistleblowing leaks, and finding more ways to deepen how well we retain and hide information creates an even more complicated Rubik's cube. This isn't a battle of "good vs. evil", it has been, still is, and always will be a battle between who's more effective than who at achieving whatever desired goal is, whether it is emotional, mental, or ideological.

When it comes to supporting those in power, there's expectation among us that the clear majority of the decisions that are made by the powers that be would have a wide ranging affect would never breach the levee of altruism. Snowden too gambled on the same thing, noting in his interview with The Guardian that he  wanted to go public before, but held out hope that the then-incoming Obama administration would shift the NSA's aggressive tactics. However, the Obama administration has kept many of the Bush-era surveillance policies to his dismay, and now to the dismay of many. However, altruism's levees become subject to higher stakes -- it's either weakened or strengthened, and whatever way it leads, the response is to mobilize and establish control, through covert or public means.

In short, when I look at the NSA leak, I go beyond the relationship between the government and the governed. It's another exercise in the complexities of humanity, as we forge ahead in our epoch of existence, one new discovery at a time. So while I will continue spectate the the inane justification for this program by administration officials and the romanticized stand of solidarity and support of Snowden by many, I am ultimately going to wait to see the next great example of what lengths we're going to be willing to take as humanity to assume control of whatever we desire to frame into each of our worldviews.