Michael Tracey, in a rare LiveStream
Two mass shootings in 12 hours. Now what?
, made the point that the mass shootings aren’t all explainable by exactly the same causes, in fact that they are ‘multi-causal’.
While he isn’t making the case for gun control, he insists that we should at least admit that legislation does curb gun violence, at times.
Since we don’t know what specific actions we can take that would guarantee the end of gun violence, we can choose actions or legislation that might work, but would have secondary benefits.
One of those actions is self-awareness, the kind that Caitlin promotes all the time. Know that you’re being deceived, that you’re always being lied to. Focus on that in your personal thoughts, and even the way you treat your alleged ‘enemies’ ; they are under the same propaganda umbrella as the rest of us.
Also Wealth Inequality, and other kinds of imbalances like the hierarchical structure of state & private organizations, that incentives privileges of the higher classes and disrespect of the lower classes — eventually, we need to deal with this inequity, because it’s not healthy. It does lead to hatred & violence, sometimes.
I’ll avoid making this comment into an essay, but a coupla more things —
I’m hoping that Peter Joseph’s upcoming InterReflections film is going to make a dent in the kind of psychological healing & awareness that is Caitlin’s flagship issue. Since Peter tends to deal in root causes and completely sidesteps what ‘wing’ those causes belong to, this approach doesn’t engage in wasteful traditional finger-pointing.
But it’s possible that we will have no options available, other than painful biting civil disobedience, the kind of Chris Hedges promotes. Allow me another Buffyverse reference, because this one gets right to the point —