News Us politics - read first post before comment

[Justmehere]

There are many things about American culture that do travel to other nations - some good, some bad. It's a thing, no doubt. (It's sometimes annoying/frustrating for me as an American.) But what travels abroad isn't always very reflective of the culture on-the-ground in the US. For example, in the US we have Irish pubs. I don't go around thinking that the Irish pub represents all of Irish culture, or even accurately represents the complexity of the on-the-ground cultural reality of life in Ireland very well. So while some of US culture travels abroad, it's different than actually living in the US. Freedom of speech is in American culture and law, and that hasn't traveled everywhere.

One very important thing to understand: the media out of the US is VERY sensationalistic. The 24 hour talk radio / cable news effect is very real here in a way that I have not yet seen in other nations, and it's not calm news.

For example, Drug Overdoses Kill More Americans Than Gun Violence - CBS - are you equally concerned about this happening in Australia?

This issue is not being talked about nearly as much, because drug overdoses don't make for good ratings. In fact, they tie it to gun violence so that it gets more attention and ratings. Mass Murder? People will fearfully watch.

But as an American living in the US, I'm way more likely to be killed by many, many other things.

Americans as a culture have a problem with being super duper fear driven. I mean the news about the flu here is outta control.... I say that as someone who got very sick and was hospitalized with complications of the flu this year. The news still blows it up into we-are-all-gonna-die... There have been far worse flu epidemics in the past. Violent crime has fallen sharply in the past 25 years.

US culture is not all bad, it does have some serious problems, no doubt, and it does travel more than many other cultures.

Don't adopt American fears and always-and-never sensationalism. Reject that. I doubt American culture will export school shootings in the near future.

 

[blackemerald1]

I agree with @Justmehere - there are plenty of social issues that are completely spun out of control by the media. It's happening everywhere. Gone are the days (mostly) of serious, well balanced and investigated journalism. Particularly when journalists and editorial staff are being made redundant by the onset of the tech age and the reduction in sales of newsprint. It seems (though I am not sure this is not a distortion on my behalf) that everything is getting too fast and this plays out when I hear of just about any catastrophic event where the death toll can be different depending on which media you listen or watch.

@Sideways could I direct your attention to:- *Hoddle Street massacre; *Queen Street incident and more recently though not including guns as a form of weapon the 'alleged' murder of several people in the CBD of Melbourne? (*note the word alleged bc it is still before the Court). All of the perpetrator's or alleged perpetrators were either adolescent or just past adolescence.

Gun control remains a controversial issue in Australia.

Australia has a huge DV problem (about 1 women per day killed?..not sure but it is very bad) and lots of other social issues eg suicide in males... That does not get the attention it really deserves. Why bc it happens one by one, like a tap dripping but in totality it is really adding up to a lot of people in a relatively small population.

I think it is worth looking at statistics with a very critical eye. The method of collecting statistical data is always very interesting to look into as well. It gets complicated. I do recall I was taught that statistics can be skewed just about anyway you want them to go.

 

[Deleted member 46276]

@Endofwar - you have interesting things to say, provocative things: nothing wrong...

I was diagnosed with ptsd. The main issue for me is that I need to think about something else other than problems related to it.

I am not trying to be controversial, I think it should be controversial that a narrow narrative spread in most media that guns are the real problem while ignoring other problems, while also certain people are heroes and ignoring all the selfishness that all people have. Kobe Bryant said something about everyone is a hero and a villain, which may only have varying degrees of truth, but it is still unfair to accuse one sort of belief people as heroes and other sorts of belief people as villians

 

[Deleted member 46276]

@blackemerald1: "I agree with @Justmehere - there are plenty of social issues that are completely spun out of control by the media. It's happening everywhere. Gone are the days (mostly) of serious, well balanced and investigated journalism."

Yeah, I think that although Walter Cronkite had personal beliefs (he was liberal), he actually had journalistic integrity and was driven more by a desire to get to the bottom of things than to prove his own preconceptions and make people who had different beliefs appear ridiculous.

Current media is more like McCarthyism , except now instead of blacklisting liberals who tend towards being Jewish in Hollywood and media it's blacklisting conservatives who tend towards being Christian in Hollywood and in much of media. Fox and conservative radio aren't exactly doing anything other than blaming and accusing and ridiculing the other either.

 

[Sideways]

Gun control remains a controversial issue in Australia.

Yep, not gonna argue, or disagree, because I was pretty specific about the issue I was talking about, and that I wasn’t talking about mass shootings, or gun control, in every single post that I made.

And no, I don’t believe for a second that gun control is anything like as controversial here as it is in the US. It doesn’t come up as an election issue. We don’t have marches in the street. Pointing to a mass shooting in the 1980s by an adult at a private residence? Really has absolutely nothing to do with the topic I was discussing.

 

[joeylittle]

I was diagnosed with ptsd. The main issue for me is that I need to think about something else other than problems related to it.

Thanks for providing this context.

I am not trying to be controversial

And thanks for this - we get our fair share of trolling-type posts, and it’s good to know that’s not what you are here to do.

I think it should be controversial that a narrow narrative spread in most media that guns are the real problem while ignoring other problems, while also certain people are heroes and ignoring all the selfishness that all people have.

You’re entitled to your opinion on this.

I don’t think media narrative is as much an issue. Access to all types of media is nearly unfettered in the US - the premise that there is a ‘mainstream’ media who has more of the public’s war is now completely out-of-date. “Alternate” media has access to platforms that did not exist prior to the growth of social networking.

In other words: it’s all just media. People find the voices that make the most sense to them, and those are the voices they listen to and believe. The true problem is that this has created the possibility of so much more mis-information.

So in the fight against the no-longer-existent ‘mainstream media’, the ‘alternative media’ often overcompensates. Certainly individuals do, if not organizations.

Overcompensation = misinformation, often.

It’s a complicated time.

 

[Deleted member 46276]

@Muttly: "Your the first person I've heard refer to Gonzalas as bisexual so I'm not taking that as fact,"

You can google around, Emma Gonzalez has been president of her schools gay straight alliance for 3 years and says she is bisexual. She also tends to wear a pin that says "gays against guns". She is also the daughter of a Cuban immigrant. She also has a buzz cut, which other girls don't often have.

Someone said something along the lines of I should join the 21st century, and that might be a good criticism because I wouldn't expect someone who is a minority in multiple ways to be one if the cool kids based on my own experiences. But I also think I am influenced by things media pushes where she is a Hispanic with homosexual tendencies who doesn't comply to feminine standards so she must have a lot of problems with hate and intolerance that make her unpopular.

The David hogg kid is super skinny and seems like he might be gay, so in my experience and what the media pushes he should be ostracized and deal with a lot of intolerance and bullying, but he actually seems like a bit of a condescending bully to me.

So somehow I might be behind the times somewhat, but it also shows me that the pool of kids who get harassed and bullied is shrinking and those formerly harassed, the strange and skinny gay kids, aren't reaching out to those either still harassed or don't fit in, like skinny shooter who was bullied and can't get a girlfriend who was apparently a mammas boy who was upset over becoming an orphan and cut himself.

Like it's great that suddenly gay kids who to me seem a bit odd are now cool and have their own social groups and they are protected from harassment and things about them maybe even make them media darlings, but this same thing might leave the other kids who were also wierd and bullied when I went to school feeling even more alone

 

[Deleted member 46276]

@Muttly: "How do you know their paths even crossed enough that they would be able to reach out to Cruz."

I think what I am thinking about is something more like "Revenge of the Nerds" movie. Nerdy college students who like computers, gay college student, black college students, gross student, etc all work together to defeat the oppression of all white, all heterosexual, probably almost all conservative and Christian oppressors and bullies.

This community of misfits banding together and fighting against oppression and bullying was something sort of plausible in the 80s when film came out, probably also fairly plausible into the 90s and so on. But now the smart nerds are in demand and maybe rich, we have had a black president, gays have very strong communities, etc

So now something like a community of support for those who don't fit in maybe seems bizarre, but my thinking is still the most natural sort of support for strange, troubled kid who ended up being a shooter might be someone like bisexual Hispanic who shaves her head, even if this idea might be behind the times.

But whatever is reality, I think there might be less community now for certain people than there was before.

Sort of thinking out loud and trying to explain my reasoning....

 

[Mee]

Suggesting ‘misfits’ group together for company is kind of a worse idea than presuming all kids get on because they are the same age. Sexual orientation rarely is considered a misfit now ( which is a good thing) but where being are ‘outsiders’ we need to consider why not suggesting they all play together.

Is it that there are problems at home ? Is it that there are undiagnosed problems that can get help early? I see bystanding community here as a huge problem.

The way people speak to each other is significantly awful. Having seen transcripts of messages between teens I was disgusted by it before trauma. My local community has a Facebook page. The stuff on there is disgusting at times.

I’ll be totally honest; I am a meek person and yet I have posted a few times about ‘wanting to be batman’. It’s the same ‘mind path’ I think as wanting control by shooting . Mine I might try and justify by saying it’s righting wrongs, or taking control or whatever; but it’s a want for ‘enacting control on surroundings’ from fear or hurt or anger.

It’s scary to admit that amount of dark in ourselves:(. ( I am often referred to as ‘angelic’ or ‘ sweet’ both of which I have always rejected ) but there it is.

Now a difference is.... I am not going to do it. I haven’t lost touch with the reality that this is not sane or just or right. But I do seek paths for justice.

 

[Justmehere]

As the UK cracks down on weapons like guns and knives, Dead Link Removed. Sigh. Some humans are so determined to do evil in this world.

One of the most disturbing things I’ve read in awhile:
Pulse Shooter Orginally Planned to Target Disney World.... and turned around when he saw the security, googled “night clubs” to find a softer target.

I do not claim to have answers, but damn... the world is f—ed up.

 

[Deleted member 46276]

@Mee: "Is it that there are problems at home ? Is it that there are undiagnosed problems that can get help early? I see bystanding community here as a huge problem."

Apparently when Parkland shooter was 5, he saw his father die of I think a heart attack, or at the very least, he was the one who discovered the body. I don't know if this is something that might have caused something like ptsd, but it must of affected the shooter.

@Muttly: "How do you know their paths even crossed enough that they would be able to reach out to Cruz. And why is it their responsibility? If they bullied him, then that was wrong, but that wouldn't make them responsible for what happened. And if they didn't bully him they aren't responsible for what happened either."

From a speech Emma Gonzalez (the shaved head Hispanic girl who was 3 years president of gay straight alliance) made about Parkland shooter: "Those talking about how we should have not ostracized him? You didn’t know this kid! OK? We did!”"

I feel like for someone who is a devoted gay rights advocate who must be aware of the damage that being ostracized has done to gay kids, it should occur to her that ostracizing some other kid for being strange might have had some effect.

 

[Deleted member 46276]

@joeylittle: "And thanks for this - we get our fair share of trolling-type posts, and it’s good to know that’s not what you are here to do"

George Haidt, a respected academic in the field of moral psychology, asked a conference of around 1000 people in his field about their political inclinations and only 3 people raised their hands to conservative, that's .3%. Haidt recommends a policy of affirmative action to bring more conservatives in. Nobody really disputes that there is a problem, but there are all sorts of arguments about what causes this problem and Haidts recommendation of affirmation action for conservatives is definitely on the extreme end, but it seems like it's sort of understood why he is making this argument.

I think something like George Haidt coming on ptsd board and saying there needs to be affirmative action in psychology to bring in ostracized conservatives might sound like trolling, but it wouldn't be.

I feel like there actually is a problem. Like Parkland shooter's brother, who is black, says him and his friends bullied the shooter and he feels like he could have prevented shooting by not bullying shooter. The shooters ex-girlfriends new boyfriend who defeated shooter in a fight is black. And neither of these kids actually believe shooter was really racist. The cool gay kids apparently ostracized the shooter from the words of Emma Gonzalez. So what is shooter going to do if he sees a psychologist other than complain about cool minorities bullying and ostracizing him? And how is this going to play to people who are supposed to be listening to him and assisting him?

There is no doubt that shooters tend towards being young heterosexual white men from Christian backgrounds. Like I feel pretty confident that if shooter had been gay he could have joined Emma Gonzalez's gay straight alliance and found a community of support for being bullied and ostracized kid who had at a young age witnessed his parents death and maybe he sees a psychologist or goes on social media or even on ptsd board and complains about his heterosexual brother bullying him and maybe there is support, but what about if he complains about his black brother bullying him?

The thing about Trump is that his strongest supporters are white working class men who feel like they are being ostracized and pushed out and blamed for everything. Trump can almost do whatever and a certain group that feels like they are being treated unfairly will support him almost no matter what he does, because they feel that everyone else is against them.

Like I feel that viewing things from a 1950s perspective where blacks, gays, hispanics are treated unfairly and they are all banning together against "the man" makes sense, but things are becoming quite a bit more complicated now and a major shift has occurred which is completely central to both "US politics" and how ptsd and other mental issues are viewed and reacted to.