child
I have to compile some information about a report that I am working on for school. This report is to be on the abolition of the death penalty. I layed everyone down on the floor with my fierce debate about gun control. That we don't really need to focus on laws. Here is what I said.
Poor and opressed people kill each other all the time. This is internalized violence. Angered by the misery of thier lives, but cowed by the overt superior might of the opressor, the opressed people shrink from striking out at the true objects of thier hostility and strike instead at thier more defenseless brothers an dsisters near at hand. Somehow this seems safer, less frought with dire consequences, as though one is less dead when shot down by ones brother than when shot down by the opressor. It is merely criminal to take up arms against ones brother, but to step outside the viscious circle of the internalized violence of the opressed and take up arms against the opressor is to step outside of life itself, to step outside of the structure of this world, to enter, almost alone, the no-mans-land of revolution.
If you look at popular music, 50 cent is always using guns to make himself seem invincible. This makes me sad. Sad because he does not know any other way to express himself. Sad because I know that his rage for others is actually internalized rage for himslef.
I lived in a very poor urban community in los angeles for 4 years. Every week there would be gunfire and helicopters were constantly circling overhead. Not one article was written in the paper about any incident.
What do we, as a society hope to gain by incarcerating people and forcing them back upon the world with no education? They will be forced right back into the life of crime they left. I am a firm believer in the abolition of THE NEED for guns. I do not believe stricter gun control laws will do anything other than put a tiny bandaid on a deeply infected wound. We need a shift in our collective way of being. We need to help the poor to rise up without the need for guns, but to rise up with education.
Some other thoughts I jotted down.
If a government does not provide adequate care for its citizens, then a society of violence is inevitable. If we are forced to go without, then we are forced to take from our neighbors.
The poor do not benefit from the economic structures of capitalism so they are forced to take what they need, and in order to do so they need guns.
Poor and opressed people kill each other all the time. This is internalized violence. Angered by the misery of thier lives, but cowed by the overt superior might of the opressor, the opressed people shrink from striking out at the true objects of thier hostility and strike instead at thier more defenseless brothers an dsisters near at hand. Somehow this seems safer, less frought with dire consequences, as though one is less dead when shot down by ones brother than when shot down by the opressor. It is merely criminal to take up arms against ones brother, but to step outside the viscious circle of the internalized violence of the opressed and take up arms against the opressor is to step outside of life itself, to step outside of the structure of this world, to enter, almost alone, the no-mans-land of revolution.
If you look at popular music, 50 cent is always using guns to make himself seem invincible. This makes me sad. Sad because he does not know any other way to express himself. Sad because I know that his rage for others is actually internalized rage for himslef.
I lived in a very poor urban community in los angeles for 4 years. Every week there would be gunfire and helicopters were constantly circling overhead. Not one article was written in the paper about any incident.
What do we, as a society hope to gain by incarcerating people and forcing them back upon the world with no education? They will be forced right back into the life of crime they left. I am a firm believer in the abolition of THE NEED for guns. I do not believe stricter gun control laws will do anything other than put a tiny bandaid on a deeply infected wound. We need a shift in our collective way of being. We need to help the poor to rise up without the need for guns, but to rise up with education.
Some other thoughts I jotted down.
If a government does not provide adequate care for its citizens, then a society of violence is inevitable. If we are forced to go without, then we are forced to take from our neighbors.
The poor do not benefit from the economic structures of capitalism so they are forced to take what they need, and in order to do so they need guns.