From America At War With Itself by Henry Giroux:
Mass shootings have become routine in the United States and speak to a society that lives by violence while relying on it as a tool to feed the coffers of the merchants of death. Violence runs through American society like an electric current….
At a policy level, violence drives a gargantuan arms industry and a militaristic foreign policy, and is increasingly the punishing state’s major tool to enforce its hyped-up brand of domestic terrorism, especially against immigrants and people of color. The United States is utterly wedded to a neoliberal culture in which cruelty is viewed as a virtue, while mass incarceration is treated as the default welfare program and chief mechanism to “institutionalize obedience.” At the same time, dog-eat-dog competition replaces any notion of solidarity, and a transcendental sense of self-interest pushes society into the abyss of depoliticization and mindless consumerism.
All of these forces coalesce in new modes of authoritarianism that re-order a society saturated in state violence, daily gun massacres, racism, fear, militarism, bigotry, and massive inequities in wealth and power.
In the coverage of this weekend’s massacres in El Paso, Texas or Dayton, Ohio (or any of the dozens that preceded them), you have likely heard someone express shock that such tragedies came to their communities … but “it can’t happen here” has been far from true for many years now. Here’s a list of a few organizations I’m familiar with that research the relentless violence so common in America today and try to influence gun control policy. Regardless of your personal or political views on gun control, each of these organizations can help you make informed choices and express informed opinions.
Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
The Southern Poverty Law Center
“Silence like a cancer grows….”
