Guns & Mental Illness

Shooter Adam Lanza

Another mass school shooting by a deranged, well-heeled white adolescent, this time aimed at a younger group of students and everyone is up in arms, so to speak, at the gun laws which allow private citizens to purchase semi-automatic weapons like AK-47's without so much as a background check.

And they are right. The American gun addiction and romance with the second amendment is inexplicable and terrifying to a Jew like me who, as a youngster, never got near a forest let alone a hunting rifle. The other factor that has been ignored or underconsidered in these shootings is how alienation, bullying and mental illness sometimes unite to monstrous ends.

The mentally ill are and have been greatly neglected by our society. Releasing people to the streets on mind-numbing drugs that they have no motivation or desire to take is not an answer. Neither is warehousing drugged patients in understaffed facilities. We need to find other options because this problem is not going away anytime soon

When I worked on the reference desk at San Francisco Public Library, I saw and tried to help a lot of mentally ill people. Many were homeless or lived in SROs (single resident occupancy hotels, one step from the streets). Most of the problematic types admitted to being off their medication. Tourists from Europe would often comment on the pathetic state of affairs on the San Francisco streets. Can't anything more be done for them? was a question we librarians were repeatedly asked.

I don't have any pat answer. This is an issue that is finally beginning to shake our souls.But until we find a pill to correct the hormonal imbalance that produces schizophrenia and other serious mental disorders, we must find a more productive way to care for the most disturbed among us.

Will We Be Ruled Equal?

Well, the US Supreme Court be ruling on our rights again. I am deeply tired of worrying about my legal status in this country. I know that if I, or my partner of 14 years, should die unexpectedly we would be considered nothing more than strangers under the law. Huge taxes would be levied on the surviving partner, taxes from which married couples are exempt. Her family, from which she is estranged, could try to sweep in and grab up all her assets.

Not to formally become partners is our own decision but it is also the result of oppression. Opting for this "domestic partners" contract is a poor substitute for the protections marriage offers.It comes with a  sock-it-to-you bill tax preparers receive for making up two separate returns: one for the federal government and the other for the state. This unjust financial burden has not been one we have wanted to shoulder. My partner and I do not live together either so, although it's no problem for Bill and Hillary, domestic partners must share the same address.

It seems like a no-brainer to me, and to most LGBT folks, that, as citizens we are entitled to equal protection under the law. But what tune will the Supremes sing? They are also going to be issuing a decision on DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) which has prevented the partners of federal employees from recieving medical benefits of their legally married spouses in the states where same-gender marriage is legal. The range of decisions the court could arrive at are not necessarily all or nothing. They are everywhere along a continuum where the worst-case scenario is that marriage is not a fundamental right for gays and uphold DOMA or they could declare that marriage bans are unconstitutional, marriage is a federal civil right and should be universally applied. In between, and most likely, are a million shades of gray, worth reading about but better left to the lawyers to itemize.

But whatever happens next, I do believe that time is on our side. We are finally seeing a bit of the bend in that long arc of the moral universe. Transgenders and people of indeterminate gender identity already help speed the struggle for equal rights because as people transition from one gender to another, it becomes harder to determine the composition of couples desiring marriage anyway. Confusion is a good thing in this case and, ultimately, gender is none of anyone else's business unless they are planning to engage in physical intimacy. In that situation, hopefully, it can be privately discussed.

Does Hollywood Help Divide the Working Class?

City Versus Country

I watched a movie last night called Breakdown. It was a 1997 film with a theme that was trotted out repeatedly throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties and still circulates today. The plot was a simple thriller about a couple's car breakdown and a wife who mysteriously disappears into the southwest desert cowboy country. The couple has Massachusetts license plates and a new truck. Even though they are deeply in debt and have all sorts of financial troubles, the "red-neck," cowboy types assume them to be rich, snotty, Yankees and display a deep-seated and furiously irrational hatred toward them.

This regional, cultural and trumped-up, different lifestyle hatred has been a staple of Hollywood and the mainstream media for decades now, pretty much since the debut of that pig-squealing masterwork called "Deliverance" where Atlanta city boys get their comeuppance from a bunch of inbred, hillbilly locals. The unspoken moral of both these films is to caution city folk to stay away from the struggling poor from rural areas unless you are willing to risk your life.

Merle Haggard's 1968 song, "Okie From Muskogee," takes up this same theme from the other side and even dives into some old fashioned homophobia and traditional family values. Find lyrics here.

The result continues as a long-standing "culture war" that has divided the working class and kept us from uniting around common interests and goals. There has always been a labor union movement that has, to some limited extent, transcended all this hype and, for a brief window in time, the Civil Rights struggle in the American South did so as well. But, for the most part, the extreme polarization of pseudo-classes, defined by region and lifestyle instead of financial status, has continued unabated until relatively recently.

It has only been the recent American uprisings of the 99% that have threatened this long standing tradition of divide and conquer. And that is why the repression of the movement that called itself Occupy was so immediate and brutal. Remission isn't necessarily death. The discontent and rage that boiled over once has not cooled. Perhaps it's just simmering until the right moment presents itself.

Unions: Safety and Discrimination Protection

The two tragic fires that have killed workers in Bangladesh remind us of labor’s history in the early years of the twentieth century when the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 garment workers most of them Jewish and Italian immigrant women.

Capitalism actively condones the murder of dispensable commodities like people who provide unskilled or semi-skilled labor. Now even the sweatshops of China are moving to even cheaper, less-regulated Bangladesh. American companies like Wal-Mart and Apple have increasingly relied on cheap third-world labor to produce their products as wages plummet and safety regulations evaporate in the United States, our country will once again look like a more desirable sweatshop location for vulture capitalists of all stripes.

With the active collusion of some large city mayors like Rahm Emanuel (Chicago) and Cory Booker (Newark) both labor union power and membership are diminishing. Unions have become an endangered species and will soon go the way of the dodo.

Yes, labor unions fight for the safety concerns of workers. These are paramount. Without your life, a job isn't worth much. But they also fight for job security and retention. The “employment at will” doctrine that is applied in the United States means any worker can be terminated for any reason whatsoever, whether or not it is job related.

If I had been unable to seek out union jobs, I could easily have been a street person instead of a retired homeowner. As a political activist and openly lesbian worker, I have been fired from employment in at least three instances where I was dismissed with the comment, “Your work is fine, you just don’t fit in.” Eating and having shelter are very important factors for a decent quality of life. They are necessary for both those who fit in as well as those who do not. It makes me angry and sad to think that LGBT young people today, who are lacking family emotional and financial support, cannot keep themselves out of poverty.

We desperately need international guidelines concerning workers’ safety. We also need non-discrimination laws to protect the livelihoods of non-traditional employees. Our lives and our jobs should not be too much to ask. We must resuscitate the unions before it is too late. 

Tis the Season to be Wary...

Whose Salvation?

Unfortunately, Thanksgiving came early this year forcing us all to endure an extra week of the season to be jolly. I'm not a grinch or a scrooge, just a naturally critical California Buddhist, Jew, atheist with a strong vein of analytical doubt running through my belief system. Lights are pretty, trees are nice, crafts fairs can be fun, creches a bit much but the overtone of rampant materialism is more than a bit nauseating.

It is important to note as well that many organizations that are part and parcel of this holiday season are not what they seem. The Salvation Army with its bell-ringing and donation kettles is a blatantly homophobic organization. Here is an article from Huffington Post where a Salvation Army spokesman sounds off in favor of the death penalty for LGBT folks because that is "in scripture." It is imperative to consider how your money will be used if and when you make the decision to donate it.

Traditionally, the Xmas season is one that non-Christians recognize as the most difficult of the year. It is a time when the predominant culture runs roughshod over all non or different believers in the name of peace on earth and goodwill towards men. Here it is only late November and I have already been wished a Merry Christmas by a good-hearted but somewhat limited soul.

In short, I do wish I could put myself in a state of suspended animation until December 26th but instead I will brace myself for this seasonal onslaught of pseudo-merriment and try to keep in mind that the balance of power in this country has shifted and the straight, white, male, upper-crust Christians are not necessarily winning!

Is Cruelty to Workers Behind Workplace Violence?

Another workplace shooting took place in Fresno on November 5th at a chicken processing plant. Three workers were killed and two were injured by a fellow employee with a handgun. According to filmmaker Emil Chiaberi, this pattern of workplace violence has roots in the way employees are treated in this country.

Chiaberi's 2010 film, “Murder by Proxy: How America went Postal,” sheds both light and heat on the phenomena of workplace murders. Beginning with the Royal Oak Post Office massacre of 1991, which caused the expression “going postal” to become a part of American slang, through other workplace attacks, Chiaberi chronicles a history of employee abuse that drives some beyond the limits of sanity to commit appalling and desperate acts.

There is no excuse for these crimes and Chiaberi does not try to present one. But there are reasons and, through interviews, he explains the history of cruelty to workers that is characteristic of the US Postal Service as well as many other working-class jobs.

Since the mid-eighties no workplace protections have been instituted for workers. The climate we now inhabit is overtly hostile to those that make the machine of service or manufacturing run. The post office is a hotbed of extreme stress and discontent for many reasons. Workers are required to keep up with sorting machines, the pace of which are inhuman. Those who deliver mail have speed and safety issues combined. The job requires little skill or training but has good benefits and pays well. In other words, there’s more where you came from is a prevailing mantra.

Workplace scapegoating seems to be a particularly prevalent problem in the postal service and other low-skill level jobs. This is not explained in the film, I assume, because it is not completely understood. But scapegoating, when it works, tends to do two things. One, frighten other workers because the same thing could happen to them. And two, unify folks against a common enemy, the workplace scapegoat.

But many of the workers interviewed see through this ruse and understand the common enemy is their systematic and continual dehumanization. One shooter skipped shooting a boss who simply asked him how his recent eye surgery went.

The fact that workers are people has escaped those who advocate for the business owners and managers. With anti-union politicians like Wisconsin’s governor Scott Walker leading the charge, worker protection is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Films like “Murder by Proxy,” may not change that but at least they can serve as a warning of what may be in store for our increasingly income-skewed society where production and service workers are belittled and their fundamental humanity ignored.

Breathe Easier and Fight Harder!

 Keep on Keepin' On

Today I have been pleasantly surprised by the American people. Not only has the Romney threat been eviscerated but many other positive things transpired. California's Measure 32, the big-buisness attempt to thwart union power has been defeated. Maine and Maryland have voted FOR same-sex marriage rights, this popular vote marking a first in the string of 33 state defeats. And Minnesotans have voted down an amendment to preserve marriage bigotry.

The pro-rape philosophers Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock each lost their races: Todd Akin to Claire McCaskill and Richard Mourdock to Joe Donelly. Ah yes, the lord works in mysterious ways!

Elizabeth Warren defeated incumbent Scott Brown in Massasschussets and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin won to become the first openly gay member of the Senate. Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Colorado and even Virginia all stood up against Romney's war on the 47 percent.

Marijuana has been legalized in Colorado and Washington.

I understand that these results mean that we progressives have our work cut out for us. But now at least we can breathe a bit easier as we push into high gear with our committment to build a more democratic and egalitarian society!