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Remember when one of the most viral photos of the mid 2010s was a dead migrant child on the beach? Whole lot of good that did
Manifesto shooters have gamified their crimes and live-streamed them. I wouldn’t expect the chans to have any epiphanies. As for conservatives? Guns matter first and foremost. Dead children are the cost of keeping it so they won’t care either. Liberals will cry then go back to their normal lives.
Maybe I’m too cynical. But I genuinely can’t imagine a watershed moment when it comes to mass shootings or guns or anything like that. Similarly to COVID, Americans have accepted living with mass shootings
I mean, that's basically what the Parkland Teens were and they were almost immediately co-opted and subsumed by Democratic Party opportunistic politics
The things the democrats are good at: co-opting and defanging movements that threaten their status quo, and driving donations up to the DNC. Oh, and getting Republicans elected.
It gets worse, her family keeps moving her around so she stays hidden.
I just googled her and found an article from yesterday with this headline: Woman at center of Till lynching reported in Bowling Green
There's a protest on Saturday.
Read this paragraph if you want to be even angrier
Also this summer, Donham’s unpublished memoir “I am More Than A Wolf Whistle,” was released by a historian who said he obtained it from her in 2008. In it, Donham claimed that she never identified Till to her husband, and “always felt like a victim as well as Emmett” and “paid dearly with an altered life” for what happened to the teen.
the argument of Till's body was clear: racism is not just day to day rudeness, or an abstract political issue. It is viciousness and cruelty that most people thought of as inhuman. The myth of southern justice couldn't stand after that.
What myth would a modern shooting victim's body destroy? That mass shooters are good people? That getting murdered isn't bad? The legacy of 9/11 is that Amerikkkan reaction to brutality is no longer to feign ignorance, but to justify why the brutality was necessary or inevitable.
It wouldn't destroy any myths, it's about emotional impact.
Everybody knows that 20+ children died in Uvalde. But they're just numbers on a page to people, which is understandable because seeing any of the victims would fuck me up badly and I imagine it's the same for many others. We naturally emotionally distance ourselves from such atrocities, this allows us to remain functional in a world where horrible things happen constantly, but it also causes us to ignore things we shouldn't.
Remember "the sound of children screaming has been removed"? Everyone knew that there was screaming, but the difference between hearing and not hearing it turned it from completely unbearable to merely very uncomfortable to watch. Nobody ever pretended children weren't being killed.
I don't know if it could cause an actual movement, but putting pictures of the victims out there would absolutely have an impact. It would make it more "real" for people, much harder to ignore and accept as normal.
but what movement would it even be for? the movement to give cops broader powers to take away guns at their discretion? the movement to give people more guns so they can shoot the bad guys? Even the left isn't in agreement on how we want this problem solved.
It would depend on the moment like everything else does. Anything we can do to channel that inchoate rage and despair into a desire to end capitalist alienation and the american death drive.
If a movement like this happened, it would likely call for stricter gun laws or outright bans (or more cops at schools if you want the :joker-troll: answer)
I don't think that would be the correct solution, but that's mainly because the correct solution would require several fundamental systemic changes which I don't believe a movement would call for :shrug-outta-hecks:
The current myth about mass shootings is there exist superhuman "good guys" who would always stop mass shootings if only they had access to more high powered weaponry and were strapped at all times. They currently don't stop every mass shooting because of buyback programs or gun-free zones like schools. The counter myth is there should be more cops and only cops should have firearms.
It's a sick situation and comes down to a childish understanding of American society that's probably built on white supremacy. Ask any 2nd amendment molon labe dipshit what one of these "good guys with a gun" looks like and they'll simply describe themselves, a white guy with oakleys and a big truck. They all believe themselves to be John Wick.
Then the liberals aren't any better. Their solution is tepid, uncoordinated gun restrictions and more money to police. They can't even do gun control correctly or point to other countries that handle guns without a mass shooting every year. They could point to Switzerland, where gun possession is restricted to people who join locally trained militia, and all guns are stored in armories. They could point to Japan, where owning a firearm requires lengthy mental-health screenings every 3 years and an accuracy test at a shooting range. Nope, it's always just more money for cops and prisons.
If Sandy Hook and the blood of white children isn't enough tip the scales against the coin of the gun industry and the politicians I don't know what can. It's super grim and depressing but when the white elementary kids got gat'ed and nothing happen I knew it was a wrap. America is is truly rotten on a cellular level.
No because everyone already agrees that school shootings are bad. Nobody can agree on what to do about it, and Liberals and Chuds have antithetical solutions that result in deadlock, and any legislature that would actually be helpful is either constitutionally forbidden or goes against the interests of capital (not gonna happen)
When I say everyone here I mean everyone in mainstream political discourse. While pro-shooter or shooter sympathetic cranks exist, they exist on the fringes
I think so maybe? If the actual carnage and death were more visible I think it may have had an impact but it's so crazy how the media obfuscates the reality of reality. The kids died, but we never saw their bodies. I don't want to sound weird or gross or anything like that but I think it may have been good to see the aftermath publicly. You can't make abstract the death of kiddos if we saw photographs of the classrooms and stuff. Again I really don't want to sound morbid but the bodies would have made this more real. It's like the coffins in the Vietnam war, those bodies soured the American public on the war. I think see the mangled bodies of innocent children would show how of a real issue this is rather than a "news event".
That's why I'm doubtful that america in its current form will ever create meaningful gun control. If the slaughter of 6-year-old kids wasn't enough to get it going I don't know what would.
It's like that Dan Hodges tweet. Guy's a total tool but it's just evergreen, where he said that Sandy Hook basically marked the end of the gun control debate because once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.
But how would the media have reacted had a Sandy Hook parent opted to hold a highly-publicized, open casket funeral/wake? Would journos today even agree to publish pictures of mangled children?
the :alex-karma: types will just say it's hollywood special effects team and crisis actors as usual.
I actually don't believe these people have a breaking point. I say that because some of my relatives have died of covid and yet my family still denies covid is real. They watched their own father or child asphyxiate to death and yet still deny reality.
A video of child gore would instantly get picked apart. In fact, I know a person who was at a shooting (nothing large, just a robbery gone wrong and two people were shot, not killed). And this person denies the shooting ever took place. It was all actors for him. He says this because the assailant had an AR-15, which he says isn't a mass shooting gun, it's a gun for protection. That's the level of propagandized dipshit we're talking about.
The people who believe that school shootings are faked or false flags are wrapping themselves in the identity of the rebel set against the monolithic government, but in reality their conspiracies require that the government isn't actually that bad so the deaths are all faked. Their American government would never kill a bunch of American children or allow the deaths of children, in their minds, so obviously it's fake. Deep down they still trust or like their government.
True, but I think even the most q-pilled internet-brains have a breaking point
if sandy hook wasn't the breaking point then I can't imagine what would be. there are right wing freaks who look at photos of piles of corpses from the holocaust and claim they're fake.
They wouldn't spread the video, they'd just hear from 24th-hand memes that the video was debunked and spread that instead.
(CW) I've seen a larger number of shot kids than I'd like to have...
it would probably depend on where they got shot, and certainly the caliber and distance, that would determine how visible the damage was
I feel like we are collectively so desensitized to it that even if it was in everyone's face 24/7 it would quickly just become normal
Like someone pointed out above me, that photo of a dead migrant child going around in the 2010s was just celebrated by many people
yeah we had that. It's why we now frame anti immigrant policies as "For their safety" which is super messed up as it's the consequences of our refusal to let them in safely that kill them.
The media consistently covers Belarus flying in imigrants from Syria and sending them on to Poland as endangering their safety as though the Polish border authorities are wolves mystically complelled to do violence on refugees
Call me a doomer but 2020 might be the most resistance they'll see out of us again.
I'm also cynical about 2020 I feel like Covid was a factor. Like it agitated people and some of the BLM protest turnout was displaced frustration.
yeah we'll never see another 2020 since covid has been cured and nobody is frustrated about it anymore and the economy is amazing
Some of the doomer* excuses people here and across the internet use to justify their way out of organizing are incredible. Some people would rather reassure themselves with the comfort of certain defeat than make themselves even slightly uncomfortable by imagining a better yet uncertain future.
*hate that word and subculture bc it was basically invented by them so we'd have to put up with their shit. Like nooo, I'm not just a lazy sadsack who worships my own sadness while gradually drawing other reasonably cynical people into it so we can all prematurely mourn our (absolutely certain, trust me bro) defeat, im just a #Doomer! :doomer: SHUT THE FUCK UP :agony:
yeah people totally still care about covid. While I appreciate a snarky dunk as much as the next chapo, there's a boiled frog effect now that is different than the conditions were when the economy was soaring, people were going about their lives, sticking their tongues in eachothers anuses, and suddenly Covid hit and eating ass was suddenly off the menu. I don't think we will see a recreation of the frustration caused by people suddenly afraid to lick someones poop hole. The economy is likely going to either settle into a recession again and then slowly recover as most people get used to being slightly poorer, and frustration is deflected to the unhoused and immigrants, either the war will wind down, or people will forget about it blah blah. Maybe there will be another useless occupy movement that gets instantly co-opted but I expect like in the 2010's most people will be too busy trying to make rent. It's not like the BLM protests were majority leftists, it was liberal sanctioned acting out, and politically convenient for democrats since orangeman bad.
i didn't mean to dunk on you i just believe it's foolish to think that we're in a time of declining unrest of all things. the empire cannot project power like it once could and it seems the american bourgoisie have finally recognized the writing on the wall - western imperialism is beginning to collapse and they cannot keep the domestic populace under control with even a mild decrease in exploitation of the periphery. no matter what happens with the rise of the chinese and the effects of climate change coming due chaos is in our future and domestic revolts will only intensify until something gives one way or the other.
It’s not like the BLM protests were majority leftists
the US isn't going to be brought down by leftists; it's a pipe dream. it isn't going to last long enough for us to get our shit together while under the fed's thumb. it'll be dealt its deathblow by an overexploited proletariat regardless of their ideology however - and i imagine most of us are salivating at the thought of how easy it would be to radicalize the american populace in a world where there is no federal government.
neither the bolsheviks nor the chinese communists seized power during times of stability. they ruthlessly exploited periods of global upheaval that were out of their control. we will do the same.
Who is "us" exactly? If you mean "the left" broadly, then you need to step away from the computer
I don't think corporate media will ever allow it, unless specifically meant to damage the current administration.
Given the amount of public mourning done in each of these cases, I don't think a Till moment would achieve anything. Everyone knows this sucks and shouldn't be happening, they just all keep pointing at the wrong things and blaming them. You have to fix the actual social decay and atomization.
Yeah, my understanding of US firearm politics is basically:
- 27,% libs who'd like the social conditions to improve but have nothing material or concrete to achieve that, other than banning guns = good
- 23,% chuds who think the entire thing is fucked regardless and just going to pull the US into more and more overt fascism, so more guns = good
- 48,-49,% non-voters and normies who just tune it all out and won't do anything about the fascist turn
- 1,-2,% leftists who to varying degrees accept the premise that firearms will never be restricted in the US, and have concrete ideas that would reduce all of the conditions that lead to most firearms injuries or deaths
I'm not especially convinced that dead kids' photographs would honestly do much to move the needle.
Basically. Mass disarmament is both politically and practically an impossible task. It specter serves as a means of suspending US politics within the realm of the primarily symbolic, but if Sandy Hook didn't result in a program of mass disarmament, no pictures of brutalized children will. And then, even if mass disarmament were politically and practically possible, it would ultimately be twisted into a weapon aimed at vulnerable minorities once translated through the layers of the American state. You can't even approach the question of firearms without first addressing the underlying social conditions.
In this case, the great challenge is even getting people to care in any material way that kids or LGBTQ+ community spaces, or spaces associated with racial and ethnic minorities are getting shot up. Until you address the sociopathic tendency of American political-economics, showing Americans the horror of violence done to others is ultimately meaningless.
The journalist(s) involved would be exposing themselves to a possibly career-ending level of harassment for "publishing anti-gun propaganda" or whatever.
I think only if something of arbitrary symbolic significance like literally an entire class being all shot or like only one out of that whole class lives, then maybe.
In regards to just brutality then idk, maybe if someone decides to use a shotgun and literally obliterates some kids face so it gets in the news that the parents cant even look their dead kid in the face to say goodbye, but other than that kill counts have kept being beat without a real moment like that.
Honestly, right wing psychos would either attack the family for exploiting the tragedy or use the spectacle to advance some bullshit "solution" like armed cops in school or something. That is if the media would show the gory pictures which they won't.
