some great insights and comments here. thanks.

i thought when i read the title, that this was going to be about how glorious and glamorous and wonderful and HEROIC it is to go off to war and kill, and of all of the photo-ops of the march TO war. but how the coffins of the dead and images of the wounded (not to mention the 'other" dead) soldiers are practically verboten because they're not HEROIC... !

good essay, in any case.

Oh yes.. and lets not forget how our society frowns on 'euphenasia' and sends people like Jack Kevorkian to jail for 'assisted' suicides. Oh boy, what a hell of a struggle to get support and coverage concerning the 'right' to die; how taboo. "Let the bastards suffer but we ain't gonna play god" echos throughout western culture. A shot economy, poor health care, processed foods, un-natural just about Everything but, you can't take your own life even if you are suffering, without finances, or are offered assistance.

The Bush administration goes unscathed, TV networks go unchecked, people are being killed everywhere but don't you EVER consider taking your own life you loser.

When I saw the title of this article, I thought it would be a commentary on US military tactics and strategy. It is certainly true in that sense as well as the author's. Soldiers are given 2 tools not normally granted to other people: a license to kill, and a license to die, for a cause. A counterinsurgency policy might have worked if these 2 were kept in balance, among many other changes in strategy and tactics, but they were not.

I bet a lot of US military have seen "300", but I also bet only a tiny percentage realize that they best fit the profile of the Persians, and that the insurgents who attack them are far more like the 300 Spartans than they are.

RALPH 442: Offers the impact diet holds upon human behavior and this IS a valid point.
Io Q LELLITY reminds us that how children are reared factors significantly into the equation of human violence.
I once again submit the fact that religion plays its part by passing allegories down the centuries that suggest how GOD punishes us. This theology promotes the concept of sin, which then draws the reflex in those naturally inclined to authoritarian personality formation to determine HOW people should behave. Entire institutions spring up to control people and FEAR becomes the stick that's used to keep them "in line."
As a person who ackowledges the continuum of the soul, it's clear to me from 35 years of extensive astrological chart analysis, that people are BORN WITH scar tissue. This is how karma plays out, and also refers to the historically shared fate of "the sins of the fathers (and mothers) are visited upon the sons (and daughters)." Mankind must overcome these chains in a process of mass catharsis, and this is what all the prophecies of Age Change transition (The Great Turning, The Mayan Calendar, "End Times," The astrological transition from the era of Pisces to that of Aquarius) focus upon.

DURA MATER: You sweetheart, you! Your strategy is a good one. However, 10 years ago I left the Florida Keys where I was an acknowledged local TV & radio personality to unwittingly head for "the black hole." It was a crash course in Bible Belt cultural immersion. I do NOT think this community would support my vision or visions! I am self-publishing 4 books and hope to take my literary voice on the road in 2008. Based on the results will determine whether I remain in the US or head for a land of more enlightened consciousness. "A prophet is not without honor except in his/her own country." For more than a decade that's been true for me... whereas I had quite a powerful reception in Singapore and Malaysia 3 years ago!

With the exception of royalty (fox hunt, lions in the arena, etc.) I don't believe that sport hunting really existed as a pastime for ordinary people. People hunted for survival, understanding their place in the fabric of nature and the life spirit in their prey -- not for the sheer pleasure of killing.

Sport hunting is a form of masochistic behavior, and it's clearly related to what's happened to house cats. Humans have not evolved to live in tiny square windowless cubicles or large metropolises which cage us in like domestic cattle. Whoever came up with the modern work cubicle should, IMHO, have a steel-toed boot planted firmly in his posterior.

House cats face a quandry. They're fed solid dry food by human caretakers, and so when they encounter what is ordinarily their prey (a mouse, for instance), they play with it somewhat barbarically. The instinct is still there to kill, but the purpose is not.

Clearly, sport hunting falls into this category. Note that I'm not referring to people who live at the fringes of modern civilization, in the far north, etc. who augment their larder by means of hunting. This isn't a vegetarian issue. It's about the "sport" of needless killing. A modern-day anachronism which more closely resembles a masochistic bent than anything else.

...and if you are old enough to remember the completely open and practically universal smoking of pot in US high schools and university campuses in the 1970's, then the open cocaine use among Reaganite yuppies in the 1980's, I'd say the war on drugs has had it's successes as well.

This is off topic, but i have to corect one remark,

"The War on Poverty gave us more poor."

Not true!

Poverty was decreasing under the war on poverty programs until, starting with Reagan, the progreams were defunded and dismantled, anti-discrimination programs gutted, union busting legalized, and minimum wage left stagnant.

Scientists who study extinct animal species can tell just by the shape of the head and dentation what type of eater that animal was. Whether grazers, leaf or plant eaters,omnivores, or carnivores.

Man has almost the exact physiology, including dentation, as the great apes who are plant and tree (leaf and fruit) eaters, but when it comes to man's classification he is considered an omnivore. This break down in scientific self analysis seems to be just another of man's convenient rationalizations to justify his own behavior.

My point is that man's unnatural eating of flesh - which until relatively recently (advent of markets and stores) meant killing for much of his food - has made man much more aggressive and hostile then he would ideally be. i.e. say in the garden of eden or the peaceable kingdom, or other apparent myths that reference man's potential for the peaceful place at the "top" or "crown" of creation where he was caretaker and guardian, not hunter and warrior.

Least I get to involved in this topic I hold out a challenge to all who dare here it and that is simply become a vegetarian for a least 6 months and see for yourself it it doesn't make you more peaceful. Naturally this would involve eliminating much of the artificial, refined, chemicalized and processed foods that are designed to make us wards of the pharmaceutical industry and surgeons knife.

If it doesn't work you can come hunting for me.

Obviously this is only a piece of the complex puzzle of violence that Salle E. so graphically describes. I myself can barely watch the short preview clips of the hyper violent movies that have become so popular.

Much of all this is out of control unregulated capitalism that seeks to constantly sell us the most base and degraded "entertainment" that at once coarsens and weakens our spirt.

Siouxrose, just a hint for the aspiring scriptwriter - try talking to your local community college or such. They'll probably have classes on drama and training people as camera-folk for the various news-channels, etc, and would probably know at least one or two such people willing to make a trailer/demo of your screenplay script.

I know it's a long shot, but it also works. And I'd rather see your films than most of the pap that Hollywood regurgitates.

The way for our species to end violence is to bring up the next generation without violence - to never hit, slap, spank, or otherwise fail to protect them from people who will invade their bodies boundaries with violence; practice nonviolent communication and really care, listen, and respect their bodies language and needs, and you will have totally empathic humans that will reject war and likely won't find much interest in violent video games and films. Elementary and high school students are still beaten at public schools in Arkansas, Texas, and other U.S. states, yet you except the films to change? And is it a surprise how racist, homophobic, and intolerant the society in these states is, when the principal and teachers (and parents too, surely), with sadistic glee, beat the errogenous zones of students for almost two decades of their lives, killing all of the empathy inside of them and creating the perfect, obedient soldiers to go take their trauma out on foreigners when they should be turning it back on their real oppressors? The films don't cause the violence, the abuse of human bodies (and denial, repression of that abuse) causes the appeal for such media.

http://www.dreamingearth.net

While ungulates such as moose, bison, deer and elk have been found to carry mad cow disease, tick borne lime disease, brucellosis, tuberculosis, foot and mouth disease and more, they're not screened for disease as supposedly our beef is. Some countries have banned American beef exports for lack of our monitoring. Lately it was South Korea.

As humans screw with the ecology and among other interventions kill of predators that keep a species healthy by consuming the sick, killing for sport has become dangerous to people's health. And killing the largest and most dominant male animal weakens the species. So how do we satisfy the urge to kill? By killing other humans?

Salle Engelhardt,

You actually have two very thought-provoking ideas here, that of the grotesque love of violence and death and control and, secondly, a culture that conversely does all it can to deny death.

I am a nurse and I have a greater interest in the American denial of death. This is the line that provoked the most reaction for me--
"A dying patient is so much more beneficial to the bottom line because their needs are so great and what they need is so costly."

This line has both truth and superficiality in it. Our culture has a love of high tech medicine and people want it even when it is not indicated. Though you meet though docs who do not know how to say no to a new technology, a far greater number understand that there is a folly in the way that medical technology is developed, used and apportioned. My college ethics professor was fond of saying, "We can provide more health care than we can afford to provide." I can rattle for hours on this but let me just say that there is a profound mal-appropriation of health care in America and across the globe and no one wants to talk about the need to thoughtfully share out a resource that all humans should have some degree of access to.

In health care, a demand for "never say die" technology is often driven by health care providers but also patients and families who have no concept of the idea that there is a time in life when medical intervention is not any longer appropriate. What is left is care and love.

There is no doubt that any hope of rationale discussion about this is obliterated by the noisy right-to-lifers who have no inkling that the superlative and wasteful level of care they demand for the Teri Schiavo's of this world comes at the expense of basic health care for all of God's humans. The discussion is overcome by greed.

I tend to think that far more than turning away from the elderly, society turns away from the dilemma they represent. What is "fair" to them? What is "fair" to the uninsured children of the world? Can we bear to face the reality of death "alone" in the existential sense or must we alleviate our anxiety with a call for more medical technology?

In the most simple of terms, nursing in the lowest tech sense is often referred to "care" oriented interventions. Medicine is referred to as "cure" oriented interventions. These are not perfect delinations. Plenty of docs recognize that there comes a time when caring is called for; the time is past for "cure" interventions. Many of my nursing colleagues are in love with the technology laden world of the ICU (been there, done that). I cannot deny that I sometimes "worship at the altar of technology".

As someone travels that final road leading to their last moments on earth, what is often left is a person in a bed tended by someone who has nothing more to offer than the cool wash cloth on the head, the murmured words of love, the trickle of medicine into a mouth to ease pain or anxiety. Indeed your own and their mortality is confronted.

I think many Americans run from that moment and high-tech medicine is the anodyne they seek.

No doubt that violence is being promoted- and perhaps more so now then before. The movie 300 is probably the most egregious example regarding this - however it can also be seen in music - where the more violent rappers who can instruct the youth -that blibg bling and dolla's can only be reaped via of life of criminality and violence. In fact - CB-40 by Chris Rock was years ahead of its time in this regard.

The point is the promotion of violence must benefit someone or more importantly some institution. That institution is undoubtedly the US army. By fostering a callous attitude toward human life, a prediliction to the simplistic conclusion that if I kick his ass - he'll know whose boss etc - you have a more malleable subject to pull the trigger on any population that is taught to be the target- for example - police violence against Americans has SKYrocketed - and so one must be innured to violence and the target can and should be anyone.

After all if one can be trained to accept that- violence is the most accepted weapon of intimidation and control - then the venality and culpability of the act and can be passed from the actual person committing it into the abstract. Similar to killing entire villages since you don't really know who is the enemy and therefore it can be 'justified' by converting it from murder to counter-insurgency.

This country, in which plus/minus 300 million people find themselves, is NOT "America".
It is: The "United" States of North-America".
Persons from El Salvador are Americans; men and women born in Chili are Americans.
Whence this country has acquired the audacity to call itself "America" is beyond me.
Somebody might enlighten me on this subject?

And yes: the majority of the inhabitants of the "United" States of North-America" is totally indifferent about, and ignorant of, the politics of its country's "government".
Clueless.
Fighting for "god and country" (whatever that means); letting themselves be sent out to senseless wars to kill people they have never seen. In the name of: "I do it for my...", fill in the blanks.

Children need to be told, from age 6 months on, that violence begets violence. Et cetera.
Parents should not allow their offspring to play stupid, and murderous, video-games.
(These same parents are better off to save their hard-earned monies).

On the subject of "the right to die":
Everybody has the right to die.
The issue here is that hardly anyone knows that one can refuse any and all treatments; whether these "treatments" be the god-awful chemo-therapies, medicines with 50 side-effects, or: being thrown into a stinking nursing-home.
There is also this: one can WILL oneself to die, by the power of the mind.
Or: one can, by whichever means, end the misery and suffering by one's own hands.

Last: the "United States of North-America" is, indeed, far behind European countries (and other countries in the world), as far as "the right to die" goes.

Thank you.
Ruth Benderall
whitepatches@verizon.net

To MollyJ 10/01/07 11:09p

Thanks for weighing in with insight and compassion. It's great to see thoughfulness in these posts.

Also thanks to others mentioning violent video gaming, pro sports, porn, remote-control un-manned bombing, TV marketing of questionable truth, and (sometimes) too-high-tech medicine. The common enabler of these things is the limited-liability paper entity called the corporation, a multiplying form of "life" we created, and now, like in SCI-FI, find hard to round up and control.

You bring up a issue that cuts to a serious reality today.

Authority, all authority comes from voluntarism. Without people agreeing that the authority is just, that it serves all members of a group fairly and without bias or prejudice, then the authority is no more. It no longer has an agreement to exist.

Plus, the principle of authority is communal defense of life, liberty and property. It is nothing more. Nor can it be anything more than this. A so called leader and his/her minions cannot do what you cannot do. Otherwise that leader and the minions that follow him/her are outside of the bounds of their authority. At that point they no longer are FBI, NSA, SS, Sheriff, Police Chief and policemen and women, military, etc. They may have the clothes and the tin badge, but they no longer have the right to exercise authority of any kind. At that point they are bandits and kidnappers, criminals of the lowest sort. They are also fair game for self defense. If the letter A was still stamped on the head of prostitutes, anyone with the means and ability could stamp the foreheads of these non-authority men and women with an NA, no authority.

Look through the uniform and past the tin badges and colored ids and see the man or woman assuming an authority they may not have at all. They may be stupid thugs hired because they are stupid. But the principle is - you can only give the authority (government) the rights you have - not one single step beyond. You do not have the right to take your neighbors food because he/she has twice as much as you do. You cannot give the government the right to take their food and give some of it to you because you never had that right in the first place. You cannot force your neighbors to give your corporation a privilige that would make your corporation more successful than another corporation. The government has no right to do this either. You have the right to face your accusers and for due process to be followed (habeus corpus). No one can deny you a right that did not come from the government in the first place. The right to face your accuser has existed in all societies before there were governments. And any contracts or agreements were the law and a man or woman could not be denied a clear and honest review to see if they had broken their contract. These things never were the domain of any politician. They still aren't.

Once a government has shown itself to step beyond the bounds of their single rightful obligation - to protect the life, libery and property of every volunteer member of the group, justly and without bias or prejudice, it no longer has any uniforms or military or badges that mean anything at all.

The problem with the moose kill is a common sense one. The day that food is scarce in this land, you can number the days of life for all wild animals on the fingers of a single hand for there will be people in the most remote forests hunting with machine guns. For since the government has become lawless, human compassion, fair cooperation, and common sense are the only thing left for people that do not want to sink to a degeneracy worse than that of any animal.

billjv:

Perhaps you agree with me that as long as a person maintains a will to live (even under the most dreadful circumstances), that person's life should be preserved. And you may believe, as I do, that some people want so ferociously to live that their struggle to endure ennobles them, whatever it may cost them in loss of dignity. I admired a friend who had much to live for and clung, at the end, to a much reduced, meager life despite a level of pain and suffering that would have sorely tempted me to throw in the towel. My point -- and yours, too -- is that a dying person's will to live or die must be honored; it's HIS or HER choice, no one else's.

But if life should be affirmatively PRESERVED as long as a will to live is present, no heroic efforts should be expended to PROLONG the dying when the will to live has evaporated.

I'd love to see a poll of citizen opinions on how/why the mainstream media was able to pronounce the front runners in the upcoming presidential election, has inundated us with puff pieces and some issue-oriented prose about them, and has pretty much relegated the ones they named "losers" to non-coverage. That the front runners were chosen on the basis of how much money they had collected in a couple of months is no recommendation since much of it had to have come from corporations and their lobbyists.

Anyhow, the point is, if the media were giving Dennis Kucinich equal coverage and people knew about his plan for a cabinet-level Dept. of Peace responsible for transforming America from a violent culture to a peaceful one, and his plan for universal single-payer health care, and his plan to end the war would they not choose him over any of the Big Three? And if they knew about Richardson's experience as a real peacemaker at the UN and his compassion toward immigrants, would the Democratic nomination not become a two-way race between these two instead of a three-way among the chosen ones?

Example: our soldiers kill innocent civilians in Iraq, but how dare you question "support our troops"? Killing is OK.

But not for me. Prosecute our soldiers for war crimes. I do not support them.

The west seems to cling to life, prolong it as much as possible, while living mirthless anti-social lives.

Oh the distances between us. They kill much more in us, and in death we may even cometogether.

"But dying isn't. Why isn't dying okay?"

It is if it's the result of an auto "accident," of which there is no such thing. Over 40,000 dead per year as a direct result of total driver incompetence. America's reaction?

Bigger vehicles that go faster than ever with the least amount of attention to safety the manufacturers can get away with (unless you're rich enough to afford the top of the line foreign luxury tank.)

Death by cigarettes is okay, too. So is death by obesity.

Salle Engelhardt (aka Lunafish) writes:
"...Examine how violent our entertainment has become, from movies and TV to the insipid video games that are on the market actually training the next generations to believe that killing is okay and you can really get a big rush from killing and violence. You have access to the visuals 24/7."

and:

"They don't have any qualms about killing, as long as it isn't them or their favorite people or dog. Killing is okay, it solves problems, just like on TV and in movies, and on the news."

Dear Salle,
Bless you, you are a person after my own heart!
This is one of the most perspicacious articles on the subject I think I've yet read, -either here at C-D, or elsewhere. Thankyou VERY much for it!
[Interestingly I had made comments along the same lines on another C-D thread, -shortly before reading your article here.]

I too feel that the dread and horrors being perpetrated in our world are VERY much exacerbated -if not actually initiated- by the vile effluent which flows daily from *sick* (unloving) minds, on through the *tube* of TV etc, -and then straight into the undiscriminating little minds and hearts of people who are subsequently seriously / adversely influenced by that sewage-like output.

It seems to continually escape the notice of many people that we humans ACT according to how we *think*!

Self-interested apologists for the mEss media always try to refute this adverse effect whenever this topic of, "Violent media warps human minds" arises.
And yet? ~ and yet they daily feed off the **advertising** revenues, which have, (as their prime function), the sole purpose of influencing human thought, -so as to affect human behaviour!
Doh! -the logic of Bedlam reigns supreme in their foetid little world!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Humanity's wisest Teachers and sages came solely to help us to think the sort of *thoughts*, which would help us to *act* in a civilised manner towards each other.
~ We being what we are (eg: still very un-evolved little beings), of course then garble and pollute the message until, -in time- it's all so mangled that we need a 'refresher course' via a new Messenger.

Humanity's previous Teachers felt that if they could successfully inculcate human minds and hearts with the basic notion of **violence = pain, so best refrain!** -then we could then live happier lives.

But there appears to be a basic struggle between 'Light and dark' going on: -some folk do all they can to try to point out the tragic folly of focussing on violence and other *polluters of consciousness*, - whilst other folk spend all their days immersing themselves (and thence others, via today's media) in every dark-hearted and vile thing imaginable...

Such a plethora of sickness, -and with such horrific consequences for the world as a whole :(

Our challenge is to first real-eyes the terrible sickness inherent in all of this, and then do all we can to cogently bring Light to such dark corners.

~Thankyou very much for your sterling efforts in this very necessary cause Salle.
xx

Galifray, consider also public torture, and lynchings. http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html

I've never understood why Christians are worried about dying - shouldn't they welcome it?

And let's not forget targeted assassinations from the skies above, now that our Predator drones are operational and equipped with Hellfire missles, and the Global Hawk Grim Reaper is about to be similarly deployed over Baghdad.

These amazing technological innovations in murder allow buildings, vehicles, or even a single individual pedestrian to be incinerated by remote control by a systems operator gazing at a real time surveillance screen, literally on the other side of the world. No declaration of war, no warning necessary. The perfect blend of up close and personal lethality, electronically filtered and operating across a great distance, so as to de-humanize the very act of killing.

And just where in the US Constitution did the drafters set forth the power to draw up a hit list, and delegate that power - the power to kill international personae non gratas - to the Executive branch of the federal government?

I can't find any such enumerated power mentioned anywhere in my pocket edition.

Bill from Saginaw

Bill from Saginaw

Killers are winner?

Dying is the loser?

Americans only like winner.

Perhaps we are looking for the simple and easy answer that is usually wrong.

The War on Poverty gave us more poor.
The War on Drugs gave us more drugs.
The War on Terrorism gave us - oh never mind.

But all this killing, murder and mayhem! Forget the dime novels, just read your bible. You can find the people to kill and how to kill them right after the commandment that says "Thou Shalt Not Kill" - go figure.

For a primer on death, read: Conversations with God: Home with God by Neale Donald Walsch. It not only discusses death in a profound and meaningful way, but the beliefs that underly many of our most dysfunctional behaviors. We are not our behaviors; we are our beliefs. What beliefs do you hold, either consciously or subconsciously, that create your experience of the world? Self-examination is one of the most revealing exercises a human can undertake to install the changes we desire in our lives.

peace,
st john

And if one does want to look further, then there is no better place than Television Commercials, especially the major Corporations. Verizon throws it our faces with the slogan, "can you hear me know?", has no moral indignation in brushing aside Santa Claus during the x-mas season to sell their wares. Comcast puts 'ordinary looking' people in their commercials to tell us that, "yes $99 dollars a month for internet, cable, and phone service?, yeah that sounds about right". The pharma industry constantly invents symptoms that they can turn into diseases, such as Acid Reflux disease, "lazy foot syndrome", and impotence (Viagra), but remember, if that erection lasts more than 4 hours, you had better see your Physician.

jerrys,

The sport hunting show was about the weapons, not the fact that hunting provides sustinance in some cases. Moose meat is good, I eat it and elk, bison, and deer too.

Siouxrose,

excellent points, I didn't want to go way overboard on wordiness, got the point accross though. I toyed with a focus on the fact that killing has truly become a fashion in this culture. The sports and rape angles are definitely in line with what I was thinking at the time I wrote it. We're a violent people

It permeates our speech, attitudes, actions and provides a clouded lens to see the world through.

Not to mention that horrid violent sounding music that is so pervasive in all sports shows and the NEWS (the greatest of all propaganda machines), that or the monotonous drumm beat songs of popular music. It's either sex or violence or both, as if there nothing else in the world to think or care about. You're not hip if you aren't part of the game, trrying to live like what you see in the tube, movies, etc..

Thanks for the feedback.

se

Simonhhh: Expect more where that foul marriage came from. With all the $ given to military pursuits, including the soft war of propaganda, there's always funding for aspiring writers and film makers who can tow the political party line. The FBI (or was it CIA?) funded writers in the l950's who espoused anti-communism themes and plot lines. Imagine if funding went to those spiritual values that would teach tolerance and unity, rather than hatred and divisiveness. And people think this is about human nature? Human nature, 90% probable sheep, go where they are led to graze, following ideological cues.

One need look no further than the latest offering from Hollywood..."The Kingdom"
Where the fine Art of Film Making meets demagoguery and propaganda...

Coincidentally, how timely???? I wonder who paid who stealth-fully, to have the screenplay written????

Engelhardt's cynical commentary hits the mark, yet it leaves out two areas vital to marketing violence: pornography and sports. Both celebrate extreme macho style maneuvers that are based on either demeaning or slaughtering the "enemy."
I can vouch for the comments about "entertainment" as an aspiring script writer. The premier "guru" in this genre is Syd Field and he states that for a script to be compelling something must grip the reader in the first 3-5 minutes ( = pages). I recall the event preferred held violent content like a rape, a bomb going off, someone being shot, etc. There once were decency standards in this nation, and while it's true the US still had its share of military "adventures" abroad, the level of discourse has fallen to that of the Roman Arena. It's seen in hate crimes, rape statistics, domestic abuse statistics, road rage, obesity (repressed anger), depression, etc. American society reminds me very much of canaries in the coal mine, shrieking their varied horrors (or when possible taught to project their pain and angst onto others, convenient targets) because the POISON atmosphere is so thick with lies and has inverted the very best of reasons for all of us to live and share in this God-given blessing called life.

The biggest fear I have is not of dying. It is of rotting away in some nursing home for 10 years, just waiting to die. The taboo against death in this country is truly ridiculous, and nowhere is it more prevalent than with the subject of Euthanasia. Elderly people should have the right to decide their fate. Instead, the system bleeds them and their families dry, taking any and all assets that they have, in exchange for an understaffed and usually poorly-managed elder-care center which strips them of their dignity, privacy, and will to live.

Life is a terminal disease. People who have lived a full, long life should be able to choose to end their life with dignity, with their loved ones close by when and if they choose. Instead, the government, drug companies, and healthcare companies make huge amounts of money keeping people alive way past the point of them wanting to be, in essence drawing out the inevitable for profit motives.

Oregon is the only state which permits euthanasia under certain circumstances, usually a life-threatening disease. I watched personally my wife's grandparents as they fought, one by one, the idea of being institutionalized due to their age and needs. I truly believe if they would have had the choice, they would have opted to end their own life with dignity rather than face two or more years of life in a nursing home wearing Depends and having to rely on someone else for their every need.

Death does not scare me - rotting away and having my assets and my family's assets bled dry is much scarier to me than death.

The problem of violence seems far more complex than media input. The soil of Europe is still soaked in the blood of centuries of violence, WW2, WW1, Napoleon, Thirty Years War, Hundred Years War, back to Roman conquests and beyond. Most continents have their brutal history of violence, torture and rape that has existed for eons, long before American media came along.

Eventually it may come down to a personal resolve, "I will fight no more, forever." But the way to that realization is a very complex and mysterious labyrinth and it may take several eons for humanity, as a whole, to find it.

moose meat is pretty tasty, salle. are you sure the little girl shot the moose just for the rack?

many americans trust their own kill much more than the antiseptic, plastic-wrapped, bonemeal-fed, hormone-injected garbage sold as meat at most grocery stores. which all, by-the-way, had to be killed before processing.

use another analogy, salle..........but the point beyond this was well taken.

I have only a single problem with this analysis of violence and killing. The author seems to be saying that this violence is a recent trend of movies and television. That simply is not true. Long before movies and TV, there was violence as entertainment. Nor am I just talking about the gladiatorial sports, jousts, boxing matches and other violence as entertainment activities. Oral storytelling and books have long made violence acceptable.
Trawling thorugh the United States' literary history for an example, how about the dime novels of the late Nineteenth Century which glorified Billy the Kid, the James gang, and other criminals as folk heroes.

If we all act like we're arch enemies when incarcerated, maybe we'll have our own cell block!

ST JOHN: If the Bush Junta continues on its course, lots of us may have time for that wonderful self-reflection phase in holding cells. One CD contributor asked for a bunk near mine. Now that's loyalty to the cause!

LUNAFISH: Thank you for the affirmation. I was taken aback by a dialog/debate on CD about a week ago where some female contributors saw porn in terms of "individual privilege and pridilection," rather than the role it plays in denigrating women, generally. Robert Jensen has done an important new book on the link between porn and violence.

REBEL NOW asserts, "The problem of violence seems far more complex than media input. The soil of Europe is still soaked in the blood of centuries of violence, WW2, WW1, Napoleon..." Yeah, bro, it's called the BIBLE. The roots of violence are fomented in that text as it allots to the human personification of the Deity attributes better associated with Mars, god of war. And once religion sanctifies violence, is it any wonder that in the name of religion all down the centuries armies are raised, and war becomes THE most profitable "export," even if dressed up in the hooplah of patriotic songs, evocative slogans and troops made elegant in their uniforms. Smoke and mirrors to disguise the dead, deformed and demoralized. Yeah. That's religion...