Written by Jaron Pearlman   

One pertinent observation of societal behavior is that laws alone do not determine the quality of civilized life. The conditions of any said society determine the actions of individuals, not legislations that apply a failing dogma to any one person’s choices. From elicit substance use, to larceny, to violent crime, the only real factor that motivates these acts in a nations citizenry is the setting in which they occur.

The United States has a violence problem. Likely it is one of the most egregious and calloused in the modern world. While it has been manifest in many obvious ways it has only been addressed in the most narrow and selective of senses.

The persistent plague of civilian mass shootings that have befallen the USA recently have inspired a national debate on the role of guns, the second amendment, and the latent violence that burns underneath the thin rhetoric of our ‘land of the free’.
In light of the growing coverage of these events President Barack Obama has come forth to the people alleging a growing ’numbness’ to violence that we as Americans all share in regards to the murders of our fellow citizens.
His words outline an issue that is directed at the apathy of Americans toward the persisting problem of lone shooters. Yet his sweet, seemingly pointed statements fall very much short of addressing the dirty roots of American violence, callousness, and numbness.

The mentality that breeds violence domestically is no different than that which breeds violence overseas. Imperialistic aims halfway across the world inadvertently arm and train domestic police to treat the American citizenry as potential enemies. Xenophobic propaganda that desensitizes Americans to humanity in the Middle East makes it far more likely for human life to be taken for granted here in the States. There is no separating the micro from the macro if we are to truly address this ‘numbness’ our President speaks of.

One of the most glaring and current examples of this may likely be the devastating drone program that has been implemented since the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.
Signed into law by George W Bush, and used frequently by the Obama administration, AUMF is the Authorization for Use of Military Force. It grants executive power to the President to authorize (by recommendation of the Pentagon and Intel Agencies) lethal force wherever necessary to “combat evils set against the USA”.

This legislation bypasses Congressional oversight of what countries America effectively goes to war with and thus eliminates any sort of representative oversight from average Americans.

One of the more popular applications of this legislation is the use of unmanned military drones. Publicly these drones are operational in Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, and likely are also present in or near Iran, Mali, Nigeria, and elsewhere. While their stated purpose is to eliminate the figureheads of extremist insurgencies with ‘surgical precision’, the harsh reality is these strikes are inflammatory, with a reported success rate of 2% and massive civilian casualties.

In Afghanistan for example, a five-year campaign targeting 41 terrorists killed 1,147 people in total; a heinous show of collateral damage. This number includes women and children.
The undeniable fallout of these actions is the ironic strengthening of terror cells and recruits, who seek to avenge relatives or homes lost in unreliable, unwarranted missile strikes from American drones.

The racial and ethnic profiling used for said drone targets has its very own devastating hypocrisy. Take for example 14-year-old Ahmed Mohammad, a Muslim American who was arrested in his own school for building a home made clock that ‘looked like a bomb’.
While he was exonerated of his charges, and even invited to the White House by Barack Obama (who shamed those that had profiled Ahmed), the exact same racial, religious, and ethnic criteria that was used against the 14-year-old American boy is also used to determine lethal missile strikes around the globe.
Apparently ‘numbness’ to profiling and the resulting violence is only applicable to American citizens, if even that.

Consider also on the foreign front the American penchant for arming, training, and helping recruit insurgents for US aims. From the Nicaraguan Contras, to the Afghani Mujahedeen, to the Basmachi of the Caspian Sea, to the Ukrainian right-wingers of Svoboda and the Azov Battalion, to latent military cells across Europe belonging to the infamous Operation Gladio, the United States has a long history of arming very volatile and dangerous militias. Even the recent arming of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) under Mr. Obama has had tremendous implications, resulting in a boon for related organizations including Al-Nusra, Al Qaeda, and of course ISIS/Daesh.

In the fervor to remove the thorn of Bashar Assad and the Alawites from the West’s side, the act of aiding shady militias like FSA has aided and abetted groups that wish destruction on the USA. They also are just as (if not more) brutal than Assad to the populaces of Iraq and Syria. The falsely advertised ‘freedom’ these groups were fighting for is little more than an excuse to arm terrorists in order to take out critics of US hegemony.
There is very little to no American examination of the resulting violence brought on by these actions, certainly none from our Commander in Chief.

The American web of violence is even more convoluted than this though. Take for example our Allies in the Middle East, namely Saudi Arabia. A monarchic nation with a human rights record that would make Joseph Stalin proud, Saudi Arabia executes over 100 people a year (the exact figure isn’t released to the public) by method of beheading, stoning, shooting, and inhumane incarceration. Hundreds more lose limbs, hands, and feet in the wake of the Saudis’ Sharia based judicial process. While the citizens are oppressed and denied rights considered sacred to Americans, the House of Saud and its royalty hoard oil revenue and participate in hedonism paralleled only by the most depraved of the global upper class. While sex, drugs, drinking, larceny, and religious/philosophical freedom are restricted to the populace, the House of Saud runs rampant in all of these indulgences.
But the ugly face of Al Saud doesn’t deter US officials from accepting political donations, bending to the will of Saudi oil prices (which determine global value), OR arming the Saudi monarchs themselves.
The American military hardware sold to the Saudis has a duel purpose. One is to maintain supremacy of the House of Saud over its subjects, the millions of disenfranchised and oppressed Saudi peoples. From East Asian migrants, to Shia Muslims, to impoverished Sunnis, the House of Saud is a constant target of its own civilians. Those also included in the yoke of Saudi control are the civilians of other Sharia monarchies, such as Quatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Yemen (who is currently under Saudi attack with American hardware for the Shia Houthi uprising).
The other purpose is for the Saudis to arm insurgencies of their own choice. Much like the US, the Saudis use needy militias to accomplish their own goals from afar- ensuring that even IF the USA doesn’t arm terrorists itself the job gets done by our Allies, the House of Saud.
As a means of deterring solidarity amongst its people against the royalty, Al Saud also heavily subsidizes fundamentalist Islamic organizations domestically and otherwise. Many of these have intense anti-western sentiments so as to deflect hostility from the House of Saud.

None of these examples even breach the escalation of violence from formal wars America has been involved in. Many of the formal military engagements in US history have had curious motives and events.

Consider the sinking of the USS Maine prior to the Spanish-American war, which yielded US control over Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba.
Consider the Bay of Pigs and Operation Northwoods, failed CIA initiatives to incite American support for a war with independent Cuba.
Consider the Gulf of Tonkin incident, wherein ‘phantom ships’ from Vietnam opened fire on US frigates spurring heightened involvement in the Vietnam War.
Consider the WMDs that were never found in Iraq, while chemical weapons that WERE found had been US manufactured for use in the Iraq/Iran war.
Consider the intentional targeting of civilian populaces with nuclear arms in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Consider the Allied bombing of Dresden in World War Two, where the masses of prisoners, civilians, and historical landmarks were the true victims of the strikes; which yielded very little strategically given Germany’s surrender a mere three months later.
Consider the slant drilling that brought Iraq’s wrath upon Kuwait, a small nation that could only have obtained slant drills from large western companies.

The list could go on. Sadly it becomes increasingly clear that the foreign policy of the United States serves only US dominance, and that dominance is handed over directly to buyers (essentially shareholders) of the corporation that is the US.


There isn’t a peep regarding American ‘numbness’ to any of this. There is no real discussion from our leaders about the inherent violent nature of America’s modus operandi. The only actions routinely under scrutiny are those of America’s own people.

Those points being said let us examine the ‘numbness’ to violence here in our own country. Due to the behemoth of the US military industrial complex, there is always a demand for the sale of newer, more effective armaments. The old hardware used in foreign aims are reissued to domestic police, federal task forces, and private sector security companies. This fosters the expectation of using these implements, motivating said officers to adopt a mindset that they are always in a potential warzone rather than a neighborhood, highway, or city in Anywhere, USA.

Ex-military personnel who have the potential to exacerbate this mindset often administer training for these weapons.

What makes this chaos cocktail complete is the sad reality of drug prohibition, which is used frequently for justification of constitutional breaches, the prison industrial complex, which exploits prison labor, free trade, which strips inner cities of their job prospects, and the ever expanding class margin we see in the US.

It is quite clear that those who are receiving military surplus are expected to be a barrier between the impoverished masses and the elite, just like in Saudi Arabia.

Already this situation is innately violent. The implication of these acts by our own government is violent against us as citizens. As proof, the United States boasts a kill count of over a thousand a year by police, dwarfing even Russia and China’s figures. This doesn’t even begin to take into account the intense racism/classism that plays into those who are incarcerated, killed, and excluded from society by judicial charge.

The literal thousands of deaths by US government officers is not only shrugged off, it’s totally ignored. While Obama may utter a slight disapproval of police brutality, elements of his stimulus plan (like Reagan’s) appoints MORE federal task forces, MORE special departments in police precincts, and MORE federally subsidized prisons and staff.

Just as poignant is the plight of whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden who expose US violence/surveillance in the extreme and are incarcerated or exiled for it. There is nothing but numbness and threats from the American government for such altruistic acts.

Violence isn’t always so visceral either. Violence can be hidden more subtly. Free trade for example has been hideously violent to the people of the US. The thoughtless export of manufacturing for instance left hundreds of thousands of Americans without work and in desperation. The result is easy to see in places like Baltimore, Detroit, or St. Louis/Ferguson. The current pact being promoted from the White House, the Trans-Pacific Partnership has tremendously devastating potential.
Subprime loans (as a result of unregulated banking) have also been terribly violent, offering homes to those who cant possibly keep them and rendering them homeless upon foreclosure. The concern for private property isn’t measured for those who lost their homes, but is levied quickly when a CVS Pharmacy branch is burned.
There is little to no government insurance coverage for mental or emotional care, which is a dangerous combination for families when so many parents can be put behind bars or stomped into debt for a plethora of questionable reasons.
Drugs and addiction are treated as a crime rather than a societal problem, which also breaks families, limits reintegration with society, and degrades mental health.
Prescription drugs are overused, including psychotropics, opiates, barbituates, and amphetamines. The profit incentive to issue these drugs to everyone, from veterans to schoolchildren, is deeply inhibitive to proper growth and healing making violent acts more likely to occur. Grant money is even issued to schools to diagnose kids with ADHD and prescribe amphetamines such as Ritalin.
Social funds like Social Security are 'borrowed' from by the Federal Government and abused into debt without consent of the public, effectively indebting countless future generations of Americans; and ensuring that potentially beneficial socialist programs are inevitably betrayed.

Media can also be very violent and numbing, such as the movie ‘American Sniper’ which depicted the Navy’s most lethal Sniper, Chris Kyle, as a hero for his service in Fallujah, where the US used white phosphorus on the populace (including women and children). Use of this hellish chemical weapon had/has been deemed an international war crime.
It is also incredibly violent when a police violence casualty such as black youth Mike Brown has his character attacked and questioned even in death, with references to stolen cigars, school suspension, or general adolescent angst. Meanwhile, lone white shooters are generally portrayed as a ‘a good boy that no one expected this from’ or just ‘depressed’.

Let us also take into account the historical setting of the nation in which we live and the intentional whitewashing of our own peoples education. Very few are educated about the Tulsa Massacre of 1921, wherein white supremacists and the National Guard, using everything from lynching mobs to airplanes, deployed nitroglycerin to slaughter an affluent African community. Nor are we taught of the police bombing of Osage Avenue in Philadelphia in 1985, which destroyed an entire neighborhood with massive collateral damage. We are not made savvy to the bacterial testing that took place in Virginia and San Francisco via the US Navy in 1950, which exposed 800,000+ to potentially virulent pathogens.
We are hardly exposed at all to the injustices suffered by America’s own Native peoples who still are being pushed to the periphery of their own lands and psyches by land grabs such as Enbridge pipeline projects. Examples include Line 3, The Alberta Clipper, Line 61, Flanagan South, and the Seaway Twin. Even in Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL, his administration has been quietly giving the green light to invasive oil companies since 2010. This isn’t even inclusive of the spike in domestic fracking, which poisons drinking water, creates geological instability, and is what we all have to thank for our precious low gas prices. Natives are also (still) extremely subject to authoritative brutality, with many murders and assaults going relatively unnoticed and unreported.
We are kept from the true horrors of American slavery and the origin of the capital that has fueled global capitalism, the abject servitude and abuse exercised on Africans, the disenfranchised, and the lower class.
We aren’t told of the divisive nature of class warfare illustrated in Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, where indentured servants both Black and White rose up against mutual oppressors. When the Rebellion was put down, African slavery was instituted in order to prevent interracial solidarity against British elite. Make no mistake; this practice is still in use.

We aren’t shown how slavery gave way to the practice of accumulating criminal wards of the state, wardship to Jim Crow, and Jim Crow to the ‘drug’ war, which by no coincidence came into existence right after Civil Rights in the 1960s.
We aren’t taught to see the complete hypocrisy of caring for unborn fetuses while itching to send our teenagers and young adults off to war to die for veiled reasons.
We aren’t encouraged to extend empathy to immigrants who are detained in inhumane conditions on the Mexican border, and rather than problem solving we shun them. Could it be that the perpetual poverty and violence in Central/South America that so many flee from also has something to do with American domestic/foreign policy?

All of these factors must be thought about when addressing the problem of lone shooters in America. I intentionally have not brought up gun control, because that is only the tip of the iceberg in preventing domestic discord. Consider heroin, fully automatic weapons, or marijuana. All of these illegal products still make their way into the States regardless of legislation. Even a gun free nation like Japan is unable to keep firearms out of the hands of their infamous Yakuza.
Much American violence is perpetrated with illegally obtained arms, possibly even the vast majority. This is particularly true for gang related shootings, which are spurred on by police occupation of inner cities, elicit trafficking of drugs through government agencies/affiliates, and the destruction of family units through incarceration. There is no better way to dismantle the violence here at home than addressing the full picture.

For the purchase and use of civilian firearms there are simple steps we can take to ensure safety. Smart guns will only fire with their owner’s fingerprints or RFID chips. Measures used for car ownership can also be applicable, a written test, a practical test, health (mental and physical) requirements, liability insurance, and renewals/inspections for legal ownership.
Many mass shootings have actually been prevented by having armed personnel present in schools and public forums, such as in Pearl High in Mississippi, Parker Middle in Pennsylvania, Appalachian School of Law in Virginia, The New Life Church in Colorado, Trolley Square in Utah, Golden Market in Virginia, New York Mills AT&T, Clackamas Town Center in Oregon, or San Antonio Theatre in Texas.

For me personally, I would wish that guns had never been invented at all, yet sadly this is not the reality we live in.

In order to establish true health, true healing, and true progress toward ending violence in America we must take the issue of violence head on with all its ugly hydras. The tragic shootings we see across the US are but a symptom of a much larger issue that if accurately addressed could be a blessing to the entire world, and to us here at home.

No Mr. President, we are not numb. Not all of us.