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Charlton Heston Dies

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Reno:
Where the majority of people are farmers and/or too poor to complain. Like the governments in India or China give a rat's ass. The only thing their governments care about is staying in control. I can just imagine what would happen if a woman in china got raped. Hell, she'd be lucky to have made it out of childhood with parents killing newborn daughters in the hopes of having a son. To a poor family in the east a daughter is just another mouth to feed. And your telling me their country would be worse if everyone could own a gun? Everyone that could afford one already has one.

I would have to say Japan is the exception to the rule. There is most definitely crime in japan, but thanks to their culture they can keep their crime in check. 

Just out of curiosity do you think I own a gun?

People are always trying to change things to make the world a better place. There isn't a single answer thats going to make the world a nonviolent sandbox for all us would be kids to play in. The world is ugly and dangerous. If I have the right to end someone with ill intent who is coming into my home filled with my loved ones I wouldn't be protecting them if I didn't voice my opposition to that rights removal.

mistybear:

--- Quote from: Reno on April 16, 2008, 08:08 --- Whats with the bs about the 2nd amendment. I don't see the relevance in complaining about the nature of a right that others have in a different country. For whatever it matters, RIP.

--- End quote ---

Personally I don't care about America's archaic 2nd Amendment "Right to Bear Arms", if you want to kill each other.......
But I do have an issue with America's violent culture which impacts on the entire planet. A culture that is spread around the world by media that feeds off war mongering racist governments, to incite hatred and more violence.

An excerpt of "Violence is the American Way"


--- Quote ---American historians have avidly studied war, especially the Civil War and World War II, but their focus has almost always been on war causation, battles, generalship, battlefield tactics and strategy, and so on. Overlooked, for the most part, are the general and specific effects of war upon American cultural life; the possible connections between war and civilian violence is still largely unexplored territory. Has war directly or indirectly encouraged an American predisposition toward aggressiveness and the use of violence or was it the reverse?

This question has never been satisfactorily investigated by American historians or other scholars. Yet, the overwhelming majority of historians have always known that America was -- and is -- a violent country. But they have said very little about it, depriving the population of a realistic understanding about this important aspect of their national culture. This omission is most clearly observable in U.S. history textbooks used in high schools, colleges and universities, on the one hand, and popular histories derived from these texts, on the other, which have never devoted serious attention to the topic of the violence in America, let alone sought to explain it.

Consequently, there seems little genuine understanding about the centrality of violence in American life and history.

The overwhelming majority of American historians have not studied, written about, or discussed America's "high violence" environment, not because of a lack of hard information or knowledge about the frequent and widespread use of violence, but because of an unwillingness to confront the reality that violence and American culture are inextricably intertwined.

Many prominent historians recognized this years ago.

In the introduction to his 1970 collection of primary documents, "American Violence: A Documentary History," two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Hofstadter wrote: "What is impressive to one who begins to learn about American violence is its extraordinary frequency, its sheer commonplaceness in our history, its persistence into very recent and contemporary times, and its rather abrupt contrast with our pretensions to singular national virtue." Indeed, Hofstadter wrote the "legacy" of the violent 1960s would be a commitment by historians systematically to study American violence.But most American historians have studiously avoided the topic or somehow clouded the issue. In 1993, in his magisterial study, "The History of Crime and Punishment in America," for example, Stanford University Historian Lawrence Friedman devoted a chapter to the many forms of American violence. Then, in a very revealing chapter conclusion, Friedman wrote: "American violence must come from somewhere deep in the American personality ... [it] cannot be accidental; nor can it be genetic. The specific facts of American life made it what it is ... crime has been perhaps a part of the price of liberty ... [but] American violence is still a historical puzzle." Precisely what is it that historians are unwilling to discuss? Basically, there are three forms of American violence: mob violence, interpersonal violence, and war.

What is the extent of mob violence?

Indiana University Historian Paul Gilje, in his 1997 book, "Rioting in America," stated there were at least 4,000 riots between the early 1600s and 1992. Gilje asserted that "without an understanding of the impact of rioting we cannot fully comprehend the history of the American people."

This is a position that director Martin Scorsese just made his own in the film, "Gangs of New York," which focuses on the July 1863 Draft Act Riots in New York City as the historical pivot around which America's urban experience revolved. However, occasional gory movie depictions of violent riots, or Civil War battles, as in "Gods and Generals," provide little real understanding of a nation's history.

M.I.T. Historian Robert Fogelson, in his 1971 book, "Violence as Protest: a Study of Riots and Ghettos," concluded that "for three and a half centuries Americans have resorted to violence in order to reach goals otherwise unattainable ... indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the native white majority has rioted in some way and at some time against every minority group in America and yet Americans regard rioting not only as illegitimate but, even more significant, as aberrant."

Part of the fascination with group violence is the spectacle of mob rampages. But for historians there is more; group violence is viewed as a "response" to changing economic, political, social, cultural, demographic or religious conditions. Thus, however violent the episodes were, historians could see larger "reasons" for these group behaviors; somehow, these actions reflected a "cause."

(This might be likened to the way many American historians still view the southern secession movement and Civil War. Seeking to maintain their institution of human slavery, southerners started the bloodiest war in American history which almost destroyed the union. But because they claimed to be fighting for their "freedom," historians have treated their action as a legitimate cause, whereas in other nations such action is ordinarily viewed as treason).

Now, to the nitty-gritty: How many victims did riots and collective violence claim over the 400-year American historical experience?

This can never accurately be known, considering it includes official and unofficial violence against Native American Indians, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Asians and untold riots, vigilante actions and lynchings, among other things.

But a conservative guesstimate of, perhaps, about 2,000,000 deaths and serious injuries between 1607 and 2001 (or about 5,063 each and every year for 395 years) seems a reasonable -- and quite conservative -- number for analytical purposes, until more precise statistics are available.

At least 753,000 Native American Indians were the intended victims of warfare and genocide between 1622 and 1900 in what is now the United States of America, according to one scholar. The number for African-Americans might equal or exceed the estimate for the Indians, 750,000.

The total number of deaths for all other forms of collective violence seems well under 20,000. The greatest American riot, the New York City Draft Act riots of July 1863, resulted in between 105 and 150 deaths, while the major 1960s riots (Watts, Los Angeles, Newark, N.J., and Detroit, Mich., accounted for a total of 103 deaths, and the 1992 Los Angeles riot claimed 60 lives. The estimate of deaths from the 326 vigilante episodes is between 750 and 1,000. Approximately 5,000 individuals were known to have been lynched between 1882 and 1968, and about 2,000 more killed in labor-management violence.

--- End quote ---

mistybear:

--- Quote ---Horrendous as this sounds -- and it is horrendous -- this 2,000,000 figure pales when compared to the major form of American violence which historians have routinely ignored until very recently. Historians of violence have largely ignored individual interpersonal violence, which, in sharp contrast to group violence, is very frequent, sometimes very personal -- and far deadlier than group violence.

In 1997, two distinguished legal scholars, Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins, compared crime rates in the G-7 countries (Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States) between the 1960s and 1990s in their book, "Crime Is Not The Problem: Lethal Violence In America Is." Bluntly, they stated their conclusion: "What is striking about the quantity of lethal violence in the United States is that it is a third-world phenomenon occurring in a first-world nation."Instances of personal violence include but are not limited to barroom brawls, quarrels between acquaintances, business associates, lovers or sexual rivals, family members, or during the commission of a robbery, mugging, or other crime.

How does the carnage in this category contrast with the 2,000,000 victims of group violence between 1607 and 2001?

During the 20th century alone, well over 10 million Americans were victims of violent crimes -- and 10 percent of them -- or 1,089,616 -- were murdered between 1900 and 1997. The "total" number of "officially reported" homicides, aggravated assaults, robberies and rapes between 1937 and 1970 was 9,816,646, but these were undercounts!

Every year during the 20th century at least 10 percent of the crimes committed have been violent crimes -- homicides, aggravated assaults, forcible rapes and robberies. Between 1900 and 1997, there were 1,089,616 homicides. How were they murdered? 375,350 by firearms and the rest were due to other means, including beating, strangling, stabbing and cutting, drowning, poisoning, burning and axing.

Between 1900 and 1971, 596,984 Americans were murdered. Between 1971 and 1997, there were another 592,616 killed in similar ways.

More Americans were killed by other Americans during the 20th century than died in the Spanish-American war (11,000 "deaths in service"), World War I (116,000 "deaths in service"), World War II (406,000 "deaths in service"), the Korean police action (55,000 "deaths in service"), and the Vietnam War (109,000 "deaths in service") combined. ("Deaths in Service" statistics are greater than combat deaths and were used here to make the contrast between war and civilian interpersonal violence rates even clearer.)

So, what accounts for the American ability to overlook collective violence, interpersonal violence, and war?

The explanation lies, first, with historians' abdication of responsibility systematically to deal with the issue of violence in America ... and, second, with the American population's refusal directly to confront any very ugly reality -- which came first I do not know. This is what historians refer to as " mutual causation."

There are, of course, several factors that have enabled Americans to overlook their violent past. Many of these were actually defined by Richard Hofstadter in his 1970 introduction to "American Violence: A Documentary History." First, Americans have been told by historians that they are a "latter-day chosen people" with a providential exemption from the woes that plagued all other human societies. Historians of the 1950s had not denied that America's past was replete with violence; they just preferred during the Cold War to emphasize a more positive vision of America. Historians refer to this as the "myth of innocence" or the "myth of the new world Eden."

In an open, free, democratic society, graced with an abundance of natural resources, and without the residue of repressive European institutions, virtually any white person who worked hard had the opportunity to achieve the "American Dream" of material success and respectability.

Violence, especially political violence when it erupted, was dismissed out of hand as somehow "un-American," an unfortunate by-product of temporary racial, ethnic, religious and industrial conflicts.

Second, American violence had not been a major issue for federal, state or local officials because it was rarely directed against them; it was rarely revolutionary violence. Rather, American violence has almost always been citizen-against-citizen, white against black, white against Indian, Protestant against Catholic or Mormon, Catholic against Protestant, white against Asian or Hispanic.

The lack of a violent revolutionary tradition in America is the principal reason why Americans have never been disarmed, while in every European nation the reverse is true.

So, for the most part, Americans, laymen and historians alike, have been able to practice what some historians have termed "selective" recollection or "historical amnesia" about the violence in their past and present. Since the 1960s, historians' works, cumulatively, have demonstrated a causal connection between American culture and the American predisposition to use violence. We might now be experiencing yet another by-product of this national penchant for violence -- a willingness to engage in a major war without asking very many hard questions. It's the American Way.

Ira M. Leonard has been a professor of history at Southern Connecticut State University for over 30 years. This article is adapted from a speech presented to the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences in January 2003.
--- End quote ---

http://www.alternet.org/story/15665?page=1

Reno:
If America were truly as violent and as war mongering as you like to think it is we would have taken over europe and most of asia after WWII. What makes up the majority of nato? Who keeps the new little dictators in check. There was a time in which America used isolation politics. What did it get the world?


--- Quote ---How does the carnage in this category contrast with the 2,000,000 victims of group violence between 1607 and 2001?
--- End quote ---

Your going to use exploits from the time of European exploration of the Americas as proof that American's are violent. That's like me using Bloody Mary and the burning of protestants as a solid example of today's english culture. Please give me a f***ing break.


--- Quote ---During the 20th century alone, well over 10 million Americans were victims of violent crimes -- and 10 percent of them -- or 1,089,616 -- were murdered between 1900 and 1997. The "total" number of "officially reported" homicides, aggravated assaults, robberies and rapes between 1937 and 1970 was 9,816,646, but these were undercounts!
--- End quote ---

There were 296,410,400 people living in the united states in 2005. Based on that number out of all the people who were victims of a violent crime during the 20th century, 10 million is a little over 3% of the entire population. If that number of how many people were victims of a violent crime over the entire century is accurate that's still extremely good.

That means during a century 3 out of a 100 people were victims of a violent crime. Thats using the conservative population estimate. Since there was a larger sum of people alive during the 20th century that percentage would fall.

mistybear:

--- Quote from: Reno on April 17, 2008, 07:08 ---If America were truly as violent and as war mongering as you like to think it is we would have taken over europe and most of asia after WWII. What makes up the majority of nato? Who keeps the new little dictators in check. There was a time in which America used isolation politics. What did it get the world?

--- End quote ---

General Patton wanted to attack Russia. General MacArthur wanted to use nuclear weapons in the Korean war. Better to install military bases around the world, missile defence systems, satellites systems. But even better is the use of the world bank, IMF and corporate America to financially control countries, whilst stripping them of their resources.
I'm sure America takes as much notice of NATO, as it does the UN Security Council.
And what government agencies provide assistance to dictators when they're useful, then have them overthrown.
"Political Isolation" we can only dream.


--- Quote from: Reno on April 17, 2008, 07:08 ---Your going to use exploits from the time of European exploration of the Americas as proof that American's are violent. That's like me using Bloody Mary and the burning of protestants as a solid example of today's english culture. Please give me a f***ing break.

--- End quote ---

"Exploits" and "Exploration" Don't you mean genocide, and theft.

And if you read the article, it was a comparison of different types of violence covering 400 years, including all wars.

 
--- Quote from: Reno on April 17, 2008, 07:08 ---There were 296,410,400 people living in the united states in 2005. Based on that number out of all the people who were victims of a violent crime during the 20th century, 10 million is a little over 3% of the entire population. If that number of how many people were victims of a violent crime over the entire century is accurate that's still extremely good.

That means during a century 3 out of a 100 people were victims of a violent crime. Thats using the conservative population estimate. Since there was a larger sum of people alive during the 20th century that percentage would fall.

--- End quote ---

America's population at 1900 was 76 million increasing to 273 million in 1999.

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