The Antisocial Socialist

Last week's conservative mantra: Unionized teachers are the enemy.

This week's conservative mantra: Arm the teachers!

As someone on FB pointed out, that would certainly make negotiations more intense.

1. The shooter is probably mentally ill, so the attack is probably not politically motivated.

This, to me, is a disturbing statement, both because of its ableism and because of its denial of agency. I have clinical depression but I am also politically left-wing. Glenn Beck is bipolar and is a fascist. Many suicide bombers are mentally ill, and yet this can be conveniently forgotten if the perpetrator is brown. (Only white people are mentally ill, right?)

Most paranoid schizophrenics manage not to kill people. No paranoid schizophrenic, unless he or she is living in the wilderness, is entirely isolated from social, cultural, and political context.

2. The shooter may not be a card-carrying member of any political party or movement, so the attack is not political.

It's a very American idea, really, that one has to be registered as a voting member of a political party to be considered political. I'm a socialist, but this can mean all sorts of things. I'm not a member of any political party (the only political card I hold is an IWW red card, and I can hardly be considered an active member these days), but I still somehow manage to hold political opinions.

I was at a G20 rally yesterday. It was an interesting mix of people, including some folks I can only assume were undercover cops. There were very few familiar faces and a staggering variety of political opinions, many of which I don't hold. I'm not a pro-pot activist*, a Trotskyist, a member of the NDP, an anarchist, or a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, but all of those people were there, strange bedfellows for a sort of nebulous cause, and grouped, however uncomfortably, under the broad political designation of "left."

The right, in North America, is nearly as diverse and just as full of internal contradiction, if a little better organized. One cannot simply assume that an individual is not politically right-wing because they don't vote Republican, or because they smoke pot. We can consider anti-government militia types and people who think that the government should have staggeringly more power as broadly right-wing, just as we can consider anarchists and Stalinists as broadly left-wing.


3. The guns at political events issue.

Funnily enough, I was just remarking the other day that I don't understand why there's not a huge movement of gun owners in favour of gun control. Granted, the gun enthusiasts I know may not be typical (hardcore types who want to be prepared come the revolution, sport shooters, and hunters), but beyond the revolutionary argument for gun ownership and perhaps financial considerations, I really can't imagine a logical argument against licensing and regulation. It seems like this could be an area of common ground between the right and the left, but American right-wingers really do seem to think there should be no restrictions on weapons whatsoever.

When I hear about people openly carrying guns to town hall events, it makes me wonder why there aren't more assassination attempts, or at least accidents. Honestly, Americans, you don't get how weird that looks to the rest of the world.

4. Both sides have extremes.

This is wishy-washy liberalism at its worst. The American left is flaccid, passive, and fairly right-wing by global standards. Some people on the American right use Mexican migrants as target practice, others call for torture and assassination, and some openly admit that they can't wait for the apocalypse. There's no balance here, folks. Also, calling someone a "teabagger" is not the same as calling someone an "illegal," or worse.

5. Words have power/words don't have power.

When Ward Churchill wrote "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" in 2001, the right (and large swaths of the left) went after him. Only the far-left granted him any sort of "right to free speech"; to the rest of North American political society, there was little distinction between a perceived justification of terrorist acts and actually committing terrorist acts. The right now seems to think that death threats are protected speech, so long as they're directed against the centre or left, and cannot be linked to actual acts of violence.

Just as asinine, of course, is the argument that political rhetoric alone will create a new Rwanda in the U.S., but I've seen much less of that argument on the intertubes.

6. The Nazis were left-wing.

What? I keep seeing this everywhere. What are they teaching in these schools?

7. You shouldn't politicize tragedy.

Really? No, really? Why the hell not?

* I think pot should be legal, don't get me wrong. I'm just incredibly apathetic about it.

As previously mentioned, UofT plans to close the 88-year-old shooting range in the basement of Hart House. Someone from the gun club was kind enough to show me and S. around yesterday and teach us how to shoot pistols.

Anyway, it was terrific fun. I once fired off .22 rifles at camp when I was a kid, but I've never so much as held a pistol before, let alone shot one (or three). If for no other reason than accurately depicting firearms in my writing, I've always thought that it was a good thing to know how to do.

The Hart House range is particularly cool for a few reasons. They keep guns there—locked up, of course—which means that you can be a club member and not actually own a gun. They also have instructors on-site, so you don't need a license to shoot, which makes it quite good for beginners and cash-strapped students.

( Wanna see how I did? )

I suppose the most interesting thing was how cathartic it was. Not in the "I'm blowing off steam and envisioning the faces of my enemies" sort of way, but in a "nothing exists except for the sights and the target" way. It was surprisingly meditative.

Anyway, it will be a pity if they do close it. As far as I can tell, the university thinks that it "looks bad." But the university seems to have no problem getting funding from the military. Which kind of makes you wonder.

P.S. Sorry folks, they don't allow photography in the range. So no pictures of me shooting things.

P.P.S. The basement of Hart House is a bit scary. They have giant cockroaches. I didn't know cockroaches got that big in Canada. The one we saw was so big that at first I thought it was a mouse.

I'm finally going to UofT, and this is the year that they decide to close the rifle range?

Now where am I going to film the Ladies Night at the Gun Club movie?

(Hat tip to sonjaaa.)

Via 99catsaway, a disturbing article about gun culture in the U.S. Like 99catsaway, I'm no hardcore anti-gun activist. I like target shooting, and I've been trying for years—with no success—to find a TTC-accessible shooting range. I'm wary of a state that has a monopoly on the use of deadly force.

This said, I find American gun culture sickening. I've encountered a lot of people who boast about their willingness to kill in order to defend property, and this is inexcusable. But even worse is the problem that Joan Burbick raises in her article; the gun lobby's eagerness to defend the "right" of potential domestic abusers to bear arms.

Today's Ted Nugent Quote of the Day is long, and it's the worst one I found in the book. I hinted earlier that at the root of his gun-mania is not a desire to hunt for his own food but a longing that he may one day find himself in a position where he can fatally shoot another human being—and get away with it. (Without having to enlist. After all, he's no "sheep." He's an extreme non-conformist!) Without further ado (my comments in bold):

Traffic in the big city mall was light and easy going. Shoppers strolled here and there with armfuls of bags and packages. Kids darted hither and yon, in and out of the video arcade and toy store. Mothers pushed baby buggies laden with stuff they didn't need.

Yay capitalism!

The lunch crowd came and went all around me in the small cafeteria. I leisurely sipped foamy double mocha cappuccino

Is Ted some sort of yuppie ho-mo-sexual or something?

and awaited the return of my spouse, fearful she may have purchased unnecessary debris.

New at Potterybarn: Rubble from a carpet-bombed apartment in Beirut! Get 'em while they're hot!

Maybe?! I hate shopping. I hate malls. I hate waiting.

Maybe you should shoot someone. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

But I grinned through it all, relaxed, just glad to be anywhere with the family that I love.

Except that they ditched you to go buy shit.

Life is grand after all.

( Sliced and diced like a dead deer! )

College Republicans at the University of Michigan really know how to have a good time. They've been planning events including "Fun with Guns Day" and "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day.*"

"Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day" would involve volunteers posing as illegal immigrants and hiding on campus while students try to find them for prizes. For the "Fun with Guns" activity, students would shoot cardboard cutouts of Democratic leaders with BB or paintball guns.

Okay, okay, the last bit does sound a bit fun.
(Hat tip: wlach.)

Unfortunately, it looks like these events won't go ahead as planned. But maybe they can take heart in knowing that some students still like to kick it Columbine-style. (Or should I say College Republican-style?)

* Speaking of catching illegal immigrants, the Minutemen just keep getting better and better.