BEFORE GETTING YOUR MOLOTOV COCKTAILS READY, I'M ACTUALLY ASKING A QUESTION, NOT PORTRAYING A VIEW. HOPEFULLY THIS WILL MAKE GOOD DISCUSSION.I was watching Bowling for Columbine yesterday. Believe me, it is quite hard to think during commercial breaks about "what do four hot babes do in one apartment in the Gold Coast", but even so, I found the film quite enlightening, even though I had watched it a couple of years back. We all know Moore bullshits a lot, but most of what he said was true, even if it
was extremely selective. The film portrayed some rather disturbing facts. Not only was the actual Columbine shooting incredibly disturbing (a shooting in a school is quite horrendous, because that is one of the places people are meant to feel extremely safe), but why they did it was horrible too, the usual society-crushing-down on them. But whatever, the main point of this thread is this: why is America such a violent nation?
First off, we look at America's history, wonderfully put in a sort of slideshow, with "What A Wonderful World" playing in the background:
- 1953: U.S. overthrows Prime Minister Mossadegh of Iran. U.S. installs Shah as dictator.
- 1954: U.S. overthrows democratically elected President Arbenz of Guatemala. 200,000 civilians are killed.
- 1963: U.S. backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.
- 1963-1975: The Vietnam War, supported by the U.S. military, kills an est. 4 million people in Southeast Asia.
- September 11, 1973: U.S. stages a military coup in Chile. Democratically elected president Salvador Allende assassinated. Dictator General Augusto Pinochet installed. 3,000 Chileans murdered.
- 1977: U.S. backs military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans and four American nuns were killed.
- 1980s: U.S. trains Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets. CIA gives them $3 billion.
- 1981: Reagan administration trains and funds Contras. 30,000 Nicaraguans die.
- 1982: U.S. provides billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians.
- 1983: The White House secretly gives Iran weapons to kill Iraqis.
- 1989: CIA agent Manuel Noriega (also serving as de facto military leader of Panama) disobeys orders from Washington. U.S. invades Panama and removes Noriega. 3000 Panamanian civilian casualties.
- 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from U.S.
- 1991: U.S. enters Iraq. Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait.
- 1998: Clinton bombs “weapons factory” in Sudan. Factory turns out to be making aspirin.
- 1991-date of the film: American planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis. U.N. estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions.
- 2000-2001: U.S. gives Taliban-ruled Afghanistan $245 million in "aid."
- The final instance in the montage depicts the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, with a title card adding that Osama bin Laden uses his expert CIA training to murder 3000 people.
So here we find out that America has a history of using violence as an answer. In the movie, some random Canadian kid's even speak on this, saying the US basically goes "go by us or die". Also, the whole killing Native American's and Africans adds to this violent history. Many people blame the culture of violence on this history, however, the Brits, Germans, Japanese and even Australian's have a history of violence, yet their gun murders are significantly lower (even taking to account the population differences).
Another theory is gun possession, in which the US excels in, due to the 2nd Amendment. Canada has an even LARGER gun possession rate, yet it's homocide rate is incredibly lower.
One other theory is the media. No doubt the media has a lot of influence of kid's, such as movie's, music ("let's shoot Marilyn Manson!") and video game's. But EVERY country has video gamers, EVERY country has people watching violent movie's, and if Home Star Runner is to teach us anything, EVERY country, especially Scandinavia, listens to death metal-ish music!
The last theory is, according to Charlton Heston, mixed ethnicity, but who listen's to him anyways.
Remember, the thing's mentioned above are NOT the be all end all, they are just idea's and theories. Be free to prove me and ol' Mikey wrong; in fact, if you can, do so! It will result in good discussion.
