http://www.documentarychannel.com/movie.php?currID=10127 <http://www.documentarychannel.com/movie.php?currID=10127&t=Terror-Island> &t=Terror-Island Hi. I recently found the Documentary Channel on Dish TV (ch. 199) and idly
turned it on yesterday, when 'Terror Island' was just starting. The sub line was 'A Horrific Act on July 22nd, 2011.' It's the story of the slaughter by a neo-nazi of over 100 youngsters on Norway's Utaya Island. They were members of the AUF, a large national, progressive organization, there for a summer camp week of fun, socialization and political discussions with various leaders, including a current cabinet member of Norway's government. The attacker had that morning blown up a large government building in Oslo, inflicting death and serious injuries to many workers and visitors there. Click on the URL for much more information, including how to view and/or buy it. It was very powerful and touching, and connects in many way the article, just below. http://www.documentarychannel.com/movie.php?currID=10127 <http://www.documentarychannel.com/movie.php?currID=10127&t=Terror-Island> &t=Terror-Island * * * From: Portside Moderator [ <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 1:55 PM Horror in Aurora By Greg King [Submitted to Portside by author] It's happened again. We've had Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Tucson. Now we have Aurora. Place and institution names which will make us shudder when we hear them from now on. Actually, for most of them, from some time back. Mass murder has become almost de rigueur, if one is to use a yuppie phrase. In that same vein, we can almost talk about the massacre du jour. What has happened to our country? It seems to me that it's only in the last 40 years or so that we've had almost frequent slaughters on our streets and in our buildings. This can't, or shouldn't, be considered a "normal" thing. What explains it? >From video/computer games to movies and tv shows to the very real violence of the authorities in the ghettos and barrios, alongside the kids who are killing each other in those places, to the state- sponsored violence of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and a lot of places around the world where our Special Forces are suppressing terrorism, real or manufactured, violence has become endemic to our culture. We're inured to it, or a lot of us are, in any case. Part of the reason for the civilian sides of the violence may be how anonymous, insignificant and completely irrelevant to the larger forces moving in society many of us feel. We see Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, the Bank of England, UBS and the Republican governors and legislatures, sometimes some Democrats as well, making vitally important decisions which directly impact our lives. We march and shout slogans in Madison, on Wall Street and in London, Madrid, Athens or Geneva and nothing at all changes for the better. Rather, things change for the worse. If tens or even hundreds of thousands of people marching, chanting and forcefully acting in the streets can't seem to affect events really at all, what is left to us? I think this partly explains the random, senseless violence. Along with serious mental disorders, a desire to have some effect, any effect, to matter, even in a grisly, horrific way, may partly explain events in Aurora, Tucson, Fort Hood, etc. I mentioned attempts to change things in Europe that have seemed futile. They have had their share of senseless violence there, too. And in Japan and China, for that matter. There are key differences, though. They've had far fewer instances of mayhem in those countries. I think this can be attributed both to the strict gun control in most of those locales and the social-democratic reforms put in place over the years in Europe and even in Japan. There were Communist social safeguards in China. Some survive, but they are becoming a dog-eat-dog society similar to ours in all-too-many ways. What does this mean? If you can't just walk down the street and buy a gun, with little control, it's not as easy to enact fantasies of blowing people away. Also, if there's more of a chance of your having a social safety net to catch you, free education through university, very affordable national healthcare, you're not apt to be as desperate and hopeless as many Americans now are. Desperate people do desperate things. Europe, Japan and China are heading the way of the United States, some places faster than others. China may have a few more social safeguards for a while longer. But at least as far as Europe and Japan go, austerity and neoliberalism and rending their safety nets. Soon, all over the world, there'll be socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor. A tiny elite of very wealthy people at the top will be doing just fine, thank you, while the rest of us mow their lawns, take care of their children, drive them around, fill or guard their prisons or fill research labs, hospitals and other higher service-industry jobs. Not being able to put bread and milk on the table can drive anyone to desperate acts. However, so can that feeling of being inconsequential and powerless -- more of a middle-class disease, as exemplified by the graduate student who just killed at least twelve people and wounded fifty-nine in Aurora, Colorado. What can we do to lessen these horrific instances? For starters, we can kick the NRA out of the way and enact strict gun control laws. We can reverse the austerity fad and provide ourselves and our neighbors with places to live, food to eat, medical care, a good education and meaningful, well- compensated work. How do we ever get to that point? We go door-to-door in our neighborhoods, cubicle- to-cubicle or bay-to-bay in our workplaces, desk-to- desk in our schools. We talk to our neighbors, coworkers and fellow students. We help them to realize that their lives are just as precious, just as vital to that "vast, eternal plan" or in any case the stringing together of contingencies, as Jamie Dimon, the Koch brothers, Donald Trump, etc. Once people realize that, "Yes! I'm important!", they/we will no longer settle for fourth-or-fifth best. They'll want the proverbial level playing field that has so often been mentioned. They'll want their babies to mature without suffering from malnutrition. They'll want affordable housing and healthcare. They'll want well-supplied and well-staffed schools. They'll want to share power with their coworkers and neighbors in their factories, mines, offices and communities. Once people have that self-respect, that degree of genuine control over their own lives, they won't feel so powerless, so inconsequential. They won't so often get and act on the impulse to blow their neighbors away. And maybe, just maybe, there'll be good mental health treatment facilities staffed by caring professionals who will help them cope with the feelings they cannot control. Perhaps then we'll have much more social peace than we have now. People's lives won't be ended way-too-prematurely and senselessly. Instead, we'll have "all the people sharing all the world." ___________________________________________ Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it. 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