America: A Nation of Wildebeest

[marmar]

from Consortium News:


America: A Nation of Wildebeest
July 22, 2012

Exclusive: The slaughter of 12 moviegoers at the new Batman film in Aurora, Colorado, recalls other moments of horror known by names like Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson. But the repetition of such gun violence and the lack of a coherent response make Americans seem like a nation of Wildebeest, says Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry


Whenever some deranged gunman, armed with an assault rifle or some other combat weapon, slaughters young Americans – at a college or a high school or a mall or, now, a movie theater – I think of those documentaries showing Wildebeest on their migrations through crocodile-infested rivers.

In their frightened eyes, you can see that the herd knows that each crocodile will pick off an individual Wildebeest, flip it in the air, break its back and then drag it away to be devoured. But the herd still crashes through the river presumably with the understanding that most of them will survive. The Wildebeest may even be emotionally numbed to the fate of the unlucky ones.

In a way, that is what Americans have become. As we send our children off to school or off to a party or off to the movies, we know instinctively that some of them may well die at the hands of some troubled person who has obtained a powerful weapon and has decided to avenge some imagined slight by murdering strangers.

Sometimes, the dead are in large numbers (like at the Aurora, Colorado, multi-plex theater), but usually it’s just one or two at a time. We just hope that it’s not our kids. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/07/22/america-a-nation-of-wildebeest/