Arson, Suicide, and Murder Mark the Economic Crisis, and We're Not Hearing About it

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Arson, Suicide, and Murder Mark the Economic Crisis, and We're Not Hearing About it

By Nick Turse, Tomdispatch.com. Posted October 20, 2008.

Violent reactions are bubbling up across the country to new economic realities.



On October 4, 2008, in the Porter Ranch section of Los Angeles, Karthik Rajaram, beset by financial troubles, shot his wife, mother-in-law, and three sons before turning the gun on himself. In one of his two suicide notes, Rajaram wrote that he was "broke," having incurred massive financial losses in the economic meltdown. "I understand he was unemployed, his dealings in the stock market had taken a disastrous turn for the worse," said Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Michel R. Moore.

The fallout from the current subprime mortgage debacle and the economic one that followed has thrown lives into turmoil across the country. In recent days, the Associated Press, ABC News, and others have begun to address the burgeoning body count, especially suicides attributed to the financial crisis. (Note that, months ago, Barbara Ehrenreich raised the issue in the Nation.)

Suicide is, however, just one type of extreme act for which the financial meltdown has seemingly been the catalyst. Since the beginning of the year, stories of resistance to eviction, armed self-defense, canicide, arson, self-inflicted injury, murder, as well as suicide, especially in response to the foreclosure crisis, have bubbled up into the local news, although most reports have gone unnoticed nationally -- as has any pattern to these events.

While it's impossible to know what factors, including deeply personal ones, contribute to such extreme acts, violent or otherwise, many do seem undeniably linked to the present crisis. This is hardly surprising. Rates of stress, depression, and suicide invariably climb in times of economic turmoil. As Kathleen Hall, founder and CEO of the Stress Institute in Atlanta, told USA Today's Stephanie Armour earlier this year, "Suicides are very much tied to the economy."

With predictions of a long and deep recession now commonplace, it's not too soon to begin looking for these patterns among the human tragedies already sprouting amid the financial ruins. Troubling trends are to be expected in the years ahead, especially as hundreds of thousands of veterans of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, their families often already under enormous stress, are coming home to scenarios of joblessness and, in some cases, homelessness. Consider this, then, an attempt to look for early anecdotal signs of the fallout from hard times, the results, in this case, of a review of local press reports from across the nation, some tiny but potentially indicative of larger American tragedies, and all suggesting a pattern that is likely to grow more pronounced.

Extreme Evictions

In February, when a sheriff's deputy went to serve an eviction notice on a home owner in Greeley, Colorado, he found the man had slashed his wrists and was lying in a pool of blood. Rushed to a nearby hospital, the man survived, while the Sheriff's office tried to downplay economic reasons for the incident, saying, according to the Denver Post, that "it wasn't linking the suicide attempt to the eviction because the man had known for a week that he was to be kicked out." ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/103656/arson%2C_suicide%2C_and_murder_mark_the_economic_crisis%2C_and_we%27re_not_hearing_about_it

[snappyturtle]

1. I read all of the article and came away with this: these suicides and

attempted suicides were the little people. Who is it that's getting bailed out and in some cases with bonuses?

I can not understand why the banks can't renegotiate loans. These poor souls who we hear little to nothing about needed a bit of help and the big guys wanted all or nothing....it's shameful.

[snappyturtle]

2. kick!

:kick:

[jaybeat]

3. The sheriff needs to fucking wake up

"the Sheriff's office... wasn't linking the suicide attempt to the eviction because the man had known for a week that he was to be kicked out."

JFC! A whole week? Guy must just be a deadbeat if he hadn't already packed up the Uhaul, swept the kitchen floor and put the keys in a nice little envelope for the bank!

Looks like someone got skipped over when the ability to get a fucking clue was passed out. I'd like to see what HIS mental state would be after being given a whole week's notice to vacate HIS house.

[Karenina]

4. Light that gas can with the spark of scapegoating...

:nuke:

[kineneb]

5. if anything happens...

they will pry my house keys out of my cold, dead fingers. But not before I take a few with me. Just sayin'.

I have very little left to lose.

[tomreedtoon]

6. Why threaten the LITTLE people?

These people seek to kill themselves and their families. When blacks rioted in the 1960's, they burned their own homes. Why don't these people try to kill their oppressors instead?

Where are the assassination attempts on the Wall Street figures? They're the ones who are truly responsible for this mess. And they haven't got a Secret Service to protect them. But then, I guess if someone is determined to kill somebody and anybody, his loved ones are the most convenient targets.