I am a New York Times junkie (I received a discounted rate which has never expired). The articles are first rate, but sometimes the reader comments are more interesting than the actual articles.
COMMENT 1: By the end of the main article, I had tears in my eyes. My 88 year old aunt was audited by the IRS because she reported the redemption of a small municipal bond (or something like that) in the wrong year, and had to pay a penalty and was harassed by the IRS. But they turn a blind eye to the vastly undervalued appraisals in the Trump tax returns for the gift and estate taxes. I had to worry about filing the returns and the forms for foreign accounts for my deceased mother two years after she died because it took time for the bank to divide the remaining few thousand dollars between me and my brother – after all, I want to do everything as required by law, even though we owed no tax on those small amounts. I feel so betrayed. Not by the Trumps – they are crooks and there will always be crooks. I feel betrayed by the government and its IRS that are supposed to protect me from the crooks. That are supposed to uphold the idea that all are equal before the law. It is not because of the understaffing of the IRS – they would benefit the most by going after people like the Trumps. They choose not to.
Comment 2: Auditing a poor family.
In the 80’s, I was audited by the IRS. At the time, I was living hand to mouth, my meager salary unable to meet the costs of daycare for my three young children, rent, and the most basic of living expenses. Our apartment had no heat, save for one small gas-fired heater. I cooked meals on a hotplate; I had no stove or oven. We spent winters in our coats, huddled around that little stove. At Christmas, we received a turkey from the Salvation Army, but had no way of cooking it – and our pipes were frozen. There were no presents. I spent my last few bucks on a tree and with scissors, crayons, and some ribbon, we made decorations. We all dressed up in our finest and pretended to have an elegant, candle-lit dinner.
I brought a shoebox of papers (including proof that my children were actually living with me) to the IRS meeting. They went through my finances and found a ten dollar error in my tax form, which I had to pay. The agent apologized for their bringing me in and said that the IRS had audited me because they hadn’t thought it was possible to raise three children on the amount of money I was making.
I read this article about the Trump’s obfuscations and fraud and find it difficult to understand that an IRS that was so doggedly determined to catch a poor person like me could not have seen the unbelievably huge elephant in their “room.”
And BTW, I have used some of those decorations on my trees ever since!
Here’s another comment by an affluent (but not superrich) person:
Echoing the other individual stories. My life was turned upside down by having to pay $1Million in taxes over a four year period from 2002 to 2006 on short term capital gains. It was a million I did not have at the time. I basically worked for nothing for four years. The IRS was all over me for those four years, and then a few years later tried to claim I still owed $50,000+. Fortunately, I saved all my records and receipts. But then I read this report and I feel only anger towards the Treasury Department for not enforcing our laws, and at Congress for saying the wealthy are paying too much in taxes and passing the latest tax cut bill which has resulted in tremendous shortfalls in our federal budget. Remind me once again why we should pay federal taxes if our leaders are not paying taxes, please.
Another one:
After carefully digesting this incredible fact-finding journalism, new headline suggestion: Donald Trump is a shyster, criminal, tax-evading fraud.
What I don’t understand is how the trump family has evaded serious investigation by the IRS — for decades! There truly are different rules for the wealthy vs the rest of us tax-paying peons.
I’m self-employed and diligently pay my quarterly taxes, as required by law. Yesterday, I received a letter from the IRS detailing my 2017 payments and saying I still owed nearly $7000 plus penalties and interest. Problem is, 2 of my payments were not reflected in the letter. I jumped online to my bank and found the 2 payments and dates they were cashed by IRS (complete with photos of checks, front and back). Nearly 2 hours on the phone with IRS to learn they mistakenly applied those payments to 2018, not 2017, although checks clearly indicated 2017 and were accompanied by official IRS payment paperwork. IRS employee says “will take up to 6 weeks to make correction & I still need to pay interest for late payment” –even though payments were made on time!
It baffles me how the IRS will jump on the “little guy” like me, yet millions owed by the likes of trump are ignored. The system IS rigged towards the “wealthy” & against the rest of us. Sickening!
The 2017 tax cut has received pretty bad press, and rightly so. Its proponents made big promises about soaring investment and wages, and also assured everyone that it would pay for itself; none of that has happened.
Yet coverage actually hasn’t been negative enough. The story you mostly read runs something like this: The tax cut has caused corporations to bring some money home, but they’ve used it for stock buybacks rather than to raise wages, and the boost to growth has been modest. That doesn’t sound great, but it’s still better than the reality: No money has, in fact, been brought home, and the tax cut has probably reduced national income. Indeed, at least 90 percent of Americans will end up poorer thanks to that cut.
Even more interesting were the anecdotes from commenters about their estimated tax bills. Here’s a sample from a New Yorker:
I bought this year’s Turbo Tax 2018 and plugged my 2018 numbers in. I also plugged my 2018 numbers into last year’s Turbo Tax 2017, just to see what happens. Because I’m a modest earner with hefty real-estate taxes living in a state with a high income tax, my total federal income tax on my 2018 earnings was a full 75% higher (yes, that says 75% higher) under the 2018 rules than it would have been under the 2017 rules. Again, I’m squarely middle-class, with relatively simple taxes except that I itemize my deductions. So can we please stop talking about Trump’s tax cuts? Perhaps Trump got a tax cut, but many of us got exactly the opposite.
Actually I have commented several times on NYT articles. But I used a pseudonym, so you’ll never know it’s me!
Friday, you said on the floor of the US Senate: “We will not be bullied by the screams of paid protesters and name-calling by the mob.”
To my knowledge, it is not illegal for people to be paid to protest. I know that lobbyists are paid to make their opinion known to you. I know that political organizations provide grants and scholarships for research and opinion pieces. I also know that the overwhelming majority of people who participate in rallies are doing it not primarily for financial reasons but to express their political values. I’m generally fine with that. I know many people who protest without receiving any form of compensation. I also know that political activism is often organized by political groups, which requires some expenses (for signs, etc.) From my limited experience, I know that large donors have deep pockets, while the smaller organizations they support are often run on very little money. And the volunteers they solicit are certainly not paid at all (except through T-shirts and buttons and that sort of thing).
Referring specifically to the Kavanaugh protests, I suspect that the overwhelming majority of protesters were not paid in any fashion. I have googled around and I have seen no supporting information about this claim (except for a gofundme set up to help defray Ms. Blasey Ford’s expenses — which seems reasonable under the circumstances).
Yet you feel comfortable making this poisonous claim without evidence.
Recently, I saw the above photo which is hilarious/disturbing on so many levels.
First, the men outnumber the women here! Second, these signs weren’t hand made; somebody paid for the t-shirts, signs and even the bus. Update: The 501(c)(3) “Concerned Women For America” which has a 2 score on Charity Navigator, is funded by the Koch Brothers network including Freedom Partners, the Center To Protect Patient Rights, Tc4 Trust, and DonorsTrust. (Source).
Personally, I’m more bothered by these polite but well-funded activists funded by fossil fuel billionaires than the rowdy people who probably had minimal access to this kind of funding.
I have never voted for you, but it so happens that you and I both graduated from Trinity University (which I was able to attend only because of an academic scholarship).
In early 2004, after a Republican Administration supported by you launched a needless war in Iraq on the flimsiest of evidence, there was a Trinity alumni event which both you and I attended. It was an event intended to help new alumni to do job networking. Your appearance was added to the agenda at the last minute.
I’m guessing that at least half of the Trinity alumns attending had no idea that you were coming — much less who you were. Yet I certainly looked forward to the opportunity to shake your hand and express in a minute or so my concerns about what the US was doing in Iraq.
As you know, some Trinity alumni are politically-minded, but we are generally middle of the road and follow a certain decorum at alumni functions. It was extremely unlikely for anyone to turn it into a protest or shouting match.
To my dismay, when you showed up at the event (where 100 alumni already were present at), you promptly moved to a part of the house which prevented people from talking to you. Talking to you was not the MAIN reason I was there, but I kept an eye out for an opportunity to have a minute of your time. This event was for job networking — talking to strangers for 1 or 2 minutes was PRECISELY THE POINT of this event.
As far as I know, during that event, you talked to NOBODY. You didn’t shake hands with anyone but the event’s organizer; all you did was come up to the front when you were introduced.
At that point, you talked for 4-5 minutes about returning from a trip you had just made to Iraq and what great things the US government was doing there. You talked about how proud we should be of US soldiers in Iraq. At that point, you left.
Your hasty departure left me speechless. Was the whole point of your visit to lecture Trinity alumni about how great the war effort was?
Perhaps on that particular day you were feeling unwell, or had personal business to attend to. But I was always struck by your rushed exit. You didn’t even make a minimal effort to meet with and talk to people who basically had no axe to grind or message to deliver. Trinity alumni are not necessarily representative of Texas demographics; to be frank, many are affluent and Republican-leaning. Yet I was a loss to understand why you were so unwilling to talk to any of them. Do you treat your constituents merely as people to lecture at rather than to listen to?
Personally I’m outraged about the Kavanaugh hearings for a variety of reasons.
First, on substantive grounds I thought Kavanaugh’s rulings on environmental cases was crazy and dangerous. I was concerned that Kavanaugh was involved in numerous partisan activities that was unbecoming for a judge.
Second, I think the Senate and White House blocked the releases of a lot of records related to Kavanaugh’s past.
Third, I thought Kavanaugh’s testimony about the accusations was belligerent and immoderate; some of his answers bordered on the risible. This is not the desired temperament for a Supreme Court justice.
Fourth, the way the Senate and White House attacked the accusers was pretty awful. I thought Ms. Swetnick’s claims were very credible. Even if they didn’t implicate Kavanaugh directly, they came from one of many eyewitnesses who say that Mr. Kavanaugh engaged in a considerable amount of drinking and boorish behavior in high school and college. They suggest a pattern of youthful behavior which I found disturbing. I am Kavanaugh’s age and like him attended an all-boys Jesuit high school — and yet I never drank. Most of the smart and responsible people I knew at Strake Jesuit in Houston rarely or never drank. As much as I would like to say that people outgrow their excesses of high school and college, I have to wonder whether Mr. Kavanaugh has properly owned up to his past and whether other judges with less excessive pasts are out there.
Fifth, I was really disturbed by the way Senate Republicans released sensitive sexual history information of Ms. Swetnick, a witness who made a very serious claim about Kavanaugh’s behavior in high school. The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic violence condemned this practice:
We are appalled and outraged that the Senate Judiciary Committee leadership has released a statement about comments of a sexual nature allegedly made by Julie Swetnick. Such a statement is unacceptable in all events, but particularly because it attempts to smear someone who has not had the opportunity to be interviewed by the FBI. The release of this statement violates the intent of the Rape Shield Rule drafted by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 and voted into law by Congress in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994. This federal rule is meant to safeguard the victim against the invasion of privacy, potential embarrassment and sexual stereotyping that is associated with public disclosure of intimate sexual details and the infusion of sexual innuendo into the factfinding process. The Senate Judiciary Committee has posted this statement on its website, in violation of the spirit of its own Rule.
In a sworn statement, Ms. Swetnick states she was sexually assaulted. Yet to date, she has not been interviewed by the FBI. Nevertheless, Senate leadership has engaged in a no-holds-barred personal attack on her. It is not unusual for a survivor to describe an experience of sexual violence in ways that do not reveal the full reality of the experience or to try and normalize the experience. However, even aside from these very common reactions, it is unthinkable that the Senate Judiciary Committee would have released this statement publicly and attacked her in this way.
I have written you in the past about climate change and health care and possibly other issues. In general, your position have upheld corporate interests and showed a lack of concern for the underclass.
Perhaps you have been listening to the wrong kinds of people.
Robert Nagle is a Houston writer and blogger who dreams one day of being paid to protest — or being paid in general. He runs the ebook press, Personville Press.
(A few months ago I wrote this response to the Netflix documentary, Making a Murderer and forgot to post it).
Some random thoughts:
Family members were the stars of this series. We saw so much of them! They were strange to look at, and not particularly interesting. Like mole people. Nice but dull.
The series could have been half the size. Lots of shots of empty rooms, witnesses grabbing plants from the ground, tracking shots of the sunset, the highway, that damn junkyard!
I’m not giving anything away by saying that there were two separate but related cases. I pretty much agreed with the court decisions on both of them although one of them has an issue which seemed significant enough to seem to merit reconsideration (Update: Apparently a higher court agreed last week!)
I think the main message of the movie is to show how much of a spectacle a big money trial is and how easy it is for the defendant to believe in the rightness of his opinion (and convince onlookers and family members to invest money in legal fees).
Mistakes were mistake. Aside from one whopper of a mistake, none of them seemed to be committed out of malice. It’s just that people screw up, and courts have to deal with imperfect evidence.
I totally believe the directors in the PBS interview that they had no horse in this game, that they were just here to record the workings of the justice system. There is inherent value in that. But there is also inherent value in doing a documentary about Nazis and getting them to record their inner thoughts and dreams. I’m not being coy here. A film that purports to objectively get into the minds of Nazis or SS would be enormously interesting. But at some point you have to say: Is the underreported story really to hear the overpaid defense lawyers gloat at holes they have “found” in the evidence? Also to ask: what efforts did the filmmakers make to get thoughts from the family of the victims or other bystanders? Why were they unwilling or unable to get this perspective?
The primary thing this film demonstrated is that when money is no object, lawyers can dig up all sorts of defenses. And pontificate about these things ad nauseum…
There is a shocking piece of evidence in the middle of the series, and I’m glad the directors (and lawyers) circled back to it near the end.
About the only thing I rooted for were the public defenders in the latter part of the trials. Lacking the resources to counter the state’s case, they nonetheless seemed cogent and well done3.
It’s funny how my opinions changed over the course of the series. Near the start, I felt I needed to have an open mind. Also, I needed to keep in mind that certain pieces of evidence smelled funny.
I’m going to reveal my cards here and say that when you are the last person to see a victim and the victim’s car is on your property and the charred remains are found near your trailer, and you were seen burning a fire on the night in question and no one else on the property has anything remotely suggestive of criminal tendencies, that creates an overwhelming burden of you to show how and why someone other could have been the perpetrator. Leaving aside ALL of the forensic evidence and ALL OF THE COERCED TESTIMONY of his cousin, you still have to present an alternate theory which is convincing enough to override the presumption here. The defense attorneys suggested malice by the sheriff and DA; fair enough, but malice doesn’t imply ability or even the desire to take action. I may want to murder somebody badly; I might even have the opportunity; but that does not mean I act on my impulses.
Recently I was watching “Mud,” a well done movie about the South. It featured quirky characters, regional color, dangerous problems and loss of innocence. Good old-fashioned Americana. On an isolated island, two teenage boys stumble upon a stranger who turns out to be a fugitive. But the stranger is not really a bad guy, just someone wounded by romantic delusions. The details of this stranger’s alleged crime are muddled by the fact that the man the stranger killed probably deserved to die anyway and the bounty hunters now chasing the stranger down are probably bad guys too. Suddenly the boys realize that the issues aren’t so black and white.
All in all, a fine movie, and I enjoyed it.
But the ending really botched things. I don’t think I’m spoiling things too much to say that there’s a gun-induced bloodbath at the climax. Sigh. Everything was going so well up to that point. I expected the end to have some kind of showdown, but I didn’t expect it to be as extreme as the movie portrayed it. I don’t watch violent movies often (not even movies with the cartoon kind), but when I do, I find myself asking, “Would this movie or TV show have still worked with only 50% of the gunshots?” Actually, a single bullet is enough to make a tragedy. I once was robbed at gunpoint, and I remember thinking that this idiot who was holding me up had only to fire one bullet to change the nature of the crime.
In this movie, guns precipitate the conflict, aggravate the conflict and end the conflict (in a ridiculously violent way). Guns in movies leak bullets as promiscuously as tears.
I shoot people; therefore I am achieving justice. Justice is the end, and guns are the primary way to achieve this end (and so justice without the presence of guns must be flimsy and worthless). Guns fire up the audience’s emotions; guns coerce one person’s conception of justice; never mind that there is always the risk of blowback or friendly fire losses. Guns elevate subjective wishy-washy feelings to the exclusion of everything else; it doesn’t matter if the person standing before me is actually a threat. What matters is that I feel it’s a threat. Where I live, it’s reasonably certain that a police officer would arrive at my car within 5-10 minutes of a 911 phone call. Yet, for the gun-anxious Texan, that is simply inadequate. Many Texans believe themselves to be seconds away from annihilation. Quite apart from the policy question, I don’t see how Houstonians can live with that constant kind of stress. How on earth do paranoid gun-owning people have the mental composure to let themselves take the occasional nap?
I don’t deny that using guns has a certain romanticism to it, the romanticism of desiccated limbs, punctured internal organs and collapsed breaths. There is virtually no stigma associated with firing a gun because society has generally accepted that individuals who feel threatened will occasionally require the right to extinguish the life of another. Never mind that firing a gun at someone is usually a serious felony – the threat of unseen marauders is so real-seeming that some people cannot imagine life without it. Many of my friends have guns — not for any practical reason, but just the vague emotional sense that “I want it to be there when I really need it.”
In movie reality, the main adrenalin pusher seems to be guns and people who possess them and threaten you. You have the cops and robbers of course, but of course the true protagonist is the cache of guns. Guns remain the true heroes; humans are simply pawns of the inevitable storms of violence.
Nonlethal weapons like tasers might be an alternative – except it actually involves touching the perpetrator. That of course is absurd. Americans overwhelmingly prefer to shoot humans as they shoot photographs – far away enough to take in the spectacular view. Not only do Americans enjoy the thrill of being able to point at objects and fire, they also revel in the loud sounds of shots and agonized cries as body parts are ripped apart. If I were to suggest a nonlethal alternative, I would devise some kind of melodramatic vomit spray — accompanied by noisy pop pop pops of firecrackers (to notify and impress the neighbors).
The problem with gun ownership (in movies or life) is that it never really partakes of consequences. We never read of hospital costs or orphaned parents or the constant guilt that snuffing the life of another inevitably entails. We never speak of the psychological intimidation or the accidental casualties (be it suicide or simply the innocent result of kids playing around with guns they shouldn’t be handling).
The Hilarity of Law Enforcement
Today I watched a clever and hilarious movie “The Heat” which sticks to the “police buddy” formula, but with female buddies out to nab an evil drug lord. Predictable plot, punchy dialogue and stupid male cops getting in the way. Unsurprisingly there are gun battles and constant waving around of guns.
The first problem I have of course is plausibility. Do cops and FBI agents wave their guns around so often on a typical workday? Last I read, FBI spends most of their time investigating white collar crime, so they probably just spend most of their time looking at a computer screen and interviewing people. In one funny scene, the first female cop showing off to the second her private weapon cache which she stores in the refrigerator.
I guess I accept the premise that female cops would find showing off one’s gun arsenal to a partner to be a bonding experience. In movies, the primary determinant in who prevails in which side has the best cache of guns. But wait — as soon as you let your guard down, another man with a gun has snuck up behind you — defeating your short-lived tactical advantage.
Police in these movies are always grasping their guns — stumbling into confrontations which seem to be won or lost by which side has the biggest firepower. Nobody likes violence in movies; of course not. But dangerous criminals in movies always seem to be armed and making threats; it is inconceivable that a person with a gun could be shopping for groceries or waiting. Conversely movie expectations dictate that bad guys will all have guns and be willing to use one as cold-heartedly as possible.
When apprehending dangerous criminals, I suspect the hardest part will not be winning the gunfight but simply figuring out the perpetrator’s whereabouts and the optimal time to confront him. Police officers, I suspect, are trained very well on these things. A gun might be helpful in establishing authority initially, but it is not the key element. If the criminal is rational, he will give up when faced with an officer who has both initiative and backup. If the criminal is not-rational, then maybe the criminal would start firing (assuming that his gun is within arm’s reach). But then a real-life police officer probably selected a context for confrontation to minimize this possibility.
Movie criminals are more typically portrayed as loud and confrontational, rarely worrying about being caught and always ready to use their guns. Conveniently, in these movies, a villain’s henchman have a tendency to magically appear behind anyone who tries to arrest the villian. But real criminals probably worry a lot about being caught. They try hard to blend in with normal life. They go to the supermarket, buy gas, eat at a restaurant, go to the concert or sports game. These are public outings where there they can easily be surrounded and overcome. So there really isn’t a need for police officers to go creeping around empty warehouses with guns in hand. All the police officer needs to do is to wait for the criminal to pump his gas. ****
Portraying movie criminals unrealistically also means that you portray police unrealistically as well. Everyone is on hair-trigger alert; even the slightest sound causes movie police to grab their guns. For the viewer, the inevitable gun battle becomes a source of suspense and indeed, the climax of the movie; guns become the building blocks for great dramas filled with great men. And great man are those brave enough to use deadly force to stop the violent rampage of lawless people. In other words, because bad guys use guns to commit their crimes, good guys must use guns to commit their good deeds.
Who is the good guy?
When we watch movies laced with violence, we are left thanking goodness that real life is not so violent — never pausing to wonder whether the criminals in real life are really like that. One underlying theme in these violence-prone movies is that — heck, some days you just can’t avoid shooting up a few people. Drats that the criminals have to die — obviously! — but killings in movies are a shortcut for restoring the moral balance to the world — even if our gun-toting hero does it in the heat of the moment or without legal sanction. As long as this balance is restored in the movie, the viewer expects that the sympathetic protagonist will win some kind of reprieve. Sure, the good gun-toting protagonist may eventually have to face the wrath of the law, but a good person’s good motives will be an exonerating factor.
Over the years I’ve grown intolerant about narratives which attempt to legitimate the use of deadly force against people who you believe have wronged you. These cinematic narratives can seem to quench your emotional desire for justice, but then, in the realm of true crime, we are presented with more ambiguous events. The man in the movie theatre was threatening me….or maybe he was just throwing popcorn. The cops barge into a house and shoot dead a drug dealer who fires at them … or is the man an armed and respected veteran who kept the safety lock on? A man follows a teenager around believing him to be a criminal and fires at him at close range when the teen resists. Or is the teenager just picking up candy at the store and scared by a stalker? Sometimes it’s hard to tell in real life who is the bad guy and who is the good guy. In retrospect, the violent response against these “bad guys” never was so clear. Instead we have weeping mothers, astronomical medical bills, people in shock and lives ruined. I genuinely feel sorry for George Zimmerman for killing innocent teenager Trayvon Martin. In Zimmerman’s limited and almost paranoid vision of the world, teenagers who loiter pose a threat, so it’s best to have your gun ready. Although eventually acquitted because of Florida’s lax gun laws, Zimmerman has to pay a price of personal guilt for the rest of his life. Similarly, certain gun owners must feel the guilt of the deaths or suicides committed by family members who used the gun without permission. Police officers must live with the guilt of killing bystanders or even the perpetrator who nonetheless didn’t deserve to die but was the victim of an officer’s faulty calculation.
Some people may feel genuinely threatened by the world around them. Sometimes a specific individual may know of a potential threat by a specific person, and for the short term at least, it might make sense to keep a gun. But it does not follow that owning a gun makes that individual safer. Even law-abiding and otherwise rational gun owners have unrealistic expectations about whether gun ownership reduces crime and threats. They trust their crappy intuition, and that is the tragedy. Once you buy a gun, you have invested in a gun’s talismanic ability to ward off threats. Also, the act of buying or owning a gun is long-term. Few people buy a gun, keep it for a few years and then get rid of it. Like getting married and being Christian, owning a gun is a long term commitment. To actually reap the safety advantage, you always need to keep the gun within reach. You not only need to be on the lookout for crime-fighting situations, you always need to keep an eye out for your gun — must not lose it! Keeping that gun around exerts a steady burden on the psychic life of a person. Perhaps for actual crime victims, it is reassuring to have some weapon around while recovering from a recent trauma. But why not just take a pill instead?
Guns vs. Swimming Pools
A common refrain from enthuasiastic gun owners is that swimming pools kill more kids each year than guns do; But because it is ludicrous for someone to suggest abolishing swimming pools, it is also ludicrous to abolish guns.
I’m afraid it misses the point. Nobody is suggesting abolishing anything. Instead, I ask: are you protecting your kids better by owning a gun or by not owning a gun? While I’m at it, I might also wonder aloud whether a parent protects a child better by having a backyard swimming pool than by not having one?(See Note at bottom **)
Victims ages 15 to 19 made up 84% of the children brought to the hospital with gunshot wounds, and two-thirds of those injuries were attributed to assault. Among these older children, roughly 24% of the cases were considered unintentional. Suicide attempts accounted for 239 of 4,143 of those firearm-related hospitalizations.
Among younger children, accidental firearm injuries were most common. Of the 378 children under 10 brought to the hospital in connection with a firearm injury, roughly three-quarters were considered victims of an accidental or unintended shooting. Thirty-one children younger than 5 and 47 ages 5 to 9 were injured in gun-related assaults in 2009.
Among Latino youths, firearm-related injuries were three times higher than among white children, the data show. And African American girls were more than six times as likely as their white counterparts to be injured by gunfire.
Unfortunately this raw data doesn’t tell us much. Who is assaulting children and teens? Where are children being assaulted? My guess it that they are being assaulted on the way home from school or at social outings — certainly not at home, where a gun may safely be kept. Just as avoiding swimming pools is a way to avoid being drowned, teens have some ability to limit risk by staying away from dangerous places. But children are not going to stop swimming, and we can’t expect teens to avoid all social situations where they could be assaulted. But would gun ownership protect teens? If these assaults happen outside their residence, having a gun at home won’t matter. Should teenagers be allowed to keep guns? Many parents would say that teens can’t be relied upon to use guns effectively or responsibly. Teenagers are ruled by emotions and hormones; they blow things out of proportion and assert themselves too much. Also, they have more time than adults to loiter and socialize. Giving more guns to minors seems a recipe for certain disaster; is it desirable for a parent or a society to take steps to limit teenager’s access to guns? Does possession of a gun in the house make it easier for irresponsible teens to use them?
Some teenagers are assaulted. That is a sad part of growing up. Teens start out feeling invulnerable and then they realize how powerless they really are. This realization is powerful (and traumatic!) and yet essential for mental and emotional growth. What is the best way for teenagers to make this realization? Is it by giving them a gun to carry around or teaching them to avoid risky situations and people?
The Great Thing about Being a Chicken
The great thing about being a chicken is that people laugh at you and maybe pick on you — but rarely kill you — especially if you run away fast enough. Give a teenager a gun and then you provide him with a combination of security and power — better reason to stick around and fight. Fighting — that’s what the real tough guys do — and that’s how you resist bullies, but it’s also very risky. Taking the law into your own hands carries the risk that after later people will fail to understand or appreciate why you felt compelled to respond with deadly force.
To understand the value of guns, you need to understand the criminal mind. The criminal typically wants the transgression to be as quick and smooth a transaction as possible. Criminals mostly want to dominate the situation to get what they want and get the hell out of there. Some criminals have defective (and even sadistic) personalities, but for the most part shooting someone messes up the criminal transaction. The criminal doesn’t want his actions to make the evening news, and shooting someone virtually assures it. Criminals may forget these concerns in the heat of the moment, but the individual crime victim needs to weigh the potential risks of assuming the worst in the criminal vs. the risks of leaving the criminal no choice but to use deadly force. It sounds superficially appealing to say you want to “prepare for the worst,” but nobody can plan for everything. Sometimes, in fact, overpreparing fuels a counterproductive paranoia.
Watching the movie Boyz ‘n the Hood, I am reminded of how guns can be used in social situations for illicit purposes. These situations are about dominance — not merely committing a crime. The two gangs in Boyz n the Hood weren’t killing one another because they were robbing people. They were just trying to intimidate. How do you intimidate? With guns. The proposed response to gun threats — to bring your own gun — doesn’t address whether this strategy actually works. Will the presence of another gun lead to a friendly stalemate? Or will it aggravate tensions and cause one side to make a pre-emptive move? With Boyz in the Hood gang violence, whipping out a gun to respond to a threat doesn’t eliminate the threat; it merely continues the cycle of violence and intimidation. The central theme of the movie (“At what point do you walk away?”) depends primarily on the level of economic and social desperation. The protagonist can walk away because he has something to live for — a good home life, economic opportunity, a general optimism — while the unemployed brother Dough Boy lacks the social anchors to restrain his desire for retribution.
But Boyz n the Hood presents false choices here. If police are always ruthless and incompetent and if teenagers are unwilling to go to them, of course gun-equipped young people will take the law into their own hands. But even in the Compton ghettoes, it seems unlikely that angry teenagers would spurn police if they could identify the people who committed the blow-by shooting. Perhaps these witnesses have a legitimate fear of retribution or legitimately believe that the police are ineffectual. But all police departments have anonymous tip hotlines. It just doesn’t make sense to me that in gang-related violence, the victimized gang wouldn’t let the police do their thing if there is plenty of evidence to convict somebody.
Perhaps I am naive. Or perhaps movies are just dramatized revenge fantasies (for which police are just an unfortunate prop). All this is fine, but how does it influence the individual’s decision to own or use a gun? Movies evince a self-justifying mythology for buying and using a gun. Of course our mundane lives aren’t replete with armed threats (or pretty female sidekicks). Crime is less ostentatious; it may pounce on you when you least expect it — and then it’s gone before you knew what hit you. Most of the time it is completely invisible – siphoning money from your bank accounts, stealing your car when you’re asleep, grabbing your purse when you’re not looking. For those things guns are completely useless. People who buy guns entertain grand notions of being able to fight back, but after it becomes clear it is mostly useless for doing that, it begins to dawn on the gun owner that the only things guns are good for are threatening family members and blowing one’s own brains out.
FBI and CDC data on people who used a firearm to kill themselves or to kill a felon (Olga Khazan )
To Be Raped or Not to be Raped
I remain surprised at how many liberal-minded females in Texas nonetheless own guns. Often they are single and concerned about their personal safety. By that, I mean they worry about being raped. A rape scenario seems to be a clear case where a brandishing of a gun would seem to be a legitimate use of force. Sexual violence is terrifying to contemplate — with one of the worst parts being this feeling of helplessness while it takes place.
But let’s consider this topic for a moment — despite the unpleasantness.
Let’s make a list of rape scenarios involving strangers: being jumped on in a park, in a parking lot, in one’s own apartment, while walking home, being carjacked, in one’s dorm. Try to imagine how a gun might be used to avert these scenarios. [See end note] In many of these cases, the stranger has jumped you and caught you by surprise. Would you really have enough time and composure to gather a weapon to scare off the perpetrator off? Maybe if you were taking a long walk home and were gripping your gun tightly all the while, it might be effective (but so would mace). Suppose somebody were barging in on you, assuming you had 10-15 seconds to react, owning a gun might make a difference. But how many rape scenarios give you that much time?
But what if there were two perpetrators? That decreases even further the likelihood that your gun could ward off an attack. What if one perpetrator already had a gun? If you owned a gun too, that might even up the score, but how do we know that this will bring a stalemate and not an escalation of violence? I can think of scenarios where having a gun would actually avert a rape, but I can think of many more stranger scenarios where the gun is inaccessible or improperly used or just not an effective response. It’s true that when you hold a gun in your hand, for a few moments at least guns can make you feel invulnerable to any attacker. But it is not a permanent or lasting solution.
Up to now we have been talking about rapists who are strangers. But what about the familiar rapist — the angry spouse or ex, the frat boy? This constitutes about 2/3 of all rapes The situations where these might take place would be ones where one might normally not have a gun. For many of these situations having a gun is unlikely to help, and in fact, batterers have shown a tendency to own more guns than non-batterers. Finally, there are many risk avoidance strategies you can take that can be just as effective if not more. This doesn’t prevent every single scenario, and I’m not suggesting that guns are bad for every person in every scenario. But getting a gun just doesn’t seem to make anybody’s Top 10 list of risk mitigation strategies.
Better than Guns: Ordinary Prudent Measures
A secret: up until recently I have never locked my doors in my apartment when I am at home. I sometimes would forget my car doors too. It seemed silly or pointless. Since writing this essay, I have changed my mind. Many burglaries occur in late morning, and that typically is when I am home. I wouldn’t want anybody barging accidentally into my house and feeling compelled to dominate the confrontation. Many burglars knock on the door before they break into your house. A locked door won’t prevent all wrongdoing, but it poses an initial obstacle — and often that is enough.
When I was robbed at gunpoint a few years ago, I realized that I was living in a dangerous apartment complex and wouldn’t be able to move away soon. So I had to cope with the risk. I avoided taking out the trash late at night. I minimized driving at night, and I was much more aware of my surroundings on the nights I arrived home late. It’s true that I still had to walk my dog — and that was a risk, but often when you are walking on familiar territory you can anticipate risk and even see it ahead of you.
I’m not saying that I avoid strangers, but I avoid situations with strangers where I am isolated and don’t have the ability to extricate myself easily. All of these things sound so easy and obvious; why not just do it? These measures can’t work miracles, but they are relatively cheap and pain-free and don’t impose unnecessary risks. An individual could also resort to countermeasures ranging from cheap to very expensive: security systems, nonlethal weapons and noisemakers. If you are genuinely interested in reducing risk (instead of simply asserting power), you would probably find that defensive nonlethal countermeasures are cheaper, more effective and offer more peace of mind.
Should you own a gun? In some few cases, the answer to that question of wisdom is probably yes.
But most of the time, gun owners are frightening themselves irrationally. They have conjured in their own imaginations a much more terrifying environment than genuinely exists — and they are living a fantasy about the security their guns will bestow. And to the extent that they are right — to the extent that the American environment is indeed more dangerous than the Australian or Canadian or German or French environment — the dangers gun owners face are traceable to the prevalence of the very guns from which they so tragically mistakenly expect to gain safety.
What force on earth could convince Americans that down is up? The most powerful force of all: television.
TV news — and especially local TV news — is dominated by news of violent crime, the more spectacular and murderous the better. TV news creates a false picture of a country under attack by rampaging criminals, and especially nonwhite criminals. The people who watch the most TV news, Americans older than 50, also happen to be the group most likely to own a gun.
Only one-fifth of young Americans own a gun; one-third of over-50 Americans do. Republicans are twice as likely to own a gun as Democrats. Maybe not so coincidentally, Republicans are more likely to watch the scariest news channel of them all: Fox. Whites are twice as likely to own a gun as nonwhites…
Proponents of gun control are baffled that horrific massacres such as the one in Aurora, Colorado, do not lead to stricter gun control. They have their causation backward.
The more terrifyingly criminal the world looks, the more ineffective law enforcement seems, the more Americans demand the right to deadly weapons with which to defend themselves. It is local TV programming directors, not the National Rifle Association, who are tirelessly persuading Americans that they need to strap a gun to their legs before heading to the mall.
And what will change those attitudes is not more atrocity stories, but instead the reassuring truth: The United States is safe and getting safer, safer than ever before in its history.
The police can protect you, and will, and do. And a gun in the house is not a guarantee of personal security — it is instead a standing invitation to family tragedy. The cold dead hands from which they pry the gun are very unlikely to be the hands of a heroic minuteman defending home and hearth against intruders. They are much more likely to be the hands of a troubled adolescent or a clumsy child.
Amen to everything Frum says here, but I have to wonder if the condensed and visually-oriented format of local news is the only thing contributing to this overemphasis of grotesque crime. Also, TV and movie depictions of crimes and violence may be more fantasy than reality, but we have to ask ourselves why guns-and-violence seems to be such a successful and profitable Hollywood formula. Instead of ritualistic and cathartic bloodletting onscreen, what ever happened to movies depicting an ordinary American’s hopes and dreams?
I can’t point to any unique historical trend here — except that perhaps the general magnitude of Hollywood violence tends to track the trend towards greater budgets. Shoot-em-up videos have been popular from the very beginning; at the same time murder rates and rapes have trended downward as porn and violent movies proliferate. Sticking with onscreen violence for a moment, perhaps formula movies and shows just have more sex and violence than “ordinary” movies and shows. Maybe when we bemoan too much sex and violence on TV we are simply bemoaning the increase of cookie-cutter cultural products.
Social forces may be indirectly contributing to the problem. In America, people are less likely to know their neighbors, more likely to be single and less likely to have an extended network of friends and family nearby. Maybe it’s just that cities contain more people and hence more strangers, contributing to this unease. Cars may aggravate this situation, enabling cities to be more spread out, making an individual’s “neighborhood” encompass a wider swath of people than in previous times. Perhaps the visible and vocal presence of (potentially threatening) gun-owners contribute to this uneasy need to “keep up with the Joneses.” Or perhaps the advancing power and reach of mass media make it easier for ordinary people to hear about grisly crimes several time zones away. Decades ago, people bought guns to protect themselves from crazy people in the neighborhood, but now perhaps they do it to protect themselves from the crazy axe-murderer in Florida (who — let’s face it — could simply hop in a car, drive 70 mph and be on our doorsteps within 24 hours).
Perhaps the real enemy is not guns but the federal highway system.
**One critic pointed out the difference here. Kids usually spend much longer amounts of time at the swimming pool than they do handling guns. You can be sure that if kids spent as much time handling guns as they did swimming, the casualty numbers would be different.
*** Rereading my essay, I realize that I have forgotten a very common scenario: being inside your home in the middle of the night and using a gun to prevent someone from entering the front door. I admit that I had not appreciated the risk of opening the door late at night or even engaging with someone knocking on the door through a chain lock. In that scenario, you are aware of the risk and have reasonable control over admittance. You are also wide awake and aware of the stranger. It actually can be comforting to know that a gun (or at least the brandishing of one) can dissuade a known aggressor. This, I concede. But so can a locked door — which even if it doesn’t deter in all cases, can still prevent many surprise intrusions. But ultimately an aggressor can bring a gun and cancel your advantage somewhat (forcing you into the unenviable position of having to be the first to fire). Ultimately, there will always be periods where you put your guard down or make yourself vulnerable; perhaps a gun or a door lock will reduce these periods, and contribute to a sense of personal security. On the other hand, unless you leave the gun by the door, you will never feel truly safe. When are you most vulnerable? Probably when you are away from home or transitioning from work to home or home to shopping parking lot. Are you comfortable carrying the gun in these situations? How would you respond if you are carrying grocery bags from your car? What about putting the trash out? What about being in a strange parking lot at night? Perhaps access to guns might help in these situations, but my guess is that it is mostly useless. When I was robbed at gunpoint a few years ago, I was carrying groceries from my car in the parking lot. I was caught totally offguard by two punks. I was in a crime-prone neighborhood, My solution in that case was to avoid walking to and from car after 9:00 PM and to avoid taking out the trash after hours. When I needed to do so, I took a more careful inventory of my surroundings before moving.
**** After having pondered this sentence a good bit, I’ve decided that pumping one’s gas is not the most opportune time to confront a criminal (after all gasoline is potentially deadly, and cars are both useful for escape and running over people). After the criminal has left his car and started walking to the store, parking lots seem to be great places to arrest people; not many innocent bystanders, and lots of places for them to duck and hide. Indeed, the best scenario seems to be after the criminal has paid for his groceries and is pushing his cart towards his car. CCTV can identify and track suspects inside the supermarket; a police officer can wait at the checkout posing as a security guard, and outdoor police can provide support and backup.
The flaw of libertarian economics is that it overlooks or discounts the predatory aspects of power. You can say that we should get government off our backs or that taxation is an unjust burden or that the free market provides an optimal creation of wealth. But without oversight or interference, more powerful businesses can easily avoid compliance with contracts and avoid compensating people who have been harmed by their behaviour. Libertarians refer to the court system as correcting major injustices and disparities between parties, but it ignores the fact that justice is often very slow and many victims are rewarded only after considerable waiting (and suffering). A few months ago I complained that it took the multi-billion dollar company Comcast more than four months to refund me $20 which it already admitted that it owed me. Comcast, like many Fortune 500 companies, has the legal infrastructure to fend off legal claims about such malfeasance, allowing it to nickel and dime the American consumer to death with impunity. A well-crafted regulation, if applied uniformly with adequate phase-in time, can be easy and inexpensive for companies to implement; it can also correct injustices promptly and minimize drawn out court battles between parties with unequal power. I understand that unchecked public agencies can sometimes handicap legitimate business activity without good reason, but at least they are accountable to public pressure.
The laissez faire policies advocated by libertarians enable the private exploitation of public resources with the potential to cause pernicious effects. Libertarians often paint the struggle as government agents encroaching on the house and property rights of an individual, but the more common scenario is a giant company whose injuries to others avoid public scrutiny by virtue of its economic might, with government agents (woefully outmatched and underfunded) unable to figure out if the company has done anything wrong.
Mexican poet Octavio Paz once wrote that capitalism is efficient at creating wealth but wretched at assigning it a purpose. Wealth creation for its own sake is not really a public good if citizens fear for their safety and economic well-being and if investment in “social capital” and public resources is minimal. It is not enough for Chevron to pay to build a public park or Walmart to support food kitchens. There needs to be an entity committed to managing this “social capital” at all times regardless of whether it helps a company’s bottom line at a particular moment. This entity needs to be accountable to all Americans and needs to have an organizational framework dedicated to treating all people equally and fairly. This entity is called a government.
Related: see my piece on libertarianism and the health care system (which touches upon a lot of general issues about how to measure libertarianism as a philosophy) and an excellent book which argues for “soft paternalism”: Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (See the Nudges blog).
Postscript: Here’s an interesting question to pose to libertarians: “do private contracts always take precedence over liberties?” Can a prostitute sell her obedience for a price? Can an intern enter a contractual arrangement where he or she receives no compensation but has to follow the contract’s obligations? If I bought a piece of property with the intent to exploit its mineral rights, are those mineral rights unrestricted and perpetual regardless of what any later government decides and regardless of any later safety findings? Libertarians believe that the ability to make contracts is a sign of liberty, but at some point, this contract can threaten the liberty of one of the parties (or even a third party, as with the case of environmental harms). By their philosophy, the liberty claims can be pursued only after the damage or taking has taken place, making redress impossible for the aggrieved party. You can’t on the one hand grant one party the right to damage another’s life or liberty and at the same time admit that it is impossible for the damaged party to seek redress. That is tantamount to admitting that one party has the absolute right to deprive the party of liberty. The success of the free libertarian state depends on the ability for weaker parties to receive protection from stronger parties. But if you admit that no such protection exists, you are admitting that liberty no longer is an absolute right in your system.
For better or worse, the Affordable Care Act (the new health care reform law) has been dubbed “Obamacare.”
Here’s another neologism: Perrycare. It is is defined as health care inside a state which has refused Medicaid expansion despite generous financial incentives to do so. It is characterized by skyrocketing health care premiums and overall costs for individuals who fall below 138% of the federal poverty line. Named after Texas Republican governor Rick Perry.
Here are some other characteristics:
The population between 19-26 have the highest level of poverty. On the other hand, they are still eligible to be on their parents’ plan (that is, if their parents have a plan!). In general, people in this age range are healthy and would require care mainly for emergencies (or giving birth).
The population between 26 and 30 have high rates of poverty. They are no longer on their parents’ plan; on the other hand, it is assumed that their income will have risen a bit depending on how long they have been in the workforce. Females are particularly at risk here because these are generally the child-bearing years.
The population between 30-65. More likely to have savings, but on the other hand, more likely to have serious conditions and require several visits.
The Kaiser Foundation has prepared a health care rate calculator. Note that it provides two estimates: the estimate under Obamacare and Perrycare. According to the site’s FAQ, “The federal poverty level varies by family size. In 2013, it is $11,490 for a single adult and $23,550 for a family of 4. The poverty level is estimated for 2014 based on Congressional Budget Office projections of inflation.”
On a positive note, medical underwriting will be prohibited on Jan 1 2014 under Obamacare, so very low-income individuals will be able to purchase a plan without having to go through underwriting; they just won’t be able to afford it!
Update: Here’s a cost estimate from Kaiser about just how much money Texas is not going to spend and not going to receive:
TEXAS (population: 26 million)
Without Medicaid expansion, between 2013-2022, feds would spend 228 billion and TX state would spend 159 billion on Medicaid for Texans.
With Medicaid expansion for 2013-2022, feds would spend 305 billion and TX state would spend 168 billion on Medicaid for Texans.
In other words, spending 9 billion dollars more on Medicaid in Texas will prompt the feds to spend 77 billion more dollars on health care for Texans over the next decade.
New York (population 19 million)
Without Medicaid expansion for 2013-2022, fed pays 468 billion, and NY state pays 451 billion for New Yorkers.
With Medicaid expansion for the same time period, feds pay 553 billion, NY state pays 433 billion for New Yorkers.
In other words, because NY already pays a greater amount into Medicaid, Obamacare will cause New York to spend 18 billion dollars less on Medicaid, while the feds will spend 85 billion dollars more on health care for Medicaid in New York.
A Rand analysis estimates other effects from deciding to opt out of Medicaid expansion.
If 14 states decide not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act as intended by their governors, those state governments collectively will spend $1 billion more on uncompensated care in 2016 than they would if Medicaid is expanded. … In addition, those 14 state governments would forgo $8.4 billion annually in federal payments and an additional 3.6 million people will be left uninsured… “State policymakers should be aware that if they do not expand Medicaid, fewer people will have health insurance, and that will trigger higher state and local spending for uncompensated medical care,” Price said. “Choosing to not expand Medicaid may turn out to be the more-costly path for state and local governments.”…
…
Researchers also outline how failing to expand Medicaid could have more than financial consequences. Based on earlier research showing that past expansions of Medicaid has led to decreases in deaths, the study estimates that an additional 19,000 deaths could occur annually if the 14 states studied do not expand Medicaid.
My rough ballpark estimate is that Texas accounts for a third of the population of those states opting out of Exchanges and Medicaid expansion. Therefore, applying the Rand’s data to Texas, we could say that Perry’s decision not to expand Medicaid will cost Texans somewhere in the range of $300 million and result in 6000 more deaths.
I am linking to it casually (and making only superficial comments), but this professional code of ethics I have developed about working for the energy industry is one of my most important (and most expensive personally).
I live in Houston, which is basically the center of many energy companies, most of which deal with fossil fuels. I would estimate that 80% of the technical job opportunities in my field (Technical Writing and Instructional Design) are in the oil and gas field. I have turned them down without exception – no matter how lucrative or promising. I generally have to explain myself to HR people and recruiters; usually people’s response to my declaration that I could not work for any oil and gas companies is absolute amazement – and almost hilarity. “Is this guy crazy?” they must think.
I would love to remain in Houston, but it’s becoming harder to make a living here and stay true to these core ethical principles I have articulated on that page. The irony is that I genuinely enjoy the field of technical writing – plus I think I am really good at it, but if most of the jobs in your city are in an industry you find abhorrent, then what does it matter that a particular type of work is interesting or well-paying?
I have been working on a much longer blog post about the ethical question, “Is it ethical to work for an oil and gas company?” Stay tuned!
Progressives in Texas may already know about how Houston climate change activists are protesting the XL Keystone Pipeline with a hunger strike. But do most Houstonians know?
A hunger strike is a blatant attempt to manipulate public opinion by staging a public act of self-denial. The thinking goes, if the activist demonstrates that his willpower is stronger than his oppressors, that has enormous persuasive value. These things can be very annoying for public officials who for one reason or another find themselves on the opposite side of the policy question.
That is not a trivial amount of time, and the issues behind this strike are not trivial either. Diane Wilson and Bob Lindsey broke the law by locking themselves to Valero tanker trucks in November. Valero is likely to benefit from the XL pipeline, and local environmentalists accuse Valero and other companies of poisoning the area around the refinery. The protest website states,
Valero Energy Corp’s refinery emits life threatening poisons and pollutants that directly impact Manchester residents. Valero fills the air, water, and land in and around the community with toxic chemicals linked to terrible rates of cancers, asthma, and lung and skin ailments, with the full knowledge that the impacts of its pollutants will disproportionately affect the people of Manchester. With a nearly 90% Latino population, this is an obvious example of environmental racism.
Manchester is completely surrounded by industry. To the north and east is the Valero refinery with the Lyondell-Bassal refinery to the southeast, Texas Petro-Chemicals plant to the south, a Rhodia chemical plant and a trash shredding facility to the west, a wastewater treatment facility to the east, a Goodyear Tire plant to the southeast, along with the Interstate 610 overpass bisecting the community and an industrial rail yard forming the community’s southern perimeter.
I once visited this area for a tour organized by the Sierra Club. It’s about 30 minutes away from where I live. It is a heinous place to be; no person would want to live anywhere close to this hell hole. Yet the place is inhabited by a lot of lower-income people and families. There is a school a few miles away that because of its proximity was once labeled the most dangerous school in America.
Even if fewer people lived there, the place would be a nasty eye sore and a potential hazard for Houstonians. Even if we didn’t have to worry about climate change, the place would still be a bad source of carcinogens and a possible source of dangerous accidents.
The two people who were arrested were seasoned activists. Bob Lindsey had a father and cousin whose deaths can be traced to toxic chemicals released into the Gulf; his sister developed cancer which can also be tied to the petrochemical industry. Diane Wilson, a 4th generation shrimper in the Gulf Coast, has continuously petitioned the Courts and lawmakers to prevent chemical companies from polluting the bays where her family and friends went fishing. Diane has used hunger strikes before, and both are serious committed people.
I suppose I could talk about the reasons why the Keystone pipeline are to be opposed, but they have been adequately covered in many places. Honest people could disagree both about their tactics and the policy they are protesting. Why then has the Houston Chronicle provided so little coverage of the hunger strikes? Googling a bit, I see that almost 3 weeks ago the FuelFix energy reporter wrote a “he said, she said” article about their arrest. Not a bad article considering, but the Chronicle has never followed up on it. And certainly the subject bears revisiting — 18 days is a long time to wait before writing the follow up on a hunger strike article. Do these nonviolent activists have to go on a killing spree to awaken any media interest?
Shouldn’t a city newspaper report on such events? Or should it instead provide reports about the zoo’s cheetahs, a winning football team, or Christmas decorating tips? I can’t explain the Chronicle’s avoidance of this current event. Is it just lack of resources? Or does the Chronicle have a policy against covering hunger strikes? Googling a bit, I see that a week ago the Chronicle published a news service report about Iranian hunger strikers and has even figured out a way to “monetize” site visitors looking for news about hunger strikes.
I have a unique perspective on the issue because in fact some of my college students in Albania participated in hunger strikes against their government. A few days before it happened, the US embassy had already brought me to the capitol city of Tirana, but when I heard about what the students had done, I predicted (correctly as it turned out), that it would cause all the schools in the country to shut down. True, Albania is a much smaller media market country, and in this case there were 60 students protesting, but the issues are no less important in Houston. The fate of the planet is at stake.
In Albania, the hunger strikers precipitated a series of unfortunate events. The Berisha government declared the hunger strikes illegal because the students hadn’t received the proper license (apparently it is illegal to have any strike without obtaining the proper license). That caused the police to sneak into the university building to arrest the students, causing a fierce gun battle which cost lives. It was a tragedy for all, and that action triggered lots of violence and civic unrest (which eventually caused Peace Corps to send us home).
When these events happened in Albania, emotions were strong on all sides. But it would have been unthinkable NOT to cover the hunger strikes. Even the state-run Albanian TV covered the hunger strikes. To contrast, there is practically no coverage in any mainstream outlets of the Pipeline hunger strikers (except Channel 39) and skimpy coverage even by progressive media.
I’d almost prefer to think that there was some conspiracy not to cover this event in the mainstream media. Instead, it’s more likely that mainstream media is too busy with other things (some important, some not-so-important). I really don’t have a problem with general news site providing news about entertainment, sports and technology. These things are certainly important in their own way. But if the bigger news sites focus too much on these things, the burden of reporting these things falls on unpaid bloggers and Facebook groups.
Bloggers can certainly do a good job of reporting (see here ) , and Facebook groups like this and this can provide you with interesting news (and that not just about consciousness-raising/media manipulation events like hunger strikes). Both bloggers and Facebook groups provide incomplete versions of what’s happening. But does that mean mainstream news is better? In many ways, these mainstream news sources are much much worse because they provide the illusion that they are covering all the news that ought to be covered.
The sad fact is: if I want to find out what’s going on in Houston, reading my city paper is probably the least helpful thing to do. That’s very sad.
P. S. Both individuals are my heroes.
Update #1. The hunger strike has now lasted 29 days. The Houston Chronicle still not deigned to provide any coverage of it. As I write this, the top story on the web edition of chron.com is (I kid you not!) Best Lines of Ron Paul’s Career.
