Comments for haskellwexler.com

Comment on Rio+20 U.N. Earth Summit by Pete Vanlaw

Pete Vanlaw — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 18:23:53 +0000

Thank you Amy Goodman putting it on the air, and thank you Haskell for bringing it to our attention. But for me, the strongest indictment was the quote by Naomi Klein at the end.

Comment on Two Terrorists by Jim Conrad

Jim Conrad — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 14:40:59 +0000

Eloquent, timely, & supremely well-analyzed !!!

Comment on Two Terrorists by Haskell Wexler

Haskell Wexler — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 23:30:00 +0000

Jim, I believe you misunderstand me if you think I would like the government to determine who is qualified to possess weapons that a hunter would consider more than sufficient to kill a deer in season. In the name of world peace and security, our government kills women and children anywhere, anytime, with a variety of sophisticated and technologically advanced weapons. This is fundamentally contrary to international law, morality, psychology, or conscience. The reason I pointed out Page, the veteran, as an example, is because if he had emptied the full clip of his weapon at a wedding in Afghanistan instead of at the Wisconsin temple, his orders and all his training would have come from the government. Those who grieve the dead and try to live with the wounded don’t need revenge or closure – they cry for sanity. Those who order mass killing cannot be expected to monitor people who are infected with the disease. At the Olympic Closing Ceremony, John Lennon’s “Imagine” was played. We have to take the words of “Imagine” as more than a dream. They are a call for sanity in an insane time.

Comment on Two Terrorists by Jim Conrad

Jim Conrad — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:09:09 +0000

Haskell – sorry it’s taken a few days to return to the thread; the “usual” non-stop production, etc.

To repeat/paraphrase your question, what do i propose to distinguish the law-abiding from…(criminal, psychopath, jilted ex, etc)?

My answer: nothing. Yourquestion is “loaded” with a presumption: that there should be an expansion of intrusive, statist power for every incident. (I realize here that i’m very much taking liberties along the lines of putting words in your mouth; forgive that in advance – my point, though, lies along these lines.)

Precisely because these crimes were outliers, their predictability falls outside our present capability; it’s an old observation that, ultimately, we cannot prevent what we cannot predict, & (unlike the recidivist actions of serial killers) these spree killings vex us as much for “motivation” as they do for the carnage caused.

Actually, recent leaps in the science of the human brain have now given us the capability of identifying psycho/sociopathy with considerably greater empirical accuracy than profiling. This can be seen in one of the VERY most recent episodes of Morgan Freeman: Though The Wormhole. The next “obvious” ramification, though: those pesky civil rights.

If you think the 2nd Amendment constitues an irritating barrier to “gun control,” (there i go again, putting words in; forgive), imagine the scenario in which consent is asked of a nation to submit to scanning for sociopathy! Yet, we’ve finally attained the science.

Re: Leilani’s comments – the attempts of the CIA to secure a “Manchurian candidate” drug &/or technique did indeed carry on for decades, supposedly abandoned. Comments about the role of registration/confiscation (PROVEN interchangeable, historically) in the Holocaust are bang on; worse yet, the Nazi law was incorporated nearly verbatim into the 1968 GCA (gun control act). An interlinear translation reveals this sad, ugly fact – Third Reich law was indeed introduced, voted upon, & passed into law as part of the U.S. Code.

I’ve eaten up enough of your time; please consider this in passing – according to Steven Pinker (The Better Angels Of Our Nature: Why Violence is Declining), peace is breaking out, catching on. This sounds so totally counterintuitive that our reaction reveals MUCH more about our fixation on the apocryphal than the real state of the direction of the human condition.

Blessings, all.

j c, Dallas

Comment on Two Terrorists by raymond mounsey

raymond mounsey — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 02:48:50 +0000

In response to James McMahon
I am not living in fear never have been while living in the USA.
People such as Michael Moore who are anti establishment have an agenda also,violence in movies sells, Michael just made a profit from the tragedy. As for the Canadians, they dance to the drumbeat of the government and they don’t appear to care about the dance the government choose for them.

Comment on Two Terrorists by Haskell Wexler

Haskell Wexler — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 18:05:38 +0000

@Jim Conrad: How would you propose to distinguish a law-abiding, peaceful gun-user from an army-discharged veteran, a neuroscience doctorate student, a 100% American Timothy McVeigh, or for that matter the white supremacists who bomb black churches or shoot abortion doctors? I’m assuming you’re talking about the right to bear arms. Maybe we should agree with George Carlin, who says, “Don’t ban guns, ban bullets.”

@Leilani Jones: You will not outgun them. There is a tremendous, powerful force that people have available to them: the force of non-violence. It has been utilized, and all over the world today it is on the move.

Comment on Two Terrorists by James McMahon

James McMahon — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 04:38:36 +0000

One theory that was pointed out in Michael Moore’s “Bowling For Columbine” is we are living in a society that is being driven by fear. Do the Canadians know something that we don’t?

Comment on Two Terrorists by david

david — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 00:30:50 +0000

We need meaningful dialogue with our lawmakers about mental health, gun control, and the violence the US Gov’t is perpetuating on people in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, most of our lawmakers are always in full time campaign slogan mode.

@ Jim Conrad: Law abiding citizens should not have easy access to assault weapons. Gun control is not the entire answer but it’s part of it.

@Jones: Mind control? Stop watching paranormal ghost hunter tv.

Comment on Two Terrorists by Leilani Jones

Leilani Jones — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 23:57:58 +0000

What I find disturbing about both of these horrific incidents is that not one word is mentioned about the possibility of our own government having anything to do with this. It is pretty common knowledge that our gov. has the ability to use mind control, integrate it into our digital television, (google SSSS mind control), and you have to wonder how much of this is going on and for what possible reason. We know that too many in government and the private sector want gun control even though clear evidence in countries that have used and is using it find that it doesn’t deter crime and violence. To what extreme will our government go to rid the country of another Constitutional right and freedom? I don’t know but to not even consider this possibility makes me wonder if mind control is already happening with the masses. I don’t have a gun, don’t hunt and find guns frightening. What I do find more frightening is my uncles, who were Jewish and in concentration camps telling me how they couldn’t fight Hitler because all they had were sticks and stones. Guns had been banned and a lot of propaganda was used to do that. We shouldn’t forget how easy it was to round up the Jews that had no weapons. I trust my government now as much as Jews trusted theirs back then. They were betrayed and couldn’t fight back. We can. Find the real reason these acts of violence are happening and don’t discount mind control. Been around for a long time.

Comment on Two Terrorists by Jim Conrad

Jim Conrad — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 23:34:21 +0000

Why so anxious, Haskell, to restrict the rights of the law-abiding, rather than the guilty?