WHAT ABOUT THE VIOLENCE?

I have bot blogged in quite a while, but due to the number of comments I have heard about the recent shooting, and the number of people who have asked me for my two cents...here it is...

The solution to violence is far more complicated than monitoring words, or whether or not Palin uses crosshairs over the faces of her opponents. How is it that we as a culture continue to invest in Might Makes Right as "The" solution? Truthy be told, it is everywhere...war on drugs, war on cancer, allowable smear campaigns that spread lies, hell our own government lies to us. We mustn'e forget that we are a country founded from a bloody revolution, further developed from the blood of brothers during the Civil war,-a countrty whose "greatness" has largly come from being the biggest badAss during the world wars (and the technology that came from those wars), not to mention the revision (for the better) of our own culture during the protests and and sit-ins, and resistance to authority- that were still at heart revolutions.

Clearly we are dealing with an evolutionary paradigm. By design, compassion, empathy and cooperation are the real cutting edge brain developments most likely to assure our individual and collective survival. It isn't MIGHT that makes us survivors in the bog picture after all.
I can only believe that when we as individuals put an end to the personal daily emotional executions we visit on friends, family and others in our community who do not 'live up to our expectations' can we hope to make headway on a c\ultural, much less global level. Only when we offer treal compassion to those in our immediate lives and in our immediate environment can we hope to spark a change large enough to impact cultural violence.

Blaming people's word choices or the 'right to bear arms' or blaming implicit or explicit messages that may encourage someone to 'rail against' others, is as illogical as the old complaint that rock and roll was the cause of the moral downfall of the youth!

People who are happy do not shoot people. Duh. People who are marginalized, ignored, in pain, emotionally overwrought and of course those whio are mentally ill-sometimes do. They are a symptom of a larger issue. And sure we can create new laws, become word police and kick Palin's ass to the moon for being a crappy exabple of a compassionate intelligent human being. Yes we can. But if we treat the symptoms and not the cause...nothing changes. The patient still dies.

When each of us decide to become more involved and more honest friends, family and neighbors, rather than expect The Authorities (whom we mistrust) to fix the problem with a top down approach, when we become more active participants in demonstrating kindness and empathy in our own lives-we can and will take a new evolutionary course.

When I heard that the shooter was yet another emotionally distressed and disturbed young man, I couldn't help but wonder where WERE his family, teachers, neighbors and friends that could not lend a compassionate ear or healthy corrective guidance? If it "takes a villiage" then we are ALL in some way culpable for these acts.

I urge you to do your part in your own life, to be an aware, compassionate and active member of your family and your community. Take this personally. The next shooter may be someone you know.