The Nation

The National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
 
After a shooting that injured thirteen people—including a toddler—in a park in Chicago last week, my friend complained it didn’t make the national news. Likely, there are just too many mass shootings competing for our attention: a few days earlier, Aaron Alexis had slaughtered thirteen people in a Washington, DC, naval office building.

The National Rifle Association exploits an easy tautology whenever we have a mass shooting: if anyone is so awful to do this, they must be mentally ill. If the person was a video gamer or a violent movie watcher, even better. This kind of reverse engineering creates a reliable narrative of an “other” that gives false reassurance that we would never have neighbors, friends, spouses who would do such a thing.

In a fascinating piece in The New York Times, Stanford professor of anthropology T.M. Luhrmann explores cultural differences in schizophrenia, specifically the commanding inner “voices.” I always assumed the voices were always dark, along the lines of “Must…kill…” However, the dark auditory hallucinations that mass shooters such as Adam Lanza and Aaron Alexis were said to have experienced may actually reflect a peculiarly American violence-and-gun-saturated culture. In a surprise twist, Professor Luhrmann and her colleagues at the Schizophrenia Research Foundation in Chennai, India, found that in Chennai, the commanding voices could be dark, but most often said a version of “Must…do…chores”; an example cited from one patient: “Go to the kitchen, prepare food.”

It is easy to square away mass gun violence by blaming violent video games, movies, and/or mental illness, but then we fail to understand the connection between it and the ubiquity of and easy access to guns in our society, as well as guns’ roles in our culture and self-image. It probably isn’t a coincidence that so many mass shooters spring not just from the ranks of the mentally ill but directly from gun culture, like Major Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood. Or Christopher Dorner, the Los Angeles shooter, an honorably discharged Navy Reservist and former policeman. These mass murderers were, also, at a different time, one of NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre’s oft-cited “good guys with guns.”

In a gun culture world, more guns equal more safety. But most other industrialized countries seem to feel the opposite, and interestingly, their gun homicide rates are a fraction of ours.

For that year I lived in Korea as a Fulbright scholar, only thirty-five miles from one of the most militarized borders in the world, the lack of guns was noticeable to me. Among my young adult Korean cohort, there was much talk about the two years of military service all the men were going to have to do, and that unlike in the United States, every Korean man over a certain age has handled a gun. In the civilian world, however, guns are illegal, police and security guards are unarmed and even directors shooting Korean War or gangster movies need go through a laborious process to obtain permits for each fake gun. The crime roundup in the nightly news showed police running after perps, the occasional taekwondo kick, but never dramatic shootouts.

And yet, Korea is even more wired than America: it has a video gaming culture that is (given the number of “Internet rooms” devoted solely to game playing) likely even more involved than the US’s. While LaPierre blames mass shootings on “blood-soaked films out there, like American Psycho,” (psst, Mr. LaPierre—get Netflix and update yourself a little), Korean directors such as Park Chan-wook pioneered über-violent gangster films that inspire American directors like Quentin Tarantino. But even if the mentally ill in Korea want to go more like Park Chan-wook’s killers in Oldboy than doing the dishes, in Korea there is not the means to fulfill their mass shooting fantasies. We can’t forget that Cho Seung-Hui, the shooter who killed thirty-two students and faculty and injured seventeen at Virginia Tech, was a Korean immigrant. Cho appears to have suffered from various forms of mental illness since he was a child. He was obsessed with guns and took pictures of himself posing on Oldboy-type stances. But the difference here was that he was able to purchase his Glock and his Walther semiautomatic pistols (with the requisite background checks) legally and go on to commit mass murder.

The United States is a gun culture. We see a cop, we see a gun. We are proud of it. Putting aside obvious Freudian references to guns = manliness, gun culture is part of an American myth that makes us feel good about ourselves: we protected ourselves, we “conquered” the frontier, we remember the Alamo. Don’t forget that John Hinckley shot and almost killed President Reagan because he believed that was the only way to “impress” the actress Jodie Foster.

Writing for The Guardian, Henry Porter points out that in the last forty-five years, more Americans lost their lives from firearms than in all wars involving the United States (which, on its own, is a lot). A raw look at the numbers, he says, suggests that a world-governing body, such as the UN, should get involved, just as it would in any other country mired in a bloody civil conflict.

Where does this culture get us, ultimately, especially when it intersects so dangerously with mental illness? With no medical credentials, I cannot comment on possible mental health issues George Zimmerman may have, but a Korean George Zimmerman (or a GZ of any other industrialized country, all of which have stricter gun laws than the US) would have had to live out his vigilante/hero fantasies by confronting his putative perp mano a mano. Had this been so, in a matchup between the vigilante and the teen, Trayvon Martin might have had a chance to finish the many years likely left to him.

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Further, we have a shining example of “give peace a chance” staring us in the face. A school bookkeeper named Antoinette Tuff averted a second Newtown school shooting with a deliberate rejection of gun culture. While face-to-face with a gun-wielding intruder who had broken into her school stating his intention to shoot (he had already shot at the police), instead of pulling a Calamity Jane and pulling out her own gun (Clarksville, Alabama, has opted to arm its teachers and staff), Ms. Tuff used compassion, empathy and emotional skills to engage the shooter. Mr. LaPierre has stated as a mantra after each successive mass shooting that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” But here, there were no guys. And no guns. Only a courageous woman willing to face a semi-automatic weapon and 500 rounds, as well as the person holding them; the shooter was confused, paranoid, agitated, possibly mentally ill. But because of the unarmed Ms. Tuff—who ordered the police to stay back during this entire interval—the shooter gave himself up peacefully, no children died—and neither did he.

The NRA’s other favorite mantra is that guns don’t actually kill people, people do. But the intrinsic illogic of this is clear. Even the NRA itself, for its annual meeting this weekend, notified the attendees that there will be no guns. People will willingly, peacefully do what they are always accusing President Obama of theoretically scheming to do: give up their guns, of any sort, open or concealed carry, military-style, etc.—in order to enter the auditorium where the conference is being held, probably making this venue one of the safest places to be in America this weekend.

President Barack Obama in Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

With refreshing bluntness, The New York Times informed us over the weekend that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to wreck the US-Iranian diplomatic opening. It wrote, in its lead paragraph:

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, moved quickly to block even tentative steps by Iran and the United States to ease tensions and move toward negotiations to end the nuclear crisis, signaling what is likely to be a sustained campaign by Israel to head off any deal.

That says it all. Israel, various hawks and neoconservatives, and outlets such as The Wall Street Journal are alarmed at the possibility that the United States and Iran might actually make a deal. As President Hassan Rouhani of Iran arrives in New York for a critical week at the United Nations, Tehran has sent plenty of signals that it’s ready to talk.

In response, unfortunately—perhaps because of pressure from those hawks—the White House has hardly responded with positive signals of its own. Although President Obama and the State Department have indicated that they are ready to “test” Iran’s good faith, Washington has not suggested that it is prepared to make significant concessions of its own. Still, there is even a possibility that either President Obama or Secretary of State Kerry will meet with their counterparts during the UN session that begins this week.

Even the prospect of an Obama-Rouhani encounter alarms The Wall Street Journal, which in an editorial today says that such a meeting “would give the dictatorship new international prestige at zero cost.” Echoing Netanyahu’s maximum, no-compromise position, the Journal adds that Obama must demand what would amount to complete capitulation by Iran:

At a bare minimum any deal would have to halt Iran’s enrichment of uranium, remove the already enriched uranium from the country, close all nuclear sites and provide for robust monitoring anytime and anywhere.

That, of course, isn’t going to happen. Any possible deal with Iran will have to include full recognition of Iran’s right to enrich uranium, on its own soil, under international safeguards, and Iran’s right to maintain a stockpile of enriched uranium for nuclear-fuel purposes. No Iranian president could survive politically if they accepted anything less, and Rouhani—who served as Iran’s nuclear negotiator in nearly a decade ago under President Khatami’s reformist government—has already insisted on Iran’s fundamental nuclear rights under the Nonproliferation Treaty that Iran has signed.

At the UN, Netanyahu—who last year held up cartoon-like drawings intended to illustrate Iran’s rush to build a bomb—is said to be preparing a speech in which he’ll say that Iran is preparing a “trap” for the United States. A wide range of Israeli politicians and analysts quoted in The Guardian amply demonstrate that Israel intends to approach any possibility of US-Iran talks like a wrecking ball. And The Guardian quotes Netanyahu’s office:

“The true test is not Rouhani’s words, but rather the deeds of the Iranian regime, which continues to aggressively advance its nuclear program while Rouhani is giving interviews.”

A memo from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main arm of the Israel lobby in the United States, lays out harsh conditions for Iran, including a demand—not likely to be considered—that Iran “suspend all enrichment and heavy water activity.” If not, says AIPAC, “sanctions must be increased” and the United States must “[strengthen] the credibility of military action against Iran’s nuclear program,” adding: “The United States must support Israel’s right to act against Iran if it feels compelled—in its own legitimate self-defense—to act.”

David Ignatius, writing in The Washington Post, makes the important point that not only Israel but Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf are fearful of an American-Iranian accord. He writes:

A comprehensive framework appeals to prominent U.S. strategists. But it deeply worries regional players in Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who fear their interests would be sacrificed in the grand design of the U.S.-Iranian condominium…. Will Saudi Arabia and the Gulf nations stop fulminating about the Iranian menace long enough to consider the shape of a deal?

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Iran, for its part, has set the stage for a positive outcome. Rouhani has taken the nuclear file out of the hands of hardliners and given it to Iran’s new foreign minister, Javad Zarif, widely known as a reasonable, moderate interlocutor. He’s shaken up the nuclear bureaucracy in Tehran. He’s warned Iran’s military, including the powerful Revolutionary Guard, to stay out of politics. And he’s gotten support from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, who has endorsed “heroic flexibility” in the upcoming round of talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1. Among other signals, Rouhani has freed many political prisoners and sent greetings to the world’s Jews during the recent Jewish holidays. In an important op-ed in The Washington Post, Rouhani offered Iran’s help in resolving crises in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, and he added:

As I depart for New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, I urge my counterparts to seize the opportunity presented by Iran’s recent election. I urge them to make the most of the mandate for prudent engagement that my people have given me and to respond genuinely to my government’s efforts to engage in constructive dialogue. Most of all, I urge them to look beyond the pines and be brave enough to tell me what they see—if not for their national interests, then for the sake of their legacies, and our children and future generations.

And speaking at a military parade yesterday in Tehran, before leaving for New York, Rouhani said that if the United States and its allies “accept the rights of Iranians, our nation will stand for peace, friendship and cooperation, and together we can solve regional and even global problems.”

Barbara Crosette explores the upcoming UN Security Council vote on a Syria resolution.

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The Nation’s very own Dave Zirin talked about LGBT rights in Russia, the Redskins name change debate and the relationship between sports and politics on last Thursday’s Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell. Follow the show (@Totallybiased) or Bell (@wkamaubell) on Twitter.

- Andrés Pertierra

(Reuters/Luke MacGregor)

This year’s meeting of the nation’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, was hailed as historic for many reasons. There were more women and people of color participating than ever before, lots of first-of-a-kind resolutions on things like incarceration and immigration, and lots of welcoming of non-union workers like domestic workers to the big, old labor family. But what does being part of the family mean?

Domestic workers know a thing or two about familial relations. Described as “dears” and “saints” and “angels” by their employers, the “help” have worked for poverty wages in miserable conditions in Americans’ homes since the nation’s birth. In the widely eulogized New Deal era, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which labor unions praised, excluded people who worked in homes, in fields and in most kinds of retail and service work. It wasn’t called “special rights” for white men, but that’s what it amounted to. Even when FLSA was updated in the ’70s, domestic workers were still excluded. They’re not workers, the lawmakers said, they’re “companions”, members of the family.

It wasn’t until this month that change finally came to the FLSA law when the Obama administration announced it would finally extend minimum wage and overtime protections to domestic workers who have been cut out. It’s a change labor and community groups have pushed for. The question is what comes next.

In Los Angeles, Lourdes Balagot Pablo, a 61-year-old Filipina, told GRITtv about what it’s like to “companion” sick elderly clients in their homes as a live-in aide, twenty-four hours a day, in four-day shifts. If she gets two hours of uninterrupted sleep the whole time, she’s lucky, she said. It’s not what she was expecting when she was brought to the United States on a teaching visa. She taught math and physics at the university back home, but here she was forced to teach something entirely different, and when that didn’t work out, she found herself—like many so-called “guest workers”—jobless, paperless and thousands of dollars in debt to the immigration sharks who had arranged her H2B visa.

Her real family, let’s be clear, is in the Philippines, and after five years apart, she longs to see her 15 year old son on something closer than a Skype call. When they talked recently, he cried that he misses her, she told us.

The Obama administration’s new protection are an achievement. “Today, the Department of Labor took an important step towards stabilizing one of America’s fastest-growing workforces, and one made up predominantly of women, women of color and immigrants,” said Ai-jen Poo, executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and co-director of the Caring Across Generations campaign. “This change is a long-overdue show of respect for women in the workplace and for the important work of supporting seniors and people with disabilities.”

But the changes, which won’t take effect until January 2015, won’t make everything right for women like Balagot-Pablo. That’s why the National Domestic Workers Alliance and others are continuing to push for more protections through state legislation. (California looks likely to become the next state to pass a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. The state senate approved the bill on September 11. Both houses passed a 2012 version of the bill, only to be vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown.)

Richard Trumka has fought for Domestic Workers rights legislation. He campaigned on the ground in California and both the AFL-CIO, and the SEIU worked with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Jobs with Justice and the Family Values at Work Consortium in the Caring Across Generations campaign to pressure the administration to implement the FLSA change. Indeed, by all accounts, it was that concerted pressure, from labor, “alt-labor” community, women’s, immigrants, seniors and disability rights groups working together on a shared agenda that made change happen this time, after repeated attempts over eighty years. A pledge by candidate Obama and the personal commitment of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis helped too.

But two days after the administration’s announcement, Alliance members were back in DC rallying outside the Department of Labor for implementation of the new rules. The week before that, they’d been in the nation’s capital taking part in a mass arrest for immigration reform.

In terms of the agenda of the labor movement, will real inclusion for excluded workers follow this September’s pronouncements? What would real inclusion look like, not just on the celebration stage, but in the priority-setting meetings of the AFL-CIO? What would a labor movement look like that saw what organizer/author Jane McAlevey calls the “whole worker”, and acted on the interconnected issues that affect workers’ whole lives: at home, at work and (gasp) at leisure? WIth reduced funds in their coffers, big labor’s donation checks to grassroots group can’t be the beginning and end of their “support.” A warm welcome is very nice, but domestic workers are all too used to being called family. As South African domestic Myrlie Witbooi told the convention upon receipt of the George Meany/Lane Kirkland Award for Human Rights:

“I can assure you many of you sitting here are our employers. You have us at your homes, when you are here.

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“If I’m part of your family you need to let me sit at your table while you get up and you wash the dishes.“

Big Labor is welcoming domestic workers like family. But are they getting up and washing the dishes?

You can hear an abbreviated version of this commentary on SoundCloud.

Take Action: Fight for a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in Your State