Florida Gay Nightclub Mass Shooting

[drunkenshoe]

I don't think that you have more 'monsters' than other countries, the problem is "ease of accessibility". There are frustrated and angry people everywhere but guns make them deadly. It's doubtful that the Orlando shooter would have been able to kill 49 people with a baseball bat or a butter knife. But 45 rounds a minute will leave a carnage every time if so desired. That means owning a gun, especially 'assault' rifles is a responsibility not just a right. And with responsibility come certain rules. Like a drivers-, hunting-, fishing license and the like. CNN has an interesting article about gun purchasing in the US. It is more difficult to buy a puppy or cough syrup than guns. Therein lies the problem.

Agreed. I'm aware of the 'gun purchase' issue in the US. It's in the open. Everyone can see it.

(And I personally apologise from you that the post I wrote up there was highly mainstream Americanised and dumbed down, because I am sick of reactions and honestly, didn't think that somebody would give a straight response of the sort; very few people see my posts. Hence the remark "we have more monsters". It's not my intention to insult, just an explanation of the situation which is really really bad.)

[Baruch]

"I sometimes think Americans see their own population as a herd made of 'psychos', murderes and rapists and of course stupid people. I don't know what to say to that."

Yes, we are.  Our civilization is unnatural, superficial.  And there is nothing you need to say about that.  Don't like crazy people, then stay out of the asylum.

I think other nation's people are too, but I don't want to be accused of bigotry.

[drunkenshoe]

"I sometimes think Americans see their own population as a herd made of 'psychos', murderes and rapists and of course stupid people. I don't know what to say to that."

Yes, we are. Our civilization is unnatural, superficial.  And there is nothing you need to say about that.  Don't like crazy people, then stay out of the asylum.

I think other nation's people are too, but I don't want to be accused of bigotry.

Invalid statement. Define natural civilisation. Superficial is altogether another thing...the big C Leaves nothing alive. It devours everything.

[SGOS]

In addition to the FBI dismissing warnings from co-workers about Omar Mateen , it appears they may have been alerted to suspicious behavior by Disney employees.  This report comes from FOX so it may or may not be accurate.  In addition, there is just a paragraph and some tweets to read as if the report had been hacked to bits by a drunken editor.  These types of truncated stories are typical of Yahoo.  Perhaps there is more information from a better and more reliable source someplace else.

http://nation.foxnews.com/2016/06/14/disney-warned-fbi-about-omar-mateen-back-april?intcmp=ob_article_footer_text

[Baruch]

Invalid statement. Define natural civilisation. Superficial is altogether another thing...the big C Leaves nothing alive. It devours everything.

Natural = small city state ... everyone is same race ... everyone is from the same tribe ... everyone has the same religion ... everyone has the same culture.
Unnatural = giant empire ... everyone is different race ... everyone is different tribe ... everyone is different religion ... everyone has different culture

In that way, the EU is more unnatural than the US.  Turks should be very aware of this, given their history since 1900.  You live on the W coast of Anatolia, so you should be very aware of how city parasitism and colonialism work, since the Western version of that was first tried 2700 years ago right where you live.  Greek urban exploiting Greek country ... and Greek colonists exploiting Anatolian natives.  No different than the Spanish invasion of the New World, just on a smaller scale.  I have a coin from Ephesus that says ... nothing changes.

Have you ever read the Cross of Gold speech of William Jennings Bryan?  1890 Democratic national convention.  One of the most Leftist speeches ever made in the US.  Fallen columns, and grass growing between the cobbles in the agora.  It has happened many times in many places, when the ponzi fails.

[baronvonrort]

Article by Arab Humanists (atheists) on Orlando

www.arabhumanists.org/arab-reaction-orlando-depressing

[Baruch]

Unfortunately Muslim communities make excuses for the bad behavior of their members.  Just like other communities.  What makes a difference is I am in this community, not theirs.  So I expect their hate, I expect their competition.  It is what humans do.  I compete with them, I hate them back.  Sometimes competition is in the market, but sometimes it is in violence.  That is the way things have always been.  Idealists simply prefer to keep their heads up their behinds.  I prefer to keep this non-violent though.  Compete in soccer, not in arms.  Then the competition and hate, is kept at the sports fan level.

So no, I have never been surprised and the mendacity of my fellow humans.  I recognize and accept what I am dealing with.  But I do like to tease the bigots.

[chill98]

Seems the claim of psychological testing by the employer has gotten a bit more fuzzy.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/psychologist-i-never-evaluated-orlando-shooter-mateen-n594976
QUOTE from article:

"Dr. Nudelman did not score Mateen's evaluation," the G4S statement said. "She sold her practice in 2007. Mateen's MMPI was scored by HQPE (Headquarters for Psychological Evaluation). A clerical error failed to note the change in vendors scoring the exam."

[drunkenshoe]

Natural = small city state ... everyone is same race ... everyone is from the same tribe ... everyone has the same religion ... everyone has the same culture.

This is NOT natural. Humans have never lived like this. You are describing ANTS. A perfect civilisation for an organism that lacks self consciousness, desire, fear, individuality. Perfect anarcho-communism. Doesn't work for us. Doesn't even work for cats.

What you are describing up there is called "imagined societies" by western cultural historians. They never existed and can never exist even humans were one race and have one religion. There has never been soiceties with one race and religion, one culture. This is an illusion built by the standardisation of French Revolution and actually as an idea built through in early modern Eruope during 'language wars' by soveriegns to impose their own culture among masses.

It doesn't exist. It's made possible as an idea by the aristocracy and the literate class and the scholars, it is produced on paper. But it doesn't matter that it is not real, because like individuals, societies has an enormous ability for cognitive dissonance and filling the blanks about their own society and culture.

Diversity itself has never been the problem for the people. Diversity is a problem for the MODERN STATE in every level.

- If you create nationalist society with one religion, you guarantee the ways of manipulation of every aspect of that society. You can scare that society with itself, with the other, with itself and threaten it with countless ways, teach it tricks; make it run with hare and hunt with hounds. You don't even have to intervene directly. The identity of an individual in national country itself is enough. A fake made sense of belonging and 'us'.

What's more, when you create a nationalist-religious society, you also create a power that will check itself and work over people independently by itself. This is why fascism in it all aspects doesn't die and it DOESN'T NEED A STATE TO WORK. Individual takes over that job in various mediums.

- Now think about another society that the individuals are taught that their identity is defined by their contribution and function alone, but not with where and with what skin colour or sexual orientation they were born or what they believe. A functional diverse society.

You cannot threaten this society with itself. You cannot use the members of that society against each other, because the other wouldn't exist as triggering power in cultural dynamics and social life.

How are you going to manipulate this herd? You can't, because it is NOT a herd. Members of a herd is needed to prisoned in the same identity, if possible needed to be transformed into organisms got out of a copy machine ideally: from their phsyical traits to what they wear and eat and dream and fear. In the capitalist system with a greed to match.

But real individual is another story alltogether. You don't get to slap and manipulate him around. He'll give you the finger if you try to draft him or impose your high class serving rules.

The understanding of UNITY is so different in a diverse, functional society if it is managed NO modern state would stay alive or manage. That society is not maintained by teaching people they can get what ever they want, but that they can't and they shouldn't. Because it is ideal socialism.

Who would want that highly evolved society? Nobody. From the indivudal that 'wants everything and wants it now' to the modern state and world industries all over. NOBODY can 'afford' that society with the current system.

There are many thing sto say, but trying to keep it impressionistic and short. So 'natural civilisation' is the complete opposite of what you are describing for us humans.

Unnatural = giant empire ... everyone is different race ... everyone is different tribe ... everyone is different religion ... everyone has different culture

These are not conected, but a result of means of economy and politics invented related to control the demography and usage of resource. Fictional reality.

In that way, the EU is more unnatural than the US.

Again. Invalid. Yes, Europe doesn't exist out of political and economical concepts and a culture built on it, but also money is a piece of paper and we created up a lot of 'fictional reality' out of our asses to build a civilisation and survive as social primates. Economy is one of them. Art, culture...success. Most importantly RELIGION, because we needed to survive as societies. In this sense religion is the most important invention of human kind.

(It's actually a bit like the Picasso discussion technically. "It's a half ass geometric expression of a female face." No, it is not.)

Turks should be very aware of this, given their history since 1900.

Turks are shamanic nomads Ä°slamised by Arabs. While they built several states and empires etc...they do NOT have a settled down or a written culture but what was inhereted from Persia and Greece and Arabs and later modern western and feall back to islamism. Today, still there are moving tribes of close to 90 000 in Anatolia in 21 st century. Imagine that in the US.

The minorities and cultural difference in Ottoman Empire and minorities and cultural differences in a westernised republic is completely different issues.

-Republic is founded on the principles Frech Revolution and the modern state and the modern law.

-Ottoman Empire is a monarchic system WITHOUT any aristocracy that tried to direct states before even any understanding of nationalism. Ottomans do not accept themselves as "Turks". Turk is a heavy built lowest class worker. Turks did not have a nationality before the independence war against Europe and Ottomans.

You live on the W coast of Anatolia, so you should be very aware of how city parasitism and colonialism work, since the Western version of that was first tried 2700 years ago right where you live.  Greek urban exploiting Greek country ... and Greek colonists exploiting Anatolian natives.  No different than the Spanish invasion of the New World, just on a smaller scale.  I have a coin from Ephesus that says ... nothing changes.

Inavlid comparison. Systematic nationalised colonialism in modern period cannot be compared with mass movements and slavery system of the ancient world. Many different worlds apart.

Modernism -which has many meaning- first and foremost runs on the division of many organs in an organism and professional sense work AND infrastructure. Standardisation and assimilation.

Ancient world; slaves. You are talking about a period when geography plays the main role in architecture; founding a city, carrying water, feeding people. No industry available.

Have you ever read the Cross of Gold speech of William Jennings Bryan?  1890 Democratic national convention.  One of the most Leftist speeches ever made in the US.  Fallen columns, and grass growing between the cobbles in the agora.  It has happened many times in many places, when the ponzi fails.

No, I haven't. I don't understand why it is relevant as 'left' considering 'fallen columns and the cobbles of agora', Greek democracy is built on slaves and 'ideals' re-written countless times. The real life that has passed in Ancient Greece and Rome, the reflection of the administration told today is an infalted series of myth expressed in modern language. It has nothing to do with reality or people.

Those philosphers that has been told as if they are secular, logical thinkers in books are prophets and cult leaders of their time. Pythagoras is not a mathematician or a thinker as we call him today, he is prophet to his followers. We came to the same point with the 'weird being wierd' thread. Michelangelo is not an artist, Thomas Moore is not a humanist, Rebalais is not an atheist, Richeliue is not a statesman, Leonardo is not engineer nor a scientist. Renaissance is not the birth of modernism. Greek democracy is not a democratic system. There are no domestic policies or nations before French Revolution.

We constantly re-evaluated and re-wrote all these concepts, defined them over and over again and accumulated, built a history.


I have read Robinson Crusoe and also God of the Flies and they stomp most books on human species and human civilisation in entire written history of our civilisation.

[marom1963]

Years ago, I had an interesting experience. I met a young man from Russia. He told me what they told him about America. And he giggled about what I told him about what we had been told about Russia. I realized then that propaganda was alive and well on both sides.
I KNOW that most Muslims are not blood-thirsty suicide bombers out to do the US in. I know this simply because I know that most of the World's Muslims want the same from life as everybody wants - peace and quiet and a nice home w/enough to eat and nobody bothering them.
They're human beings - plain and simple.
We have plenty of our own maniacs who want to lob bombs at innocent people - plenty of them in the Pentagon!
The thing has become worse than disgusting - it's downright tiresome!

[Baruch]

Drunkenshoe ... I assume you have read all of Dr Diamond's books?

The thing we dare not face in the mirror when we shave in the morning ... is that human beings are omnivorous predators.  Societies that acknowledge that are natural.  Rousseau believed that "returning to nature" would make us all noble savages.  But he was wrong, as was Marx thinking we were evolving into a high tech version of noble savages (he idolized primitives also).  Both men hated civilization, while enjoying the benefits.

So the ancient Greeks were right in colonizing Anatolia, and enslaving all they could.  The Enlightenment is all a lie, not just Rousseau.  The only mistake the Greeks made, is in not making enough Greeks to overcome demographic disadvantage.  Had they done so, Alexander would have been more successful ... Judaism would not have survived, we would all be pagans ... Christianity and Islam would have never happened.  People would be speaking Greek derived languages rather than the Latin derived kind ... from Ireland to Pakistan.  But then Alexander was a megalomaniac who died young.  How are the ambitions of Alp Arslan any different?

[drunkenshoe]

Drunkenshoe ... I assume you have read all of Dr Diamond's books?

The thing we dare not face in the mirror when we shave in the morning ... is that human beings are omnivorous predators.  Societies that acknowledge that are natural.  Rousseau believed that "returning to nature" would make us all noble savages.  But he was wrong, as was Marx thinking we were evolving into a high tech version of noble savages (he idolized primitives also).  Both men hated civilization, while enjoying the benefits.

So the ancient Greeks were right in colonizing Anatolia, and enslaving all they could.  The Enlightenment is all a lie, not just Rousseau.  The only mistake the Greeks made, is in not making enough Greeks to overcome demographic disadvantage.  Had they done so, Alexander would have been more successful ... Judaism would not have survived, we would all be pagans ... Christianity and Islam would have never happened.  People would be speaking Greek derived languages rather than the Latin derived kind ... from Ireland to Pakistan.  But then Alexander was a megalomaniac who died young.  How are the ambitions of Alp Arslan any different?

Of course Alparslan is not different. All of them are the same.

What I am trying to say that this is a matter getting evolved. And humans need to make this themselves and learn to minatain it. There are no natural civilisations. The fact that we are violent primates doesn't change anything. Look how far we have come.

Sitting in front of the computer and cynically throwing criticism about how everything is the same is easy -I am saying this to myself too, to all of us- but we have traveled a long way.

[drunkenshoe]

Most people here think that the life in America is what they see in movies with its best and worst. And a big westernised group think the life in the ME is what like British-American media tells.

The propaganda doesn't just exist. The gap between reality and what is sold out there to every peoples of the world is the biggest bullshit ground to build every other hing on it.


I personally found the States much better than I expected, but my experience is limited.

[Baruch]

There is no progress, except in the quality of the propaganda.  What is true, given the propaganda of culture and language and history ... is impossible to tell.

[Mike Cl]

Most people here think that the life in America is what they see in movies with its best and worst. And a big westernised group think the life in the ME is what like British-American media tells.

The propaganda doesn't just exist. The gap between reality and what is sold out there to every peoples of the world is the biggest bullshit ground to build every other hing on it.


I personally found the States much better than I expected, but my experience is limited.

Then you must not have visited Alabama. :))  I have a pet hypothesis about people.  I think they are all the same in that they all simply want to be left alone to make their way through life with family and local community; left alone in the sense that we can enjoy life and family, work at what we want to work at and not be in constant combat.  Yes, I do realize that this is a bit to idealized and that there are a few who are out for only themselves.  But, by and large, most people are live and let live types.  I have not traveled to many different places to test this out, but the few I've been to this seems to hold true.