[URL="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49221936"]I live on the outskirts of El Paso.[/URL]

[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso%2C_La_Palma"]The civilized one[/URL], thankfully.

[YOUTUBE]7UVVS5-9HvA[/YOUTUBE]

Sorry I'm late to the party... [url=https://www.apnews.com/13545dd216ae4e7aa46c524b7ee4cbec]Texas governor: 20 dead in El Paso shopping center shooting[/url] [quote]EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A young gunman opened fire in an El Paso, Texas, shopping area packed with as many as 3,000 people during the busy back-to-school season Saturday, leaving 20 dead and more than two dozen injured.

Gov. Greg Abbott called the incident in the Texas border city "one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas." Police said authorities were investigating if it was a hate crime.

The suspect was arrested without incident outside the Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall, said El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen. Two law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity identified the suspect as 21-year-old Patrick Crusius. El Paso police didn’t release his name at a news conference but confirmed the gunman is from Allen, near Dallas.

Many of the victims were shot at the Walmart, police said.

"The scene was a horrific one," said Allen, adding that many of the 26 people who were hurt had life-threatening injuries.[/quote]
Hmm. Lot of people with life-threatening injuries. The body count could climb.

Of course, [i]Il Duce[/i]'s anti-immigrant demagoguery has nothing -- nothing at all -- to do with Our Hero's exploit.

Dayton, OH: Nine confirmed killed, shooter also dead

[URL="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49224816"]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49224816[/URL]

'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

El Paso shooting
 

I haven't seen any description of the circumstances of the capture of Our Hero of El Paso. I was led to wonder about this because of something he wrote in his pathetic attempt to justify his massacre:[quote]My death is likely inevitable. If I’m not killed by the police, then I’ll probably be gunned down by one of the invaders. Capture in this case if far worse than dying during the shooting because I’ll get the death penalty anyway. Worse still is that I would live knowing that my family despises me. This is why I’m not going to surrender even if I run out of ammo. If I’m captured, it will be because I was subdued somehow.[/quote]Call me a meanie, but the idea of this perp surrendering, cringing and whining "Please, please don't shoot!" makes me smile. Make that "grin from ear to ear."

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;523049]Of course, [i]Il Duce[/i]'s anti-immigrant demagoguery has nothing -- nothing at all -- to do with [B]Our Hero's[/B] exploit.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;523067]I haven't seen any description of the circumstances of the capture of [B]Our Hero[/B] of El Paso.[/QUOTE]The shooter may be a hero to you, but to me he is a despicable turd.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;523072]The shooter may be a hero to you, but to me he is a despicable turd.[/QUOTE]He was probably just angry. You wouldn't begrudge him the opportunity to release his anger. Would you? You meanie!

:bang:

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;523072]The shooter may be a hero to you, but to me he is a despicable turd.[/QUOTE]

I believe Dr. Sardonicus was being Dr. Sarcasticus for a moment.

Food for thought in form of a 2005 book by Mark Ames, Matt Taibbi's former brother-in-arms at the satirical Moscow tabloid-aimed-at-fellow-expatriates, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eXile]the eXile[/url]:

[url=https://www.amazon.com/Going-Postal-Rebellion-Workplaces-Columbine/dp/1932360824]Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond[/url]

This places the phenomenon firmly within the "orgy of kleptocapitalism" comment I made last week in the wake of the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting. The aim of the multidecadal neoliberal political-economic project is to precaritize the bottom 99%; this is typically couched in bromides about "free-market competition". Three key aspects of this process are:

[1] Destroy the notion of job security;
[2] Make people in the targeted demographic feel atomized - destruction of labor unions and labor solidarity are key here, as is the replacement of the notion of class warfare in public discourse by references to identity politics, i.e. "what divides us" - classic example is that one rarely hears unqualified "working class" in the MSM, rather one hears "white working class", "black urban underclass", etc;
[3] Use unfettered immigration as a tool to put relentless downward pressure on wages and working conditions. Even the likes of famous labor activist Cesar Chavez understood the cynical use of Open Borders by corporate America in this regard.

Trump, being Trump, has been cynically exploiting the Open Borders issue for political ends - but that does not mean it is not important. Lots of discussion [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/08/links-8-4-19.html#comment-3191241]over on NC today[/url] about this, prompted by the dual stories of the El Paso shooting and the announcement by Democratic Socialists of America that it passed a resolution in favor of open borders at its national convention this week - I noted in that comments thread that even the most staunchly pro-immigrant regular NC commenter, 'marym', stated that she found the DSA resolution to be "irresponsible and dangerous".

None of which is to excuse the El Paso psycho - just to place this latest such incident into the broader context of life in the latter-day U.S., with its toxic mix of broad economic and social despair and individualistic-gun-culture-fetishism, plus now social-media me-too-ism added to the mix. NC reader 'jeremyharrison' notes re. the shooter's manifesto:

"I’m not keen on giving him a voice, but wth…. It’s certainly racist, and nationalist, but also quite anti-corporatist. He despises the influx of Hispanics, which he sees as threatening the European-based US culture, but lays the blame on the corporations who seek downward pressure on wages, and politicians, both Dem and Repub, who do the corporations bidding.

Needless to say, his “solution” is twisted and obscene."

Another set of data points on the "triumph of neoliberlism" aspect of the mass-shooting epidemic - in a related NC post today (actually a repost by [i]The American Prospect[/i]'s Robert Kuttner, original over at Alternet), [url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/08/neoliberalism-political-success-economic-failure.html]Neoliberalism: Political Success, Economic Failure[/url], the author opens with
[quote]Since the late 1970s, we’ve had a grand experiment to test the claim that free markets really do work best. This resurrection occurred despite the practical failure of laissez-faire in the 1930s, the resulting humiliation of free-market theory, and the contrasting success of managed capitalism during the three-decade postwar boom.[/quote]

Now compare that timeline of the rise of what may be called Reagan-Thatchernomics (in the U.S. it actually started with none other than Jimmy Carter but really became overriding dogma under Reagan, and was continued by every president since, up to Trump, who has continued the "klepto" part while parting ways with the "globalization is always and everywhere good" dogma in favor of his own rightwing-nationalist reactionary economics) with this Wikipedia [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_deaths_in_US_mass_shootings.png]bar chart of annual total deaths from mass shootings in the U.S. from 1982 through 2017[/url]. The [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States]source article for the graph[/url] notes:
[quote]Studies indicate that the rate at which public mass shootings occur has tripled since 2011. Between 1982 and 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days. However, between 2011 and 2014, that rate has accelerated greatly with at least one mass shooting occurring every 64 days in the United States. According to the non-profit Gun Violence Archive, there were 250 mass shootings between January 1 and August 3, 2019—the 215th day of the year.[/quote]
The above chart only goes through 2017, and it seems the methodologies used for the strikingly disparate "2011-2014: every 64 days" and "250 so far in 2019" reports in the above quote were different, so for consistency, let's have a look at the [url=https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls]past tolls for recent years[/url] page over at the Gun Violence Archive - it lists the following numbers of confirmed mass shootings (with links to the full list of incidents, but annoyingly, no total for the associated death toll) for recent years:

2014: 269
2015: 335
2016: 382
2017: 346
2018: 340
2019: 250 [through Aug 3; extrapolates to ~420 for full-year]

Recall Alvin Toffler's Future Shock (1970). Premise is we have a post industrial economy, and change is accelerating; job security is obsolete; career security is obsolete. Industries emerge, thrive, and disappear, taking numerous roles with them. A quick example or two; no one does black tape on clear film printed circuit board artwork any more; silver haloid or kodachrome chemical film exposure and developing versus silicon based CCD image capture.
Product life cycles have become much shorter.
Globalization has meant race to the lowest labor costs.

At one time the seriously mentally ill were treated in institutions sized and funded to get the job done. Now they are much more likely to be given drugs and left to roam free, often homeless and going off their meds, to their own detriment and sometimes of those they encounter.

At one time the laws were enforced. Now politicians pressure the schools and police to downrate or ignore numerous offenses to produce improved crime statistics (cook the books). Hence Nicolas Cruz being free and able to obtain a firearm to shoot up Parkland Florida. Cities, counties, and states declare sanctuary for some classes of crime, causing the release to reoffend of habitual criminals and even aiding their escape from certain authorities.

At one time children were taught morals, taught by experience that their actions and choices have consequences. Recently our society has switched to disconnecting them from any consequences. That does not end well.

World powers go through a cycle of rise, maturation, overextension, decline, and replacement by another. It seems to be driven by something inherent in human psychology and politics. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great_Powers#The_United_States[/url]