government workers and other fairly well-compensated high school graduates? That's right, the very same publicans they went on to vote for in 2016.

A gun in the home increases the likelihood of suicide fivefold.

You are not controlling for suicidal individuals who purchase the gun with the intention of suicide. It's a common occurrence, enough that waiting periods on gun purchases has shown to reduce firearm suicide rates.

I don't think you can accurately compare the stress and suicidal tendencies of middle class America and the IDF. Stress / depression in middle class America is very different than the acute factors of military service in Israel.

This appears to play out in the statistics as well. Your IDF study shows an overall decrease, where the US Brady study (Ludwig and Cook) showed a decrease in firearms suicides only but not a decline in overall suicides.

http://home.uchicago.edu/ludwigj/papers/JAMA_Brady_2000.pdf

Waiting periods do not remove guns from the home, they just delay their entry.

Men need a purpose, usually in the form of a job. No job, no purpose leads to depression, despair with possible suicide.

surgery means the hospital will get the house?

no thank you drive me to cabelas

black men been committing suicide all of these years. What is good for the goose..Did a plan backfire?

They have developed more emotional toughness because of that, IMO.

some think they are entitled or that is what society told them..

that mass incarceration of that "class" provided the "order" and "structure" to their lives that white men didn't have...

Clearly discernible oppression provides "purpose", however horrid it is. The white man has kept me down.

In Reagonomics World, which we've been living in since the 80's, white men have no one to blame but themselves for their failures. Their "white privilege" leaves them no escape.

My main point is people are people no matter the color, and some people can't understand we are all in this

together and whatever effects one effects all in the long run.

The Canary in the Coal Mine.

We tried to tell folks - they didn't listen.

Ever notice how the Republicans and the Media always focus on the 22% of black Americans in poverty - and not the 78% of us that are not? Heaven forbid that it gets out that there is a sharp demarc between have and have not . . . and heaven forbid white uneducated men realize that they are being shoved right into that coal mine with the black folks living in poverty.

Maybe they are realizing it and simply can't handle the reality?

The military studying black women to see why we are so much stronger -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11871888

As in none.

All you can look forward to is working until you die. Corporate Boards give what you should be getting as productivity raises to overpaid CEO's.

Wall Street Money Boyz stole your retirement. Republican politicians helped them.

Once you realize that Rush and Fox have been lying and it isn't the Blacks and Hispanics and there's nothing you can do and nobody to help you, well....

increase?

They used to feel they were entitled to opportunity, and now they are seeing what it is like where there is little opportunity and no bootstraps in sight.

advantage over everyone but educated White men. Now they have to compete for the rapidly declining in number jobs that they qualify for. The declining jobs are happening to everyone, but White women, Blacks, Hispanics faced that issue for decades and learned how to cope.

Its right in their faces no matter the problem,they continue to try to blame black people there are other races in the country more than ever but they continue to blame everything on black people.

Didn't they create what they consider blacks to be?

I just saw Bob Woodward earlier and he is doing his damndest to blame Obama for the wiretaps talking about prosecution etc.. The hate is really strong. Is someone going to ask Bob Woodward what has Trump done wrong?

this thread is as hateful as I would have predicted. Nice job DU.

No wonder suicide rates are so high.

Been a Dem my whole life and thought people were insane to vote for Reagan. I've worked since I was 13. Have always treated everyone with kindness and respect that I worked with.

But, hey, no tears for those of us who paid in our whole lives, but will never make it to retirement, right?

My grandmother lived on Social Security for 30 years and it didn't bother me one damn bit.

It's like our older brothers and sisters, who always resented us anyway, are now pulling up the ladder.

I work in a "man's world". Here's what I experienced, both in how I handle work and work balence, and the men around me do.
There's a certain amount of expectation that people have when they work that is based on a two things - how they've been taught social heirarchy growing up, and the perceived value of the opportunity costs they have to make to get where they are.
This expectation drives the type and frequency of resentment felt when situations don't meet expectations.

If you've been taught that "anything" is attainable if you just try hard enough, and it's your choices that make you weak or fail, then preconcieved expectations make it harder to rebound and look for viable alternatives at the appearance of failure.
If you were taught (or taught yourself) to just do the best you can and make do while you look for alternatives when things don't work out, you are emotionally better equipped to handle both the anticipation of failure and an actual failure without internalizing and immediately looking for a reason why failure has nothing to do with you.

And the resentment that expectation and avoidance engenders is typically behind both the depression that can lead to suicide and the looking for scapegoats that lead to being a Teabagger asshole.

It's not that it's just "white men". It's that white men - and for that matter, eldest and/or youngest male siblings are typically raised with the expectation that they will have more opportunities and they will naturally do better than others around them - because of what they are rather than who they are. They are men, and a man is supposed to be strong and ignore weak emotions. They are the oldest, and supposed to be the natural leader and take care of everyone else. They are the youngest, or the only child, and the last person their parents had to baby, so they got all the attention.

It's a deadly little emotional trap. Especially since it is so much easier to be caught up in what you do instead of who you are in the wider scheme of things. There's a vulerability in failure, in having to deal with setbacks and the odd turning of life that most people who are raised with expectations usually have a hard time handling.

My experience and observation is why I'm not surprised to hear that Americans white men - and first/second generation men from other high-expectation cultures - are at higher risk of suicide or working themselves to death as a demographic than others.

Haele

There was a sort-of tail-end baby-boomer era (late 60's early 70's) where large families (3 or more kids) started becoming a detriment, as the financial stability of the home eroded. Mothers went to work, fathers started earning less. Job security eroded away, as job globalization advanced. Their kids got lost in the drug-fueled 80's. The beginning of the Ronald Reagan backlash against the previous "peace and love, tune in, turn on and drop-out" era. A darker turn into Gordon Gecko ruthless capitalism.

Lots of resentment to a world beginning to change so rapidly, with rewards becoming so out of whack to what people actually did to make the system function. The Celebrities and Superstars era of the 80's & 90's. The "Lost Boys" era.

As racial and gender equality issues came to the forefront (rightly so!) the media began to characterize it as a zero-sum game, with white men being the enemy of progress, with a lot of evidence (still!) to support it. Implicit bias and unreasonable, even irrational, expectations of reward, status and class. A phony meritocracy narrative was foisted where only the clever, talented, beautiful, or ruthless should be rewarded. "In God We Trust - All Others Pay Cash."

This is what I found so interesting about Bernie Sanders' remarkable campaign, and how "identity politics" was manipulated by both Democrats and Republicans to pigeon-hole his (rather simple) ideas into "communist" and "socialist" memes. He's a remnant of a bygone era, which folks who matured in the 80's and 90's cannot fathom. Enough for all? Not been my experience!

The filmmaker Michael Moore, who is about my age, and with similar experiences, recently summed it up saying, "let's let women run things now, guys." I think he is onto something. Gender and racial equality is what we all talked about in the 60's, but we allowed it to be ruthlessly crushed out by capitalist theocrats. If America was run by more women and minorities, things would improve for ALL of us, including white males.

The scary other has been a tool of oppression for too long. And white men have been bamboozled the most by it, and now feel guilt and shame for participating in it for so long. Or else are now ardent Trump supporters. The (apparently) 37% who still support that sociopath now in the White House.

Everyone has an opinion.What's wrong you can't handle the truth?

Irrational, biased and self-validating predictions inference often result in a self-fulfilling prophecy... as you've accurately illustrated.

Nice job, part deux.

. . . that "the world is your oyster", "the possibilities are endless", "the sky's the limit", "all it takes is good ol' fashioned pluck, hard work and gumption", etc. etc. etc.

They worked their ass off and fell behind badly because necessity costs ate up whatever gains in salary they made.

They got laid off and the wealthy got them to successfully blame people that weren't them . . . or better yet, blame "Tax N Spendocrats" . . . for what (in reality) Capitalism did to their plans. Anything to shift the target off of the wealthy . . .

They were sold a bill of goods that turned out to be a massive lie.

They expected the same windfall their fathers and grandfathers got. With no retirement prospects, no light at the end of the tunnel, broken marriages and no hope in the face of impending illness, this was their only way out.

White X-er/late Boomer males have no one to blame but themselves. Hating government so much, but you're perfectly OK with a CEO doing the same things to you . . . . that's the pinnacle of head-slapping stupid. That was the exact plan of the Republicans they listened to and put their faith in.

own interests making their situation worse. Fuck reaching out to them. These people can't and do not want to be saved.

...is a vulnerability to society's greater expectations for "success."

Surely there is a more tactful way to reference suicide.

No health insurance, no money, no hope......,

Been there. A number of my friends have done themselves in and a couple "just gave up" according to family members.

Lose your job over 50 and you are D O N E.

all you do is work and you miss out on actual life. When that really sinks in, this is it probably forever...well it can be too much.