"I'm gonna get a gun and take what the fuck I need"

A caller into C-Span's Washington journal just recounted how he was destitute and soon to be homeless. He ended his statement by saying "I'm gonna get a gun and take what the fuck I need". It was chilling. His tone indicated quite clearly that this was no idle boast.

On Edit: The segment took place 9:11am (9/6/09) as indicated by the screen inset

has there been a nation this prosperous facing becoming this poor.

And with so many guns.

Few people if any are as poor and hopeless as one can easily find examples in the past. I'll go out on a limb and say "No one is as poor..." because resources are available now on a scale previously unknown in history.

The destitute don't have guns- they pawned them.

Lower middle class jobs are evaporating leaving angry, armed people whose anger is easily manipulated.

What percentage of the population commits it?
Where do they live?
Did they work a respectable job before committing the violent crime?

The lower middle class doesn't prey on the population, the criminal class preys on the population. The lower middle class tend to have stronger basic morals than other segments. Violent crime comes from the lower class and huge financial crime comes from the upper class. Ideally, a revolution would purge both.

signs of its emergence.

It took some time for Germans to go from the post-Versailles depression to krystalnaught

rules. The lower middle class are the ones most likely to be able to see what is happening to their chance to prosper in bad times and they are the most angry. The lower classes (of which I am one) have always been aware of the hopelessness of the situation. Their reaction will stay the same. They just got angry a long time ago.

Quickly pull you head out of your rectum or you'll suffocate.

There is a direct, positive correlation between poverty and crime. When poverty is alleviated crime rates lower.

Lose your job, lose your home, lose it all. Angry? Probably. Nothing left to lose? Likely. Time for a desperate act? Increasingly likely.

Julie

When you've gone along for a lifetime, working hard and prosperous, and suddenly find yourself helplessly watching everything you've worked for disappearing. Not to an act of nature, not a hurricane or fire or tornado or earthquake. But blatantly stolen by TPTB. Your life stolen. The people around you that once were your peers now avoid you, look away when they pass you in the street, screen your phone calls, don't return messages, don't reply to your emails, while your life and everything that was you circles down the drain...

It doesn't matter that people in Africa or India or someplace a world away have less than you.

It's that you no longer even exist in your own world.

I understand too well where this man is at. I've felt that level of rage rising with each new insult, each new theft. I'm not there yet...but close enough to know that could be me someday.

And being raised right, means having grandparents or parents who relay the stories of the past hardships and of overcoming. I wasn't referring to India or Africa- that's not real to us; I was referring to the Great Depression. The stories from the Great Depression are still alive and known in people my age group and perhaps a little younger. It's our duty to relay the stories to those feeling sorry for themselves or hopeless. Then those stories become their stories. Of course, there are always those who don't listen, and they would probably be the ones for whom "poor=violent" and other sociopathic bullshit makes sense.

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The poster was giving good advice and that is how you respond?

Bullshit. The stupid fuck, that stumped for the teaparties, said that the good people, should be able to buy up all the goodies that will have to be abandoned by the newpoor. This is the scheme of those that control our economy. The business cycle, has been exacerabated, purposely. The downs, are to purchase all the gains of those that improved their lots, during the up. Mnay did quite well from the depression. The bubbles in the economy were purposeful too. The whole business is to get teh rich richer. The game is rigged, and god little citizens grin and nod, when they are told they will just have to work harder.

This is about me saying "those feeling sorry for themselves" apparently. I guess I don't use that term the way some folks do. It doesn't mean "being a crybaby" to me. I generally say exactly what I mean, there is nothing hidden.

too many people suffering from clinical depression have been told to 'quit feeling sorry for themselves." It has an extremely pejorative implication, and if you want to communicate effectively and be understood, it makes sense to use language the way most people understand it and not launch personal attacks at people who are already suffering mightily.

Watching everything that was your life go down the drain, and the accompanying depression, is not "feeling sorry for yourself."

It means isolation -- from your (former) friends, colleagues, social network, even your family. It means losing your life savings, money that you sacrificed for. Your home, that you sacrificed for. Everybody has a breaking point. In my case, the breaking point will be my animals. I lose my surrogate critter family, that's it. All bets are off. I've got a way to go before it comes to that, but seriously. How much do I have to be robbed either with the government standing by protecting the thieves, or doing the stealing themselves, before I give up?

Not everybody has "stories of the depression" to teach them how to survive this; not even the majority. My parents survived the depression. They taught me nothing except that I was supposed to be an illegal abortion and that I "ruined everything." And there are tons of young people who never heard stories of the depression and, frankly, have never heard the word "no" before.

I did everything I was supposed to do. I earned my way, lived below my means, saved for retirement. I was worth about $250K 7 years ago. In return, I've been robbed and lied to by every institution, along top of my neighbors, the realtors, contractors, employers and former colleagues. When my local democratic rep drove by looking for votes 2 years ago, and I told her how my last employer had poisoned me, harrassed me in my home, trespassed and assaulted my animals, she got *snotty* and snapped, "So go find another job." The rep at the labor dept. said, "They can do anything they want. If you don't like it, get another job."

This in a state with high unemployment where 15% were on food stamps *before* this so-called recession. And this was the response from the *democratic* candidate. The state university was my last shot -- there the advisor lied by omission and outright fabrications on critical information, setting me back a full year. She figured she was bringing in about $1500 in extra tuition fees for the school (she didn't) but setting me back a year cost me an extra year of living off the last of my savings, plus additional loans, plus postponed selling my house and now I can't, and put me out of decent paying work for another year. Total about $30K loss for me, so the school could get an extra $1500.

people are deprived, but when they realize they can do better under an alternative regime. The tipping-point for revolution comes after mass mobilization, not before. The creation of a seemingly viable "dual sovereign", a party or para-state structure that appear capable of ruling, is also a prerequisite for a revolution. Revolts may occur without this sort of political organization, but they don't lead to state transformation.

The revolutionary process was closely examined during the Cold War as part of counter-insurgency doctrine. The most valuable theorists, in my view, are political scientists such as Chalmers Johnson, Jack Goldstone, Theda Skocpol, and the Tillys.

The place to start reading is James C. Davies, who came up with a theory about the "revolution of rising expectations" and the likelihood of armed civil conflict. His idea came out of development theory and ideas about the dynamic and effects of modernization on traditional societies. In the 1960s this became known as the Davies J-curve: http://www.fragilecologies.com/jun27_03.html

... the third tier has a second tier leader who wants to over throw the first tier and when the third tier can convince the fourth and fifth tier that there is a moral aspect to the ambition worth dying for.

Both seem unlikely revolutionaries, and I would say that Limbaugh's rank-order in any stratified system, Rush is pretty rank.

The Left in America is pretty much unleadable, but when it mobilizes itself -- as we did behind Obama -- we're a force of nature. Maybe, that will happen again, but we will be much less cooperative, tolerant, good natured, and forgiving toward those who would try to manipulate and sell us out. We'll see in a few days which way it goes.

I ran up against it and faced the reality in 1996 when personal circumstances made it clear that working hard, being a good citizen/neighbor and having moral convictions were not going to get me diddly
squat (thanks to the newt, the GOP, and the Contract With On America)

Watching more and more fellow citizens follow the herd blindly (FOX and the corporate pundits driving them) made me realize I was part of an underground working to turn things around.

It is easy to understand how others can decide to take care of themselves and fuck everything else. There is no social contract anymore. It is merely habit for most of us, and that is what the corporations are counting on, our habits.

While not condoning the turn to personal anarchy, I can certainly understand others who come to that conclusion. It is like we are actually becoming two species, those who will continue to stay in the system and try to correct and those who will do, say, believe ANYTHING to try and survive. It is the believing part that I think is most dangerous. Believing it will be OK (delusion) or believing it is OK to do anything (violence, whether physical or economic) is the worst of it all.

Wanted: One demagogue * . . . .

* The early 20th century American social critic and humorist H. L. Mencken, known for his "definitions" of terms, defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."

and a pedophile with a nasty drug habit?

Because I think I know who he was talking about.

I was describing one particular individual, one of whose distinguishing characteristics is that he is morbidly obese.

I could stand to lose about 20 pounds myself.

And then I diagnose people with bipolar disorder photographically.

...killing someone to get what he needs! Let's just hope he tries to take something from someone else with a gun and gets killed in the process! Most people who make these comments are just cowards anyway and don't follow thru with the threat.

I heard that.

I was sitting here reading something and not paying a whole lot of attention to the callers when I caught the tail end of his statement. Those final words were simply chilling. It was his delivery I suppose but it was clear as a bell that this guy was not kidding one single bit.

The guy was obviously at the end of his rope and desperate. I think someone may be knocking on his doo about.....now.

We've been ignoring them, blaming them, and ridiculing them ... at our peril.

(Provided of course, you live someplace that doesn't mandate 'victimhood')
It isn't anything new or particularly unusual.

who gets a gun stuck in her face so that this guy can get seventy bucks out of the cash register.

My house will be auctioned off in 2 weeks. I have no family, no significant other, no place to go other than my suburban. I am employed, but right now things are shitty all over. So I'm going to make the best of it and try to save money while waiting for things to improve. I have a plan, (I ALWAYS have a plan) but right now I have to suck it up and do what I gotta do.

Part of my immediate future plans include securing a place to shower(need money for gym membership), finding free wifi(done), securing storage for my belongings(done), obtaining a/c in my truck so I can sleep at night(almost there) and finding places to park where I won't get hassled or arrested - hard to do in Miami(done - I think). I have maintained a mailbox for the past umpteen years and that has been my primary address the whole time.

Armed robbery isn't part of my plan - and I own guns.

with a couple of little kids to look out for. Or that you are somewhere where a brutal winter isn't too far off. There are a lot of ways that your situation could put you in a far more desperate state of mind. You might think differently.

On another note, I have been where you are not so very long ago. I commend your coping skills and your sensible approach. It's not easy. Your one of the ones who will make it.

Julie

I just didn't think I would ever be in THIS situation again. It wasn't long ago that I was happily married and my wife and I had bought a house and were partners in a general contracting company. Now I'm preparing for the worst while sifting the wreckage of my old life deciding what to store, what to drop off at my in-laws and what to leave for the vultures.

I've had a hard yet bizarre and wild life.
I don't have kids because of the lack of stability in my life. That was a decision I made a while back. I grew up in Tennessee - one of the things I hated about it was the cold. I came here to South Florida 19 years ago and haven't looked back.

You're right, though. I will 'make it'. I don't have any other choice.

The only difference is that now "it's" happening in middle america.

So now people will take notice.





I'll stop now before my post becomes an Eminem lyric.............

The man needs to be arrested.

All the therapeutians are going to pile on you now.

Anyone who has "issues" with that, well, that's their problem.

:rofl:

hahahahahaha!

:crazy:

I suppose once he's out on the street his cable will be gone too. One wonders how far behind he is on that bill and how long the cable company will hound him for it.

once he is out on the street I have a sneaking suspicion that he'll be occupied with a few other higher priorities than shopping for weaponry that he can't afford. That is if he isn't just simply full of shit.

Just listen to the guy's voice - I don't think he was bullshitting anyone. Of course he, as an individual, is not the point in making the post. The point is that many people are despirate and that some will resort to violence as a result. This was just one more fragment of evidence to support that argument. Guess you missed the point. My fault, I should have written it more clearly. Sorry about that.

By the way, the phrase, "get a gun he can't afford" is really sort of absurd in this country; children who have never earned a dime in their lives have guns - I immagine a determined adult, even one who is broke, could manage to find one. Don't ya think?

He described how his father ran a restaurant with no electricity or gas during the 1930s because they couldn't afford it. Instead he would cook out back at a wood stove.

Anyway, he said everyone just kind of put their heads down and worked hard to get enough to live. He said that people would kill themselves trying to scrape enough money up for their families. But what scared him about today was that the kids wouldn't kill themselves trying, they were more likely to kill someone else.

then deal with it like everyone else has to.

I had relatives who said to me what yours did to you, and I believe them, and I have relatives that did work themselves to death in the attempt to support their families, and felt lucky to have the job too, I suppose, but I also know my history, and it was a very violent and crime ridden period. We are not there yet, but are headed in that direction.

Karma!

and her teenaged daughters. Desperate people do desperate things.

The rule of law is fractured from top to bottom. When you combine the desperation that's beginning to bubble to the surface because the economy is bleeding jobs at a staggering pace with the widespread perception that accountability isn't a factor, it's hard to see any potential for a pretty picture.

The PTB is apparently not satisfied with the rate of our implosion, as they seem to continually do what they can to pour water on a grease fire. Cool, calm heads and giving hearts will be necessary weapons if we are to avoid the fate laid out for us by our sadistic status shepherds.

And I'm a Washington Journal junkie. Yes, I'm one of the people who calls once a month, every single month.

Don't realize how desperate many people are. At the end of this year over a million people lose unemployment benefits.

I have said it on this forum before - when people can't provide food and shelter things get ugly fast.

we're reminded of how the "poor" are overweight (fed well, apparently), and how they all have color tvs and cell phones ...

but hey, this guy calls in and says he's going to get a gun and steal ... if he's white, he'll have a new job on Faux before too long ...

When we hear that Mike Jackson died of heart failure, we wanted to know more. I, having heart failure, was relieved when they found drugs. So that it couldnt happen to me. Same with poverty or illness. Like in Sacremento, we want it swept away. It's not fair for the rest of us to have to witness sadness and deprivation. So, like in the depression, we have keystone cops. They are there to insult, threaten and cause the unfortunate to MOVE ALONG. I have had crooked cops make up new laws recently. Then, I thought I would handle it in court. The judge was in cahoots. I took it to the AG. They handled it thankfully. We want to explain how the unfortunate got that way, in a manner that could NOT hapopen to us. Many times, that is sociopathic hate. Human nature. Like when a hyena gets hurt. The other hyena's will bite it till dead, so as not to slow the troop.

Internet tuff-guy that decided to use the phone today. Funny; he has plenty of money for cable, a phone, and a huge fucking bag of Cheetos's.

You are just as sociopathic as the rightwingers. He just needs to shut up and suffer.

i hope he gets a million bucks. be sure to wipe out the fucks over at aig and goldman sachs while you're at it, pal. thanks.

and people are turning into some sort of "do you remember where you were" moment.

He represents not just himself, but also a significant body of disgruntled and propaganda-juked souls.

It's how he chooses to spend his retirement. who knows.