RAGE BAIT-The 'Scots-Irishization' of Lower-Income White Men With Guns-As A Prism Of The Gender Wars

[kpete]

JOSH MARSHALL JANUARY 15, 2013, 8:57 AM 8304
This email from TPM Reader JS over-simplifies a lot and doesn’t cover a lot of people. There are obviously plenty of female gun aficionados, though it’s obviously an overwhelmingly male scene. It’s a ‘complicated issue’ as we all say about pretty much every issue. But when I read it I could not help think, ‘Yeah, you’re definitely on to something.’

I view gun control from the prism of the gender wars. It’s a last-gasp attempt by lower-income men to hold onto some shred of self-respect: at least a capacity for autonomous violence, if they are left with nothing else. And they are being left with nothing else, since the job market is increasingly feminized on all but the highest levels, most remaining male-gendered work (except uniformed public service) is increasingly losing income and status, and patriarchy is no longer a particularly strong legal or cultural norm. This is responsible for many things: almost all bad. I call it the Scots-Irishization of lower-income white men.

The politics of this are miserable, at least in the short and medium terms. In a democracy rife with veto points, a passionate small group will preserve the status quo every time. About the only exception to this (and the only small ray of hope) was the civil rights movement of 1915-67. But that’s fifty years, folks. And that movement at least had the advantage of extreme sectionalism: there were no passionate segregationists outside the South.

I despair of rational gun control until some progress is made with this situation. And I only see it getting worse.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/01/rage_bait.php?ref=fpblg

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. I don't think the patriarchy is weak.

"The patriarchy", in four words or less, can be defined as: "Women and Children First".



Otherwise, I don't disagree with the assessment.

[Tsiyu]

3. Yeah, like that schoolgirl in Steubenville

who was gang-raped. The coaches and law enforcement sure put HER needs first!

And those 26 children and women who died in Newtown. Yeah, they went first all right.


It's a joke to say women or children are placed "first" in this society. WE spend more making sure our generals can have their love affairs in style, and paying Congress to introduce 1000 bills legislating what women do with their privates but can't seem to make up a bill that gives men and women JOBS, and making sure CEOs- the overwhelming majority of whom are MALE - get bejillion dollar bonuses off the aching backs of their underpaid, overworked labor force.


Woman and children first, my ass.

[Fumesucker]

2. No passionate segregationists outside the South?

I learn new facts on DU on a nearly daily basis, I had no idea Boston was in the South.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_busing_crisis

The Boston busing crisis (1974–1988) was a series of protests and riots that occurred in Boston, Massachusetts in response to the passing of the 1965 Racial Imbalance Act, which ordered public schools in the state to desegregate.

[Enrique]

4. if there is any hope

we need to drop the cultural focus, which imo is a dead end. About 80% of the discussion seems to be endless theories about how exactly "we" are better than "them". Each theory more half-baked than the last, and none of them challenged because it's all "we" here.

Instead of psychoanalyzing "them", we need to realize that a lot of "them" disagree with the NRA on some forms of gun control.

[DinahMoeHum]

5. As the late great Joe Bageant said of the "Borderers". . .

"Borderers". . .ie. Scots-Irish, Ulster Scots, etc.

Drink, Pray, Fight, Fuck

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2005/01/drink_pray_figh.html



"If you are doomed to eat shit, you may as well bring your own fork"

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2004/06/mash_note_for_t.html

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. +1000 n/t