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Indybay Feature

What Does Gun Violence Have To Do With Movies?

by John Thielking (pagesincolor [at] yahoo.com)
The massacre in Connecticut this week has left people devastated and some are looking for answers. Does boycotting violent movies (or realizing that there are nonviolent alternatives available) offer any hope of creating a mandate for change/gun control/ poverty elimination? This author says an emphatic Yes!
What Does Gun Violence Have To Do With Movies?
by John Thielking
12-15-12

A recent debate that I had with Steven Argue brought up the fact that there are two sides in the debate over weather violence in movies and video games significantly increases violence in the real world. Jonathan L. Freedman wrote a report published by The Media Institute (a movie producer funded outfit) located here:
http://www.mediainstitute.org/PDFs/policyviews/Freedman-TelevisionViolence.pdf
that tries it's best to debunk the notion that violence in movies is significantly associated with violence in the real world. He claims that as little as 28% of the published studies on the issue show a positive correlation. However, while he is good at criticizing the other side for doing sloppy science (such as not being able to eliminate experimenter demand effects and achieve a perfectly double blind experiment that uses violent and nonviolent movies), he himself neglects to do a formal meta-analysis of the entire set of studies that he is reviewing. If there are 28 studies with 100 subjects that show a positive correlation while there are 72 studies with 10 subjects that do not, then it is quite obvious that the balance of the evidence shows a positive correlation.

On the other side is Craig A. Anderson PhD of Center For Study Of Violence of Iowa State University, who has his own vested interest in that his career depends upon him continuing to find problems with violence in movies re: violence in society. In his latest work (written by a panel of experts from the organization that he heads), available here:
http://www.israsociety.com/pdfs/Media%20Violence%20Commission%20final%20report.pdf
it is claimed that no less than 3 formal meta-analyses of the possible correlation between violence in media and violence in the real world show a positive correlation. In that same paper the panel writes that while there is a positive correlation between media violence and increased indicators of violence in experimental trials, this does not translate into as strong a correlation between media violence and criminal activity. That is a different level of violence not addressed by most of the studies.

The bottom line is this: A 2009 on the street survey of what kind of movies people want to watch showed that 1/2 of the people want to watch a nonviolent movie, 1/2 the people don't care one way or the other, and only 2 or 3 people out of 35 want to watch a violent movie or seek out violent themes such as horror movies as their favorite. In light of the latest school shooting in Connecticut, it seems that one route to diminishing gun violence is to make sure that the box office receipts match the survey results. If that ever happened, all the politicians would start running scared every time someone wanted to start a war or if there was any kind of gun violence anywhere in the USA. Every trick in the book would be thrown at the problem until it was solved. Not all of the problem has to do with gun control. Some of it has to do with income inequality and general economic insecurity. We should be solving those problems too. But we need something to signal that we have a mandate. If 75% of box office receipts went to movies such as Eat Pray Love and Dolphin Tale, we would have just such a mandate.

Let's get cracking!

http://www.peacemovies.com specializes in reviewing nonviolent movies. The movies that are too violent are listed but not reviewed.
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Comments (Hide Comments)
by Beeline
The U.S. is steeped in the 'treat the symptoms and not the cause' psychological manipulation. More money is to be made on treating the symptoms and also if people learn by example then Elbert Hubbards statement that "so long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs" holds some water.

But why are Americans so fearful that they have to buy an anti-personnel weapon? Maybe because manufactures put money into scare propaganda. America used to be a hunting nation. Hunting was a big part of social life in many areas but as wildlife numbers decreased hunting arms sales diminished. Firearms manufacturers started pushing anti personnel weapons and a lot of those weapon types are featured in the movies. The capitalistic propaganda has a price. Leonard Doob and other social/psychologists noted back in the late 40's that there are side effects to propaganda. Think about all the commercials that play on peoples fears and enhance them.

Fearful people tend to buy stuff but they do not make wise choices.
by Stop the Hypocrisy
The American anthem should be titled "O So Proudly we Fail" as the failure we are witnessing with these endless massacres is on the part of a society to see itself for what it is: A reactionary, poorly-educated, uncultured, trigger happy, war-mongering hellhole. While one mentally ill male carried out the apparently male tradition we have witnessed in the past few years of using privately owned guns to kill people, mostly children, as well as his mother and himself, US imperialism kills the people of the world daily with no anguish from the American people. We now have a Democrat in office who is outdoing his predecessor Republican by providing weekly kill lists to the military, all violations of international law. All of the US occupations and invasions in memory are illegal, from Korea and Vietnam to Panama, Haiti, the Dominican Republican, all of the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yugoslavia and many more countries and area. They are all victims of American gun violence to maximize the profits of the US capitalist class, with the greatest profits being in munitions and oil. From 2006-2010, 47,956 people were killed by guns in the US. It is unknown if that figure includes the people killed by police guns, a horrifying usually racist, always anti-workingclass nightmare that never seems to bother any elected official. Some 45% of Americans own guns. As we saw from this latest Connecticut massacre where a 20 year old used his mother's guns, including a rifle, to shoot her and then shoot children in a school as well as other adults and himself, these guns cannot be used for self-defense. Self-defense with guns is a lie; the only defense we have is to eliminate guns and to teach peace, namely teaching culture, education and eliminating the profit system so that we share the wealth that we create as equitably as possible with everyone. The police were not at the school until after the incident happened and could not have been there at the precise moment it happened, so having more police does not help. Then we have the 3% of Americans who are hunters for "sport," killing animals "for entertainment," not to prevent their own starvation, as they are usually very wealthy people, mostly men. The US is a society that still supports the death penalty both as a federal anti-workingclass, racist terror weapon, as well as the same in 33 states. To top it all off, we have a society that actively promotes violence in movies, on TV and with its military, both at home and abroad. This weekend, we celebrate Beethoven's birthday. Can you imagine a society where 45% of Americans know Beethoven's music well enough to name his major pieces either from memory or when hearing them, much less know when his birthday is: December 16, 1770? Classical music is so unknown that many areas of the country do not have a classical music station and the San Francisco Bay Area, home to a first class opera company, the San Francisco Opera, as well as many smaller opera companies, has only one classical music station that serves the 9 counties of the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as the world online and on Comcast. Beethoven is a benchmark of Western music, which is why his music should be known, as much as we should have all other basic knowledge. A society that puts guns before butter is an uncultured, dying society.
by PrionPartyy
The first part of that comment had a valid point. Washington politicians do push violence. Like when Zionist crusaders gun down little Palestinian kids in Zionist occupied Palestinian lands. Washington politicians use public taxes to reload the Zionist crusader's guns. It is sick.

But the idea that I shouldn't be allowed to have a gun or many guns for my own self defense because some guy a thousand miles away kills little kids just doesn't pass the smell test. If you are right about 45% of Americans owning guns, then that means that 147,500,000 Americans who do own guns didn't kill anyone yesterday. And if there was some ill defined culture of violence among gun owners, then Americans would have killed each other off long ago.

People on the TV keep saying they don't understand how anyone could be so horrible as to shoot little kids, or anyone for that matter. It is because they are ignorant. But not by their own choice. It has been known for 2 decades now that SSRI anti-depressant drugs fry people's brains and a small percentage of them slaughter other people, both with and without guns. 30,000,000 Americans are now on these killer drugs. But big pharma business contribute to political sell outs of both big parties. So don't expect Washington politicians to address the actual cause of these attacks, they will go after the symptoms.

Yes, this latest horrible crime could have been prevented long before the last horrible crime and long before the ones before those, if the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors had been outlawed.

If Obama really wanted to take action for the good of us Americans, he would address the actual cause. And not try to use this latest crime to push any political agenda.
by ..............
pharma drugs are why aliens are here to take those druggers away.
by PrionPartyy
It would NOT (my bad) be 147,500,000 American gun owners who did NOT kill anyone (ANYONE!!!) yesterday. It is 157,500,000 American gun owners who did NOT kill anyone (ANYONE!!!) yesterday.

And my home town, a guy killed his family with a sledge hammer because of the SSRI drugs that Obama ( the clown YOU elected into office!!!) lets remain a terror to our people. What, is a bullet a more horrible way to die than a sledge hammer???

We know the actual problem. Obama knows the actual problem. But Obama would rather make the tool of SOME of the terror the problem rather than addressing the actual cause of the problem. Good luck with "leaders" like that.

Outlaw sledge hammers!!! Or just keep pretending that you actualy give a damn.
by PrionPartyy
It was not presented before any (ANY!) of the others. Yet it is presented as such.

Clearly indybay IMC is being manipulated, as are the people visiting this web site . WHY???
by Maybe
If you cant see the time stamps on the comments and see that Beeline commented first, well that adds some context to where you may be at politically lol
by PrionPartyy
That is how I know that Beeline's comment is a manipulation by the indybay IMC editors and no one else.

Why did the editors place the comment there when it was not there before??? It is presented as being posted before all other comments. But it wasn't there before any other comments.

Beeline??? an interesting name for the editors to choose for their manipulation. You are being played. I am not.
by Stop the Hypocrisy
The 20 year old mentally ill killer, Adam Lanza, was most likely taking mind-altering prescription drugs, which have been linked to most of these massacres by young men. Clearly, doctors have to be told by legal restrictions to not prescribe these drugs in such high doses or at all to young men.

The cause of these massacres is the private profit system, especially the very profitable drug and gun industries, which is why nothing is done about stopping these massacres. In China, private ownership of guns is illegal, so some nut used knives recently. The victims all survived the knife attack, and China is banning large knives that no one needs. While China is a capitalist country since the installation of the stock exchange in 1986, it still has not completely embraced the capialist nightmare.

The mother of Adam Lanza, the first victim of her "self-defense" arsenal of 5 weapons, including a rifle, was the sister of a cop. The 3 guns found at the massacre site, all registered to Lanza's mother, were a Glock handgun, a Sig Sauer handgun and a Bushmaster rifle. The police state we live in, the biggest in the world, is a gun nut culture. The police-prison pipeline is a very profitable industry, another reason why nothing is done to stop the gun industry.

All of the perpetrators of these massacres were male, and in many instances, females were the primary target, including in this one. This is the end result of male chauvinism in a backward dying society that is also busy promoting a rapist, killer culture in the military, banning abortion and birth control wherever possible and terrorizing abortion clinics.

We live in a society where the 55th most popular male baby name is Hunter, out of the 100 most popular male baby names, and there are many more beyond 100. This is a sign of a profoundly uncultured, backward, violent society.

Violence is always a downward spiral, and the lie of self-defense is certainly apparent in this case. When you store your murder weapons, they must be unloaded and in a locked cabinet, not available for immediate self-defense, so it is a lie that you are buying them for self-defense. The very idea of buying a murder weapon is so horrifying that it takes a profoundly sick mind to want to buy any gun.

Get rid of all your guns and your mind-altering prescription medicines now, and support peace candidates for office, the socialist and Green candidates.



by PrionPartyy
"profoundly uncultured, backward, violent society"

And yet, 157,500,000 American gun owners didn't kill anyone yesterday, or the day before that, and so on and so on and ...

Nope, it is criminals, who should be in jail, and people who have had their brains fried by SSRI drugs who are killing in America.

And people are still claiming that they can't understand why the guy killed so many. It has been known since 1993 that SSRI drugs turn some people into killers of both themselves and others. "Killers", not murderers, because with their brains being fried by the SSRI drugs, they don't have the capacity to make rational decisions. At least that is what the laws we created say.

Killers, not murderers. So what does that make Americans who fail, massacre after massacre, to outlaw such destructive SSRI drugs?

How could he do it? How can you let SSRI drugs continue to bring death and destruction. That guy's brain was fried. What is your excuse??? As I see it, such people who ignore the cause in order to use the symptom as a tool to gain political advantages in their anti-self defense agendas are about a million times more despicable that some killer who had his brains fried by the known killer anti depressants.
by John Thielking (pagesincolor [at] yahoo.com)
A member of the Obama admin admonished us that "Now is not the time to talk about gun control." But as others have said, "if not now, when?" I think that all of the possible causes should be on the table, including poverty elimination. I thought I heard that the shooter was employed at the school and went berserk as a result of being fired. Weather that is true in this particular case or not, there are other instances where this is true. Not that we should consider giving ransom payments to potential shooters, but the Peace and Freedom Party's platform includes a guaranteed minimum income as part of it's platform. I suspect that many instances of gun violence would be eliminated if there was not a basic economic problem involved somewhere along the line. Eliminating poverty would go a long way towards eliminating this type of violence.

As to the issue of the first poster on this thread always appearing in the first position or not, I do recall that that post was one of the three that first appeared when there were 3 posts. I don't recall exactly weather that post was always at the top or not. I'm grateful that my article was allowed to remain up, since the last one I posted generated a conflict of interest with the moderator and was deleted/hidden. Go to my web site and look at all the topics on the first page for a clue as to what that was.

Lastly, CNN is going to be broadcasting a memorial service from Connecticut on behalf of the people killed starting at 4PM PST today.
by Stop the Hypocrisy
Adam Lanza was the son of a wealthy GE executive who upon divorcing his wife, the gun-collecting, target practice attending mother of Adam Lanza, gave her enough money for a house and alimony so she did not have to work for a living. This was not a workingclass family and this area was not a workingclass area. Perhaps reading Michael Moore's tweets will get the message across. Moore produced the movie Bowling for Columbine describing some mentally ill young people taking prescription mind-altering drugs who killed other young people at school before killing themselves. See http://michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/note-michael-moore-2
You can read about his movie at
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/

You only have to read the commercial press online to get all of this information.

Moore's demands are minimal:
"A law immediately banning semi-automatic weapons & mega-clips. Must have license to own gun. Must pass mental exam."

This writer calls for complete abolition of guns. We do not earn a living as hunters and the United State is not the Wild West. The gun fixation is itself insanity.

He also demands "end the U.S.-sanctioned policy of killing: End the wars NOW, end death penalty. Stop banks and insurance companies from destroying people."

That is to say, the capitalist profit motive must end, and for that we need a labor movement to carry out a general strike.
by PrionPartyy
yep.

It looks like the shepherd (S-OBama) you have chosen to rule (RULE!!!) your American neighbors has chosen to ignore the actual cause of these many MANY MANY slaughters, and who has instead chosen to focus on SOME of the tools (obviously NOT sledgehammers) that the brain fried killers (NOT murderers under your own laws) have chosen (not really chosen since the SSRI drugs that they taken have have fried their brains), to commit their crimes (not really THEIR crimes since their brains have been fried by SSRI drugs approved be the FDA)...

...


OK Ok, the BS approved by the government YOU have elected has made my three sheets null and void, temporaraly.

Please appresiate my miss spelling as I am drunk as hell. as it is almos6 1 AM where I am

just let the me add some of the side affects (effestc, like I give a shirt in my present state).

What ssri drugs say about their own side effects affects effects

akathisia-litteral trans, can;t sit still, not just physical, but mental as well

agitation
psychosis
hallucination
hyoerkinesias
depersonalization-this means nothing around them is real, like a dream like state
amnesia
confusion-surely Obama knows what this is like
emotional labilety, moodes all over the place, no point of refferance.
sleeo disorders both too much and too little.
apaxia
depression of the central nervouse symptom
AND/OR stimulation of CNS
euphoria
hostility
increased sensation
and or decreased sensation
paranoid reaction
dizzyness

and the kicker of all SSRI drugs

MANIA

WHat? not familiar whit that word???

How about the MANIAC? as in the AX wielding maniac slaughtered a family of 4.

Well golly gee, If the FDA can't see the ACTUAL WARNINGS that the FDA itself forces these drug companies (that make billions and billions of dollars selling these killer drugs ) to include in their warnings (WARNINGS!) that force SSRI producers are FORCED to place on their own warning lables on their own SSRI drugs.well than you can;t expect these evil scumbags to stand uo against Monsanot ALSO destroying the lives and lifes of americans, or florine in our water, etc etc.

Fujk it. I am drunk.

BUt what are YOU??? Besides damned for ALL eternity?
What possible reason could the indybay IMC editors have to remove that last guy's post???

Is it because he/she pointed out how stupid it is for SOME people to suggest that people naming their sons Hunter doesn't really make the anti-gun nut's vapid rants any more valid than they already are. Which is vapid.

What? Do you need a dictionary to find out what the word vapid means???

Another rant.
And still, the main stream media doesn't say a word about how the SSRI anti-depressant drugs turn some people into sledge hammer/etc wielding killers.

Is that such a suprise to so called alternative / INDIpendant web sites??? MSM gets lots of drug company advertizing. And that means big bucks, doesn't it???

I find it shocking that so called indi web sites (that means YOU!!!) do not call out the MSM on their total refusal to even mention how thew SSRI anti-depresant drugs have been frying the brains of innocent people and turning those innocent people into killers.

Well, here is a little something something I have for you to think about. Well over 30 million Americans are using the SSRI drugs that turn innocent people into killers. AND most of those people are young people. SO, what about your baby sitters??? The people, usualy young people, that YOU leave in charge of YOUR children. Are they also on drugs that you KNOW turn people into killers??? And what if they are??? YOU KNOW that these SSRI drugs turn people into killers. Would anyone other than YOU be responsible if those baby sitters slaughtered your (YOUR!!!) children??? Well, yes, the drug companies and the FDA that knows that those drugs turn people into killers would ALSO (in adition to YOU since you also KNOW that these drugs turn people into killers) would also be responsible.

Ohh yess, another bit to ponder. suicide has passed automobile crashes as the leading un natural killer of Americans. un natural means that heart disease cancer etc don't count. Hmmmm. maybe you have placed your own children of the SSRI drugs which you know has increased suicides. Isn't that another reason for you to finally tell the truth???

Suicide is now the number 1 killer thanks to SSRI drugs.

All those children killing themselves because SSRI drugs fry their brains. And YOU know the cause of their pain, and their family's pain. And yet YOU would remain silent because gun violence is the 15th cause of un natural deaths in America.

Wow, just how evil would you have to be to remain as silent as you have already been.

What? do you own stocks in drug companies??? Well, there must be some reason that you support the leading un natural killer of American people, most of whom are children.

That is it. I am done for now. YOUR evil had sickened me to the point where even I can say no more. YOU make me sick.
by John Thielking
It is true that quite often the drugs given to the mentally ill to allegedly help them do quite the opposite. If drugs aren't working there is no question that the psychiatrist would be aware of that fact and he/she shares the responsibility if the patient does something crazy. I am fortunate to be one of the few that function just fine on Risperidone. My liver needs to be monitored though and I'm hoping that my switching to a GMO free/organic diet will help with that, as rats fed GMOs had liver problems but when they went off GMOs some of their health problems improved.

Robert Norse sometimes discusses this issue on his radio show on FRSC 101.3 FM on Sundays from 9:30AM-1PM and Thursdays from 6PM-8PM. He has interviewed Robert Whitaker, author of Mad In America, a book about the dangers of psychiatric drugs.
by John Thielking
What part of "A Well REGULATED Militia being necessary..." does the pro gun lobby not comprehend when it comes to gun control? Clearly the 2nd amendment authorizes the regulation of guns and who can own them.
by John Thielking
In his book, Media Violence and Its Effect On Aggression, Jonathan L. Freedman explains in a little more detail than his magazine articles on the subject some of the statistics behind his assertion that only 28% of the laboratory studies on aggression and media violence support the causal hypothesis. He explains that in fact data from 337 children are included in studies that support the idea that media violence affects aggression while data from 1578 children are included in studies that do not support that hypothesis.

Still, the other references cited above, plus the following two studies provide more than that amount of data that support the hypothesis. In the Journal Pediatrics on Monday of this week (2-18-13) two papers were published on the subject of media violence and aggression. The two studies had a total of 1500 subjects between the two studies. The studies are at the following links:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/02/13/peds.2012-1493

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/02/13/peds.2012-1582
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