Organizational skills

The organization of information is underestimated by the majority of the public. This includes simple things that many of us take for granted. This isn't just limited to this blog and the subject of preventing violence. One of the most important things is simple indexes which a surprising number of books don't even have. Summations with hard facts that can be confirmed are also helpful. Organized source notes are helpful but they are often not done in reader friendly way. Sometimes many books include notes that should be in the text in addition to sources so you have to go back and forth which makes it harder for the reader. Chronologies, Acronyms, bibliographies and casts of characters are also helpful. If the publishers wanted to educate the public in the most efficient way possible they should already know this and they should already be doing a much better job. Yet they aren't either because they aren't trying enough or something else. Wikipedia and some independent web pages actually do a better job organizing information than the professional scholars in many cases.

 

This blog is organized in two different ways so that the reader can find information easier. The first is chronologically as most blogs are the second is according to subject matter with a table of context so that the reader can look at the overall context in a more organized manner. Most of the entries were made so they can be read as an individual blog entry so there is a lot of redundancy. Some of this redundancy may be weeded out of the html version at some point but the blog entries will remain intact since some people may read single entries. To read new entries check the blog version.

 

Researching the subject of violence prevention takes organization just like anything else. One of the ways to do this is to make a list of violent events and look in to the causes leading up to the events. This could include lists of mass murderers and school shootings and other violent events. Then a look into the upbringing of the perpetrators could help understand how they became violent. This is what some researchers like James Garbarino, Dorothy Otnow Lewis and many other academics have done. This research has also been done by some people like John Douglas and Vincent Bugliosi who are much harder line when it comes to punishment but they still agree that abusive childhoods helped lead people into criminal behavior and therefore improved childcare will help solve the problem. Improved statistics will help understand the subject and there are many ways that the researchers and publishers can improve the education of the public about how to prevent violence.

 

Good organization of information comes in handy when there is a dispute with people who disagree about the cause of violence. This is especially important when dealing with demagogues who cater to peoples emotions. Demagogues often ignore inconvenient facts and present multiple contradictory versions of the truth. They are more likely to get away with it when there are few records of the contradictions and people move on before anyone notices the contradictions. In order for the organizational skills to help it is important for people to take the time to sort through the facts.

 

In a perfect world I wouldn’t criticize other people’s organizational skills and then use insufficient organizational skills myself, however this isn’t a perfect world. I try to do the best I can but I don’t believe I do as good a job as I could with more time. If you have any suggestions about how to better organize this blog feel free to post your suggestions. A close look at how a lot of books blogs, web sites etc. would help find ways to better organize information and develop recommended standards for everyone to use. This would dramatically improve the educations system.

 

For the full HTML version of this blog with table of context see:

 

https://zakherys.tripod.com/nonviolence.htm

 

Misplaced blame

 

The blame for something is most likely to be misplaced when someone jumps to conclusions without thinking things through. This is more likely to happen if someone never learns to think things through in the first place. People are not born knowing how to think things through they have to lean it based on what they are taught from their parents or whoever raises them. If their parents never learn how to think things through they can’t teach it to their children.

 

The blame for problems is often misplaced if the proper place for blame is those with more political power.  There is a long history of this because if you blame those in political power they may punish you. An old example of this is when the Romans persecuted the early Christians and they needed someone to blame so the blame shifted to the Jews. This was done because it was safer. In Jesus’ time supposedly he was a Jew and so were his followers so it doesn’t make sense that they were responsible for his death and the history says that it was the Romans that finally crucified him, however if they openly blamed the Romans they knew they would also be persecuted.

 

This is also common when a parent abuses a child, for example if a father abuses a son and is constantly complaining about blacks or Jews or some other group that he may dislike the some may learn early on that if he wants to receive positive feedback from his father he  should also blame the same group. If this works to obtain positive feedback and it is repeated often enough then the boy will believe it. In this case the boy’s prejudices will be developed as a way to obtain positive feedback instead of as a result of rational thought. If this starts early it may develop into a pattern. This is often the way many prejudices start. Once someone starts thinking this way they often react more to emotions and less to reason and they become much more difficult to deal with for other people. If you look closely I think you may find that many of the most widely spread prejudices are the result of indoctrination and abuse that people receive as a child. When Hitler was abused as a child he couldn’t strike out at his father who he learned to respect but was often told that the Jews were to blame. He didn’t become an anti Semite until he was older but  as a child the abuse made him very angry and he looked for someone to blame and he also developed a desire to avoid the abuse by becoming the one with the power. Many violent people start this way. They get the impression that the world is full of abusers and victims and they try to avoid being the victim by holding power over others and become the abusers.

 

It is very common for leaders to use misplaced blame to manipulate the public and divide them amongst themselves. One common example is the conflict among workers that often sets some workers against others. This is a very old tactic, when the dominate belief was that blacks were inferior the business leaders often claimed the blacks were the ones taking away jobs now they often blame it on illegal immigrants. The irony is that a close look will indicate that illegal aliens are guilty mostly of being born in the wrong country. The discussion about free trade is being dominated by the corporations in the press. What they rarely if ever mention is that they are in favor of equal trade but opposed to equal rights to a safe environment or worker rights. This results in a lot of misplaced blame.

 

Demagogues often use emotions to exaggerate prejudices and redirect the blame for any problems that may be occurring at any given time. They use this method to keep the crowd under their control. The biggest threat from demagogues isn’t the one you recognize from people like Hitler and Manson but the threat the people don’t recognize from those they admire and respect. This is why the public needs to do a better job keeping their leaders accountable. In order to catch misplaced blame it may be important to rethink some of the basics that may have been put above reproach. If these basics were accurate in the first place then they will hold up to thorough accurate scrutiny.

 

For the full HTML version of this blog with table of context see:

 

https://zakherys.tripod.com/nonviolence.htm

Abuse impairs creativity and can create indoctrination

When a child is abused by a parent the child may become scared of the parent and may seek to obtain approval in the most effective way possible. This often may involve agreeing with what the parent says regardless of how consistent or rational it is. This method can be used to pass on prejudices from one generation to the next. If a parent dictates the truth to the child without explaining how conclusions are drawn this may lead to irrational beliefs. This would involve indoctrination whether it is intentional or not; it may lead the child to adopt many contradictory beliefs and prevent the child from figuring things out on his own. This may mean that when the child grows up he may be dependent on the leadership of others to direct his life. A child like this may be much more susceptible to joining fringe cults like the Manson or the Jones family. Both these cults attracted followers who had no place to go and came from abusive families. I’m sure most if not all fringe cults also attract similar followers although I haven’t seen the research into most of them. If the only way a child learns to fit in with friends is to agree with them regardless of what they say this may lead to an insecure adult who may become overly dependant on the crowd for support.  A better alternative would be for the parent to spend more time listening to the child. When the child is always asking questions this should be encouraged most of the time. It may be annoying but this is a very important part of the educational experience.

 

Most of not all people develop their behavior patterns early in life, some of the most important behavior patterns begin developing at a very young age. If children are abused at an early age they become angry and grow up to be violent. If they are taught to control their temper and think things through they develop good reasoning skills. If they are accustomed to constant arguments where people don’t listen to the other side they often grow up with a closed mind and worry more about proving they are right than figuring out what is true. Children that are taught to discuss problems and listen to the other side are much less likely to grow up to be argumentative adults.

 

Once you understand this it helps to understand what type of childhood someone probably had based on their behavior as an adult. If someone is infatuated with programs that use a lot of hype like Nancy Grace or Glenn Beck and thinks they are credible sources of information it is likely that they spent a lot of time arguing with others without learning how to settle their differences as a child and never grew out of it. In some cases this may have a very serious effect on democracy or lack of democracy. A recent example is the incident with Joe Wilson who yelled out during Obama’s speech. He may have had some legitimate complaints but that isn’t the way to address it and at other times apparently he has adamantly advocated for false claims including denying that the USA gave weapons of Mass destruction to Saddam Hussein. Some of his followers have backed him up with emotional support that isn’t based on accurate facts. This could lead to making important political decisions based on lies. This kind of behavior could be a major threat to democracy since democracy won’t work if the public isn’t informed. It is very difficult in the short run to deal with people who respond more to emotional pleas than to rational discussion that explores both sides of the issue. One way to handle this could be to use further emotional pleas carefully designed to advance an argument but this doesn’t lead to understanding the subject even if it does work. In the long run it would be much easier to understand how these behavior patterns develop and educate children right from the beginning. If children are taught rational reasoning skills from the start they will do a much better job thinking for themselves. This will not mean they won’t make mistakes but it least it will be their own mistakes not the mistakes of their leader. This will also mean that different people will make different mistakes and if they talk it through rationally they will be able to work out the details and correct the mistakes. The alternative is to believe the person who yells the loudest or the one who is the most charismatic. Unfortunately this takes a long time but if it is done right it will last much longer too. This means focusing more on educating children than on debating older people. In the short term adults still have to be dealt with.

This doesn’t mean that reeducation can be forced on people that would lead to more problems than solutions. But there should be a better effort to explain social behavior to the public and make more accurate information available to them so they can do a better job making decisions.

 

Public relation campaign for child abuse prevention

 

A public relation campaign to prevent child abuse would be a major step in the right direction. In order to reduce child abuse in the most effective way possible it will take as much cooperation from the public as possible. Teachers and social workers can’t be everywhere and many people don’t understand how much damage child abuse does in the long run. Most people see the immediate result but fail to see the long term damage that child abuse does. In order to do this in the most effective way possible it must be done in a educational manner not a manner that appeals to emotion and leads people to rush into something and overreact. This means avoid using the hype and disgust that the demagogues like Nancy Grace and Geraldo Rivera use.

A good public relations campaign will accomplish at least two different things, it will inform the public how much damage child abuse does so that people will realize how important it is and it will provide the public with some ideas about how to fix the problem.

The first step would involve informing the public that most if not all violent felons suffered from violent upbringing. It could also involve informing the public that abuse leads to bullying and delinquency at school. Abuse is a major cause for school drop outs and many other problems. In most cases the cause and effect isn’t immediate but there is an enormous amount of research available to prove that it is real. This could involve letting the public know where more information could be found on the subject. There are many books in the library on this subject if you care to take a look and also plenty of web sites.

The second step could involve informing the public about programs that have been proven to help prevent violence and let the public know how to participate in them. There are plenty of child care organizations that could help participate in these programs. This should start on the least controversial programs since that is the most effective way to get something done while further discussion goes on. In some cases even the least controversial programs may meet resistance until the public understands them better. If this is the case it will help to make the case with as well organized information as possible. It is important to help prevent abuse as soon as possible. Rehabilitating children after they have been abused has proven much more difficult than preventing the abuse in the first place. In some cases it may even be impossible. For example if you don’t start the rehabilitation until the abused child becomes a violent adult it will be much tougher. Informing the public that the most effective programs start at as young an age as possible and maintain some prevention activity. Letting the public know where to get involved so that they can help stop violence will be a big help since many people care about the subject but don’t know what to do to help. One example of a very effective program that may help is the child visitor program. The way this works is that when at risk mothers seek prenatal medical care the people at the hospital offer to let them participate. They will receive visits from a nurse or social worker who receives basic training and helps with simple child care chores and provides advice and counseling. This has proven to be very effective and it doesn’t involve much if any conflict which may occur if they wait until the abuse occurs. Unfortunately there are penny wise and pound foolish people who don’t understand this program so they resist it. It is important to explain to the public how this work and ho effective it is so they understand it is much better than building more prisons.

The media can be a very important help with a good public relations campaign but unfortunately if they wanted to help address this problem they probably already would have done a better job of it. They may still help address it more if they receive a little encouragement. In the meantime there can be a grass roots movement to inform people about the subject through community organizations like the PTA and many other organizations as well as on-line organization to inform the public. A good grass roots organization could be part of an effort to obtain cooperation from both politicians and the Mass Media. By setting a good example at the grass roots level and pointing out that the Mass Media may not be up to par it may encourage them to change. Another way to help would be to inform the public about how counter productive the typical demagoguery used by the Mass Media is. When someone from the media demonizes criminals and inspires hatred it only increases the level of emotions and distracts people from real solutions. The most effective way to stop violence involves controlling emotions and improving efforts to find rational education based solutions.

If the Mass Media doesn’t do a better job addressing this subject and many others it would be very helpful to create more interest in alternative media. With the availability of the internet there is an opportunity to create a much better media at least from the editorial point of view. Research and investigation will be tougher since they require a bigger budget but much of the work is already available at libraries and existing organizations. The creation of a better alternative media and informing the public about how the Mass Media receives preferential treatment by using the airwaves at no cost and very little input from the public could help elect more sympathetic politicians and create better laws to help develop a more fair mass media policy with more input from the public.

For the full HTML version of this blog with table of context see:

https://zakherys.tripod.com/nonviolence.htm

Violent health care town hall meetings

In order to understand how to reduce or eliminate the violence or uncivil behavior going on now at the town hall meetings about health care it is important to take into consideration things that are not happening as well as things that are. In fact the things that aren’t happening may be as important if not more important than the things that re happening. What should be happening is a discussion about how to improve health care that starts with the simple basics because that is where some of the biggest problems are. The reason people are getting upset is because their health care needs aren’t being fulfilled and for the most part as far as I can tell the high profile debate being presented on TV isn’t changing that.

 

In order to provide the best health care at the lowest cost one of the most important things is preventive medicine. There are many things that can be done to prevent people from getting sick in the first place without much cost to the public. Anti-smoking programs, weight loss programs and nutrition advice can be done mainly by better education the public. Some things like exercise can be done by the individual for nothing contrary to what advertisers want you to believe you don’t have to spend money to exercise. Some people think that buying equipment will help motivate them, this isn’t new but it has never worked before. Advertisers have been pushing this idea for years but most of the equipment they sell just winds up in the basement ore being used as an expensive clothes rack. The media has spent very little time discussing preventive medicine and when they do it isn’t always as productive as it could be for example CNN recently mentioned preventive medicine in relation to diabetes. It is important to mention a lot of different diseases and how to prevent them but they shouldn’t present them as isolated cases and ignore the rest. In this case they just mentioned one disease and addressed just that one, what they could have done is mention that there are many and started with on example providing a source to a longer list of other examples. This could have involved telling the public where they could go for more details on each subject.

 

Another important way to cut health care costs is to improve health care for children. This is where preventive medicine is most effective. If children get regular check ups and advice about preventive medicine they are much more likely to lead a healthy life with much lower medical bills throughout their lives. Good health care at the beginning of life is more important than at any other time, this should start before children are even born.

 

The health care debate seems to be spending little if any time reminding the public of the most obvious basics about how insurance works. The way insurance works is people who buy insurance pool their money by paying premiums to health insurance providers. The insurance providers pay their own expenses make some profit and put the remainder to pay for health care. This way if you have a sudden large health care expense you are covered in theory but if you are healthy you still pay even though you don’t need medical attention. This means the healthy help pay for the medical costs of the sick. It also means that insurance companies don’t actually provide any health care at all. What they do is organize the financing. The more expenses they have the higher premiums have to be to cover costs. This means that when they spend money trying to convince the customer that they are covered they may actually be taking away from the money available for treatment. Once the public understands this they will realize there is a serious problem with the way health care is currently being handled. This is important to consider when trying to cut costs. If the objective is to provide better service and care for the customer at less cost then expenses for the insurance companies should be kept to a minimum. The insurance companies spend an enormous amount of money to influence the way this is interpreted but their objective is to maximize profit not look out for the best interest of the customer. Once you understand this it may be clear that the capitalist way may not be the most effective way to accomplish this goal.

 

Another thing that is hardly being mentioned about health care is the patent laws. Part of the reason the cost of health care has sky rocketed is because when the public wasn’t paying attention the drug companies and politicians extended the length of patents to an unreasonable period of time. In many cases the research may have even been funded partly by tax dollars and the patents are still being extended. This is similar to what they did with copy right laws. Robert McChesney wrote about this in “The problem with the Media: U.S. communications politics in the twenty first century” It would be helpful to read a similar study on what they did with the patent laws, right now I don’t even know what they are just like most of the public which is part of the problem. It would be helpful to know what is happening in other countries where there are better patent laws. There was plenty of talk about people going to Canada to get their drugs much cheaper. It would help to know what Canada’s laws are. There was an attempt to make it sound like there was greater risk of bad drugs if people went to Canada. I doubt if there is much truth to this it was probably done by the same media that is misrepresenting the health care problem and gets advertising money from drug companies. This is part of the problem with the media that McChesney wrote about.

 

An important part of the health care debate will always include seniors of course. They are the ones that require the most health care. This is where some of the toughest choices need to be made and it doesn’t help if demagogues are trying to raise the emotional content of the debate. Like it or not at this point in life there may be a tough choice between the length of life and the quality of life. Making the most accurate information available to the public ion the most effective way possible is important to this situation. If important information is withheld for political or emotional reasons then decisions will be made based on a false sense of reality and this almost always leads to unnecessary mistakes. We need a serious discussion about hospice and how to make the end of life as pleasant and peaceful as possible. Demagoguery will not help this. Another thing to keep in mind is that excessive discussion about this will only distract from more important aspects of the debate like prevention and child health care.

 

It would also help to provide a list of other health care systems and let the public know where there are descriptions of them so they could compare them. In the USA there is a common assumption that we have the best system in the world but this is clearly not true and it would be foolish to automatically assume that socialist systems are bad without looking at how they work. The more organized the foreign programs are the easier it will be to understand and pick only the good aspect of these systems.

 

The media has contributed to the tension by simply not even trying to cover the subject well. All these simple basics could have been covered much better by the media if they wanted to. Instead what seems to be happening is that people are being divided into groups supporting different complicated plans that no one understands and they are being played off against each other. This is a classic divide and rule tactic being implemented by the politicians and media commentators. The people in the lower and middle classes are fighting amongst themselves and the corporations are making all the money while providing inferior health care at excessive costs.

 

For the full HTML version of this blog with table of context see:
 
https://zakherys.tripod.com/nonviolence.htm

How to create a monster

Start by abusing your child. Occasionally slap him when he gets older make the beatings more violent. If he fights back hit him even harder. After a while he will become nervous and scared of you, when this happens it is a matter of time before he gets nervous and does something stupid. When this happens give him a break instead of hitting him again laugh at him and humiliate him a little bit. If he cries threaten to give him something to cry about. This is good since when ever he tries to think things through and discuss things you can hit him. This way he will learn to settle everything with violence. When he goes to school he may be very nervous so the other older abused children will sense this and they may take out their anger by bullying him. When this happens and he comes home beat up blame him not the bully. Tell him he should have stood up for himself and teach him to fight so you can have a tough kid you can be proud of. If he gets in trouble later in school and the teachers call you and ask you to discipline him you can downplay it then reluctantly agree to hold him accountable. When you punish him make sure he knows he is being punished for being caught not for causing trouble itself. This way he’ll learn to hide it and avoid getting caught next time. An occasional compliment for winning a fight would be a good idea. You might also want to cheer him on if you ever see him abusing animals. It would help if you gave him positive feedback for something and this is as good as any other thing. Feel free to demonstrate so that the kid could get the idea from you to begin with. It would also be a good idea to beat up your wife a little so that he learns that kind of behavior is acceptable. Teaching the kid to blame minorities for all the problems in the world will be a good idea too. It doesn’t matter whether the minorities deserve any blame or not in fact it may be better if they don’t as long as you keep repeating it often enough not only will you convince your kid that it’s true but you’ll reinforce your own belief that it is true. Teach him all kinds of superstitions and mix this up with mythology so he won’t be able to sort out right from wrong. Neglect him when you feel like drinking and when you punish him for something make sure it isn’t consistent and it is often over trivial things and done in an emotional way.

If you’re the mother of a child being raised like this you can do your part to by verbally abusing him to and telling the kid all this abuse is for his own good. You can also join in on the abuse especially when the kid is smaller so he still can’t stand up to you. In fact it would be much easier if you made sure you started beating him while he is still you otherwise he might realize he can fight back. Of course he may eventually be able to fight back any way when he gets bigger so you have to be ready to find more effective ways to keep him under your power. Otherwise you’ll just have to get rid of him which might not be to bad an idea since then someone else will have to deal with the monster you created. At that point you might want to think about places to put the blame because you certainly won’t want to take it yourself.

If the child is a girl be sure to treat her just as abusively after all with woman’s lib movement woman have just as much right to become monsters as men. This means they have just as much right to be abused as a child. If this isn’t new ignore it after all we don’t need to let inconvenient facts get in the way when trying to create a monster.

If there are discussions about stopping violence be sure to join in and dispute anything that might help address the situation in a rational manner. It would be a good idea to propose all kinds of ideas that are counterproductive and do much more harm than good. Ideas that are tough to implement and wait for the last minute will do the trick nicely. After all why should you settle for creating just one just one monster when you can help preserve a system that creates many.

Most important of all don’t let anybody know that you are trying to create a monster; the best way to do this is to avoid telling even yourself. Keep in mind if you let others know how to create a monster they might interpret this as things to avoid doing to prevent violence. If you can convince yourself of your own B.S. stories that would be ideal. If you don’t know how to this you may have missed your opportunity you should have gone through this same training as a child.

For the full HTML version of this blog with table of context see:

 

https://zakherys.tripod.com/nonviolence.htm

 

Consistent punishment guidelines

In order for punishment to work as a deterrent as many people claim is the primary purpose there needs to be a consistent set of guidelines and the public has to know that it will be enforced fairly, this should include the jury pool. In the nineties there was a report prepared by a group of expert scholars to set up a recommended set of guidelines for punishment of certain crimes. This wasn’t a strict guideline with no flexibility; it gave judges the option to go outside the guidelines when he/she thinks it necessary. In this case the judge would be required to provide and explanation for why he went outside the guidelines. Ideally this would involve making the law as simple and easy to understand as possible. One problem is that there are so many different laws about so many different subjects that people don't even know what the law is. There is no guarantee that these guidelines are ideal but by putting it in writing and showing the work they can enable them to find and fix any mistakes that may be in there. Unfortunately these guidelines whether these guidelines are perfect or not were never implemented and the current system is highly inconsistent. There were politicians and commentators calling for tougher penalties and fewer excuses. These calls for tougher penalties also hampered research into the causes of crime and prevented people from understanding the most effective ways to prevent crime.

Punishment does work as a deterrent if the individual cares about the future and he thinks there is a good chance of getting caught. However this isn’t always the case so it is important not to rely solely on punishment. Punishment should be combined with education programs and most important prevention programs. People are much more likely to respect the rights of others if they have a reasonable life and others respect their rights. This is why abuse victims and social outcasts are often more likely to commit crimes.

In order to understand what the most effective guidelines to prevent further crimes it would help to have an organized list of different guidelines from different states and countries for their punishment guidelines. This won’t be the only contributing factor but it will be a step in the right direction. Additional information about other contributing factors should be added in as soon as possible.

The most important set of guidelines for punishment may not be the ones in criminal law for adults but the guidelines for little children. The reason for this is that this is where the education system and justice truly starts. The precedent set here should be carried over into the adult justice system. If there is a good system in the early child hood education system it will be much easier to set up a system for adults. The earlier intervention and rehabilitation happens the more likely it is to succeed. There is often a belief that rehabilitation doesn’t work, in the most extreme cases this is probably true but the reason it is true is because they didn’t address the problem soon enough. There are few people if any who would argue that someone like Gary Ridgeway or Richard Ramirez can be rehabilitated adequately enough so they can be returned to society. According to Dr. Stanton E.  Samenow the most extreme felons are not susceptible to rehabilitation biggest they never had a sense of order to begin with. The biggest reason for this is that most serial killers suffered from a brutal upbringing that made them very angry and emotionally unstable. They are so far gone it is hard to imagine that they can ever be safely released. For those that believe that their rough childhood should be considered mitigating circumstances it is usually to avoid the death penalty and perhaps to obtain more privileges within prison. The fact that they are already so violent and that violent upbringing creates more predators is another reason to make sure they don’t have an opportunity to abuse members of the next generation. TV lawyers that try vigorously to get people like this off are for the most part done for propaganda purposes or drama I suspect.

This doesn’t mean that all felons are beyond rehabilitation but the ones that are treated the earliest and with the proper education programs are the ones that will be the most successful. There are often objections to providing educational opportunities to felons that aren’t provided to others. The most effective way to address this is to try to provide more educational opportunities for everyone. This can be done by making information more readily available to everyone in an organized fashion. The internet could be a very effective way of improving that. The more social injustices are reduced the less likely we are to have a big problem with crime.

Another important thing to make punishment more effective would be a more effective way to provide equal opportunities for legal defense.  The current system provides much more lenient punishment for the rich than for the poor. Looking at social justice before it gets to the courts is also very important to make punishment more effective. If a class of society doesn’t believe they’re going to get a fair shake they are much less likely to care about punishment. If they are often subject to unfair treatment whether they commit a crime or not they may not care about punishment. If they don’t care about their own future punishment won’t deter them, they’ll just be concerned about living for the moment. If they only care about living for the moment they’re not going to let the threat of long term punishment deter them.

My point isn’t that punishment shouldn’t be part of the system it is an important part of the system but it shouldn’t be the sole focus of the effort to prevent crime nor should it be considered the most important effort.

Do advertisers and political strategists choose the agenda for the public?

 

They certainly try to, if they don’t then all the marketing research and polling that they do is a total waste. However if you ask most people whether their decisions are influenced by advertising I suspect a large percentage will say no. Most of these people probably don’t understand advertising and manipulation tactics therefore I suspect they are actually the ones most likely to be influenced by the Mass Media. The ones who are the least likely to be influenced by the Mass Media are those that are more accustomed to search for information on their own. This isn’t a guarantee since some people may be predisposed to search for information that supports their own beliefs. The best way to avoid this is to review how you developed your own beliefs and recognize whether they start with the right basics or not. It also helps if you understand the tactics often used by the Mass Media to manipulate the public.

Politicians often have agendas that they want to accomplish and it isn’t always what they tell the public. The reason for this is that they are often more concerned with there own agenda than what the public wants to accomplish. When this happens they try to figure out the most effective way to convince the public they are looking out for the best interest of the public without interfering with their true agenda. This often involves telling the public what they want to hear and manipulating their emotions. That is what political research is all about. If the public wants the politicians to look out for their best interest they have to do a better job understanding how they have been manipulated in the past and avoid it. The most effective way to do this is to learn the basics of any given subject and make sure that they are never forgotten. Many complicated political plans often contradict the most obvious basics. Political advertisers often repeat catch phrases over and over again to get their point across and when the public hears it often enough they start to believe it even though they may contradict the basics.

 

Advertisers do the same thing when they want to sell stuff. Justice shows get their financing from advertiser and they are based on ratings. The most effective way to get high ratings is to use demagoguery. This also attracts a segment of the public that is less savvy about recognizing manipulation tactics. Advertisers like this kind of customer since the demagoguery that Nancy Grace uses attracts the same type of people that are most receptive to advertising.

When it comes to violence the public often acts based on emotions. Demagogues have recognized this for thousands of years and used this to manipulate the public.

"A group is extraordinarily credulous," wrote Sigmund Freud, "and open to influences, it has no critical faculty, and the improbable does not exist for it. The feelings of a group are always very simple and very exaggerated, so that it knows neither doubt nor uncertainty."

The orator who wishes to sway a crowd "must exaggerate, and he must repeat the same thing again and again."

Freud pointed out that the mass was "intolerant but obedient to authority...What it demands of its heroes is strength or even violence. It wants to be ruled and oppressed and to fear its masters."

He wrote this more than 80 years ago when the public was less educated and they still hadn't learned from WWII. Similar quotes have coming from demagogues like Hitler and Lenin and this one from Charles Manson: "You can convince anybody of anything if you just push it at them all of the time. They may not believe it 100%, but they will still draw opinions from it, especially if they have no other information to draw their opinions from."

Information like this could be used for at least 2 purposes.

First if the demagogue wants to use an understanding of manipulation tactics they can do so to manipulate the public. This is often done by many people including Hitler, Lenin and many more moderate demagogues. Right now the more moderate demagogues are causing a bigger problem because the public doesn't recognize them as demagogues. However some of them aren't quite so moderate if you look at them closely. Including Nancy Grace, Jean Valez Mitchel, Geraldo Rivera etc. Demagogues generally pray on the emotions of the public and the easiest emotions to pray on is anger and hate. This is important when it comes to preventing school violence or any other type of violence. This explains why so many people are quick to seek vengeance but very slow to try to find out what the real cause of problems are. Some researchers have made an exception and have investigated the true causes of violence and it is clear that early abuse is one of the biggest contributing causes if not the biggest. However when they try to point this out to the public it often sounds like they are trying to excuse the Behavior of violent predators. Demagogues often start screaming loud and clear and more qualified researchers often back off and do more research. The advantage is that more research is being done but it isn't getting through to the public and it isn’t achieving the desired goal. James Garbarino has argued that we need to get away from the idea that researching the cause of violence means excusing it. Vincent Bugliosi has also made a similar argument if you look closely at his book Helter Skelter. He has stated that "both (Hitler and Manson) suffered deep wounds in their youth, the psychological scars at least contributing to if not causing, their deep hatred for society." He has not attempted to say this is justification quite the opposite he continued arguing for the death penalty in Mansons case anyway. This doesn't mean he didn't recognize Manson’s abusive childhood as a contributing cause. He has also appeared in at least one commercial promoting help for troubled youths that were not what he considered beyond salvation. In Helter Skelter he cited several of the Manson family members that he thought were capable of rehabilitation and advocated that they received the help they need.

 

Second it can be taught to the public so that they can understand when they are being manipulated. They can teach the public how to get a rational education and avoid being manipulated by demagogues. Unfortunately this is rarely done although it may have been what Freud intended. Freud was neither the first or the last to understand these principles many people including Hitler, Lenin, Twain, Machiavelli etc., have demonstrated that they understand this but unfortunately there has been little if any effort to educate the public about this.

For table of context of other blog entries see:

https://zakherys.tripod.com/nonviolence.htm

The real victim rights advocates

 

In order to understand who the real victim rights advocates are it is important to understand that the most important right for victims should be not to become victims in the first place. The fact that they did become victims leads to the second best way of addressing the situation which would be to avoid further victimization of both them and other potential victims. Once you consider this then it may be clear that the real victim rights advocates are the ones that do the best job trying to figure out what causes crime and how to prevent it in the first place. This involves careful unbiased research into criminal behavior. Several researchers have done this and they have gone through peer review. Some of these researchers include James Garbarino, Ellen deLara, Alice Miller, Joanne Scaglione, Dorothy Otnow Lewis and many more. They have concluded that most of the most violent people became violent after suffering from violent upbringing. This has been confirmed through corroborating sources and isn’t dependent solely on the testimony of felons trying to get a lighter sentence. In fact felons rarely admit to the abuse they suffered as a child unless urged to do so in some cases they still refuse to admit to being abused as children.

The problem with the system is that it focuses on either punishing the suspect or proving his innocence and getting him off. There is little effort to study what causes violence and even less to inform the public so that they can act on this. The real victim rights activists are the ones that do this.

Research has also shown that many of these felons also suffered from bullying and ridicule as a child. This may not seem important to some but to those that suffer from it for extended periods of time it makes a big difference and leads to a lot of anger. Once you understand this then it becomes clear that the real victim rights advocate are those that help develop programs that minimize or prevent the abuse and bullying that children endure when they grow up. James Garbarino, Alice Miller and Dorothy Otnow Lewis have all done research that clearly indicates that violent felons have routinely suffered from violent past and James Garbarino, Ellen deLara, and  Joanne Scaglione have all written books about how to reform schools, minimize bullying and help parents understand better how to raise their children. They have also written about some social programs like head start and the home visiting program that helps social workers contact at risk parents and work with them to avoid abuse. In many cases if they begin early enough they manage to do this with a minimum amount of conflict that often comes up when addressing abuse. Parents become defensive if they aren’t approached in the most effective way possible, the home visiting program offers advice before children are born sot there is no need to imply any abuse.

Many of the high profile people that portray themselves as victim rights advocates don’t do these things. They often do more harm that good although in most cases I trust it isn’t intentional. One exception to this would be someone like Nancy Grace who is far more concerned about drama than about victim rights. People like this often use demagoguery to manipulate the emotions of the public. Nancy Grace routinely incites anger at the person suspected of the crime often even before they have nearly enough evidence to know for certain that they have the right person. Once a demagogue like this finds a villain they often try to make them seem as evil as possible often overlooking anything that might indicate either innocence or mitigating circumstances that could help explain the crime. Demagogues generally seek what they call justice which often seems like vengeance. What they don’t seem to understand or don’t care about is that many of these violent felons often went through abuse and they are often angry in some cases they also seek what they consider justice or vengeance. This doesn’t mean they act in a fair way quite the contrary they rarely do. What they seek is a sort of vigilantly justice. This isn’t what most of us would consider fair justice but when they are raised in a violent environment they often grow up with a distorted sense of justice. When they grew up no one stood up for their rights as victims so they learned to do it themselves anyway they can. In other cases they are just angry at everyone and don’t even understand it themselves. The problem is that most victim rights advocates only address the victims that they know about. Many children are routinely abused and there are no victim rights advocates trying to help them.

The real victim rights advocates are the ones who try to change the system so that they can prevent as much child abuse and bullying as possible. If anyone feels the need to distort the truth in order to protect the rights of victims they wind up doing more harm than good this means that decisions will be based on a false set of facts and this will inevitably lead to problems.

Demagogues are often too quick to tell victims what they want to hear and comfort them in the short run. This often leads to more damage in the long run. After a victim suffers from crime they are often angry just like the perpetrator was when they suffered from abuse as a child and they want what they consider justice. In most cases this is often what society tells them over and over again which is that they must be punished. Society doesn’t repeat that we should learn what causes these crimes nearly as often and most people overlook the importance of research into the subject. This also may lead to a rush to judgment in many cases. When there is a serious crime there is often a lot of pressure to solve the crime as quick as possible. This doesn’t mean that there is sufficient evidence to solve the crime though. Under these circumstances prosecutors and police often jump to conclusions too quickly. In many cases they are extremely reluctant to admit if they made a mistake. There are many cases where the courts have dug in their heals when defense lawyers have found overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the prosecutors. One of the justifications for this is that victims want closure and they don’t want to further traumatize them. If this is the case then it indicates that they are more concerned with punishing someone for the crime even if they don’t have the right guy.  When this happens something that is often over looked is that the real criminal is still out there and may commit another crime.

The rush to judgment has at least two major potential drawbacks, they could punish the wrong person and they could pass up an opportunity to learn about the cause of the crime and how to prevent it. True justice should involve learning from what causes these crimes and how to prevent it and it should start much earlier. If there was more concern about justice in grade schools when it is much easier to deal with problems while they are still small problems then there will be much fewer problems in court. Also if there were more concern with social justice before it results in court action it would be much easier to deal with.

For table of context of other blog entries see:

https://zakherys.tripod.com/nonviolence.htm

How the system restricts education

 

By the system I mean mainly the political system, the justice system, the media system, the education system and any other major institution that influences the public as well as the public themselves. Society as a whole tends to be more interested in finding someone to blame than to find out what the cause of violence is and how to prevent it. Most people spend too much time looking for quick answers and fail to look deeper. This leads to efforts to try to prevent violence just barely before it happens.

 

Whether it is the prosecutors, victim rights advocates, media demagogues or anyone else many people often try to avoid any consideration of what could be considered mitigating circumstances. This usually involves any thing that could elicit sympathy for the defendant like a rough upbringing. In many cases all this involves is simply failing to investigate the background but in some cases it involves disputing it even when abuse is exposed. This could involve someone who wants a quick answer and wants to put all the blame on one the person who committed the most recent act of violence. If a researcher discovers testimony of abuse opponents might say they are just trying to excuse the crime and the abuse didn’t happen. Then in some cases if there is corroborating evidence they might recognize the abuse but then they may later put the emphasis on the testimony and forget the corroborating evidence. Unfortunately this leads to overlooking the long term causes to violence and prevents people from understanding how to find the most effective way to prevent violence in the long run. The emotional desire to meet certain preconceived ideas may cause some people to overlook any thing that disagrees with these preconceived ideas even after there is evidence to prove otherwise. In some cases they may acknowledge the evidence only as long and it is right in front of them then later forgets it and reinforces their preconceived ideas.

 

The Mass Media is in a position to educate the public but instead it routinely prays on their emotions and tries to use them to boost their ratings. Shows like Nancy Grace and Jean Valez Mitchell are among the worst. So called victim rights advocates often act with self righteous indignation and condemn and demonize a particular perpetrator. They constantly look for more reasons to make the villain look bad and ridicule anything that refutes this. Whenever someone tries to bring up abuse as a child as mitigating circumstances they act as if this is intended as an excuse. They may deny the abuse or they may claim that others have gone through rough childhood without killing, which is true but the rough childhoods of killers are usually much worse than what others go through. This also passes up on the opportunity to recognize how serious child abuse is when it comes to contributing to crime. By overlooking this they fail to point out how programs that prevent child abuse could prevent much more crime as well. They incite more anger which often leads to even more violence. By putting so much emphasis on punishment as a deterrent they convince a large percentage of the public that punishment actually works as a deterrent which is not true, or it least it isn’t true if we rely solely on punishment as a deterrent. If there is some reliance on punishment backed up by counseling and education this will work much better. In the long run it is important to prevent the abuse that leads to the crime in the first place. If this is done than there won’t be any need for the rehabilitation since they would have been raised right in the first place.

 

When it comes to emotional or controversial subjects many people might be more inclined to choose their beliefs based on their belief system and their biases which are often shaped by the system. In order to change this what may be necessary is a massive public campaign to encourage rational thought and teach the public about potential ways that their beliefs could be distorted by demagoguery or other manipulation tactics. The public needs to understand the difference between information that is based on research and information that is based on political manipulations.

 

For the full HTML version of this blog with table of context see:

https://zakherys.tripod.com/nonviolence.htm