Learned Helplessness and the Grief and Rage of Parklands

From the orphans of Flanders to the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – four photographs with an uncanny and chilling similarity.

Keep your eyes forward, your hands on the shoulders of the person in front of you and keep quiet. – instructions during a high school shooter drill. 

We’ve come to accept that the only thing we can do in the face of school shootings is better drills and fortress schools. The NRA pushes an agenda to sell yet more guns with the quite ludicrous and counter-productive idea of arming teachers.

How did we get to this nightmare place of passivity in the face of life threatening danger? Why are we doing this to our children? Why are we sending children into a war zone?

It’s chilling to read these articles about shooter drills, lock downs and shelter in place and to know that schools across America are reviewing, revising and upgrading their safety protocols, scheduling additional drills and investing in new alert systems and security devices to barricade windows and block doors. 

Think of the colossal misuse of time and resources that entails. Think of the collective trauma of kids being systematically – and of necessity – prepared to face a gruesome death whenever they head off for school. We are sending children into a potential battlefield every day.

Why is the balance of emphasis on turning schools into fortresses and not on the obvious – reducing the threats?

How – when the answer is right there in front of our noses? Get rid of the guns! Remove the assault weapons and voila! No more assault weapon massacres. Simple. Right?

We have created a world for children where they must prepare to avoid being slaughtered by military weapons in their classrooms. What kind of nightmare world is that? How have we let this happen and what must we do to end it?

Life in an NRA world is nasty brutish and Trumpian

When did we become so passive?

How have we been lulled into this learned helplessness that has us believe it is useless to try and stop the killing. Mass slaughter we are told is as inevitable and unstoppable as a natural disaster like a hurricane or a tornado. 

That passivity has been induced by a powerful gun lobby that represents gun manufacturers and that has brought the support of too many politicians. They use mental illness and violent video games as explanations as if those do not exist in other massacre-free countries. They refuse to fund the CDC research into the epidemic of gun violence. They won’t give an inch to common sense and the opinion of the majority of Americans.  

So instead of actively working to stop these massacres, we send meaningless thoughts and prayers and wring our hands. It’s a ritual of hopeless horror and grief. Nothing we can do. Etc.

We Call BS

The kids of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are right to call all this what it is – BS.

It’s all been said before. The same tired old arguments trotted out and tossed in the air. We have known them all.

But – something is different. These kids have spoken out of their deep grief and they are full of righteous anger. They see the emperor has no clothes.

They have had enough. They are through with being sacrificial lambs at the altar of politicians beholden to an NRA that represents gun manufacturers. They see through the veils of hypocrisy, the profit chain, the helpless passivity of the thoughts-and-prayers politicians  and they are demanding change and taking action. 

Just over a week since they erupted in their angst and fury and already they have:

• forced a CNN Town Hall and confronted politicians
• pressured the POTUS into a concession on bump stocks and exposed him as needing a cheat sheet for meeting with the anguished
• got new commitments from Senator Rubio and Governor Scott
• seen a Florida aide fired for telling lies
• dragged their right-wing attackers D’Souza, Ingraham and O’Reilly on-line – trolling them back with the savvy expertise of the digital generation
• mobilized widespread inter-generational support
• raised millions of dollars for ongoing protest actions
• forced sponsors to drop the NRA
• inspired millions with their leadership
• shown enormous grace under pressure of the  virulent attacks and death threats of feral wing nuts and trolls
• sparked a changed debate and an activism that does not look like flaming out any time soon

They are unafraid of their enemies and are in it for the long haul. 

We’re going to outlive you

This is shooting survivor David Hogg on today’s MSNBC’s “AM Joy”: 

“The right is claiming that you are being led around by celebrities, by George Soros, by the left,” host Joy Reid said. “Your response?”

“I’m so sorry for each and every one of them,” Hogg said, before turning to the camera and addressing his attackers directly. “It’s so sad to see how many of you have lost faith in America, because we certainly haven’t, and we’re never going to.”

“You might as well stop now,” he added, “because we’re going to outlive you.”

You can see the clip here.

Almost all students now in high school will be eligible to vote in 2020. And many of them in the mid-terms in 2018. 

Joy-Ann Reid puts it this way:

Yes, it’s been said before, and no, it won’t happen fast. But this time it really is different. And the Parkland Kids are leading the charge.

Shun the NRA. Shun the assault weapons manufacturers. Shame and vote out the politicians who take their money and do their bidding. That’s the strategy that activists for firearms sanity have finally seized on, after decades of losing to the most bloodthirsty lobby in America.- from NRA, MEET ABYSS: Remember This Week: It’s the Beginning of the End of the NRA’s Reign of Terror

It’s all long overdue. The NRA and its bought politicians have had the country paralyzed into learned helplessness for years.

Finally the kids have said: Enough! We’ve had enough of being sitting ducks! There is something that can be done and – if the adults won’t do it – then we will.

It’s not that the Democrats haven’t tried

Just as one example – think back to June 2016 when Congressman John Lewis led a a surprise sit-in of the House as Democrats pushed Republican leaders to allow for debate and a vote on gun control legislation ten days after the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando. Think, too, of the tireless effort and extraordinary work of Connecticut’s Chris Murphy (and many other Democrats) in the Senate as well as the advocacy of President Obama.  

So it’s not for want of trying. But when you don’t have the majority – and when the other party seems to be in lock step with the agenda of the NRA –  it’s tough to make a dent. That is especially true when the majority of voters – most of whom want sane gun control laws – have fallen into a deep slumber of helpless passivity. 

But something is different this time and for that we have a bunch of high school kids to thank.

Now it’s our job to support and protect them and help them finish the job. We don’t have to be purists and demand it all happen at once. Any change for the better is good and we just have to keep pushing and proposing and pushing some more. That’s what the progress in progressive means. A journey begins with the first step. A renewed ban of military assault weapons would be an excellent first move. Then we can get started on all the other measures needed to stem the tide of deadly weapons and the national nightmare of gun violence. Yes we can take on the death cult of the NRA and the politicians they control. The kids of Parklands have shown us the way. 

From the orphans of Flanders to the traumatized teenagers of Parklands – four photographs.