🚀 go-pugleaf

We had another national spasm yesterday when a 13 year old along with his
11 year old cousin shot 15 people in Arkansas.  He said he was angry
because he had broken up with his girlfriend.  As one who is intimately
familiar with the pain of seperation from a woman (or girl), which is
probably as intense for a 13 year old as for a 30 year old, I can
understand his murderous feelings.  It is sad that the kid did not have the
experience of recovering from pain which can run deep so that he would not
choose to be violent.

Apparently he had been saying murderous things for a couple days and others
ignored him.

We have to address the margins, we have to realize we are all on the margin
at some point, and that peace is dynamic, it means a process of forming and
reforming the mainstream.   Just as FNB is acting out in order to get our
needs met (less money for bombs, more for social needs), people act out to
let others know their needs aren't being met.

Many people can't put their needs into words, and sometimes they'll be
acting out and they don't know what for - which is scary, that's happened
to me.   I think we all have an obligation to embrace the margins, and to
realize that we are all on the margins at some point, and that it's
actually OK.


{the "margin" language comes from George Lakey training, haven't completely
understood his stuff yet, especially the business about 'surrender'}


media notes: Now we will get a solid dose of demonizing youngsters, more
calls for police in schools, metal detectors, blah blah, rather than what
we need to talk about which is the national blinders to conflict resolution
education, the plain fact that just about everyone in this world could use
some attention and some healing.

New York Times article noted in the last sentence that youngsters who have
no 'adult contacts' (whatever that means) are more inclined to take lessons
which minimize the damage of violence from "the media".




My heart goes out to the survivors, all of us, this is a sad thing to live
with.