No mainstream, modern socialists support the barbaric abuses of past regimes which excused their atrocities by claiming to have acted “for the social good.”  Just as no mainstream, modern free-market advocates support the slave holding and sweat shop running of business men who excused their atrocities by claiming to have acted in the interest of improving the economy.

Obviously there is disagreement among ideologues as to which historic occurrences were justified, but both systems have propagated negative behavior and negative results. 

All I’m saying is that bad socialists and bad capitalists doing bad things under their respective systems have hurt a lot of people, and good socialists and good capitalists have helped a lot of people under their respective systems in different ways.

This is not a radical assertion.

The US media long since passed the point of active encouragement and collaboration in mass shootings.  When you say “it’s not really my issue” – it really should be.  Because that same ethical blindness is the reason the media encourages many other ugly, evil things.

Speaking precisely about this in one of the best sci-fi films ever made:

“I am fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason.” — Klaatu, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

at which point he was cut off by the radio announcer…

Antinous, does this idea sound plausible in light of wildemar’s comment above? Your response seems to apply only if the witnesses on the scene know the shooter, and in any case the issue is not whether surviving witnesses on the scene know the identity of the shooter, but whether the shooter receives the social proof of personal celebration in the major media.

And while I agree that socialism has an inherent morality, so do religions.  Simply having a morality doesn’t imply a natural positive outcome.  And I think socialism isn’t so much about “protecting the weak from the strong” as it is about preventing people from becoming strong enough to prey on others or weak enough to be prey.I do agree with your description of both systems’ weaknesses, and your last sentence.

socialism on the other had tends to lead to complacency and unproductivity, without the spur of poverty or the carrot of wealth many will just do what they WANT to do rather than what NEEDS done.

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

socialism by contrast has an inherent morality (that which is best for society, and that government’s role is to provide for the well being of society and to protect the weak from the strong) and is inherently altruistic (as it’s goal is the protection of one’s fellow man) as we know from evolution, self interest can lead to altruism so a capitalist can be altruistic, but only if altruism is the best strategy.

they both have their strengths and their weaknesses (capitalism tends towards a non-free market as certain parties amass greater and greater power, buy up resources such as means of production or real estate or utilities and push out the smaller companies til only a few large companies exist and competition is no more, also as mentioned above capitalism has no means to do things for the greater good, if they are not sufficiently profitable…or worse unprofitable.)

socialism on the other had tends to lead to complacency and unproductivity, without the spur of poverty or the carrot of wealth many will just do what they WANT to do rather than what NEEDS done.

this is why america is not capitalist nor socialist but a mix of both, and we are still working on the ratio.

But capitalism doesn’t create more perverse incentives than socialism does.  Both systems have the potential to be abused because of the kinds of power they offer.  At the same time, both systems have proved beneficial to countless numbers of people.  And neither system deserves to be wholly condemned because of the fact that there are selfish people who are motivated to behave badly because of the particular rewards offered by each.

In at least some news media regions it’s now common practice not to show live car chases and some sports have a policy of never showing the people streaking naked through stadiums. 

Part of this problem could be solved by simply making a policy that the name of the killer(s) cannot be presented for some period of time, preferably until they’ve been convicted of the crime in court, but I doubt the news media would go for it.  This would limit the exposure to the public and by the time the name was revealed people will have had time to move past the real story: the people that were hurt in the events.

This will also help partly address one of the two problems you mentioned at the end.  As the psychologist mentioned in the video, some of the killers want to be famous.  Remove the fame, and they may not be as motivated to kill.

As for guns, that one will never happen now that we’re on the verge of being able to print our own weapons with 3d printers.  

I am ashamed to say I don’t know the names of a single one of the victims of any of these shootings (aside from that Congressperson).  But I know many of the names of psycho douchebags.  And that sucks.  Let’s stop making them famous, and just start calling them psycho douchebags.  Over and over.  

Listen:  the media may be morally lacking, or not.  It’s not really my issue.  What I am  saying is that in the interests of avoiding the eyes of a very small mentally ill subset, you (read:  the government) should not, cannot, dictate to the press what it can or cannot report, or how.

Unity minus the infinitessimal percentage can handle these news reports just fine, the rabble you demonize by satisfying their voyeuristic urge, or the rest of us elite enlightened folk simply by ignoring them. 

The censor is not your friend, nor will he ever be.

I’ll say it again, just so there is no doubt of my position:  there are two problems here, and, whatever its many failings, one of them is not the media.

There are valid, possibly life-saving instructions in that video, but the corporatist media won’t follow any of those ideas unless there’s more money in it for them (which there isn’t).

We need grassroots, societal change that takes over these media institutions and instead installs long-term thinking, humanity and ethical motivations that trump the all-mighty dollar.

Until then, the old, stale, evil, destructive status quo continues on and on and on…

A lone gunman on the other hand isn’t going to effect you.  I can say with 99.999% certainty, that you are not going to die to a crazy mass shooter.  You could have a mass shooter whack 20 people once a month you still would be more likely to die by slipping and falling in your shower.  Mass shootings are not a threat to you. That are not a danger to  you.  They are not a significant source of human misery when compared to the other things that bring about human misery.  It is a non story for anyone doesn’t live in and around that time or heave family and friends in and around that town.

I’ll tell you the appeal of a mass shooting and what makes the media eat it up.  It is appealing because there is a story that you can put yourself in.  It is dramatic.  You can tell a tale.  10,000 brown people dead in Syria?  Eh, they are brown people in Syria.  European debt crisis?  What kind of story is that?  Hell, simply worrying about how Americans are eating themselves to death in the millions, while should horrify you in terms of health care costs if not your life and the life of your friends and family, isn’t a story worth telling.  

Some dude gunning down a bunch of kids… well that is riveting   We get to share in mutual horror and disgust as the story unfolds and come together in shared mutual feelings!  Sure, it has absolutely zero impact upon you and you stand zero chance of having it impact you, but what a tale!  The fact that it costs pennies and is brain dead easy for the media to cover is just icing to the cake.

 Since it’s the press that’s taking advantage of this perverse incentive, no outside force will be able to act on them without someone invoking the 1st Amendment. There’s no way to enforce responsible reporting.

“You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here’s why.

It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN’s article says that if the body count “holds up”, this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Because they don’t sell. So congratulations­, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem.”

There are lots of valid criticisms to be made about US ‘news’ orgs, but mass shootings in the US aren’t ‘extraordinarily rare’. A Middle Eastern dictatorship being overthrown is extraordinarily rare. A once-in-a-century European financial crisis is extraordinarily rare. Mass shootings in the US are at most an annual event. Complaining about their regularity rather than their rarity is closer to the truth. Seen one crazy gunman killing a bunch of people, seen ‘em all, amirite?