CS June 2022 | Page 24

Cultural Decadence and Moral Crisis in US Capitalist System

On 14 th May an 18 years old young white man , Payton Gendron of New York shot 10 persons dead and wounding three at a Buffalo , New York grocery store in a racially motivated attack that he live-streamed on Camera . Eleven of the victims were African Americans . According to the authorities the shooter posted a detailed ‘ manifesto ’ online before shooting in which he outlined his plans and racial motivations for the attack . According to the manifesto posted online by the shooter , that he had been inspired by white supremacist acts of violence including the massacre of 51 Muslims in Christ- Church , New Zealand in March 2019 . The shooter “ travelled hours from outside this community to perpetrate this crime . The shooter last year made “ general threats ” at his high-school after which the state police referred him to a hospital for a mental health evaluation , and was released after one day and a half .
On May 16 th in California at a Church Southeast of Los Angeles left one person dead and four others critically wounded in a shooting .
Again within 10 days , on May 24 an 18 year old gunman Salvador Ramos , a resident of the community about 135 kms West of San Antanio slaughtered 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school . According to State Senator Ronald Gutierrez , Ramos had hinted at an attack on social media , suggesting the “ kids should watch out ” and that he had bought “ two assault weapons ” after turning 18 .
According to statistics - in USA such incidents of gun-shooting and mass killings have considerably increased in the last four decades . While there are 118 gun shooting incidents occurred since 2018 , 26
24 school shootings occurred in 2022 alone .
These incidents highlight how a strong gun shooting culture is institutionalized in USA . If we can remember that the neo-liberal capitalist policies are being aggressively pursued and implemented in USA as well throughout the world we can easily understand , how and why ‘ wild west ’, and mass gun shooting killing culture is deep-rooted in USA .
The world capitalist system , because of the economic crises being faced regularly , in a bid to overcome these recurrent economic crises and concurrent economic depressions has assumed the form of neo-liberal globalisation . This new form of capitalism has been promoting the ideology and culture of raising avarice , greed , extreme-money mindedness , utter selfishness , false pride , ego and a naked type of careerism with the tremendous support of media hype and publicity among people and particularly among citizens of USA , making them sycophants . But the system failed to deliver goods in bringing about the well being of people . Despite the best efforts by individuals only a very few are becoming winners , and the multitude of rest becoming losers , having no hopes of any better future . So naturally the US citizens particularly the youth , the future citizens are being frustrated and becoming the victims of cultural and moral crises . This pauperized conditions of lack of morals , ethics and progressive ideology is making the youth perverse and act accordingly , to chose this type of reactionary gun culture and mass killings to satisfy their ethical moral and cultural deficiencies , inculcated by the free market system and ideology of exploitation and oppression .
But the US President Joe Biden diverts from this real cause of decadent culture and moral crises deep-rooted in the American society , against his opposition Republican Party and blaming the fire-arm manufactures as the cause for gun-violence to gain political dividends ; from these gruesome mass-killing incidents .
In fact the evil is embedded in the very capitalistic system and its foundations of free market , free trade policies of parliamentary democracy . The very fact that the fire-arm manufactures lobby and National Rifle Association , are able to make US Congress refuse to make laws to clamp-down gun violence , clearly exposes the futility of a parliamentary democratic system and speaks volumes about the hollowness of that system , indicating that such a system is not at all of the people , by the people and for the people but of the bigcapitalists , by the big capitalists and for the big-capitalists .
These incidents , at least now shall open the eyes of intellectuals and democratic and progressive forces of USA , against the fraud played against them by the capitalist system , and to think and practice of progressive , scientific ideology and culture to come out of the cultural and moral crises in to which they are steeped ! �
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