funny things to do on a bike

Zoot Katz wrote:

Sun, 09 May 2004 15:43:58 -0700,
,
Mark Hickey wrote:

Was it taught in social studies, or maybe in shop? I didn't take
shop, so might have missed my opportunity to be encouraged to commit
acts of violence.

Off the top of my head:
Language,

??? When are white males encouraged to commit violence via language?
If there is systematic encoragement to do so, it seems to be more
centered around the rap demographic - and that's hardly "100% white
male".

Football,

That's hardly random violence. And hardly "white".

War toys

I dunno... I think most kids can distinguish between playing army and
smacking someone with a rock. One is not violence, the other is. I'd
also maintain that playing army isn't any more common among white kids
than it is any other race (just a guess though).

and entertainment, Wild West myths
sanitising genocide and occupation.

I don't get the connection between this and "modern violence". Even
though I can legally be considered Cherokee, no "cowboy" has ever
tried to shoot me (though a few of 'em did come pretty close to
running me down in their pickup trucks). Oops, I'm starting to sound
like Jobst... ;-)

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

In article ,
Mark Hickey writes:
"Claire Petersky" wrote:

working class white men are among the few in American society (not sure
about other countries) where they have had a certain amount of tolerance, if
not outright encouragement, in externalizing their dark sides on to others,
and then committing acts of violence against those others. In this
situation, we get outright encouragement.

Hmmmm, I must not have been paying attention in school when I got this
"lesson".

I note Claire didn't specifically refer to any classroom situations;
she just said "encouragement". I believe she had certain cyclist-bashing
radio talk shows in mind, whose audience demographs may consist
largely of working class, young, white males.

I don't believe people's ancestry, age or social standing necessarily
has anything to do with bike-hating, nor is bike-hating always
manifested in brutish violence like throwing stuff out of car windows
at cyclists or intentional dooring.

The bike-haters who worry me most are the ones with political clout --
the Business Improvement Associations who will fight tooth & nail
against any cycling improvements in their neighbourhoods, and those
who would try to convince City Councils to hijack funds specifically
allocated for cycling improvements, to use for some other project.

I've seen how easy it is for the Powers That Be to inflict MHLs.
Inflicting mandatory bicycle registration could be a cake-walk
for them. That would really give the bike-haters extra ammunition.


cheers,
Tom

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"Claire Petersky" wrote in message news:Duxnc.59128$Ik.4616964@attbi_s53...

This is how I see it. There are some people who believe that the world is a
nasty, competitive place. ..
In the case of these people who
feel fearful and powerless, they instead identify others as weak, and then
hate them for having those characteristics. It's much safer to hate others
than to hate yourself.

Excellent analysis, Claire. It fits every real-world example I've seen.

-Steve Goodridge

Mark Hickey wrote:

Hmmmm, I must not have been paying attention in school when I got this
"lesson". Perhaps they didn't teach me to commit acts of violence
because of my American Indian blood (only 1/8th, but I suppose you
can't be too careful when you're teaching an entire population to
"commit acts of violence").

Remember the field game, "smear the queer"? Cowboys and Indians?
Cops and robbers? Prison ball?

I was a boy in White suburban America, and I know that vein of
darkness runs deep. You don't just put that stuff behind you; it
comes out somehow. In the mainstream culture it manifests as
dog-eat-dog economics, contempt for the poor, race hatred, an
insatiable appetite for punishing transgressors, and pointlessly
competitive play.

Have you noticed how every game your society taught you during your
upbringing has to have a winner and a loser? That trains you to
erroneously attribute prosperity (winning) to virtue and poverty
(losing) to personal failings.

One can reject lots of the popular conventions for exercising nescient
aggression, but still be stuck with the abstracted anger and
vengefulness that is the residue of a long social education in
institutional violence. I don't like it, and I don't know what to do
with it, but there it is.

Chalo Colina

Stephen Harding wrote:

Zoot Katz wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:

Was it taught in social studies, or maybe in shop? I didn't take
shop, so might have missed my opportunity to be encouraged to commit
acts of violence.

Off the top of my head:
Language, Football, War toys and entertainment, Wild West myths
sanitising genocide and occupation.

I didn't know Canadian education was so multi-dimensional.

Zoot has not always been Canadian. He grew up an American boy like
you or me, and got the education to go with. In his young adulthood
he undertook to heal himself, so he left the cradle of his youthful
illness.

Chalo Colina

Mon, 10 May 2004 07:15:44 -0700,
, Mark Hickey
wrote:

Language,

??? When are white males encouraged to commit violence via language?

As soon as they learn that words can effectively hurt others by
negating their humanity. Language is most damaging when it's used to
disguise the violence. Witness the current overuse of "abuse" when
what's really meant is "torture". The Afghan and Iraqi children killed
by misdirected or faulty PGM are "collateral damage" yet when Timothy
McVeigh used those words to describe the dead children in Oklahoma
City he was portrayed as a callus and cold blooded murderer.
Saddam is "evil", Bin Laden a "monster", but that's entirely
acceptable as long as they're your monsters doing your evil bidding.

War toys

I dunno... I think most kids can distinguish between playing army and
smacking someone with a rock. One is not violence, the other is.

They teach children that violence is a valid form of conflict
resolution. Playing with war toys and watching violent war cartoons
desensitises children to the harm done by violence. It's that
indifference to violence that's the more damaging flip-side of your
violent militaristic society.
"War on Obesity", "War on Terrorism", "War on Illiteracy", "War on
Drugs", "War on Inflation". War is the answer to all of America's
problems.

and entertainment, Wild West myths
sanitising genocide and occupation.

I don't get the connection between this and "modern violence"

The systematic reduction of a whole people to the sub-human status of
"savage" is ongoing. It's a necessary precondition for waging war.
Children must be indoctrinated from an early age because your economy
is based on waging war.
--
zk

Zoot Katz wrote:

Mon, 10 May 2004 07:15:44 -0700,
, Mark Hickey
wrote:

Language,

??? When are white males encouraged to commit violence via language?

As soon as they learn that words can effectively hurt others by
negating their humanity.

snip the rest

Even assuming that what you say is true, what make it truer for a
white male than anyone else? Girls don't learn to "hurt each other
with their words"??? (in fact, I suspect they're much better at it
than us guys will ever be).

I haven't seen anything that makes me think any of this is race or
gender-specific. Am I missing something?

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

(Chalo) wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:

Hmmmm, I must not have been paying attention in school when I got this
"lesson". Perhaps they didn't teach me to commit acts of violence
because of my American Indian blood (only 1/8th, but I suppose you
can't be too careful when you're teaching an entire population to
"commit acts of violence").

Remember the field game, "smear the queer"? Cowboys and Indians?
Cops and robbers? Prison ball?

Cowboys and Indians, maybe. But I don't recall there being any real
advantage to being one or the other (since no real violence was done).
I've never heard of "smear the queer" or "prison ball".

I was a boy in White suburban America, and I know that vein of
darkness runs deep. You don't just put that stuff behind you; it
comes out somehow. In the mainstream culture it manifests as
dog-eat-dog economics, contempt for the poor, race hatred, an
insatiable appetite for punishing transgressors, and pointlessly
competitive play.

I guess I missed all that somehow. OK, maybe the pointlessly
competitive play - but to be honest that's pretty much something that
manifests itself in cycling (though it doesn't bother me a bit if I
run into someone out there who's faster - it's all a game).

Have you noticed how every game your society taught you during your
upbringing has to have a winner and a loser? That trains you to
erroneously attribute prosperity (winning) to virtue and poverty
(losing) to personal failings.

Heaven forbid anyone should try to do better. There ARE "winners and
losers" in nearly every real-world situation. There's nothing wrong
with competition and achievement, regardless of what the hopelessly PC
would have you believe. I've never attributed prosperity to winning
and poverty to losing... there are plenty of evil rich people and
noble poor folks. And vice versa.

One can reject lots of the popular conventions for exercising nescient
aggression, but still be stuck with the abstracted anger and
vengefulness that is the residue of a long social education in
institutional violence. I don't like it, and I don't know what to do
with it, but there it is.

I can only suggest that it's hardly a universal problem - or that
perhaps I was a lousy "student". I feel none of the angst you suggest
I should.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

In article ,
(Tom Keats) wrote:

I've seen how easy it is for the Powers That Be to inflict MHLs.
Inflicting mandatory bicycle registration could be a cake-walk
for them. That would really give the bike-haters extra ammunition.

cheers,
Tom

I think you're forgetting that most local municipalities used to have
mandatory bike registration. Those licencing tags on older bikes are not
just for show. I'm old enough to remember when I needed to get a sticker
for my bike.

For various reasons, the most notable probably being the widespread
disregard for licences and the desire to encourage cycling, virtually
all local jurisdictions have ended their bike-licence programs. I don't
know what the situation is like outside of Greater Vancouver.

Still waiting for a mandatory bicycle law,
--
Ryan Cousineau, http://www.sfu.ca/~rcousine/wiredcola/
President, Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club

http://draco.acs.uci.edu/rbfaq/FAQ/6.1.html

Jobst Brandt