Like most intractable issues, we're dealing here with a witches brew of complexities.

Back in the late nineties, when Clinton was in the Whitehouse, we had relative prosperity that was touching everybody; that, I think, is no longer true. Although the economy is still good for the rich (isn't that always the case), for the rest of us - students, single mothers, families struggling to make ends meet, etc. - things are now beginning to look bleak. Mix in a hot summer, rising energy prices and an indifferent and clueless Bush administration, and you have a recipe for a lot of pent-up rage to begin to overflow.

If anyone in power had been paying attention to Jonathan Kozol's series of books over the last 15 years about the utter bankruptcy in our public schools in major urban areas throughout the country, they would have known this was coming.

It was once the case that our good public school system made us a coherent society, regardless of class, race, ethnicity, or religion. Sure, there were always tensions, and some places had much better systems than others...but, in general, you can thank our public school educational system for the social and economic bounty of the last 50 years.

No, things have never been perfect, and in the 70s, a lot of boomer teens played hell with the statistics, but the system held.

In the last 30 years, though, we've let the machinery of that beautiful system wear out, corrode, and fall apart. We have not maintained this system. I think it's little wonder that most of this happened under GOP administrations and congresses. The GOP has never wanted equality in this country. They and their constituents want to dominate, not share.

If Kozol's reporting is even 50% accurate (and I think it's likely 100% accurate), it's no wonder we're seeing this epidemic of violence. All these kids who were completely failed by our system of education, are now on the outside of affluent society looking in...and we all reap the whirlwind of their bottomless desire. And rage.

How could it be otherwise?

I grew up in a gang infested part of Chicago and I think part of what has happened is the decline of the left. It hasn't only been accompanied by defunding youth programs and schools, it's also meant there are no ideas out there to counter bling & gangsta.

The street violence we have now is a prime consumer good. Surburban youths drool over the 'realness' and corporations roll in the profits. Young black men kill each other because that is behavior that is valued, even if it is someone else who gets to cash in on their self-destruction.

As someone who listens (wearily) to rap stations, it is incredible how unthoughtful it is. Pop culture used to have a critique. Now if you're not Christian you are just about the money. That doesn't work if you are at the bottom of society - you NEED a political analysis. You NEED it to be healthy.

This is partly about the amoral political class that loves to kill, the warmongers. The Republicans. Their cynical and brutal morality has infused the streets, with tragic consequences.

"summertime is the killing season / it's hot out this bitch / that's a good enough reason."

With the ubiqutious 50-Cent (himself a survivor of multiple gunshot wounds) as death's advocate, who are the faceless we to condemn such acts of perverse violence? As long as justification emerges from the hallowed lips of fame, and the sub-standard living conditions of the inner city remain glorified as the fire in which men are forged, the honor of life will never triumph over the correspondent masculinity conferred on death's dealers, and posthumously, it's recipients.

If your town is anything like Raleigh, NC then your police department is a revenue source. This means that police go after minor middle class crimes like drug possession, traffic violations and such. Why? Because they pay any fine, levy, court ordered rehab, counselling, probation, court cost you impose on them. Whereas crackheads and gangbangers do not. Violent crime does not pay (the city). It's really not their priority no matter what they say.

Justice Brandeis wrote that government is the great teacher. For the past six years we've had a government that's utterly indifferent to human suffering, and completely willfully blind to the consequences of violence. Don't you think some of that attitude is going to filter down to the masses? Just as Clinton's optimism was infectuous, Bush & Cheney's cynical ruthlessness has been as well. If life is suddenly so cheap in Iraq and in New Orleans, why wouldn't it be cheap everywhere?

Face it, the GOP dismantled community policing programs that worked - all because they wanted their precious tax cuts and because, in their blind hatred of Clinton, any policy that he enacted was to be dismantled out of pure spite.

Republics want to waste our money building prisons instead of finding solutions. They're about as "tough on crime" as my aunt fanny.

I just hope that some of these superpredator kids kill a few Republicans along the way. Since life is now cheap and there is no rule of law or justice while Bush and his cronies occupy the government, here's hoping that just a few of their evil enablers pay the ultimate price.

Folks,

While I agree with most of the statements made here, I think that one thing that is being overlooked is the demographics.

Within the last few years we have seen quite a few articles that discussed how the aging of the baby boomers depressed crime rates, simply because people are less likely to commit crimes when they are older. The argument seemed to be that the people who commit the most violent crimes are either dead, incarcerated, or mellowed by the time they are in their 50's.

By this argument, the echo boom is going to reverse this trend, perhaps drastically. This does not mean that we don't have to do something, because we do, and fast. However, I would be careful in assigning blame in a cultural context when it may not be appropriate.

BTW, The Economist has a really interesting article on this from 1998. It says a lot of the things that this article is, but from a historical context. You can see it at http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/displaystory.cfm?story_id=166819

Morgan