Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 4A
THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS • THE COMMERCE NEWS
WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 2016
Editorial
Views
Police trying
to improve
public image
The Commerce Police Department
gave a program on police use of force
last week, attempting to foster under
standing of what, when and why force
is involved. Unfortunately, very few
people attended.
That marks one challenge police
face. The department is trying to fos
ter better relations with the commu
nity, a step toward what police chief
Brandon Sellers calls a “change in
culture” for the police. The depart
ment also plans opportunities, includ
ing more “coffee with a cop” events,
“neighborhood walks” with citizens
and a “National Night Out” that Sellers
describes as a block party. The chief
said he also wants officers to get out
of their cars and talk one-on-one to
people all over the community.
This is a welcome opportunity, but
unless citizens — particularly those
who have issues with or questions
about how the police department
operates — participate, little is accom
plished.
Every police department gets com
plaints, and the national attention
given to officer-involved shootings or
other seeming abuses of authority
contributes to a climate of public dis
trust that affects all police depart
ments. Complaints about police here
tend to be more about traffic citations,
demeanor when talking to citizens,
aloofness and indifference rather than
about brutality or physical mistreat
ment of citizens, but those complaints
cannot be ignored. The best way
the department can address these
complaints is for its officers to get to
know the citizens, to understand their
concerns, to relate to them not just
as officers of the law, but as citizens
and public servants whose job is not
just to cite people for driving offenses,
pick them up on outstanding warrants
or arrest them for dmg possession,
but to serve and protect the public.
Protecting the public does require
officers to make arrests, issue cita
tions and to deal with citizens upset
about any number of circumstances.
It’s a public relations nightmare under
the best of circumstances.
The police department says it wants
to foster understanding. Citizens
routinely complain that police lack
understanding. Both groups should
be willing to call each other’s bluffs,
each to make sure the effort rep
resents a genuine effort to benefit the
entire community. It’s all about police
getting to know the community they
police, to become familiar with the
names and faces and relationships,
so that citizens are not just potential
suspects or victims, but men, women
and children who deserve respect,
fair treatment — and police protection.
It appears that the officers are tak
ing the first step. Commerce citizens
should give them benefit of the doubt
and welcome the effort. It just might
change the culture of police and
community relations in Commerce.
There’s nothing to lose and every
thing to gain by trying.
Unless otherwise noted, all editorials
are written by Mark Beardsley. He can
be reached at mark@mainstreetnews.
com.
The Commerce News
ESTABLISHED IN 1875
USPS 125-320
P.O. Box 908
Jefferson, GA 30549
MIKE BUFFINGTON CoPublisher
SCOTT BUFFINGTON Co-Publisher
Mark Beardsley. Editor
THE COMMERCE NEWS is the legal or
gan of the city of Commerce and is pub
lished every Wednesday by MainStreet
Newspapers Inc. Periodical postage paid
at Jefferson. Georgia 30549.
Subscription Rates Per Year: $25
POSTMASTER send address changes
to THE COMMERCE NEWS, P.O. Box
908, Jefferson, GA 30549.
Losing the benefits of the tribe
Would it surprise you to find that people who
experienced the horrors of war in London
during the Blitz or in Sarajevo during the 1990s,
found life more meaningful and rewarding
during war than in peace? Would you be
shocked to know rates of post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) are far higher among military
personnel with no combat experience than
among those who saw action?
Those are among the findings recorded in
“Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging,” a
133-page book by Sebastian Junger that looks
at human craving for belonging in a society that
divides us and leaves so many people out is a
reason for our rates of suicide and depression
and even incidents of PTSD. While it is not a
condemnation of modern society “Tribe” points
out that primitive tribal societies suffered far
fewer of the above-mentioned ills than our pros
perous societies today.
The book came out of an article Junger wrote
for Vanity Fair, “How PTSD Became a Problem
Far beyond the Battlefield.”
Benjamin Franklin is credited with observing
that thousands of British soldiers in America
deserted to join the ranks of Native Americans,
but there was no record of one Native American
giving up the culture of the Indians for that of
the colonists. As the new nation clashed with
the natives, whites who had been captured and
adopted into tribes often ran back to the tribes
after being freed from “captivity.”
At the heart of the appeal was what Junger
calls the “fundamental egalitarianism” of the
It's
Gospel
According
To Mark
By Mark Beardsley
Indian tribes. There was no income disparity
there were no masters, everybody was equal in
standing. Every member was important; each
belonged.
To be sure, western culture was more
comfortable and safe, but the tradeoff was the
freedom, equality and sense of belonging in
the tribes. Losing that has psychological conse
quences.
Adversity Junger argues, returns that sense of
belonging. As horrible as were the London Blitz,
Sarajevo during the civil war in the former Yugo
slavia, as massive as the destruction during Hur
ricane Katrina and the 9-11 terrorist attacks, each
for a time brought people together by erasing
the divisions of religion, race, ethnicity society
or income. All lives mattered. “An earthquake
achieves what the law promises but does not
in practice maintain—the equality of all men,”
wrote a survivor of a 1915 earthquake that killed
30,000 people in less than a minute in Avezza-
no, Italy. Junger notes that rates of suicides and
depression often fall during the worst calamities.
As for PTSD, during the Gulf War, “more
than 80 percent of psychiatric casualties in the
U.S. Army’s VII Corps came from support units
that took almost no incoming fire during the air
campaign,” Junger reports. American soldiers
suffer PTSD at almost twice the rate of British
soldiers who fought beside them. Almost half of
Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have applied for
permanent disability due to PTSD, though only
10 percent actually saw combat.
“In other words, the problem doesn’t seem to
be trauma on the battlefield, so much as reentry
into society” Junger concludes.
Veterans often feel less important and
welcomed upon returning to America, where
most people do not serve in the military than
they felt in the armed forces. They find a
disparity of resources, difficulty finding jobs,
inequality, poverty — and often little sense of
belonging and shared sacrifice experienced in
the military.
Few would trade life in modern society for a
tribal existence, but it’s noteworthy that individ
uals in tribal groups — whether in tribal societies
or close-knit groups in America — have lower
rates of suicide, depression and anxiety than
the rest of us. It’s also scary to think that maybe
the only way America can achieve solidarity is
in the midst or aftermath of disaster.
Mark Beardsley is the editor of The Com
merce News. He lives in Commerce.
A shot in the dark
It’s all over the news all the time: gun vio
lence in America—a subject so vexed, and so
complex, that politicians and lawmakers can go
either way on it and be right, or so it seems. You
hear NRA slogans saying that the only way to
stop gun violence is by arming all of our citizens,
and slogans from the other side that say zero
guns would equal zero deaths from gunshots.
Talk about an issue being polarized! I don’t
know where the truth lies, but I’m interested in
taking a shot at finding out.
Let’s start with the fact that last year more
than 12,950 people in the U.S. died of gunshots
and another 24,770 were injured. We have the
highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the
world, by far (next comes Yemen — bet you
didn’t guess that—and after Yemen come
Switzerland and Finland, where gun ownership
is half the rate of ours). But we do not have the
highest rate of gun homicides. That dubious
honor goes to Brazil, El Salvador, Colombia,
and Iraq, in that order. So there is clearly no
direct correlation between how many gun
owners a country has, and how many people
are murdered by guns there. In fact, looking at
the list of countries where gun homicide rates
are highest, it’s tempting to wonder if the culture
of a country is part of the problem. Perhaps
violent cultures breed (among other things) gun
violence.
But not all gunshot deaths are homicides. In
A Few
Facts, A
Lot of
Gossip II
By Susan Harper
fact, most of America’s gun deaths (60 percent)
are suicides. Our rate of firearm suicides is
higher than that of almost any other country. Yet
Japan, with its very restrictive gun-ownership
laws, has twice our suicide rate. So restricting
gun ownership will not predictably prevent
suicides.
It’s also worth noting that violent crime in
America has actually decreased from its high
levels in the 1980s and 1990s, while gun own
ership has rocketed upward. Indeed, gun man
ufacturers point to President Obama as their
top salesman; every time he makes a speech
advocating any sort of gun control, gun enthusi
asts run out and buy more guns, fearful that they
won’t always be able to add to their stockpile.
Still, gun ownership in the U.S. has dropped
from one-half of American households down
to one-third. This may be because the chance
of a murder by firearm in your home is nearly
doubled the moment a gun crosses your thresh
old — even if it’s the gun you just purchased at
Walmart and you’re licensed to carry it.
It seems clear that we ought to register all
guns, the way we register cars, because it would
make gun theft less tempting and criminals
more traceable. About 80 percent of Americans
agree with this basic idea. But beyond that, the
issue of guns is complex, which is partly why
Congress is so reluctant to approach it. Also, the
NRA is known to fund a campaign against any
legislator who advocates gun-control legislation.
And darker dangers may lurk. When a CEO
of Smith & Wesson announced his intention
to develop a “smart gun” and try to prevent
dealers from selling guns to criminals, the NRA
released his phone number to its members,
urging them to call him and express their dis
pleasure. He received numerous death threats,
Smith & Wesson’s sales plummeted, and its
stock declined by 95 percent. So they don’t call
it the third rail of politics for nothing. As for me,
I suspect it’s our society we need to work on —
starting with expressing our displeasure without
resorting to death threats.
Susan Harper is a retired editor, lecturer,
and local library director who currently serves
on the Jackson County and Piedmont Region
al library boards.
Keep the news in News Feeds
News is a part of our social lives, and it
should continue to be.
Facebook, the mega-social networking
website, announced last week its plans to redo
users’ News Feeds. In an effort to “build a better
news for you,” Facebook plans to rework its
News Feeds placing more emphasis on posts
from friends and family.
The changes will likely impact Facebook
“pages,” resulting in lower traffic and views for
posts. These pages can be anything from local
newspapers or major national media groups,
to non-profit organizations or city government
pages.
While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to
show more updates from friends and family our
social lives contain more than just those people.
In many cases, the posts from news pages
are far more relevant to me than the pictures my
friends post of food and babies. Often, I’d rather
read a story about something going on around
me than see a status update from a family mem
ber thanking people for wishing them a “happy
birthday.”
Even among relationships with friends and
family there’s more than what is posted on
Facebook. Our relationships are far more com
plex than a status update or photo gallery. They
involve memories and pastimes, but they also
involve both local and global events that con
nect us all with the rest of the world.
When friends and family meet for a reunion
or dinner, rarely does the discussion solely
focus on something you saw on each other’s
Facebook pages. You also talk about current
events, interesting news and the things going on
around you.
Facebook is responding to an influx of stories
and postings from its 1.65 billion users. This has
created “far too much information for any one
person to consume.”
But the problem isn’t the number of posts
being made.
The real problem is irresponsible Facebook
users (including myself) who carelessly accept
every “friend” request they get and “like” every
page they see. When you have over 1,000
Facebook friends and “like” over 100 different
pages, of course, your news feed is going to be
filled with updates you don’t care about. When
you place an emphasis on quantity over quality
quantity is what you get.
Facebook users should take responsibility for
their own individual accounts and their own
News Feeds instead of having Facebook decide
what interests them.
Individual users can ultimately control what
they see in their News Feed, which the compa
ny pointed out in its release.
If you want to ensure you continue to see
updates from the pages you follow, go to that
particular Facebook page. Make sure you’ve
“liked” the page. Hover your mouse over the
“Liked” icon then click “See First.” (If you’re on
your phone, click “Following,” then “See First.”)
I do this for the news pages that I follow, local
governments, public safety groups and my clos
est friends and family. Essentially, it brings posts
from those pages to the top of your News Feed.
Facebook should be making a stronger
push to educate its users about these features
instead of deciding what they think interests
them and controlling their content.
Facebook doesn’t need to filter News Feeds.
Individual users can do that for themselves.
Facebook is a powerful tool for connecting.
It is a massive social network that connects
people, groups and ideas. Our friends and
family are certainly a part of our social lives,
but they aren’t the extent of it. The news affects
our social lives. Current events affect our social
lives. The things going on around us affect our
social lives. We should all have that news in
our “News Feeds.” But individually we have to
make sure the news stays there.
Alex Pace is the editor of The Braselton
News, a sister publication of The Commerce
News. She lives in Commerce.