Dallas, Baton Rouge.

Violence. The core organizing principle of the USA -- after money. I would like to say the USA has lost its way, but the fact is that the United States was created as a nation of white male property owners. Black people were brutally enslaved; Native Americans' land was stolen and they were almost all killed. Women were second-class citizens, and in many ways they still are.

Does any of this justify murdering police officers? Of course not. But pitched rhetorical battles that minimize the anguish of African-Americans terrified of the police -- dismissing police killings of black people as inconsequential compared to "black-on-black" killings, or characterizing Black Lives Matter, which is a desperate plea by African-American citizens to be treated like human beings, as a terrorist organization or worse -- are a recipe for ever more deterioration of American society.

The footprint of the USA on this planet is a violent footprint: wars followed by wars followed by wars from before its founding to the present. Violence is the way it resolves conflict. The atom bomb is the ultimate peacemaker -- pure insanity.

Understanding root causes degenerates into blaming victims. Whose fault is it that black people are treated like mad-dog criminals in every encounter they have with police? Why are black people shaken down by police again and again?

Owning guns turns everyone into a potential killer. It just becomes a question of whom it is OK to kill.