Tag Archives: United States of Gun

Point of View Columns

The Republican Party of 2023 – The Misadventure Continues

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The early days of 2023 can give rise to the belief that we are now living in the twilight zone where the year never ends and it is now December 41, 2022. Indeed, the drama and chaos that churned through much of last year continues unabated. Consider some of the following recent events and you can decide for yourself:

Early Days of the Republican Rule of the House of Representatives: If the clown car crash derby which was disguised as the Republican members of Congress selecting Kevin McCarthy as Speaker is indication, there be a malevolent set of initiatives designed to establish a very real and malevolent minority rule in this country.

While the total of Republicans in the House does not represent the majority of Americans, and the Crazy Caucus (Gaetz, Boebert, Jordan, etc.) represent a minority of a minority within the Republican Party, their claim that the American people elected them to change America by dismantling a flawed system (with nothing to replace it) rings false and untrue.

Their diabolical strategy includes a) defunding the Internal Revenue Service b) limiting the work of the House Ethics Committee and c) an impossible commitment to a balanced federal budget even if that results in this country defaulting on the national debt causing the entire world economy to collapse is what is a thinly disguised plan to weaken many of the institutions of this already imperfect country.

 The United States of Gun, Cont’d: Earlier this week in Virginia, a six-year old boy brought a pistol from his home and into his classroom and then shot his teacher. While the teacher does not appear to have suffered a fatal wound, it is only by the grace of God that she is not dead. And this incident reveals the literal daily danger that all Americans face in the United States of Gun due to the insane proliferation of these weapons in every city, town and village.

As has been noted before in Point of View, there are approximately 330 million Americans in this country and over 400 million guns. There are more gun deaths per capita than in any country in the world except Yemen – which happens to be in the midst of a civil war.

Yet there appears to be no end to the acceptance of this carnage and even modest controls on the ownership of these increasingly lethal weapons is not even possible in the face of the phalanx of the National Rifle Association and the lobbyists for gun manufacturers. In effect the NRA and gun manufacturers are holding this country hostage, while killing hostages every day.

A true definition of insanity.

Republican Attendance at the Memorial for Fallen Defenders of the Capitol on 1.6.21 = 1: Sadly, this is not a misprint. On January 6th of this year members of Congress sought to honor the twelve Capitol Police officers who died in defense of the Capitol and all the members of Congress during the insurrectionist riot of January 6th of the year 2021.

Every Democrat and Independent member of the House and Senate stood on the steps of the Capitol who lost their lives due to the machinations of Donald Trump and his allies, some of whom are in Congress at this very moment. Only one (1) Republican had the respect for the dead and could overcome any partisan debate for at least a few minutes of respectful silence.

The absent Republicans showed their disdain for law enforcement and their inhuman insensitivity for the families of these dead officers.

Shame is not a word strong enough to describe their behavior.

The Incredible Shrinking Trump: All reliable reports indicate that Donald Trump is shrinking before our very eyes. He did not even have enough influence to get his own crazies in the Republican Congressional Caucus support his candidate for Speaker until 15 separate votes were taken. And then only after concessions that make McCarthy a virtually toothless temporary Speaker.

One is reminded of Edward G. Robinson’s classic line in the 1930 movie “Little Caesar”, “Mother of God, is this the end of Rico?”

Could be Trump, could be.

Jair Bolsonaro is the Trump of the Tropics: During his presidency of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro was described as the Trump of the Tropics for his strikingly similar tactics of consistent lying, defying the laws and governing traditions of his country and always, always attacking anyone who opposed his.

Following the Trump Playbook, he started to cast doubt on the 2022 presidential election saying that the only way that he could lose would be due to voter fraud engineered by his opponents. Sound familiar?

Bolsonaro did lose. Bolsonaro did claim that there was voter fraud. Bolsonaro did facilitate a grudging transition to his successor Lula da Silva. And Bolsonaro did not attend the inauguration of his successor, instead choosing to vacation in Florida.

Sound familiar?

But then Bolsonaro threw away Trump playbook. He clearly planned an assault on the Capitol in Brasilia intended to bring about the collapse of the new presidential regime. All this while he was 3,795 miles away eating fried chicken (photos confirm this). Allowing Bolsonaro to claim that he was not complicit – although no one believes it. But he did not leave his fingerprints all over the insurrection as did one Donald Trump.

Perhaps Trump should think about following the Bolsonaro Playbooks.

Last Words from Negrodamus: George Santos is actually the love child of the late Greg Allman and Cher, adopted by Nazi sympathizers in Brazil who were disguised as Jews.

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Point of View Columns

The American Fountain of Youth

When we take a closer look at American history, we realize that the youth of America may have been, and may be in the future, this country’s remaining saving grace. Despite their multiple, virtually countless faults, the so-called Founding Fathers devised a form of governance that, when practiced according to principle, is a virtual work of art. And those “Founding Fathers” were primarily men in their twenties and thirties. Similarly, the epic civil rights movement and episodically heroic Vietnam War protest were led by young men and women (Martin Luther King was 34 when he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech). And now, this past weekend, we witnessed the youth of America seize the mantle of leadership and take up battle against gun insanity in the United States.

There is no need, and this is not an attempt, to romanticize or rationalize American history or the American present. But it is a truth that in the history of this planet younger generations of any era have translated the change into their lives into the changes of society and the world in which we live. In the current era there has been such an emphasis on self-comfort, self-aggrandizement and just plain self, that there should be no surprise in learning that it has taken the current generation of youth more than a minute to climb out of their digitized rabbit holes and confront the world with their vision of today and tomorrow.

The awful and bloody reality of living in the United States of Gun has been with us for the better part of this country’s existence. But it has been during the past half century that the glorification of the God of Gun has been commercialized to the point that the Second Amendment to the Constitution is seen by too many as an advertisement for gun ownership and more importantly, gun sales.

But the generation of young people with the most potent voices last weekend are the first generation to literally grow up from the cradle to skateboard with regular visitations of mass gun violence in schools. These boys and girls and young women and young men have not known a time when a year could go by without death by automatic weapons fire in some school somewhere in these United States. Theirs is a generation that lives in an America where bullets know no boundaries – from the suburbs to the inner cities to the farmland – where bullets cannot distinguish between black and white, male or female, rich or poor. Bullets in their world kill without discrimination and seemingly without pause.

This past Saturday we may have witnessed a generation of young people realizing that the world is theirs to change and that they have the power to cast off the painful yoke of endurance and pain and quite simply change the world. With their capacity to communicate globally and instantaneously and their discovery that they have (or will have) the right to vote, this young generation of new warriors may be able to do something that past generations have been unable to do – stop the worship of the gun and revisit the notion of reverence for life and peace.

We should be glad that they are not listening when they are told that they are too young to express their opinion, much less seek to change the world. Of course, that is what was said to Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and the generation of war protesters whose voices drove a President from office and started this country on the path of peace and away from useless and bloody war.

Last week we may have watched the dawning of a new day in America and in the world.

Time will tell. As it always does – because actions will always speak louder than words, no matter how noble and eloquent those words might be.

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Point of View Columns

The United States of Gun – Part II

It is said that history repeats itself. It is an overused phrase that sadly applies to these United States and its love-death relationship with guns. The following words were written exactly two years ago in September 2013:

“The Teapublicans and the right wing of the right wing are adamant in their defense of what they contend is their constitutional right to own an unlimited number of guns. And on the Planet Teapublican that right even extends to what are in essence hand held weapons of mass destruction.

Even the most common sense proposed limitations, such as background checks for mental illness and criminal records are met with outrage and implacable opposition. The fact that gun massacres with multiple deaths upon multiple casualties have become a part of the American way of life is met with a call for more guns in the hands of more Americans.

What is peculiar about this adamant and absolute Teapublican defense of the right to bear arms is that it does not extend to the right to vote. The same right wing avatars that are incapable of compromising on any limits, controls or oversight regarding the right to possess firearms have no problem with the multiple barriers to voting that are being erected across this country. In fact, the same Teapublican legislatures that trample even modest gun control proposals into dusty fragments are the same legislatures that are passing voter suppression laws the likes of which have not been seen since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In North Carolina, for example, new voter suppression laws have been passed with the express purpose of making it more difficult for minorities, the elderly and the young to vote. The fact that representatives of these demographics are not part of the Teapublican base of support is not coincidental.

And so, we are now witness to the irony that it is easier for a black man in North Carolina to own a gun than it is for him to vote. Somehow the predominantly white Teapublicans in North Carolina and elsewhere fear black people who vote more than they fear black people who own guns.

The naked illogic of this situation should be obvious as the exercise of the right to vote is far more important to the preservation of democracy and democratic institutions than individual gun ownership. Unless you believe that there are federal black helicopters about to lift off and come and take you away, voting presents a far more effective and rational way to establish and promote policies.

Say what you will about the Teapublicans, but they have managed to turn selective hypocrisy into an art form. Somehow, in this house of malevolent mirrors, the right to bear arms is an absolute right that should not be subject to any limitation whatsoever.

However, even though the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that a woman has a constitutional right to choose an abortion, the Teapublicans in many states have taken so many steps to limit that right to choose that this right is rendered virtually meaningless.

While the right to own guns, rifles, shotguns and assault weapons is inviolate on the Planet Teapublican – the right to vote of minorities, the elderly and anyone who is not a reliable supporter of the Teapublican Commandments can be modified and limited to make their right to vote virtually meaningless.

Indeed, to an observer from another country, it would seem that the only right that is absolute in the Teapublican Constitution is the right to own a gun. And it may be only a matter of time before this country is properly renamed ‘The United States of Gun’.”

As we prepare to watch another set of somber official mourners march to the gravesides in Oregon this time, we know for certainty that this will not be the last time that mass murder stains the pages of another day in this country’s history.

We can only hope against hope that, amidst the gunfire and the relentless hail of bullets, at some point sanity and self-preservation will inform the national discourse on the subject of guns.

Clearly we have yet to reach that point. And while we wait the body count continues to rise.

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