From JTO
Wayne LaPierre, Director of the NRA, held a press conference yesterday, shortly after the 9:30 moment of silence. In it, he shifted blame to Hollywood for violent movies and games, and shifted the solution to establishing armed guards and allowing armed students in the schools and arming citizens in all public places. In other words, the NRA proposes a solution that boosts gun sales. What a coincidence!
There were two armed guards at Columbine. There was an armed citizen at Tucson where Gabby Giffords was shot. The Newtown State Police Barracks responded in minutes because they are located near the school. These incidents prove the lie that armed guards and citizens will stop madmen in public places with assault weapons. LaPierre’s analogy to the banks is also false as banks eliminated armed guards decades ago.
LaPierre is a paid lobbyist for the gun industry and a liar who decieves through technical distinctions among grades of military assault weapons and shifts blame and solutions away from the gun manufacturer.
I was stunned to learn that Grover Norquist is on the NRA board of directors. Norquist, who is funded by the super-wealthy plutocratic Koch brothers, who made their money in the extraction industry, has singlehandedly gridlocked our government’s fiscal policy by targeting moderate Republicans who compromise on any tax increase. The NRA has long done the same thing, targeting any politician representing rural and western districts, with gross distortions of any attempt to regulate assault weapons.
I was down in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago and with an extra afternoon I walked the mall, ending at the Lincoln memorial, where I love to stop and read the Second Inaugural on the north wall, and the Gettysburg Address on the south wall. It continually amazes me that we found a backwoods, log-splitting, Indian-fighting, self-educated, awkward, ugly, tobacco-chewing, profanity-spewing man to persevere and save our country from the raw greed that dehumanized both owner and slave, and who could articulate his beliefs with such powerful language.
So after all of that, has government of the people, by the people and for the people perished? Or is our government now just a tool of the forces of organized greed that dehumanizes all of us?
Saw the movie Lincoln a couple weekends ago. Reminded me that the “forces of greed that dehumanizes us all” were present then, perhaps as much as they are present now. Slavery being their pinnacle.
My thought is that these forces have always been with us, from the very beginning. History and patriotic denial have a way of glossing them over however. But we can easily find examples of their actions throughout the history of the United States. From Christopher Columbus to the raping of the West, from Slavery to the Industrial Revolution’s exploitation of workers. Like the current Republican party- and each and every one of its members, down to local Republicans (moderate and extremist)- there have always been apologists for this bad behavior.
It was and always will be, a progressive movement that reins greed in, levels out the playing field. Unfortunately, it always seems to come after a huge price being paid by humanity. Even then, compromises to true justice remain part of the political process. President Obama, like Lincoln, is being forced to compromise on basic human values, simply to gain the votes necessary to pass legislation that amounts to very little progress for the 99% of us. Simply to save billionaires a pittance of pocket change.
“So after all of that, has government of the people, by the people and for the people perished? Or is our government now just a tool of the forces of organized greed that dehumanizes all of us?”
The short answer is yes.
We now see the fruits of the gun industry.
What about the costs from big Pharma?
What about the misery caused by Alchohol?
What about Agra
What about the gambling lobby?
Most of us are slaves to banking debt.
Look at the stranglehold money has on our lives.
There are countless others.
Some how we need to get big money out of the government.
Db
Merry Christmas to all my Cafe comrades!…(see LibDem’s new article. Admin).
Db- You are starting to sound like a liberal. Hahaha. Congratulations. You are finally making some sense. Good for you. Your a smart guy. Keep up the fight.
Lib Dem:
Ha! That means a lot coming from you
I’ll take it as a compliment although maybe your conservative side is
poking through ??
Seriously though there is common ground or we wouldn’t all be talking
about it.
Merry Christmas to you also.
Db