Bridge-gate trolls
Of course, taking
up arms against anyone is never advised. However, I can't say I'm
surprised. A disgruntled liberal, a Bernie man pushed to the edge, a
man who, by all logic, should espouse tighter gun purchasing laws. I
was a Bernie man. To me he is the real deal. He wants to break up the
banks and does not let them favor him in the slightest way. But
taking out law enforcers, makers, or Republicans stuck in 1840 is not
the American way either. Did this true bleeding heart liberal
accomplish anything? No, he stirred the pot, made the job harder for
real liberals, sane Democrats who let democracy have a fair trial.
The money train
Data from the CDC
indicates that, on the average day in America, 93 people are killed
BY PEOPLE WITH guns. Yes, I feel the need to emphatically say this,
to appease the second amendment stalwarts that retort guns don't kill
people. Yesterday was not an average day. I'd wager that not one of
those 93 people comes from the upper 2. The NRA has managed to turn
the second amendment into a million dollar industry, a ruse that is
indirectly enabling much more than the right to own a gun to protect
kids from those kindergarten grizzly bears. The 146-year-old
organization, curiously begun during an era of reconstruction,
likely by sore losers of the Civil War, generated nearly $350 million
in 2013. The NRA relies on membership dues, program fees and
contributions. The majority of this money is used for a program
newsletter, gun training programs and various forums for safety
education. But, according to a CNN report on campaign finance, much
of the contributing comes from everyday Americans. It is unlikely,
though, that yesterday's GOP shooter was among them. (It is highly
likely that, in 2011, congresswoman Gifford's assailant was a
contributor.) The NRA, in its nepharious sanctimony, uses these
contributions to keep pro-gun law makers in office, unless one of
them gets killed. This ham-handed abrogation is on the rise and, as
sure as I sip coffee from my “feel the bern” mug, shootings will
continue to happen.
It is a killing
field, a spree, a training of America. Or, since 1871, after war was
fought to determine that unpaid humans could not be used as
implements for industry, a re-training was deemed necessary. For
decades following the industrial revolution 98 percent of the
proceeds have been going into the pockets of the upper 2 percent,
into salaries of CEOs, middle-men, third party transaction
recipients, the Kochs and Wall Street bank. Little goes to people
like the GOP shooter, an extreme example of the lower 98. People,
I'll wager a few liberals even, contribute to the NRA. It is able to
lobby, to advance their agenda which, in theory, is just Americans
being who they always were. And its all fun until someone gets an eye
out, or a congressman gets shot in the hip with massive internal
damage. Jackson, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, TR, Truman, FDR,
Kennedy, Ford, Reagan all were the targets of assassins. The nation
morns, flags fly at half staff, Speakers of the House say unifying
things like “an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.”
The gun will come up tomorrow. Average Americans, with no particular
bone to pick with the government, will contribute to the NRA. They
have little idea, or simply do not care, of the cycle of violence,
racism, and recipe for a trigger snap like yesterday's shooting that
they are enabling. They sleep safe with their guns, with a flag ready
to lower to half staff. They are good loyal tax-paying Americans. The
NRA takes the revenue and lobbys. Pro-gun lawmakers stay in seats,
their agenda's fed, gun shows put more guns on the street (yes, even
if that was never their indented destination) and law enforcers work
to get them off the streets, sometimes getting shot in the process.
No journalist
yesterday would say for sure that James Hodgkinson's politics had any
thing to do with the shooting. It is obvious to me that it did. He
hated Trump so much, he was sick of the months of town-halls at which
many GOP congressmen stood to Trump's policy, gave lip service, or
flat out refused to show up. Now, Hodgkinson was described as an
otherwise peaceful law-biding person. When someone like that snaps, a
Bernie Democrat, one of millions (of much younger people), none of
whom certainly would ever use a weapon against a human being, it is
quite disturbing. The extreme disgruntled partisan gap has been
crossed. This guy was no Timothy McVie, and compounds in Idaho were
nowhere in his sights.
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