ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” article, it is an editorial by the editor.
Though many have asked me for my take on the recent mass school shooting in Texas and the grocery killings in Buffalo, N.Y., I feel as helpless as the feckless politicians we elect and re-elect despite not agreeing with their positions.
So yes, I suggest we once again have met the enemy and he is us.
I hear tell from pretty reliable sources that most Americans want gun control. But it’s hard to believe it since 2012 when 20 elementary school children were gunned down and nothing has changed since.
One observer not ago suggested nothing will ever happen if what happened at Sandy Hook didn’t prompt some kind of action, nothing will. Of course, we are outraged by the senseless slaughter of children, but we won’t step up to make these feckless and bribed politicians pay for their inaction and unconcern.
At the very least, I would support restoring the assault weapons ban that was left for dead in 2004 and I would support background checks. The two changes would not eradicate these all-too-common atrocities, which seem to happen only in the U.S. rather than the rest of the world, but I’m sure they would be reduced.
The only power we common, everyday folks have in our so-called free country is the vote. But just about the only time in generalized history we collectively made such a difference was in 1933, when U.S. voters tossed out those dominant Republicans and replaced them with FDR and the New Deal. Not all goals were met and the Republican Party, starting with St. Ronald Reagan in 1980, began the process of slowly rolling back the New Deal and the Great Society. In just 40 years, they have been amazingly successful in using marking, advertising and public relations, beginning with the Moral Majority’s assault on abortion rights.
So now we have a deeply divided government that isn’t likely to get much of anything done or change anything that whittles away the consent of the governed.
They have been successful in packing the court system, rolling back civil rights for people of color, fiddling around and doing nothing about climate change, which seems get more real more real every day to those who pay attention. Inaction on gun control is just one of many issues in which the people have some blood on their hands over 42 years. It’s like comedian George Carlin said, “Nobody seems to notice., nobody seems to care.”
I am horribly pessimistic about chances for change because the American people have shown me too often they are easily misled and easily distracted. Meanwhile, the GOP will continue to make hay on culture issues such as “God, Guns, Gays, Guts and abortion.”
Our day in the sun is nearly over. And we just let it happen.
If you really want to protect abortion rights, rational gun control, a plan to lessen climate change trouble, a fair and inexpensive health care system and fix whatever problems exist for Social Security, your best shot very simply is to throw the rascals out in November.
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