Tough Love?

How Free Are We?

Call Out The Cowards

No single recent cowardly act from our cephlapodic congressmen so glaringly demonstrates the corrupting influence of big money than the senate's failure this week to pass Universal Background checks for gun purchases.

According to polls, 92 percent of Americans were in favor of the no brainer background check bill that would have screened out bad guys, you know, murderers and rapists, from purchasing say five guns at a time at a gun show.

 Sounds like a pretty good idea, no? 

 But you'd never know there was such overwhelming citizen support for the measure by the senate's failure to garner the 60 votes to pass the bill. Does anyone actually still need proof of the National Rifle Association lobby's criminal reach in Washington?

 What these spineless, obstructionist "no" vote congressmen are in effect saying is that they aren't interested in making our streets safer. They are saying that gun sales take precedent over our children's lives. 

 And they are daring you to do something about it. Will you?   

Background Checks No Brainer

 It should be a no brainer. But, yeah, we're talking about Capital Hill here.

 We need to do everything in our power, within reason, to keep troubled individuals from getting guns. Period. That's what universal background checks for all gun purchases will do.

 No, the background checks won't stop the illegal street trade. And no, the checks can't guarantee an Uzi won't fall into the wrong hands. But if we can diminish the number of such instances, with required background checks at gun stores and gun shows, why wouldn't we?

 The "no guarantees" argument of course has been one of the more pathetic challenges from opponents to mandatory background checks. We should have been there and done that by now.

 Here we are four months after the Newton tragedy and the corrupt, greedy National Rifle Association lobby's influence still threatens to shoot down the background checks.

 The NRA's stubborn resistance to this most basic of gun violence control measures is arguably criminal, as it only helps fan the flames of paranoia in this country.

 To what extent has the NRA stonewalling -- hence, high profile media coverage -- contributed to the recent increase in gun violence reports since Newton?

 Let's do what we can. Even though the majority of Americans, some 92%, support the measure, the NRA gun lobby remains powerful and there's no telling what tricks it has concealed.

 The senate debates and votes on the Universal Background Checks bill in the next few days. Let's urge the Senate to pass Universal Background Checks for All Gun Purchases by signing the petition below.
 As the Iraq war veteran who started the petition points out, all U.S. armed service members are subject to background checks before being issued a gun. So why shouldn't the same be required of this country's civilians?

http://signon.org/sign/tell-the-senate-pass?source=s.em.cp&r_by=5564729

Pigs are in the House

It’s unprecedented dark muddled, stagnated trying times like these -- with the sequester cuts looming -- that George Orwell’s prophetic poetic genius shines through so brilliantly. And sadly so.

 Will we yet benefit from the simplistic, but revelatory warnings of Orwell’s Animal Farm?

 Orwell’s classic metaphorical cautionary tale on the abuses of power has remained timeless in its relevance since its 1945 release, which interestingly coincided with the atomic bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 But, perhaps now more than at any other time in United States’ history, Animal Farm (and his 1984) speak loud and clear.

 In a contemporary setting, Animal Farm’s ruling pigs of course are the House Republicans. Like the pigs, House Republicans are good at feigning concern for all Americans – proclaiming  “all (humans) are created equal.”

  Privately, the hoggish House Republicans believe that some are “more equal than others.” And they gauge that equality by the size of a citizens bank account – on or offshore. No matter.

 In the same way that Farm’s pigs gradually became corrupted by ideals of the enemy humans – to the point of standing on two legs and wearing clothes – elected House Republicans have snubbed their duty to the people – and instead pledged their unflinching allegiance to Big Money’s corrupt, powerful select few.

 It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The pigs, cows, goats, ducks, hens and horses were all in this thing together. They had successfully rebelled against the cruel oppressive Mr. Jones, who had worked them like slaves and stole their young. A set of promising of democratic commandments were even drawn up.

 But soon the pigs, which had assumed power, started to twist the truth and shape the rules to benefit them alone. To borrow from Bruce Springsteen’s timely Grammy-nominated tune, the pigs stubbornly insist: “We take care of our own.”

 Take the passage of Animal Farm, where Squealer – the reigning pigs’ apologist mouthpiece in the present day tradition of say, a Rush Limbaugh – is trying to convince the rest of the animals that the pigs solely deserved the farm’s coveted milk and apples to eat.

“Comrades!” he cried. “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health.

 “Milk and apples (this has been proved by science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.”

 Rings a bell, no?

 In the same way the increasingly snobbish pigs desperately defended their milk and apples privilege, the House Republicans strived to persuade the masses that tax breaks for the rich were crucial for the welfare of the struggling middle class and poor.

 They pretend to give a dam about small businesses as long as it conveniently facilitates their scheme to avoid those tax hikes for themselves and their wealthy fat cat pals.

 Through the course of it all, like Animal Farm’s pigs, the only genuine effort the Conservative House leaders actually make is to obstruct any progress that might ease the burden on their underlings, the people, during these desperate times.

 In the meantime, the hardest workers, the same middle class and poor, will just have to work harder to merely survive. Just like the cart-horse Boxer in Orwell’s Farm. As was the case in Animal Farm, it's time for a rebellion. 

Gun Control Talk Missing The Truth

 It should be real simple.

 You'd think that the incomprehensible murder of 20 first graders in the Newton, Conn. shooting shortly before Christmas would do it.

 You'd figure that we adults -- gun lovers, gun haters and everyone in between -- would get serious about protecting the lives of our children.

 But, apparently the National Rifle Association loves its guns too much. Why the NRA, as a minimal first step, is opposed to President Barack Obama's no brainer background checks for all gun buyers is mystifying and troubling.

 It can only be explained by greed. It places gun sales ahead of child safety.
Of course, such cold indifference, such greed, is borne out of fear. Fear of not having enough. Fear of missing out.

 The Second Amendment argument, touting the "right to bear arms," amounts to a red herring on the background checks issue. We need to do all we can to keep guns out of the hands of murderers and terrorists. NRA members favor the checks; not the NRA itself though. Anything to make a buck.

 So greed and fear rule. The truth takes a backseat. And justice suffers. That's the name of the game anymore in Washington. A similiar thing was happening just over two years ago when Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot.

  Angry fear-based vitriol was the rule of the day. Forget about civility and the truth. Here's something I wrote then. We still need to shut up -- and listen.
 http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/jan/23/cilivility-listen-rhetoric/

Oh, Target Pratice ... For What?

Gun lovers all answer the inevitable question the same way.

So, if they don't use their weapons for hunting, asks the interviewer, what do they use their semi-automatic assault rifles for anyway?

Target practice, they respond. Then the interviewer predictably responds: "Oh, okay," and obligingly moves on, refusing to pursue the matter any further -- as if doing so would risk making him or her the next target for practice.

But really, how is that answer supposed to appease the non-gun loving masses? Target practice? Target practice -- for what?

Apparently, a small percent of semi-automatic owners are using their weapons for hunting. But the "target practice" answer doesn't cut it. And no one seems to be pressing the issue.

 If it's just a matter of experiencing the thrill of hitting a target bullz-eye, why aren't they using BB guns or or darts, for that matter? Why the flesh ripping live ammunition?