Here are my responses to the CT school shooting of Friday, 14 December, 2012 C. E.
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Oh look, another mass shooting.
God is a concept, not a being.
Heaven and hell are concepts, not places.
We create all of them, and all of this delusion we call reality. This kind of violence comes down to what we each and all do. All our choices to ignore, all our refusals to act, and all our complicit silence.
This is stochastic terrorism bearing fruit, and this is just the latest. There will certainly be more as pressures increase and the right wing crazies howl for blood and stomp feet for more jackboot control.
Going to stop them? You’ll have to start yourselves first.
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This vacuous god talk from morons who sold their brains to childish superstition is sickening enough on a daily basis from sports figures and televangelists, but when it is used to mask an emptiness where the humanity should be, it becomes
despicable. God is a concept, not a being. Removing religion from reality would be one hell of a great god damned fucking idea. It would rid us of these uncaring, vicious, petty, and self-centered, self-important god bullies. It would free us from religion-based horrors of many kinds. It would, in short, make things a fuckload more rational. More adult.
And THAT would let us deal with things like gun control and its economic and emotional roots in a constructive and compassionate way, instead of going medieval and praying while we torture ourselves all the more.
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Prayer rings? This is useless. Get off your fatuous superstitious asses and DO something, like pressuring your fucking representatives to enact real gun control and to start addressing the underlying economy of violence.
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Is this satire? Roads and bridges ARE collapsing. Terrorists ARE setting off bombs. And there ARE plagues of many kinds, from the latest flu strain to hunger, poverty, and lack of insurance stalking the land. And yes, NRA dupes and othe
r gun nuts do howl when the topic of gun control rises, and they have managed to make it taboo.
Now try to raise the issue of global warming and climate change and see if gun control is the only taboo. Everything cited above and more are taboo in GOP world, where never is heard an unapproved-by-Norquist-and-Corporate-Owners word. We know who we must bring down. We know how.
Why don’t we?
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But it’s not merely a matter of allowing. It is the desperate need to change the context in which these shootings happen. The economy of violence that sustains USA corporate empire building must be dismantled.
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Here is the kind of moronic bigotry and illogic spewed by the NRA think tanks. This is pure propaganda, and ridiculous on the face of it. To stop gun violence we need more guns? Uh, sure. That’s why when your fucking house catches fire in the kitchen, the best thing to do is light the curtains in the living room and then your bedspread, too, right?
Asshats.
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Prayer chains, candle services, and other such self-congratulatory mummery is a vile substitute for doing something constructive, and it’s used to absorb genuine compassion and energy so nothing will change. Drop your chains and walk free and take action. Religion and public displays of simpering do nothing but play into corporate plans.
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Does everything happen for a reason, as some assert?
No, there is no reason, because that implies a plan, and that implies a planner, and no, that concept doesn’t fly. God is a concept, not a being. If everything happens for a reason, that reason is the innate potential order found in the substrata of chaos theory and fractal analysis. Maybe.
You can make meaning, but it is not built in.
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Much is being blathered about how to make schools safe by do-gooders in a fit of fake altruism to make themselves feel better. More doing nothing substantive, in short. More ducking the issue.
Someone called for making schools a place where guns could never enter. I retorted: How can you do that without making schools an armed camp? They are already nothing but prison practice zones.
So we what, put up sentries and body searches and barbed wire? Ridiculous. Deal with the real problem, which is the cult of guns and the economy of violence USA stands for.
Put any security measure you wish into effect and I flat guarantee you it can and will be breached at will by a sufficiently determined person or force. Safety is a delusion they sell you to sucker you into their control schemes.
What needs dealt with is America’s corporate system of manufacturing violence. The rest of the world knows this is true, but only we, as We The People, can do anything.
Instead we pray, and talk, and otherwise do nothing. Wring our hands and cry and wonder what ever can be done, when direct political pressure, protests, and demands for action on gun control by our bribed officials is the obvious, clear way to bring about real change, the kind that works in so many other actually civilized countries.
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Patrick McGoohan, who’d played John Drake in the popular British TV series DANGER MAN, known as SECRET AGENT (MAN) in the states, was tapped to play the first big screen version of James Bond 007. He declined, stating that he did not wish to play a character who solved problems with violence. He went on to write, produce, and star in THE PRISONER, which dealt somewhat abstractly with many of the
issues stemming from his humanitarian, intelligent stance. Bravo for him.
We see now where the USA’s culture of praising violence, of pretending violence solves problem, leads us. We’re mired in blood, gore, and bullet casings. We bow down to a phony notion that might makes right, ignoring consequences. Our drone attacks kill non-combatant civilians? Women, children, old people? What of it? Collateral damage is part of the business of war, folks. That’s what the war pigs at the Pentagon tell us.
Their shrugs mimic the general public’s. We love violence as entertainment and rarely take it personally. Truth is, a two hour blood-and-bullets fest at the movies makes far less impact on you than, say, witnessing a nose punched and real blood spilled while waiting in line to see that gory movie. We’re inured to violence by the media’s barrage of violent images. Ever seen a JACKASS movie, where people are trained to laugh at others’ pain? Ever heard audiences laughing and applauding when the antagonist is eviscerated and decapitated by the plucky half-naked teenager in a horror movie?
Should give you chills that we can so easily be numbed to even depictions of what was once considered upsetting.
In this society so steeped in violence, is it any wonder violence erupts? That confused, bullied kids act out the violent scenes they’ve absorbed all their lives via media? Peddlers of manipulative moral outrage blame heavy metal rock music, video games, and what ever else kids are programmed to buy so corporations can get richer. They ignore the fact that, in our current context, there is literally no other choice.
Oh, but we can choose to make other choices available to ourselves, if we have the imagination, the will, and the simple stubborn refusal to play corporate violence games anymore. I do not refer only to video games. I refer to attending movies that glorify violence. I refer to turning off propaganda that enshrines psycho killers as heroic, or praises assassination squads as vaunted teams of brave, wonderful warriors. I refer to worshiping guns as talismans of sexual prowess and little-boy emotional security. I refer in short to the economy of violence USA thrives on. Reject that in any and all manifestations.
Once you free yourself, at least mentally, from the constant din of explosions, you can stop and think enough to realize violence only begets more violence, and control only causes resistance. Far better to guide than punish. Far better to prevent than respond. Far better to demonstrate love, compassion, and kindness than strict, harsh, even draconian zero tolerance.
I’m shouting into a silent void. Why, I don’t know.
You can go back to your shoot-’em-up shows now. We both know you will. What else IS there, right?
sigh
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