“The realities of American politics don’t change much from year to year.” Alexander Cockburn
Has the school shooting in Parkland, Florida led us to some kind of turning point in the never-ending gun debate? While money-grubbing political hacks like Marco Rubio continue to do the NRA’s bidding, hiding behind campaign contributions (legalized bribes) and contorted fealty to the 2nd Amendment, teenagers are calling Rubio and other “adults” out for hypocrisy and cowardice.
As in the aftermath of other mass shootings, the NRA’s apologists urged the public not to have a knee-jerk reaction and do something sane and logical like demanding an end to easy access to firearms; Republicans offered thoughts and prayers, as they always do, which is like handing a can of jet fuel and a blowtorch to someone whose home is engulfed in flames; the dipshit in the White House who masquerades as our president called for arming teachers -- one of the lamest ideas, ever. The NRA and their political allies banked on being able to confuse the issue by claiming that the source of the problem of gun violence isn’t guns (it never is, right?), but mental illness, or that the survivors of the shooting who call for decisive action had been put up to it, or Russia was to blame, and even this priceless bit of drivel: many mass shooters turn out to be, wait for it, Democrats!
The United States is a violent country -- at home and abroad -- with zero capacity or inclination to face its most pressing problems. Go right down the list, from climate change, income inequality, mass incarceration, endless war, staggering student loan debt, a nearly extinct middle class, lack of affordable housing, healthcare and education, political gridlock, racism, and you find the same root cause: money. The incentives in this insane society lean toward private profit and property, and legal exploitation of workers, the poor, and minorities. Human needs don’t matter; everything must bow before the God of Profit. If a price tag can’t be slapped on something, it may as well not exist. Social justice is for wimps and dreamers and socialists. The profits of gun and ammunition makers are more important than the safety of citizens, in the same way that the profits of Boeing and Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are more highly valued than helping the unfortunate.
Like the State of Israel, a small nation that wields outsized influence on US policy, the NRA, an organization of 4.5 to 5 million members, exercises too much influence over US politics. Marco Rubio sold his ass to the NRA on national television like a common street hooker. Rubio, and many of his smug, satisfied ilk, weep crocodile tears for the unborn but will not lift a finger to protect the living from the scourge of guns. This is the tyranny of a minority.
The kids are right to call BS and to demand that the adults in charge do more than pay lip service to their concerns; they are right to shame cowards like Marco Rubio who have made a devil’s bargain with the NRA.
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