Good thing it's not fully automatic assault weapons because they are illegal. Making semi automatics illegal won't be immediate results but with time it will. Cops will find illegal guns and then that will show that there is a reason for the possession. Could save at least some lives immediately.
It’s not exactly a revelation that the GOP is a fascist death cult.
The only mystery is that it’s taken more than half a century for political commentators to catch on.
But the observation that the GOP is a fascist death cult doesn’t capture the full scope of the deranged depravity we’re faced with when we confront the reality of who the members of this fascist death cult show themselves to be, every day- Murder Clowns...
It’s true that there is no shortage of callous indifference to the suffering of others among the members of the fascist crowd; if they possessed the capacity for compassion, they wouldn’t feel comfortable congregating with, and voting for, sociopaths, psychopaths and predators. But they are comfortable with them, and more than that- and here’s where too many on the left refuse to accept the simple reality staring them in the face- the fascist crowd is entertained, reassured, and gratified to see their decades of efforts come to fruition, on full public display. Broadcast in real time, truth be told.
Why does the fascist crowd, the rank and file GOP voters, the GOP office-holders at every level of government, time and again, at every turn, make choices that result in mass suffering and gruesome violence?
Because they enjoy the macabre spectacle, and celebrate every triumph of vicious depravity over decency and sanity.
I worked at the NYC Department of Health during the Bloomberg years. The work of that Department was focused on reducing smoking rates. We completed several initiatives to reduce smoking in marginalized populations. We were somewhat effective. The most effective intervention occurred when significant taxes were levied on cigarettes & other tobacco products.
We need to go after the money and institute taxes & fees on every aspect of gun ownership. This includes mandating liability & health insurance waivers for every person in the household where there are firearms, specific licenses for specific firearms, regular inspections of storage, weapons, and ammunition. Ammunition should be sold at state level dispensaries where generous limits are applied and tracked. Don’t go after the guns - go after the money.
I used to believe that it was the right thing to vote for the person who best represented what I believed in, regardless of the political party. That belief died many years ago. I now vote for all Democratic candidates and I vote in every election. Even if there was a Republican candidate who appeared to stand for the same values as I believe in, they are all held in lockstep by the GOP. They lie and you cannot trust any of them. I'm so lucky that my 25 year old daughter was not part of the active shooter school population either in grade school, high school or college (private schools in CT and MA). She never had to go through a shooting drill. She suffers from PTSD and has anxiety attacks because of an abusive father (my ex) and I can't even think of how devastating a drill would have been for her. I'm a retired academic and when university school shootings began we attended a meeting with campus safety officers. They told us to pile desks up against the classroom door to keep a shooter out. We explained that all classroom doors opened outward into the hallway (they were unaware of this) and that since the building we were in was built in the 70's, the windows did not open. We asked if they could put deadbolt locks on the classroom doors but they said that a shooter could come into the classroom, lock the door, and shoot us all. We patiently explained that any shooter could do that already with doors that opened into the hallway and no window escape. They had no answers.
Ever since my kids started school, every day I send them in knowing it could happen there, that day. They were toddlers when Sandy Hook happened, and we lived not an hour’s drive from that town.
I’ve heard Ryan Busse (author of Gunfight; he lives near me in Montana) talk about the political will and capture by the NRA of so many things, including people’s fear of “having our guns taken away.” It all runs so deep.
It truly is terrible that this is not going to be fixed on any level until the Democratic Party gains 50 votes to abolish the filibuster in the Senate. Like we were so close to that the first two Biden years and again now, but for Sinema and Manchin. And now we have to try again for 2024, plus hope that Manchin is reelected and Sinema is out, replaced by a real progressive Democrat.
Then we would have a real chance, for modifying the court system, for the Supreme Court to be fixed, for real gun control to be passed, for voting rights to be fixed, for immigration to be fixed. And hopefully DC and Puerto Rico to become states, because my goodness DC is bigger in population than two states and Puerto Rico is bigger than 20 states. Maybe even pass some notion of Medicare + Medicaid for all.
And that’s it. That’s the ball game. Because Republicans now want none of these things, because it would actually all help the country. And yeah, the thumb would be off the electoral scale at that point, and Republicans would be less likely to win thereafter.
Because the way Congress is structured is overly privileging Republicans and they don’t want to lose that.
Sinema and Manchin are useful idiots for Republicans with the cherishing of the filibuster. What it means to use “bipartisanship” as a cudgel does not seem to be understood by Sinema or Manchin at all.
And thus we have to wait for real change. Still. Again. It is a dull dull feeling.
Good thing it's not fully automatic assault weapons because they are illegal. Making semi automatics illegal won't be immediate results but with time it will. Cops will find illegal guns and then that will show that there is a reason for the possession. Could save at least some lives immediately.
My recent two cents on the subject:
https://open.substack.com/pub/iandouglasrushlau/p/the-us-is-an-amusement-park-for-murder?r=jo7y2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
'The US is an amusement park for Murder Clowns.'
It’s not exactly a revelation that the GOP is a fascist death cult.
The only mystery is that it’s taken more than half a century for political commentators to catch on.
But the observation that the GOP is a fascist death cult doesn’t capture the full scope of the deranged depravity we’re faced with when we confront the reality of who the members of this fascist death cult show themselves to be, every day- Murder Clowns...
It’s true that there is no shortage of callous indifference to the suffering of others among the members of the fascist crowd; if they possessed the capacity for compassion, they wouldn’t feel comfortable congregating with, and voting for, sociopaths, psychopaths and predators. But they are comfortable with them, and more than that- and here’s where too many on the left refuse to accept the simple reality staring them in the face- the fascist crowd is entertained, reassured, and gratified to see their decades of efforts come to fruition, on full public display. Broadcast in real time, truth be told.
Why does the fascist crowd, the rank and file GOP voters, the GOP office-holders at every level of government, time and again, at every turn, make choices that result in mass suffering and gruesome violence?
Because they enjoy the macabre spectacle, and celebrate every triumph of vicious depravity over decency and sanity.
Occam’s razor, people.
Barukh HaShem for this and your prophetic voice!
This article is unbearable reading. Horrific, devasting, heartbreaking. I had to stop several times.
But you need to read it. You must: : https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-damage-to-human-body/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f004
I worked at the NYC Department of Health during the Bloomberg years. The work of that Department was focused on reducing smoking rates. We completed several initiatives to reduce smoking in marginalized populations. We were somewhat effective. The most effective intervention occurred when significant taxes were levied on cigarettes & other tobacco products.
We need to go after the money and institute taxes & fees on every aspect of gun ownership. This includes mandating liability & health insurance waivers for every person in the household where there are firearms, specific licenses for specific firearms, regular inspections of storage, weapons, and ammunition. Ammunition should be sold at state level dispensaries where generous limits are applied and tracked. Don’t go after the guns - go after the money.
I used to believe that it was the right thing to vote for the person who best represented what I believed in, regardless of the political party. That belief died many years ago. I now vote for all Democratic candidates and I vote in every election. Even if there was a Republican candidate who appeared to stand for the same values as I believe in, they are all held in lockstep by the GOP. They lie and you cannot trust any of them. I'm so lucky that my 25 year old daughter was not part of the active shooter school population either in grade school, high school or college (private schools in CT and MA). She never had to go through a shooting drill. She suffers from PTSD and has anxiety attacks because of an abusive father (my ex) and I can't even think of how devastating a drill would have been for her. I'm a retired academic and when university school shootings began we attended a meeting with campus safety officers. They told us to pile desks up against the classroom door to keep a shooter out. We explained that all classroom doors opened outward into the hallway (they were unaware of this) and that since the building we were in was built in the 70's, the windows did not open. We asked if they could put deadbolt locks on the classroom doors but they said that a shooter could come into the classroom, lock the door, and shoot us all. We patiently explained that any shooter could do that already with doors that opened into the hallway and no window escape. They had no answers.
Ever since my kids started school, every day I send them in knowing it could happen there, that day. They were toddlers when Sandy Hook happened, and we lived not an hour’s drive from that town.
I’ve heard Ryan Busse (author of Gunfight; he lives near me in Montana) talk about the political will and capture by the NRA of so many things, including people’s fear of “having our guns taken away.” It all runs so deep.
It truly is terrible that this is not going to be fixed on any level until the Democratic Party gains 50 votes to abolish the filibuster in the Senate. Like we were so close to that the first two Biden years and again now, but for Sinema and Manchin. And now we have to try again for 2024, plus hope that Manchin is reelected and Sinema is out, replaced by a real progressive Democrat.
Then we would have a real chance, for modifying the court system, for the Supreme Court to be fixed, for real gun control to be passed, for voting rights to be fixed, for immigration to be fixed. And hopefully DC and Puerto Rico to become states, because my goodness DC is bigger in population than two states and Puerto Rico is bigger than 20 states. Maybe even pass some notion of Medicare + Medicaid for all.
And that’s it. That’s the ball game. Because Republicans now want none of these things, because it would actually all help the country. And yeah, the thumb would be off the electoral scale at that point, and Republicans would be less likely to win thereafter.
Because the way Congress is structured is overly privileging Republicans and they don’t want to lose that.
Sinema and Manchin are useful idiots for Republicans with the cherishing of the filibuster. What it means to use “bipartisanship” as a cudgel does not seem to be understood by Sinema or Manchin at all.
And thus we have to wait for real change. Still. Again. It is a dull dull feeling.