There is a moment in the original 'Planet of the Apes' where Charlton Heston's Astronaut Taylor screams out in horror of a world that is upside down.
"It's a Madhouse...a Madhouse."
Putting aside the fact that Heston himself was an NRA-loving gun nut, the phrase "Madhouse" keeps echoing through my brain as we suffer through yet another gun massacre (Robb Elementary School), less than a week following the last massacre (Buffalo Supermarket Shooting).
How can one political party (the GOP) sleep at night defending and doubling-down on a policy that results in a never-ending stream of mass shootings each year at our schools, places of worship, workplaces and shopping and entertainment venues?
Do you or anyone you care about hang out at any of those places?
Do you really want to live in a world where dying in a hail of bullets is a "roll of the dice" possibility?
Just in our recent lifetimes, the names below have become synonymous with mass death, and families that will never be whole again, for no other reason than ready access to AR-15 assault rifles by those full of hate, disgruntlement, racism, youthful anger, retribution or mental illness:
- Columbine High School (SCHOOL)
- Virginia Tech (SCHOOL)
- Aurora Movie Theater (ENTERTAINMENT VENUE)
- Sandy Hook Elementary (SCHOOL)
- Umpqua Community College (SCHOOL)
- Planned Parenthood (PLACE OF WORK)
- San Bernardino attack (PLACE OF WORK)
- Pulse Nightclub (ENTERTAINMENT VENUE)
- Las Vegas Music Festival (ENTERTAINMENT VENUE)
- Sutherland Springs church (PLACE OF WORSHIP)
- Stoneman Douglas High (SCHOOL)
- Santa Fe High (SCHOOL)
- Pittsburgh Synagogue (PLACE OF WORSHIP)
- Borderline Grill (DINING)
- Poway Synagogue (PLACE OF WORSHIP)
- Henry Pratt Co, (PLACE OF WORK)
- Gilroy Garlic Festival (ENTERTAINMENT VENUE)
- Virginia Beach (PLACE OF WORK)
- El Paso Walmart (SHOPPING)
- Dayton, Ohio (ENTERTAINMENT VENUE)
- Milwaukee Brewery (PLACE OF WORK)
- Atlanta spa shootings (PLACE OF WORK)
- King Soopers Boulder (SHOPPING)
- Indianapolis Fed Ex (PLACE OF WORK)
- San Jose VTA (PLACE OF WORK)
Being Serious About Real Problems
When one party's answer to the menace of gun violence is that there is ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens, as The Onion scornfully mocks, that party has revealed itself to be rotten to the core.
If we can't even get serious about addressing a dynamic that is unique to the United States, that all Americans are affected by, then the pretenses of an allegiance to one nation, common sense solutions and rule of law, have mostly ended.
The lack of gun reform in the face of clear public opinion favoring it, is part of it, but so too is the disenfranchisement of women's rights, despite public opinion, the hollowing out of voting rights, despite public option, and the noxiousness and anomie symbolized by the January 6th insurrection, the big lie, denialism of climate science, etc.
Or, as David Rothkopf puts it in a brilliant thread:
It's the guns, but it's not just the guns. It's the racism, but it's not just the racism. It's the misogyny, but it's not just the misogyny. It's the attacks on democracy but it's not just the attacks on democracy.
The GOP has declared war on the nation of a functioning democracy (and by extension, the Democratic Party).
They eye test tells you that they are saying the quiet stuff out loud, actively de-constructing rule of law, rolling back long-standing, hard fought-for social gains, generally operating free of fear of consequences.
Again Rothkopf:
Compounding their hypocrisy is that the people for whom they assert they are fighting are just dupes, pawns they use to maintain power so the leaders of the movement and its funders can profit, can rig our system to promote inequality and to enhance already obscene riches.
...and yet the Democrats turn the other cheek, when they should be approaching this as the fight for our lives as a free society.
One party is the party of AR-15's, both literally and metaphorically, and the other is about "When they go low, we go high."
Really? Have you ever faced down a bully, where reason and compassion actually worked?
I hearken back to what Jim Malone tells Elliott Ness in 'The Untouchables':
"What are you prepared to do?"
Holding Our Leaders Accountable: It's a WE Problem
As Americans, we must demand better. Being an exceptional country should free us from the tyranny of:
— Gun Menace
— Endemic Corruption
— Gluttonous Greed
— Economic Hopelessness
What scares me most is not those whose purpose is full of ill-intent.
The existence of those embracing the dark path is as old as Eden.
What scares me most is an observation I've noted traveling around the country over the years.
Ironically, the same notion was validated recently by a conservative friend, who bicycled across the country, and was struck by the observation that major swaths of the the country -- 30-40% at least -- is not intellectually curious, fact bound or discerning.
They are empty vessels.
In a post local newspaper world, they exist in a news desert, all-too-readily radicalized by the FoxNews or Facebook-fed narrative of hate (versus hope), vengeance (versus virtue) virtual, and civil war (versus unity).
Enough.
As Howard Beale says in 1976's prescient 'Network':
"I’m mad as hell and am not gonna take it anymore. "
