Bill Moyers on the NRA and guns in America.
If you don't want to watch the video, you can read the transcript here.
We are a bizarre nation to a point. Rapt with horror and caught up in the cycle of breaking news, we are easily led to the next media-focused attention-getting event, whether natural or man made, quickly ending any discussion and fading the memory of the subject we were on before. The intense coverage of a mass shooting every couple of years or so gives us the illusion this is a rare occurrence and yet it happens all the time (PDF).
Even more bizarre is the pandering by some. Rep Louis Gohmert of Texas claimed the attack at the theater in Aurora was the result of the lower value our country has placed on God. He also wondered why nobody else in the theater was armed and could have stopped the attacker more quickly. In Rep Gohmert's world, taking a gun to the theater is a good thing, possibly Godly.
On the other hand, evangelical spokesman Jerry Newcombe said on the Christian American Family Association radio show that the Aurora shooting was caused by our loss of fear of God and hell. And he makes this bizarre statement:
If a Christian dies early, if a Christian dies young, it seems tragic, but really it is not tragic because they are going to a wonderful place.. on the other hand, if a person doesn’t know Jesus Christ.. if they knowingly rejected Jesus Christ, then, basically, they are going to a terrible place.
So there's your answer, America. We don't need gun control. If we all become good Christians and armed ourselves, then when someone opens fire and sends a few Christians to a wonderful place, we can return fire and send them to a terrible place.
In a sense, Rep Gohmert is right. If God is in all of us then surely our prolific shooting of each other indicates a devaluation of life. And Mr Newcombe is close to the truth as well. This isn't tragic. This is deplorable. It's heartbreaking. And it's pathetic.
Well, it's almost time for the media to focus our attention on something else. "This just in...."
Try Not to Sing Along
2 months ago
8 comments:
In the time that 12 people were killed in colorado i wonder what the body count was in syria.
Republicans believe in God and guns.
Democrats believe in Geithner and Goldman Sachs.
Americans just know we're gutshot and gutted.
I'd have to say Barney Frank's praise of Geithner's LIBOR (and TALF) coverups shock me more than Gohmett's pandering.
Oh my. Geithner used LIBOR to set the interest rate for the bailout, even while knowing (and hiding) the fact that the banks were setting this rate. At the time, I couldn't understand why the rate didn't accord with the risk of our loan to the banks, particularly when it made more sense to use the money to develop alternative banking structures that capitalized average citizens. Obama obviously knew about this swindle. That's impeachable. The second half of the bailout was entirely on Obama's watch.
Is there still time for a third candidate? If not, and assuming Obama wins and the house goes Republican, Jesus. There goes the Republic. DC will be tied in knots except for more crackdowns on democracy.
The media is trying to spin this as a Wall Street problem, but that's not going to last in an election year. While Americans were losing their homes and jobs, Obama was letting the banks dictate the terms of their own bailout loans. While banks were foreclosing on houses with bogus paper, and refusing to renegotiate mortgages, Obama was letting banks choose the rates on the loans we gave them based on a bogus process!
Holy high crimes and misdemeanors, Batman!
Obama's only firearms law actually allowed loaded guns in National Parks in 2010. A gunman shot and killed a Mt. Rainier ranger this year, but the administration did nothing about that law.
In fact, the Democrats had no other serious gun control measures on the table, and Obama's initial response to the Colorado shootings was to rely on "existing law."
Now that Libor scandal has broken open, Obama seems to be a born-again gun regulator, taking on assault weapons in a speech almost simultaneous with Geithner's testimony on the Obama administration's fraud.
I won't hold my breath for either more gun control or an accountable financial system. But, the more the more noise the Libor scandal makes, the more admirable speeches on gun control we'll likely hear from the President.
Until the next cynical distraction.
So, the Feds are defending secrecy, but not defending the basic power to dictate rates on central loans to banks.
Hey Ron Paul, maybe Geithner and Bernanke ARE libertarians!
I suppose the question is whether the dollar is headed for the same fate as mortgage-backed securities.
We should have charged the banks credit card rates plus a bunch of sneaky fees.
God bless America, global corporate citizen edition.
The Colorado shooter exercised his Second Amendment rights with the Austrian-made Glock, which had about $100 million in US sales. Profits and strict gun laws over there, murders here.
Meanwhile, British Barclays posts a profit, funded by cheap loans from US taxpayers.
Why isn't there a presidential candidate debate on the high cost of globalization for average US citizens?
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