#700

Since access to the Internet, a working computer with which to access it and the time, energy and resources allowing me to pursue a project like these are all insane privileges, I make a point to take a time out every 50th post to look at the broader context.

A huge recent issue is the pervasive migrant/refugee crisis. People are fleeing the wars (purposely plural) in Syria, economic turmoil in Africa, the fallout of the US’ failed drug war in Mexico, Central and South America. It’s all enormously complicated. Syria appears to be a damned if you do/damned if you don’t situation w/r/t external intervention. In hindsight, if perhaps something had been done several years ago… Meanwhile, things are coming unhinged in Yemen and intelligence analysts on the ground seem to think that boots on the ground would actually make a difference there. I’m against my countries position as World Police but at the same time, we have a mass of displaced people and as much as it disgusts me–the world we live in is better at destroying than it has ever been at creating.

I don’t pretend to have the answers–hell, I’m not even fucking citing anything in this post because I’ve read so many goddamn things and there are so many articles and opinions that I have no idea where to even begin. I do know that if you consider the general in the particular, if someone showed up knocking at your door in the middle of the night cold, hungry and terrified and you had a reasonable expectation that if you slammed your door in their face they’d be dead by morning–I’d like to think people would not be assholes but I look around and it seems that once again my faith in humanity is misplaced.

The pertinent bits of news in my country are another mass shooting and militant faction of the Republican party’s rabid efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. I feel like all the excellent points have already been made; namely, yes, providing health care to women who can’t afford it is a huge part of what Planned Parenthood does. However, this isn’t an argument that’s going to carry any weight with Republicans. After all, we know how they feel about free loaders (read: people who aren’t white). And really that argument is supposed to distract from the fact that Planned Parenthood provides abortions. And you know what: fuck that. Yeah, they provide abortions. If you don’t want an abortion, don’t fucking get one. But you certainly don’t get to dictate what someone else can and cannot do based on your own case. Fuck that noise. I support a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body. Period.

And really, if right wing evangelicals are so into the sanctity of life–why are they so fixated on life that’s still shrink wrapped only. What about welfare moms trying to feed their kids on an $8.25/hour wage? Remember when ritually terrible persons Glenn Beck and Ted Cruz sent tons of toys to the children of refugees in Texas and their followers (the same folks who look arms and block med clinics) termed them traitors?

I was especially appalled at the right wing echo chamber having the unmitigated arrogance to suggest that Australia–after the Port Arthur massacre holding something on par with a gun buy back and Republican pundits stating that Australia had experienced a restriction of liberty. What unmitigated arrogance! (And even if it was a restriction of liberty, it was a remarkably effective once since subsequently there have been no mass shootings in Australia… hmmmm.) As the late comedian Bill Hicks wisely pointed out: there’s no connection between having a gun and killing someone with it and not having a gun and not killing someone with it and you would be a fool and a communist to make one.

The Daily Show, of all places, was spot on in calling evangelicals to task for being so pro-life but blindly supporting the NRA. (Consider presidential candidate Ben Carson’s comments that although he spent years as a surgeon pulling bullets out of people, he never thought that tragedy was nearly as bad as it would be to restrict the 2nd amendment. What sort of cognitive dissonance is necessary to actually espouse that?!?!!)

For the record, I personally loathe guns. (It’s not fear. Having a father who was in the military, I was raised to damn well know how to use them.) I don’t want to take anyone’s guns from them. However, there is no reason any civilian should ever own an assault rifle or a high capacity magazine. And please spare me your BS arguments about a defense against tyranny–you’re forgetting the “well-regulated militia” bit. And here’s the thing, if you think your stockpile of weapons is gonna do fuck all if they government doesn’t like your rhetoric then you clearly weren’t paying attention during the siege of the Waco cult compound. It’s not like you’re going to take an AR-15 deer hunting. As I understand in order to hunt you have to have a permit and that permit limits you to a certain number of animals per year. I’m not a hunter but I suspect that the total is likely half the number of rounds a normal clip for an AR-15 holds. So get outta here with that bullshit.

Oh and while we’re at it: Dear Bernie Sanders… if you want to improve mental health care in this summer. Great. I applaud you. But let’s really stop endorsing the mental health is the issue not guns after a mass shooting. The research shows unequivocally that the issue is a lack of effective gun control and anger issues (usually with a heaping side of racism and/or misogyny.)