What About Africa?

I am so tired of this.  Fox runs it all day long.  Obama is weak, he is  idealistic and can't see that simply invading every country on earth that has terrorists (except African nations) is what needs to be done.

There are WMDs...there are.  Yellow Cake Uranium is everywhere.  Remember this B.S. that Bush spewed, lied to all of us, and invaded a country while Saudi Arabia (where Bin Laden was a citizen) walked.   And it walked because it has a lot of oil that our SUVs simply must have or...or...our profligate, hopeless lifestyle must have.

So we invaded a country that had absolutely nothing to do with terrorist, sparked a massive Islamic reaction, that specifically motivated the Paris terrorists.  

And, by over reacting terrorists are motivated to get massive and cheap publicity.  They kill a few (except in Africa), and the west reacts the same way every time...24/7 coverage...fear mongering...political posturing...and where is Africa anyway?

Nigeria is undergoing a massive human tragedy right now.  Islamic extremists are killing thousands and the west stands back, nothing is done.  Darfur has bled for a decade at least, nothing is done.

As long as Islamic terrorism kills black people, and in country's that don't sit on an ocean of oil, conservatives don't say a thing.

And, you postulate that torture is a good thing.   That the terrorists will motivated by fear of their comrades being tortured, that they are discouraged by "enhanced techniques".

Have you seen "Unbroken" for example.  Or have you ever watched "The Great Escape".  It is American folklore that Japan and Germany tortured and killed captives and millions of others, and the great savior, the United States, came in with its righteous wrath and saved the MOTIVATED THAT TORTURE AND CRUELTY IS WRONG AND MUST BE STOPPED.

Why do conservatives not get this?  Torture and persecution only serve to motivate resistance.  When Bush LIED to get us into Iraq, he unleashed a wave of terrorism that continues still.

"American Sniper" is in theaters now.  There is controversy that it glorifies murder.  It does show, in graphic detail, the horrendous destruction to civilians in Iraq that the Bush adventure caused.  It shows children shot by snipers, blown up by grenades, and sectarian violence that was directly caused by the United States.

I for one felt the film handled the dilemmas service men and women faced in Iraq very well.  Often in the fog of war, innocents get killed.  But did any of you consider that some of those fighters, who got the best of our forces sometimes, were fighting because WE INVADED THEIR COUNTRY.  And as it turned out, with no good reason.

Terrorism is a complex thing...you know complex.  Simple conservative answers don't work.  The more you repress the more it grows.

Let's deal with the causes.  For example:  1.  The oil cartels that keep us all prisoners to automobiles.  2.  Racism that turns a blind eye to the largest continent on earth south of Iraq.  3.  Religious zealotry that wants another Crusade.  4.  Militarism that dictates all international problems can be solved by massive force.

If we continue on this path, ultimately the atomic solution will be used, and the game will be over.  But by GAWD we showed them..we were tough.  

MLK, on the second try to cross the Selma Bridge, hesitated and turned around.  He turned around!  His followers were baffled.  The Selma police had stood aside.  But MLK hesitated.   He was weak, right.  NO, he didn't yet have a federal judge's decision that legitimized the protest and the protection it would bring from the federal government.  So, he took the peaceful way.  And it worked, and he won.....

Do you remember!????

The New Year and a Gun

I really wasn't looking for an argument.  It is a new year after all, and chilling out on the the first day is an ideal.

But the news from a Idaho is too much.  It appears that a toddler shot his mother to death in a Wal-Mart.  The mother, evidently an avid gun toting mother, decided to take her gun into the store in a special purse that had a gun compartment.  The gun was loaded.

The baby was left unattended for a minute in the shopping basket,  unzipped the purse and accidently shot  his mother in the head.  The baby is two years old!

The article quoted a friend who evidently was very upset that "anti-gun" types were "using" the incident to argue against gun violence.

Really, how crass of them.

Really, a two year old shoots his mother with a loaded gun in a Wal-Mart and it is wrong to use that in an argument against the insanity that is America's approach to deadly gun violence.  

Really?  

Kind of reminds you of the African American youth who was fooling around with a toy gun in a Wal-Mart and was shot by police.  Or the Redding Police Officer, who left his service revolver in a closet without the trigger lock on and his three year old crawled up a ladder and shot himself to death.

All terrible.  All accidents.  All proof positive that America's obsession with firearms is dangerous and tragic.  American shoot each other more than any other society on the planet.  Many of the shootings are accidents.  Statistics show that the person you are most likely to shoot if you own a gun is yourself or a family member.  

We also have the easiest access to firearms than anywhere else.  

Police shoot first and ask questions later because they have to assume that evey suspect is armed.  And, coupled with racial profiling this provides a deadly atmosphere of deadly force being used  with tragic results.  

I happen to not blame the police at all in this.  I know they are well trained.  I know they take their jobs very seriously.  And I know they have to protect themselves with deadly force because every suspect  they must assume is "packing".  And not just packing, but have no real idea how to handle and use a firearm, which is the most dangerous suspect.  

Idaho, in a usual over reaction of the right, has legislated that practically anyone can get a concealed weapons permit, that guns can be carried onto school campuses; etc.  They are making a statement that no damn federal government will tell them what to do, by GAWD!  

Madness, sheer madness!  

Look, guns are intended for one thing only, to kill things.  They are not made to wound.  Guns have no brains, no souls.  They are tools, often fatal, to , if you watch most video games, solve social and political problems.  They don't!

How on God's Green Earth, does a two year old shooting his mother solve ANYTHING?

Oh, I am sure I will get the crap that "we need our guns to defend our liberty".  This comes from a population without mandatory military training, no draft, and the average military trained citizen from draft days is over 60 years old!  

I served.  I also was trained in the use of deadly force.  I am over 60 years old, and I do not like guns.  I have a couple guns, a starter pistol and a relic that might work.  Both are locked up and not loaded.  Both are only handled by me.  And I am trained.  

That two year was not.  And the huge majority of gun owners today have NO military training at all.  They don't know what a gun can do to the human body...They are ignorant, sometimes drunk, and very dangerous!

 I don't care how many superficial trainings they take at the local gun range; like the instructor who was shot dead while trying to teach a frightened client to fire an assault rifle, that was on automatic and pivoted by force and blew him away.  

We trained for weeks in firearm use and safety...weeks.  We also were ordered to practice a certain amount every year to maintain our status; and I was a company clerk!  

That deep resevoir of trained handlers of firearms are gone.  We are left with a bunch of video gamers who thing bang, bang you're dead is fun.  And everyday they kill, they maim, thinking it's all a game.

Any combat vet knows that is bullshit.  Any trained soldier is told, even if they never see combat, what an M-16 can do.  We had this simple lesson.  A pumpkin was place 50 yards down range.   It was explained how the bullet from an M-16 acted when it hit the human head.  And then the instructor shot the pumpkin; and the entire back of it was vaporized!  

And then he told us, with pictures, what the human head looked like when it was hit; same as the pumpkin.  

I will never forget that lesson.  

Here's a news flash for you, a bunch of untrained civilians have no chance against a trained military or police force.  Americans, no matter how well armed, are not trained to fight the military.  A squad of Marines could destroy virtually any citizen armed group, unless they were in their sixities.  And most of us are in our late sixties!

In short, the argument that guns will preserve liberty in the face of a military force is  crap.  If we allow our government to get to that point we are doomed anyway.  If we are invaded, we are so fat and out of shape we won't have a chance; they will take our guns from us  and stick them where the sun don't shine so to speak!

What we really get are tragedies after tragedies.  We get two year olds shooting themselves.  We get kids killed in gang cross fires.  We get children shot for playing with a toy.   We get massacres.   We get chaos.

I am looking for an argument.  You bet I am.  I am sick of this.  I am sick of the whoop assed stupids ruling the argument.  And the NRA is whoop assed stupid.

I am tired of the NRA throwing its money around and stopping gun control.

I am tired of crying.