Self-Loathing

 

More news. And it's bad.

We have the Senate report on torture.

What can we expect now?

Nothing.

What happened after the Wall Street banks blew up the economy?

Nothing.

What happened after Sandy Hook?

Nothing.

What happened after the NSA got caught spying on innocent citizens?

Nothing.

Just look around at what is happening at the same time as this report.

The House of Representatives, based on fabrications and unfathomably 
simple-minded propaganda, just passed HR 758. It declares Russia the 
source of evil in the world and deems it an enemy. It is effectively a 
declaration of war.

What did we learn from Vietnam?

Nothing.

What did we learn from the gross deceptions leading to Iraq?

Nothing.

America is now a domestic abuser, a man who beats his wife to a bloody 
pulp, then comes crying and pleading for understanding and forgiveness 
__ refer to the Senate report __ and finally tops it all off by beating his wife
again to within a breath of delivering her lifeless corpse to the morgue.

When self-criticism __ which can be constructive __ becomes self-loathing,
it becomes a pathological addiction, a sadomasochistic descent into the
writhing depths of agony.

I've never understood self-loathing.

But I've never understood cockfighting either.

I just know it when I see it.

Tonight on your favorite TV station: Hand wringing. Despair. Teeth clenching. 
Nausea. Self-inflicted pain.

Lots and lots of pain.

Don't miss it!


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Rod Serling Is Alive!

"Hi, kids! I'm your new English teacher. Let's talk about poetry."

Rod Serling is alive and well!

What's my proof?

That's easy!

It's this article in Great Britain's The Guardian reporting that:

"School police departments across the U.S. have taken advantage of free
military surplus gear, stocking up on mine-resistant armoured vehicles,
grenade launchers and scores of M16 rifles.  At least 26 school
districts have participated in the Pentagon’s surplus program . . ."

If this isn't the stuff of the Twilight Zone, I don't know what is.

Maybe I missed something. But has common sense and asking obvious, 
quite reasonable questions been outlawed in America?

Take the grenade launchers. Do the geniuses who are arming our schools
with weapons of war think that if some psycho is holed up in a classroom
holding hostage a bunch of school kids, they'll just lob some hand
grenades in there to flush him out?


 

And how many kids fit in a MRAP? I know children are small but is it
realistic to think you can put 250 elementary students in one of these?

Moreover, as everyone knows from way too many examples,
usually the whole thing of killing a bunch of kids goes down in just a
few minutes. How long will it take to get this monster truck fired up
and out of the garage? Unless this thing is parked in the hall next to
the school cafeteria, it's not going to do the job these school
administrators have in mind __ whatever that is.

Parallel to the point I made previously
about militarizing our communities, if I were a psycho killer __ and
really, I'm not, the many rude comments left on my Facebook page
notwithstanding __ and I saw one of these vehicles coming at the school,
my attitude would be: "Well, now I'm screwed. Guess I'll have some fun
while I can."

Then I'd blow away every living thing in sight.

Of course, I don't personally know Adam Lanza.
Maybe if he had spotted a MRAP outside Sandy Hook Elementary School,
he would have immediately hugged the kids he hadn't killed yet, fallen to
his knees and repented.

But I really doubt it.

And taking the long view, I just can't believe that having kids go to schools
filled with machine guns, grenade launchers, tasers, MRAPS, heavy
artillery and the like, will give them a healthy, wholesome perspective
on life. Their world will be so violent, so filled with relentless
anxiety and apocalyptic paranoia, with every aspect of human interaction
viewed through the lens of killing machines and conflict, their
expectations so fatalistic and full of potential horror, their elders __
that's you and I living in the regime of GWOT and SWAT and MAD and
 ISIS __ will by contrast look like carefree, frolicsome oompa loompas.

So, welcome to contemporary America, land of the free, the greatest, truly exceptional nation in history, where being totally insane can land you a high paying job running a public school.


 Alright . . . I got a little off topic.

Seriously, I merely wanted to wish the best of luck to Mr. Serling on his new high concept reality TV show: "Please Don't Shoot Me, I Only Work Here".

Keep up the great work, Rod!

Love ya, babe.



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Dead kids sure are a bummer but….

 

I know the title is rude. It appears to be insensitive. Maybe even shocking.

But I honestly don't think I'm the one being insensitive and shocking here.

I've been sitting here in Japan since the Sandy Hook tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14th, trying to imagine how a typical gun owner would complete that sentence.

"Dead kids sure are a bummer but you know what's a real bummer? Not being able to go to a gun show and buy anything I want by slapping some cash on the counter."

 

"Dead kids sure are a bummer but I'd really be bummed out if I couldn't own 57 handguns, shotguns, assault weapons and use hollow-point bullets."

"Dead kids sure are a bummer but can you imagine what a bummer it would be to have to put a new magazine in my AR-15 after getting off only 20 rounds?"

"Dead kids sure are a bummer but there's no way I'm going to take classes in gun safety or have some punk bureaucrat come around every year to check up on me."

What is a typical gun owner willing to give up so that any one of the the victims of the Newtown massacre whose photos appear in this article would be alive? And what is so important to a gun owner that the lives of these people, and the other thousands who are killed by gunfire every year, can be so easily dismissed?

 

Truth is, I have no idea why I'm even writing about this. Because trying to get significant changes in our attitudes about guns really isn't about laws and regulations. It's about becoming sane again. And I don't see that happening.

Here's how the gun-loving members of the American public responded to Sandy Hook: "Shock figures show buyers are racing for firearms in Sandy Hook school massacre state" and "Gun enthusiasts pack shows to buy assault weapons".

I love this:  "Gun backers want to arm schoolteachers"

My wife came up with this one:  BulletBlocker, 'Bullet Resistant Products'

Bulletproof backpacks for children?  Is it just me or does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

 

I understand the powerful appeal of guns. Maybe not as intensely as the gun nuts out there but I do understand. I even understand the need for the latest and greatest of everything. We've been conditioned to want to own the biggest, the baddest, the best. We just can't fall behind, you know.  

"Damn! My next door neighbor just got an AR-59 MICW. What if we get into an argument over how high to trim the hedge? I'll be outgunned!"

Okay. I know I'm rambling. I'm not being coherent or rational.

 

But the truth is, none of the discussions about guns and gun control are remotely coherent or rational. 

We can nitpick over the details of gun regulation but frankly the whole discussion is so far out off the edge, it's like a conversation in an insane asylum between Napoleon and Jesus about what they should do with Elvis over there in the corner to keep him from singing "All Shook Up" during arts and crafts.

Yes, it's that bad.

It's pure insanity.

It's pure insanity because when people flock to gun shows to buy more guns after a tragedy like this, it's akin to a lung cancer patient spending his life savings on cigarettes and giving them to all his friends and relatives.

 

It's pure insanity because not even the simplest, most sensible, least intrusive limitations can get through Congress.

It's pure insanity that we can't even ban weapons which have no other purpose than killing and killing fast, ones like the semi-automatic rifles used in so many recent gun massacres.

I got a Tweet from Yoko Ono a few days ago. It said ... "Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA since John Lennon was shot and killed on 8 Dec 1980."

Which brings me to the way I would complete the sentence.

"Dead kids sure are a bummer but we've gone completely insane, so even if we shed a few tears, we really don't care deep down inside where it counts." 

[ Insert prayers here for the America which is being lost, for the children who are being abandoned, for the death of the American Dream. ]
  
[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]