"Life was as neatly folded and full of promise as the morning newspaper" — Betty MacDonald, writing about job hunting in the great depression. (My, how things have changed). I sent this quote to Bruce at the AVA. His reply: "What happened?" My response: "TV, hippies?" His answer: "In that order."
Disarm the deranged? Who's going to disarm Wayne LaPierre? If you want to see just how nuts he is, find a copy of the NRA magazine and read his column. The question could be, "Who is NOT deranged?" What exactly is the New Normal?
Disarm the deranged... A wonderful idea in theory, but a giant can of worms in practice. Like eugenics. Who decides what segments of the population deserve to live, or have firearms, for that matter? And what are their qualifications, and who decides what those qualifications are?
Mentally ill? Or "differently abled" in regard to brain processes? Desire for firearms, if you ask me, is a form of mental illness. "Next time I'm pissed off at somebody, I can kill them." "I want to feel powerful." The more overpopulated the world gets, the harder it is to be noticed, to stand out in a crowd, to get some damn attention. To have an effect. But when everyone is armed, the effect is harder to get. So the guns must be employed in bigger and more outrageous ways.
Woman in Texas shoots and kills her two daughters. How do we then consider the loving, precious things they all said to each other on social media. Beware public displays of affection? Texas - the only place where I rode to a party in a car with a quart of whiskey being passed around and a loaded revolver on the dashboard. Drive-in liquor stores where the clerk asks if you'd like a cup and ice to go with the booze you just bought.
Regarding police shootings, yes they are increasing. During the Sausalito Houseboat Wars, a friend (one of us) said, "We can't win because they have all the guns." Is the police force not deranged? Is it not deranged to even imagine a shootout with an armored riot squad? To even think in such terms? Or is it the New Normal?
As I have said before – guns are a phallic symbol for the gun crazies – they need mental help – LaPierre really falls in with someone who thinks like a terrorist.
re: ‘…LaPierre…thinks like a terrorist.’…
It depends on what you call it, doesn’t it? Thanks in part to Mr. LaPierre, we can say, ‘No, it doesn’t.’ Whatever you choose to call it, what it is and what it does are the same whichever flag you happen to be flying. If you’re of the opinion that terror was never waged under the Stars and Stripes, you just haven’t been paying attention. And if you think ‘our’ terror leads to anything other than MORE terror (IDENTICAL to ‘their’ terror), just keep watching the ‘news’ that’s served up to you. Keep trying to use the Problem as any sort of Solution. There are clinical descriptions for this condition among Human individuals…
As a Canadian who enjoys sane gun control and views the USA’s love affair with guns as beyond insane, I don’t have much to add to this discussion. However, I have to say that finding the quote by Betty MacDonald at the top of this article surprised and delighted me. My company, Post Hypnotic Press, is releasing all of Betty’s memoirs in audio. We’ve recorded “The Egg and I,” “The Plague and I,” and “Anybody Can Do Anything,” while “Onions in the Stew” will be out this fall (2016).
Actually, now that I think about it, I do have a few thoughts. You say that TV and hippies are to blame for the massive changes in our societies – I’m sure you’re just being facetious. Still, while I think the hippies are blameless (What did the hippies preach? Gun ownership? Death and mayhem?), TV, on the other hand (or those who make it) has a lot to answer for. As many thinkers (Richard Sennett, Ivan Illich, Noam Chomsky, etc.) have pointed out, ideas matter. What we think, what we believe of ourselves is what we become.
So many of the problems plaguing the USA today can be traced to the Reagan revolution and the last 40 years of neoliberal doctrine embraced first by the right and then, sadly, by many on the left. Among other things carried out under Reagan was the deregulation of your airwaves and TV. Just before he was elected, for instance, your government was very close to an agreement that would control advertising aimed at children – an agreement that had solid research and backing on both sides of the isle. However, Reagan scrapped that entirely and instead, deregulated TV and radio.
Instead of tougher regulations designed to protect children from incessant propaganda, children became fair game (listen to or read Joel Bakan’s “Childhood Under Siege”). Radios no longer had to live up to the fairness doctrine, which gave rise to the right-wing talking heads. Rules precluding conglomeration of all media companies into one or two entities were struck down and now nearly all of the radio stations belong to Clearwater – a right wing group. Etc. Etc.
Schools were also targeted by corporations – a huge source of money to be made if they could undermine the public system and steal that money away from it.
There are reasons for so many of the issues you face in the USA today, but they weren’t caused by “hippies” or counterculture groups. They can mostly be laid at the feet of corporate malfeasance, greedy politicians, and an ever more powerful oligarchy that is controlling more and more of your (our) society to the detriment of all.
Dittos but that’s not why I’m here. I’m looking for an email address for Jeff Costello. Went to Farmington H.S. together. To verify that I’m real, ask him about Kofsky’s spelling bee and Ralph Young.