Gun rights groups gather at Fort Hunt Park for an 'Open Carry Rally' April 19 in Alexandria, Virginia -( This Time They Came Armed)
AlJazeeraEnglish — April 19, 2010 — Hundreds of gun-rights advocates from across the US have gathered in Washington DC to promote what they say is their right to bear arms, a right which is granted by the US constitution.
They say the best protection against violence is by letting law-abiding citizens more freedom to exercise their right to carry firearms, something they believe the administration of Barack Obama is jeopardising.
Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman reports from the Washington rally. (20 April 2010)
"we must declare war against oppression and against socialism, and you are the people to do that." Rep. Paul Broun, R-Georgia speaking at Gun Rights protest April 19 2010.
“It is very similar to late Weimar Germany,” Chomsky told me when I called him at his office in Cambridge, Mass. “The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and the Communists but that the traditional parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties, were hated and disappeared. It left a vacuum which the Nazis very cleverly and intelligently managed to take over.”From:Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This' By Chris Hedges "Truthdig" via Information Clearing House April 19, 2010
Gun Rights Groups, Right Wingers Battle Each Other In DC by Evan McMorris-Santoro by TalkingPointsMemo April 19, 2010 via CommonDreams.org
Gun rights groups are gathering in Washington today to call for increased access to firearms, and the right to pack heat everywhere. But before they make their stand, they have work out an internal struggle playing itself out throughout the city.
Two groups of pro-gun activists are gathering in Washington -- one armed and (according to right wing groups, dangerous), and one unarmed. Both want it to be easier for Americans to carry guns around wherever they go.
But neither, it seems, want anything to do with each other.
Gun rights advocates rally in Washington, Virginia By Ed Hornick, CNN April 19, 2010
Washington (CNN) -- They're angry at the government and are demonstrating in the Washington area against what they see as the trampling of the Constitution. Their specific fear: Americans' right to bear arms under the Second Amendment will be taken away.
"We're in a war. The other side knows they are at war, because they started it," said Larry Pratt, president of the Gun Owners of America. "They are coming for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They are coming for everything because they are a bunch of socialists."
Pratt was one of the speakers at the Second Amendment March in Washington on Monday. The crowd -- made up almost entirely of men -- used language about war and fighting. But when pressed, they were quick to point out they don't mean actual armed violence.
Pratt said they'll be able to get rid of their opponents and "get some fighters," election fighters.
Rep. Paul Broun, R-Georgia, said "we must declare war against oppression and against socialism, and you are the people to do that."
Cathy McNickle of Virginia said it was important to take time off of work to "listen to these people and support the cause."
For those rallying, it's not just fear of losing their Second Amendment rights, but also dissatisfaction with the political climate in Washington.
"I'm not real happy with the direction the government's going in right now, and I believe that our Second Amendment rights are in trouble, with the political atmosphere that's in Washington right now," said Alan Addington of North Carolina.
and then there's the group of protesters carrying weapons:
Across the Potomac River, in Virginia, another group of protesters are defending the Second Amendment with a show of arms -- holding an "Open Carry Rally." Signs in the crowd pointed to the role of government, with one reading, "My rights come from God, not from the government." Protesters had large rifles and other weapons strapped to their bodies.
Restore the Constitution Rally event organizers said they chose certain areas in Virginia -- like Gravelly Point Park and Fort Hunt Park -- because they are "firearms carry-legal [locations] as close to D.C. as possible."
and both groups are somewhat paranoid in their anti-government Mind Set which could lead to a catastrophe if just few feel emboldened by these larger groups to resort to violence as we have already seen.
The anger at the government -- and specifically the Obama administration -- has been rising over the past year, and has been visible in the rise of the Tea Party movement, at health care reform rallies and with other protesters.
One group, Oath Keepers, said its allegiance is to the Constitution and not the president.
The group's founder, Stewart Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper and staffer for GOP Rep. Ron Paul, said his members recite a revised version of the oath that's used for enlistment in the armed services. However, they exclude the phrase, "I will obey the orders of the president of the United States."
"Our role is not to be obedient to who happens to be the leader," he said. "Our role is to defend the Constitution and the republic."
The Oath Keepers call on members to disobey any orders, as they put it, "to disarm the American people" or "to force citizens into detention camps." It's a pledge Rhodes recites in an anti-Obama DVD called "Fall of the Republic."
Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center said the Oath Keepers are exploiting false rumors found on fringe Web sites.
"Many of the Oath Keepers are people who believe that martial law is about to be imposed at any moment. It is right around the corner," he said.
Gun March Warm-Up: Oath Keepers Founder Goes Off on Maddow, Mother Jones -- And AlterNet by Adele M. Stan at Alternet.org, April 18,2010
But what can be said about a country in love with Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann and what can we expect next.
Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin rising stars who are taking over the Conservative Tea Party and the Republican Party and bringing their own flavors of Christian Nationalism.
Palin and Bachmann Tea Party rally
Chris Hedges in a recent article talks about his interview of Noam Chomsky from which we get an alarming view of the American political and social environment which Chomsky compares to Germany and the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler and the NAZI party.
Noam Chomsky Has ‘Never Seen Anything Like This’By Chris Hedges "Truthdig" via Information Clearing House April 19, 2010
-- Noam Chomsky is America’s greatest intellectual. His massive body of work, which includes nearly 100 books, has for decades deflated and exposed the lies of the power elite and the myths they perpetrate.and Chris hedges continues speaking about what Chomsky teaches us;
And as our nation’s most prescient critic of unregulated capitalism, globalization and the poison of empire, he enters his 81st year warning us that we have little time left to save our anemic democracy.
“It is very similar to late Weimar Germany,” Chomsky told me when I called him at his office in Cambridge, Mass. “The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and the Communists but that the traditional parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties, were hated and disappeared. It left a vacuum which the Nazis very cleverly and intelligently managed to take over.”
“The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen,” Chomsky went on. “Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers. If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says
‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. (My Emphasis)
This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I don’t think all this is very far away. If the polls are accurate it is not the Republicans but the right-wing Republicans, the crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election.”
“I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime,” Chomsky added. “I am old enough to remember the 1930s. My whole family was unemployed. There were far more desperate conditions than today. But it was hopeful. People had hope. The CIO was organizing. No one wants to say it anymore but the Communist Party was the spearhead for labor and civil rights organizing. Even things like giving my unemployed seamstress aunt a week in the country. It was a life. There is nothing like that now. The mood of the country is frightening. The level of anger, frustration and hatred of institutions is not organized in a constructive way. It is going off into self-destructive fantasies.”
...He reminds us that genuine intellectual inquiry is always subversive. It challenges cultural and political assumptions. It critiques structures. It is relentlessly self-critical. It implodes the self-indulgent myths and stereotypes we use to elevate ourselves and ignore our complicity in acts of violence and oppression. And it makes the powerful, as well as their liberal apologists, deeply uncomfortable.Chris Hedges sums up Chomsky's integrity, scholarship and his desire to reveal truth and thereby have an affect on Politics and public policy while puncturing our society's myths , misrepresentations, disinformation ,out right lies and propaganda of whomever is in control:
Chomsky reserves his fiercest venom for the liberal elite in the press, the universities and the political system who serve as a smoke screen for the cruelty of unchecked capitalism and imperial war. He exposes their moral and intellectual posturing as a fraud. And this is why Chomsky is hated, and perhaps feared, more among liberal elites than among the right wing he also excoriates. When Christopher Hitchens decided to become a windup doll for the Bush administration after the attacks of 9/11, one of the first things he did was write a vicious article attacking Chomsky. Hitchens, unlike most of those he served, knew which intellectual in America mattered.
He is not writing for ego. If he were writing for ego he would have written in a grand style that would have buttressed his legacy. He is writing because he wants to effect political change. He cares about the lives of people and there the details count. He is trying to refute the daily lies spewed out by the establishment media. He could have devoted his time to writing philosophical treatises that would have endured like Kant or Russell. But he invested in the tiny details which make a difference to win a political battle.”
...And, perhaps even more than his scholarship, his example of intellectual and moral independence sustains all who defy the cant of the crowd to speak the truth.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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