" ... all the worst bloodbaths of the last several years - including this most recent massacre in Newtown - were perpetrated by people who were not outlaws...until they pulled the trigger and laid their victims low."
You need an AK-47, you need an AR-15, to defend yourself against the government? Cool story, bro. The government has nuclear weapons, stealth bombers, Aegis warships, drones, SEALs and the United States fa-chrisakes Marines. Good luck with that; send me a note from the front. You don't need it. You want it, and therein lies the end of the argument."
Quote from : Shooting Is Business, and Business Is Good By William Rivers Pitt Dec.20, 2012 , Truthout
Today's issues
* 6 th grader brings gun to school for self-protection and threatens to kill another student
* William Rivers Pitt : Arms industry in America are against Gun Control because it cuts into their profits
* NRA and conservative Christians plan to have all teachers armed just in case
* Wall Street heavily invested in Arms industry
* Religious leaders blame violence on teachers unions ,secular humanism , evolution, the ACLU, feminists and the Gay Agenda ???
Does Obama want more steps to be taken on gun control or would he prefer to be left alone so everyone can just reflect and have endless useless discussions over the issue but do little about actual policies.
Obama as Cenk Uygur at The Young Turks points out Obama either did not care about the issue or is a coward afraid of the NRA and the GOP and in fact Obama expanded gun rights.
TYT Cenk Uygur : No More Talk, Where is Obama's Gun Control Legislation#2
It seems that many in America truly believe that promoting ownership of more guns and allowing guns into schools, churches, movie theaters, bars and the mall and universities and into national Parks is the only way to supposedly stop mass murderers .
America has been in a perpetual state of war since the end of world war II as William Rivers Pitt notes in his latest article Shooting Is Business, and Business Is Good, Truthout.org, Dec. 20,2012 and so violence and paranoia about not just foreign enemies but also domestic enemies which includes the US government threatening supposedly to take their guns away. American citizens have in their possession some 300, 000,000 / 300 million guns and yet the argument is that they should own even more guns and more lethal powerful guns.
The culture of violence and the need to own bigger and bigger and more powerful weapons on the part of US citizens in the USA would be just a domestic policy issue if it wasn't for the fact that the USA has taken their culture of violence around the globe in various nations such as Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan ,Yemen, Somalia and on and on . In Iraq and Afghanistan US troops were given free rein to shoot anyone so as in the Vietnam War large areas of these countries were treated as free fire zones. American soldiers during boot-camp were steeped in a brew of bigotry and racism so they were told to see all Iraqis and Muslims and Arabs as uncivilized barbarians who are all potential terrorists or insurgents . This too has not changed since Obama first became president and commander and Chief. Obama may defend Gays in the military but he does nothing to change the military's basic racist and bigoted mindset . One wonders and it seems that Obama himself has a low opinion of the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan . Even though analysis of the data shows that each murder of an innocent civilian by US troops or NATO creates more blowback and fuels the insurgency and the terrorist extremists Obama continues to allow the bombing of whole villages or towns to get one or two alleged terrorists while murdering dozens or even hundreds of innocent people.
America under the Bush and Obama Regimes have made it a crime for someone to protect their nation's sovereignty or their own village or town or their own home against the American and NATO invaders and occupiers . In America people have a right to defend themselves and their homes from intruders but Iraqis and Afghans etc. do not have that right. Obama also extends this pernicious and deadly policy to Israel's brutal attacks on Gaza and on Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank .
The Pentagon and the White House are just as irrational in their addiction to bigger and better weapons as the survivalists who owns dozens of high powered assault weapons and grenade launchers and flamethrowers waiting for some sort of apocalyptic event that will lead to the complete break down of society and chaos .
The problem is that one can always imagine better and more powerful weapons and that if the Pentagon can imagine such weapons so can other nations so America they conclude must stay of all other nations when it comes to weapons. The problem with this thinking is that most nations have no where near the fire power as the USA. The only real competitors are those nations with nuclear weapons and those countries the US tries to avoid conflict with out of respect not for the people of that nation but out of fear of nuclear attack or retaliation.
So Iran for instance has witnessed what the USA and NATO do to countries that don't have nukes or an equal amount of fire-power such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc. So given the current circumstances in the Middle East as the proverbial elephant in a china shop the USA is stumbling along spreading mayhem and disorder and chaos disingenuously and ostensibly in the name of some supposedly high principle or other such as democracy, freedom and so forth.
When in fact the USA is just out to expand its empire and its influence to make all nations tremble before the sword wielding and nuclear war threatening supposedly morally superior American Empire. From bullies on the playground to the being the bully at the United Nations America insists on getting its own way and to hell with everybody else as it forces its Neo-Liberal /Neoconservative imperialist nightmare on everyone else .
If the USA is willing to murder millions in other nations we shouldn't be surprised at the violence inside the USA. The USA brands itself as being more interested in violence to resolve problems than diplomacy which Americans see as appeasement and therefore weakness.
If the USA is willing to use banned weapons such as Cluster bombs, White phosphorus and depleted uranium on civilian populations and to use unmanned drones and targeted assassinations, renditions, torture and abuse of POWs or even American citizens accused of leaking government documents thereby ignoring International Law and common decency and morality in order to further its own agenda then we should not be surprised when this moral decay and the cheapening of human lives becomes rampant in America's society .We see this also in the militarization of American police forces and their disproportionate use of brute force and arresting thousands of peaceful protesters while getting tougher laws passed to prevent citizens from being able to effectively protest ie the use of the self-contradictory "free speech zones' thereby making all other parts of a city into non-free speech zones.
The USA 's first response to any foreign affairs issue is to reach for a gun , to use targeted assassinations, to bomb villages , towns and cities mass murdering on a grand scale innocent civilians and then the US government and the White House and the Mainstream Media to shrug these deaths off as being reduced to a euphemism "Collateral Damage".
The USA especially since 9/11 is no longer a country that has any respect for The Rule Of Law instead the leaders in the USA believing primarily in the use of brute force and naked aggression .
The question is will Obama actually follow through on pushing for stricter gun control or will he then allow its opponents to water down such legislation so that in the end it is not that meaningful.
Given Obama's track record it is not unreasonable to question his motives that he will merely go through the motions on the issue of gun control as he has on other issues giving the appearance of doing something when in fact doing nothing . Another question is if Obama may have decided to take on strict gun control as a distraction from the criminal actions and coverups of actions committed during his presidency and those crimes committed by the Bush administration. For Obama to even talk about the rule of law given his actions or lack of action in the past four years is the height of hypocrisy.
Obama and his true believers over and over again make excuses for his criminal inaction( sins of omission ) when as Martin Luther King said " when silence is betrayal"and for the criminal actions (sins of commission) he has permitted such as indefinite detention spying on millions of US citizens to his supposedly acceptable and legal interrogation methods which in fact are tantamount to torture ;to his use of targeted assassinations in foreign countries subverting those countries sovereignty; to his use of banned or restricted weapons such as Cluster Bombs, White Phosphorus , and depleted uranium on civilian populations .
Like Bush before him Obama as commander in chief has shown how little regard he has for human life especially those people who are not American or not part of Western Civilization .
Obama's message is that crimes committed by the well connected , the rich and powerful and high government officials and those connected to big corporations can do as they please without worrying about accountability . As others have repeatedly said such as Glenn Greenwald the rule of law only comes into effect for average citizens but not for the ruling elite and the super wealthy and their friends.
(see : With liberty and justice For some : How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful by Glenn Greenwald , 2011)
So the USA since the 2000 election to now and into the foreseeable future has abandoned the rule of law when it comes to the American elite and ruling class. Obama by not pursuing justice against the Bush regime is guilty himself and his administration of war crimes and crimes against humanity. As we have discussed many times Obama has also added his own crimes to that of covering up for the Bush administrations criminal actions. As Commander in Chief Obama is accountable for each and every war crime or crimes against humanity committed during his watch if he has not made it known that all who commit or order or allow those under their command to commit such crimes. Obama has signaled by his inaction over the past five years that those who torture or commit other war crimes and crimes against humanity and who show disdain for International Law and even America's laws let alone common decency and morality in most cases will not be held accountable for their actions no matter how egregious.
By not pursuing those who were involved in the decisions to permit torture including the executive branch Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice , Colin Powell and the DOJ lawyers who twisted the letter of the law to give a legal veneer for these criminal actions along with those in the Pentagon ,CIA and Special Ops and the Commanders who permitted these crimes to occur whether or not they actually took part in the specific criminal acts from warrant-less wire taps to torture to attacking and killing innocent civilians in a cold calculated manner.
So it is no surprise when American civilians use violence to settle a score or to fight against government departments and bureaucrats. And why shouldn't they since Obama and the elite in the USA believe the laws of the land and international laws or even common decency and morality have no place in their lexicon. The laws are basically for the common folk and the peasants .
Shooting Is Business, and Business Is Good By William Rivers Pitt Dec.20, 2012 , Truthout
An 11-year old boy in Utah brought a .22 pistol to school with him on Tuesday. His parents apparently gave it to him "for protection" in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre. His teacher found out he had it after he put the gun to the head of a classmate at recess and threatened to kill her.
...Between 2003 and 2010, 247,131 Americans died of gunshot wounds. Since 1982, there have been more than 60 mass shootings in America. In almost every case, the weapons used were obtained legally. The number of households with guns has been declining, with a few upticks here and there, since 1990, and yet gun sales went through the roof in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, which means more people aren't buying guns, but the people who buy guns are buying more of them.
The gun business in America is booming, despite the decline in households that own guns. As the Washington Post glibly noted this week, "The U.S. gun industry has been one of the brightest spots in the U.S. economy in recent years, even through the recent downturn. This year, it racked up $11.7 billion in sales and $992 million in profits, according to the research firm IBISWorld." Almost 17 million people applied for a background check to purchase a gun in 2012. More than 156 million people have applied since 1998.
Tea Party Nation Attacks Teachers over CT School Shooting by Brian Tashman at RightWingWatch.org, Dec.17/2012
Tea Party Nation head Judson Phillips sent out an email to members yesterday featuring an article by TPN member Timothy Birdnow attacking teachers over the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. He said that parents must “take away the power of the radicals in the classrooms” and lawmakers must introduce right to work laws to cripple teachers’ unions. He says liberals “destroyed the family” and encouraged the shooter to be “coddled all his life, given free rein to indulge his senses but not to face the responsibilities that freedom necessitates… He lived in a world of the Progressives making, not in reality.” Birdnow even suggests that President Obama will use the shooting to “to advance the cause of disarming the American People” and argue that people like George Zimmerman (!) should be guarding schools.
Tennessee pastor: Mass shootings because schools teach evolution and ‘how to be a homo’ by david Edwards at Rawstory.com, Dec. 17, 2012
A Tennessee pastor on Sunday told his congregation that the number of mass shooting were escalating because of schools were government “mind-control centers” that taught “junk about evolution” and “how to be a homo.”
Old Paths Baptist Church Pastor Sam Morris began speaking about last week’s school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut by warning that “this sermon will not be pleasant.”
“We get all up in arms about 20 children being shot in a day care but we don’t give one good-glory rip about the 4,000 that were removed violently from the wombs of their mothers [in abortion procedures] the same day,” he explained. “I believe they use children and Christmas and all that to pull on our heart strings about gun control. That’s what it’s all about.”
Morris asserted that equal rights was a “sham” because it’s “equal immorality” and that authorities should take the body of the suspected shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, “and string him up in public and set his body on fire and leave it out there to let the birds pick his bones.”
So in response to the Sandy Hook Massacre an 11 year old 6th grader decides to take a gun to school for his own protection.
Meanwhile one of the solutions to gun violence according to the pro-gun enthusiasts in schools is the sale of bullet proof school bags . Maybe the NRA next will not just have all of the staff at the schools carrying assault rifles but that the schools kids should all be wearing Kevlar armor.
6th grader charged after bringing gun to school By Shara Park and Benjamin Wood Dec. 18, 2012
KEARNS — An 11-year-old elementary school student has been charged in juvenile court with bringing a gun to school and threatening his classmates, Granite School District officials said Tuesday.
The West Kearns Elementary student was taken to a juvenile detention center and charged with one count of possession of deadly weapon on school property and three counts of aggravated assault, district spokesman Ben Horsley said.
The 6th grader was caught with a handgun and ammunition Monday after another student reported she was threatened with it.
The handgun was not loaded. Both the gun and ammunition were found in the boy's backpack.
There was fear and anger from parents Tuesday morning as they dropped their children off at West Kearns Elementary. And some are refusing to bring their kids to school.
We should keep in mind that President has gone back on a number of promises he made in his election campaign in 2008 such as that he would have a full and in depth investigation of the alleged crimes committed by personnel in the Bush administration and that the Rule of Law could not be defended if those in high places and the rich and well connected are not brought to justice for their crimes.
So Obama in part got himself elected by making a number of such empty promises such as stopping the use of torture and bringing those to justice who gave permission that torture be used including those in the executive branch and those members of the Department of Justice who created a phoney legal veneer for those who wanted to have a policy that allowed for torture of alleged terrorists.
Once elected Obama gave a middle finger salute to his supporters and abandoned any such investigation and even did all he could to prevent any such investigation of American personnel by the DOJ or other government departments or private citizens and put a stop to investigations taking place in other countries such as Italy, Spain and Great Britain.
So no one in any position of power was not made to face justice for using or allowing or encouraging the use of torture or renditions or targeted assassinations or for pushing America into an illegal and unwarranted war with Iraq which was not an imminent threat to the USA or any other nation or the warrant-less wire taps and other illegal tactics used by the Bush regime. In fact Obama has continued most of these policies and added the Drone Attacks and targeted assassinations and made Indefinite Detention legal .
Obama also has done nothing about the crimes committed by Wall Street and the Banks and large corporations instead he handed of a trillion dollars or so to keep the rich and powerful happy while he ignored the plight of millions of homeowners who lost their homes and the millions who lost their jobs or pensions etc.
Obama has also done nothing to better regulate the privatized Prison industry which sees each person who is convicted of a crime whether innocent or not or receiving a harsher sentence than what would be otherwise justified as an increase in profit.
ACLU Torture Report
and so it goes,
GORD.
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