The anger following this mass murder in Orlando is deep and wide ranging. I realize that I am not alone in this. I get angry at the senseless loss. At lives interrupted and shattered. I get angry that these people, mown down in their primes, often get overlooked on the way to a more sensational narrative involving politics, terrorism and guns. Politics, terrorism and guns. Holy fucking shit. Where to start? I suppose we can take them in order.
Politics:
That this massacre happened in the midst of a presidential campaign makes it hard to resist politically. That it happened in the midst of a presidential campaign involving Donald Trump has helped to make the discussion and grieving process cheap, tawdry and distasteful. Amazing how easily those words attach themselves to his name. Leave it to Trump to turn the deadliest mass shooting in US history into a moment to praise himself, bash Hillary Clinton and dive further down the “Birther” rabbit hole with regard to President Obama. (which is already pretty deep)
Only Trump gets away with starting statements with “People are saying….”. It’s always “people” never him. “People are saying that Ted Cruz’s father killed JFK!”. It’s not him, take it up with the people. “People are saying that Obama was not born in this country…”, “People are congratulating me for being right about the Muslim ban in the wake of this attack…”..etc. It’s always “people”, never a specific person. His abstract hyperbolic statements give him little cover to say “I did not say it, people are saying it!” Well if there is one thing we’ve learned in the last year it’s that people are fucking morons. You could lead them straight off a cliff if you told them there was ice cream, a gun and 10 dead muslims/immigrants just over that ledge. That they are so easily deceived by this blatant con man makes me sick to my stomach. I feel like Roddy Piper walking around with the magic glasses in “They Live”. I can’t imagine why millions of people can’t see through this clown.
That he got forced into donating the $1Million he promised the veteran’s organizations by reporters actually doing some reporting, pissed him off so much that it has finally led to him BANNING the Washington Post from covering his campaign. I think ALL media outlets should stop covering his campaign. They are just encouraging him. I always found it funny that Bernie Sanders supporters felt the media was ignoring him. They were not ignoring Sanders, they were covering the orange train wreck on the other side of the street. Can you blame them? If they have a choice between a grumpy old man droning on about the same 3 things and a crazy orange man spewing incoherent venom, with a strong undercurrent of violence, where do you figure they will point their cameras?
This Trump experiment needs to be stopped. It’s not funny, it’s not interesting, it’s not even entertaining. What it is is embarrassing, insulting, and very very dangerous.
As of this moment, if you are a Trump supporter, here is an abridged list of what you are voting to support…
Expanded use of torture (Worse than water boarding)
Banning Muslims from entering the country
Neighbors spying on and turing one another in for questioning.
Expelling undocumented immigrants from the country (by use of force if necessary)
Nuclear proliferation in unstable areas
Expanded war in Middle East
Trade War with China
Breaking treaties with allies
Denying Global Warming, and firing up the coal plants.
Undermining US credit
Building a physical barrier between the US and Mexico
Mocking POW’s, The Pope, The handicapped, reporters, political rivals, The President, and seemingly every single person to ever disagree or criticize him.
Praising Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un as effective and strong leaders.
Birtherism
Capital Punishment for teenagers who were wrongly convicted of rape. (Central Park Jogger case 1989)
Bankrupting investors
Conning the working class out of their money
Banning newspapers that he feels are unflattering from covering him... (censorship)
This list could go on for pages…..
Here is the real point. I don’t care what reasons you might have for rationalizing your choice. At this point, after everything that this bloated, piece of shit has said and done, if you are still supporting him, then you have probably crossed the point of no return as a human being. I’m telling you, in case no one else has, and because I know that you don’t care for political correctness, that you too have consciously decided to be a piece of shit as well. This is not even a political difference of opinion, as this is not about politics. This is not about saying “Well Hillary is under investigation for her emails!” Fuck that. This is about a man who will prey upon fear, race, religion and hatred to advance his own agenda. What his agenda is, is Donald Trump. Always has been. The man has not done one day of public service in a life devoted to greed and self-aggrandizement! When the NY Times reported that his casinos in Atlantic City were failures that left investors and contractors holding the bag for millions in debts, Trump crowed that HE personally made millions. That it was at the expense of everyone else is not relevant to him. The promises he made about revitalizing Atlantic City back then sound an awful lot like “Make Atlantic City Great Again!”... He is full of shit and not even terribly original about it.
At the end of the day this is NOT a GOP v. Dem decision or a Liberal v. Conservative decision. This decision is about being a decent human being or being a piece of shit. Choose wisely.
Terrorism:
Terrorism is a mind fuck. It’s what it’s designed to do. My thoughts about what happened in Orlando was that it was probably NOT terrorism in the true sense though it was indeed terrifying. That was a crazy, hateful person, maybe even gay, lashing out in self-loathing at who he was. It was not a real political statement, it was suicide in a blaze of glory, not unlike the German guy who crashed the plane full of passengers into the mountain, just more hateful. This asshat had no idea what the difference was between Sunni or Shia Islam, so don’t tell me he was a radical Islamic extremist. But even if he was, even if this was like the Paris shootings, or 9/11, people need to understand that while the terrorists do indeed have the power to take lives in horribly violent ways, they do NOT have the power to destroy our way of life as some politicians would have you believe. Only WE as a country can do that. And we do. Repeatedly. We play right into the hands of ISIS and Al Qaeda every single time. They are terrorists, and we as a country never cease to be terrified of them. They wave a red cape in our face and we bullishly charge. Who does that benefit? All they need do is release a threat over the internet and watch NYC go on lockdown and security officials around the country run around trying to “secure” the nation from these cave dwellers. How powerful that must make them feel! They flinch and we jump 20 feet in the air and cower. Then, should something happen and people die, we act as if the zombie apocalypse is upon us, suspend civil liberties, and watch as politicians vie to see who can act tougher on TV in the “War on Terror”. It’s a thriving industry. Where would Rudy Giuliani be without it? Here is the problem. We have to decide what sort of country we want to be. What does “Freedom” mean to us? The U.S. is always going on about “Freedom” and how we are the home of the “Free” and the greatest country in the history of the world. That is a bold claim, but if we are REALLY going to be a free and open society, then we have to be willing to absorb these blows as part of the deal. If we are to have a society where everyone is free and one can walk the street without fear of government oppression, then you must accept that from time to time, something is going to blow up and people are going to die. In short, we need to counter terror with bravery and strength! Don’t misunderstand me, I really hope it’s not me or anyone I love that gets killed, but I’d like to think that the country would realize that for all the flowery talk, that “Freedom” as a concept and way of life is worth standing up and dying for. As President Obama says, ISIS does NOT pose an existential threat to the United States.
They are not coming to invade and take over the country. There are only a few thousand of them living in shit holes in Syria and Iraq. However, our FEAR of ISIS is really dangerous, and empowers scum bags like Donald Trump and Dick Chaney to prey on our collective fears. I feel that New Yorkers have it about right. We suffer the blow, we grieve, we move on. That is the template that the country needs to follow. Anything more than that validates the tactic. If we succumb to the hate, division and knee-jerk reaction towards authoritarianism that people like Trump espouse then WE are destroying our way of life, NOT the terrorists. It’s one more reason that Trump needs to be scraped off of the soles of our collective shoes.
Guns:
This debate drives me insane. There should NOT even be a discussion about this. I’m actually pretty good about seeing both sides of an argument, but in the discussion over gun control I just don’t see it. There is little legitimate reason for owning handguns and ZERO legitimate reason for owning assault rifles. The best one can say is that they are cool, and fun to shoot. It’s like arguing with Nigel from Spinal Tap. This gun goes to 11! A deeper reason sort of goes hand in hand with the terrorism mind fucking. People who own guns actually FEEL safe owning them, when in fact, every objective study shows that people with guns in their home are over 40X more likely to shoot themselves or a loved one than any sort of intruder. It’s like a bad insurance policy that does little to insure you but has a very good chance of killing you and your family. Of course that only happens to OTHER people. You know, the irresponsible gun owner, not the law abiding, pure folk who would never get drunk and kill someone over a parking spot, or a cell phone in a movie theater, or loud music, or a zillion other reasons people shoot each other in this country. For 20 years the US had an assault weapons ban and miraculously the country did not fall apart and similarly we did not have mass shootings every 28 fucking seconds! How on earth can this country not see that if EVER there was something that begs to be regulated, it would be an instrument of death that could potentially slaughter dozens of lives every minute without reloading. Go ahead and make that self-defense case. I’d LOVE to hear how you need to mow down swarms of illegal aliens who are storming across the border to rape your daughters and steal your jobs. What the fuck is wrong with you people?!! No civilian should own a weapon of war! It’s really that simple! The good guy with a gun nonsense is just that. Nonsense. The shooters in these horrible attacks are not even having to buy these guns illegally. They all do it legally and above board. We are not even making them work for it! At least make them sweat a bit… They should have to wonder if the seller is an ATF agent or other law enforcement. Better yet, make them go all McGyver and build a pipe bomb or something. That sometimes works to deadly effect (Boston Marathon), but often it doesn’t. Remember the Shoe Bomber, The Underwear Bomber, The Times Square Bomber etc… they all failed to detonate! Hell even the San Bernadino shooters could not get their pipe bombs to blow up. Their assault rifles sure worked though! They bought those legally and killed a slew of people with them. No one is saying that new laws would prevent ALL future attacks, but this open tap of weapons needs to be shut off! Why are we still even MAKING new weapons. We have over 300 million guns in this country. Allow that number to sink in for a second. 300 fucking million weapons of death in the hands of the civilian population. Please know that today’s “good guy” with a gun is potentially only a a divorce, job loss, or bankruptcy away from losing their minds and being a “bad guy” with a gun. You can’t arm a population of 300+ million people and expect that people aren’t going to get slaughtered. And they DO get slaughtered. Every. Single. Day. This is a uniquely American issue. No other western industrialized nation allows its citizens to murder one another with guns the way we do. This incident may have just tipped the scales so that death by terrorism shooting edges out death by TODDLER shooting. Yes, kids under 5 years old kill nearly as many people in this country as terrorists do. Further, we can’t even have a rational discussion about the problem without the NRA and it’s GOP proxies claiming that regulation=confiscation. It’s all connected. The same fear that drives people to buy an assault weapon to protect themselves from terrorists, drives people into the arms of demagogues like Donald Trump. He gleefully stokes the fear and encourages them to buy more weapons and “defend” themselves. Let’s game that out a bit. Aurora, CO movie theater. Lights are out, a madman bursts into a crowded movie theater and opens fire. Several good guys with guns leap up and start firing as people are running for their lives and cowering in fear. The smoke fills the room. The good guys have little way of knowing WHO the bad guy is, they just know that THEY are good. Anyone with a gun is now a target. Same holds true for the police that might burst into the room. Anyone with a gun is now a target. In the confusion, the good guys start killing one another as well as bystanders. It’s a circular firing squad. Same situation in Orlando. A crowd of drunk people on a dance floor with loud pulsing music. A madman opens fire. 5 people pull out their weapons… what could possibly go wrong? I’m not saying that under no circumstances could a shooter be stopped by a trained civilian with a gun, but to use that as the ANSWER to a national crisis over guns is absurd. We have an addiction, and need a serious intervention. When you find yourself in a deep hole, the first order of business is to put down the shovel and STOP DIGGING! If your answer is more guns, then you are part of the fucking problem. Please wear your Trump hat, Confederate Battle Flag belt buckle and NRA lapel pin so that I can stay as far away from your moronic lobotomized ass as possible.
In the wake of this horrible, murderous tragedy, it would be wonderful if the US could put aside it’s useless, intransigent method of governing (shouting past one another) and come to some understanding of itself. We are a melting pot society, it’s what truly makes us exceptional. And if bloviating orangutans try to convince you that this melting pot should not include people that don’t look, act, pray or think like you do, please remember that how we respond to moments like these are akin to holding up a mirror to society. Take really long hard look and tell me if you like what you see.
