Some time ago, I stopped watching TV news when I was on vacation. I left my laptop at home, and wasn't even tempted to turn the radio on. Too much bad stuff going on, and after all, I was going on vacation to get away from it for awhile. But every now and then I give in and turn on NPR when I'm in the car, mostly after a few days away from it all.
This is how it went this past week:
After four days without news, sometime around noon, the woman on NPR was excitedly telling us about what she was seeing at a real ISIS training camp. She was breathlessly describing what an amazing, high-tech, state-of-the-art facility these horrifying murderers (my words) had built. After a couple of minutes, I turned it off.
A couple of hours later, I was headed back to the resort, and I tried it again. It sounded like the same woman (Do all NPR commentators sound alike?) explaining how to use cell phones as explosive devices. Martha Stewart of the jihad.
On my way to breakfast before heading home this morning, and I gave it one more try. This time it was an article about Wyoming's legislative efforts to get guns in schools. Of course there were those who advocate that if everyone has a gun -- problem solved. They ended, however, with a more moderate voice. This voice of sanity suggested that it wasn't feasible to have armed officers in all the schools, but that the bill should allow anyone with a carry permit to carry into a school only with the permission of the school.
He then continued, "Of course, in an ideal world..."
Okay folks, complete that sentence. Because I would have filled in, "... in an ideal world, we wouldn't need guns in schools." Or, "...in an ideal world, guns would be kept out of dangerous hands."
But NO.
"In an ideal world, we could afford to have armed officers in every school."
It truly felt like I was living in an episode of the Twilight Zone, where I was on vacation in one world, and another bizarro world kept trying to break through.
Then I went to breakfast. It is a lovely little place that has outdoor deck seating with huge outdoor heaters by each table and a lap blanket over each chair for those nippy mornings. I overheard pleasant conversation about real estate and vacation weeks and golf and entertainment packages. I thought about how far most of us are removed from the reality of war and weapons. Just as none of us sitting there with blankets over our laps eating our eggs benedict really felt the cold of inadequate food or shelter, or what starving really feels like.
Or of a child caught in gunfire at school or at home watching his mother try to defend herself from his violent father.
No, we don't. And that's why we find all this talk about ISIS technology and Second Amendment glory days so damned exciting.
Out of touch, and in charge. Now that's the real story.
Showing posts with label Hunger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hunger. Show all posts
Friday, February 27, 2015
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
When Your House Is Falling Apart
Our government has been following some very bizarre rules for tending to things. It's so bizarre that I have found myself thinking of it in terms of psychiatric illness.
We could probably start with the shock of 9/11. There we were, thinking we were the greatest nation in the world, infallible, struck in our hearts (in America heart=wallet) in the full light of day by renegades armed with weapons we left lying around unguarded.
Post traumatic stress disorder? Not only were we looking over our shoulder and under our bed for the next attack, our corporate funded president couldn't figure out how to fast enough get those dollars to flow. No conversation about the death and destruction of the Twin Towers could happen without focusing on the economic devastation.
Now, I'm not talking so much about people who lost their jobs because their livelihood was so totally disrupted. Nor am I talking about those who lost the family members who provided them financial stability. (And as I write these two sentences it chills me that we are talking about dollars and not lives, but I am trying to reconstruct as honestly as I can.)
The trauma that shook the country may not have been financial, but to our corporate-owned government that terrorist attack was all about money. As Al Qaeda intended.
That's when the bucks started flowing. Tax cuts and subsidies flowing to Wall Street and airlines. We couldn't do enough to get those businesses going again, while the financial aid to families, including those first responders we heralded, was quite a bit slower to come around.
And there is where our obsession has been since then.
A convenient excuse by the Bush administration to feed its constituency, in W.'s own terms, "the haves and have-mores."
It only naturally followed that corporate America took what it felt it had always had coming, Congress shocked into being afraid to say no, believing every lie and passing it on. The American people were easy. We believed every scary story we were told.
And here we are in 2013. Our bridges are falling down. Our children are going hungry. And those who are responsible for guarding the country's purse strings run up the debt to feed the corporate beast, and continue to tell us to tighten our belts and stop whining.
Pass the farm subsidy and the oil subsidy and the subsidies to the pharmaceutical industry. But cut back on food stamps and the arts. Feed the dinosaur, starve the hummingbird.
The uproar from the voters can barely be heard. Those who question this bizarre philosophy of taking good care of the wealthy so they don't punish us by taking away our jobs are too busy, too tired, too overwhelmed, too confused to yell. And the most fearful, the most psychologically vulnerable, are fed fears about the debt, the poor, Obamacare, and urged to stand up and shout. And they do.
What will it take for the sane but tired of us to stand up and yell louder? When our house is falling apart and whatever we do to keep it together no longer works, is this when we will rise up in anger? When we have nothing left to lose, is that when we will no longer be afraid to risk being struck down?
We could probably start with the shock of 9/11. There we were, thinking we were the greatest nation in the world, infallible, struck in our hearts (in America heart=wallet) in the full light of day by renegades armed with weapons we left lying around unguarded.
Post traumatic stress disorder? Not only were we looking over our shoulder and under our bed for the next attack, our corporate funded president couldn't figure out how to fast enough get those dollars to flow. No conversation about the death and destruction of the Twin Towers could happen without focusing on the economic devastation.
Now, I'm not talking so much about people who lost their jobs because their livelihood was so totally disrupted. Nor am I talking about those who lost the family members who provided them financial stability. (And as I write these two sentences it chills me that we are talking about dollars and not lives, but I am trying to reconstruct as honestly as I can.)
The trauma that shook the country may not have been financial, but to our corporate-owned government that terrorist attack was all about money. As Al Qaeda intended.
That's when the bucks started flowing. Tax cuts and subsidies flowing to Wall Street and airlines. We couldn't do enough to get those businesses going again, while the financial aid to families, including those first responders we heralded, was quite a bit slower to come around.
And there is where our obsession has been since then.
A convenient excuse by the Bush administration to feed its constituency, in W.'s own terms, "the haves and have-mores."
It only naturally followed that corporate America took what it felt it had always had coming, Congress shocked into being afraid to say no, believing every lie and passing it on. The American people were easy. We believed every scary story we were told.
And here we are in 2013. Our bridges are falling down. Our children are going hungry. And those who are responsible for guarding the country's purse strings run up the debt to feed the corporate beast, and continue to tell us to tighten our belts and stop whining.
Pass the farm subsidy and the oil subsidy and the subsidies to the pharmaceutical industry. But cut back on food stamps and the arts. Feed the dinosaur, starve the hummingbird.
The uproar from the voters can barely be heard. Those who question this bizarre philosophy of taking good care of the wealthy so they don't punish us by taking away our jobs are too busy, too tired, too overwhelmed, too confused to yell. And the most fearful, the most psychologically vulnerable, are fed fears about the debt, the poor, Obamacare, and urged to stand up and shout. And they do.
What will it take for the sane but tired of us to stand up and yell louder? When our house is falling apart and whatever we do to keep it together no longer works, is this when we will rise up in anger? When we have nothing left to lose, is that when we will no longer be afraid to risk being struck down?
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