Well, two things Wrongo never thought would happen: Revived student activism, and the US winning an Olympic gold medal in Curling! Wrongo cares deeply about the former, but not so much about the latter.
The week was dominated by the continued fall-out from the Parkland shooting. The gun debate produced a rich harvest of appropriate cartoons, like showing how the NRA would re-write the Second Amendment:
The gun debate points out some GOP inconsistencies:
McConnell and Ryan try reframing the issue:
LaPierre has a message for Mitch:
NRA says only one Amendment really matters:
Trump says we should arm teachers and pay them bonuses for carrying. Think of the consequences:
Where teachers packing heat will lead:
And how would kids react to guns in the classroom?
âThere is no justice. The rich win; the poor are powerless. We become tired of hearing people lie. And after a time, we become dead, a little dead. We think of ourselves as victims â and we become victims. We become weak; we doubt ourselves; we doubt our beliefs; we doubt our institutions; and we doubt the law⌠If we are to have faith in justice, we need only to believe in ourselves and act with justice.â â The closing argument by Paul Newmanâs character in âThe Verdictâ (1982)
Imagine that: Act with justice. Belief in justice is part of believing in democracy. If you lose faith in one, you will lose faith in the other. Those who have refused to give up, like Dr. King, and those who marched for civil rights and then, who marched to end the Vietnam War acted with justice.
Fast forward to today, those Florida high schoolers, who are schooling politicians, are following in those footsteps, attempting to act with justice. They are trying to live up to the founding ethos of the US.
Can the pursuit of justice that gave us successes in civil rights also fuel success in the long, impossibly hard struggle to Make America Safe Again?
Making it Safe from too many guns in the hands of too many Americans?
Before Parkland, Wrongo was about to write off the possibility that gun control activism would achieve much of anything. That we were doomed to remain the worldâs most âexceptionalâ country when it comes to guns.
America thinks that itâs worth it to have a more dangerous society in order to have strong Second Amendment rights. The Second Amendment Absolutists, including the NRA, Trump and the GOP, think the lives weâd save if we had stricter gun controls arenât worth the freedom that owning guns buys them.
And the rest of us donât oppose their viewpoint strongly enough to affect change.
Then along came these high school activists. They have become our last, best hope of blunting the Second Amendment Absolutists. Where did these Florida shooting survivors find their activism and organizing? Can they carry through to a place that their elders havenât been able to reach?
What is refreshing about the students from Stoneman Douglas is that we are hearing about their lived experience.
This has a gravitas far beyond what is handed down from the Beltway. The gun discussions have been mostly led by politicians and lobbyists. But that is being eclipsed by voices with first-hand experience surviving a mass killing. It’s their intimate experience, plus the passion they are bringing that encourages the rest of us to dig in, and help bring about change.
They seem to know that their ground swell of political activism strikes fear into the hearts of politicians. They seem to know that they can make gun control a major issue in the 2018 mid-terms.
They are proving more resilient and savvy than many of us would have given them credit for on the day of the shooting. It isnât their responsibility to fix the world, but since they have a place in it, and a voice, perhaps they can spur some real change.
They are forcing politicians like Sen. Rubio (R-FL) back on their heels. They are forcing the NRA into PR mistakes. Remember this?
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin‘ â B. Dylan
At the CNN Town Hall on Wednesday night, it was obvious that the NRAâs Dana Loesch and Rubio both knew that these students were far beyond their command. But that doesnât mean we should sit back, and expect them to do it alone.
We have to stand up, help them, and certainly vote in huge numbers.
Trump linked two events last week, the shooting in Parkland, FL, and the Mueller indictments of 13 Russians for meddling in our election process, failing at both.
First, the Muller investigation. Trump suggested Saturday that the FBI failed to stop the Florida school shooting because it’s spending too much time on the Russia investigation:
We can agree that the FBI was derelict in investigating the tip about Nikolas Cruz. However, we canât say that the Parkland shooting, or any other for that matter, could have been stopped. The Feds canât foresee the future. This was another Trump ploy to discredit the FBI and the Mueller investigation as its work begins to bite deeply into the issues it was formed to investigate.
Trump tweeted on Sunday that the investigations into Russian meddling are creating chaos and divisions in the US. He said: “They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!â
Itâs worth thinking about what a patriotic president would have done in Trumpâs situation. He would be leading the investigation himself. He would be scouring his own campaignâdoing everything in his power to reassure the country that whatever the Russians may or may not have done, his government owed Putin nothing… Above all, he would be leading the demand for changes to election laws and practices, including holding Facebook to account for its negligence.
Why are Trumpâs reactions so off the mark? Why is The Donald so defensive about something that is of ultimate importance, the integrity of our election process? Shouldnât that be of great interest to anyone who has sworn to defend the Constitution?
Second, students from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School rallied in southern Florida to protest how the lack of gun regulations affects their lives. One student, Emma Gonzales, told the crowd:
In February of 2017, one year ago, President Trump repealed an Obama-era regulation that would have made it easier to block the sale of firearms to people with certain mental illnesses…Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa was the sole sponsor on this bill that stops the FBI from performing background checks on people adjudicated to be mentally ill and now he’s stating for the record, ‘Well, it’s a shame the FBI isn’t doing background checks on these mentally ill people.‘ Well, duh. You took that opportunity away last year.
Hereâs what Grassley actually said after the Florida shootings:
We have not done a very good job of making sure that people that have mental reasons for not being able to handle a gun getting their name into the FBI files and we need to concentrate on that.
Grassley twists himself into a pretzel, trying to blame the FBI for what Grassley himself did. Who has these ethics?
Another Parkland student, Cameron Kasky, told CNN that many Republicans are only concerned with things like weddings cakes at same-sex weddings:
There is a segment of this society that will shrug this off and send their thoughts and prayers but march for hours over a rainbow wedding cake…
High school kids in Florida are standing up to the President and the Congress. Teenagers are unerring in calling out hypocrisy. Their tolerance for it is lower than that of adults, too. This may be the stone that starts the landslide against the Second Amendment absolutists in Washington. Letâs hope so.
Time to help those Florida teens wake up Trump and Congress. Wake them up to the need to ban assault weapons. To have background checks for all gun buyers, to have liability insurance for every gun owned. To help them wake up, here is Pearl Jam with âJeremyâ from their 1991 debut album âTenâ. The song was inspired by a newspaper article Eddie Vedder read about a high school student who shot himself in front of his English class:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS91knuzoOA
Sample Lyric:
Dead lay in pools of maroon below
Daddy didn’t give attention
To the fact that mommy didn’t care
King Jeremy the wicked
Ruled his world
Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today
Clearly I remember
Pickin’ on the boy
Seemed a harmless little fuck
But we unleashed a lion
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Friday brought Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians for âinformation warfare against the United States of America“. The best part was that the special counselâs work was totally under the radar, and there were zero leaks.
And thus far, nobody on the right is claiming Muellerâs indictments are âfake newsâ.
One interesting takeaway was that Russian cells were formed to establish phony Facebook, Twitter and other accounts that pushed divisive politics in the US. We already knew this, but we didnât know specifics: At one point, a supposed Islamophobic group protested outside a Texas mosque, and it was met by a pro-Muslim counter-demonstration. Both demonstrations were called for by fake Russian sites. These sites eventually had hundreds of thousands of followers. They spread false memes, including that Clinton supported Sharia law.
Russian sites that were disguised as a part of the Black Lives Matter movement argued that African-Americans should not vote. While it is impossible to show cause and effect, Clinton underperformed with Black voters.
The jury is still out on the extent of Russian influence, and we may never know if it mattered. Still, it is way past time for the Democratic Party to own up to its own failures, rather than continually blaming the Russians, Bernie Sanders, the Green Party, or the deplorables.
After Mueller indictments, Trump and friends now have some âsplaining to do:
Mitch, Paul and the rest of the GOP think they have zero responsibility for gun violence:
The issue is always the guns:
American Exceptionalism was on display again last week:
Pledge of Allegiance needs new words:
Blockbuster Black Panther movie may help beyond entertaining us:
Sigiriya, Sri Lanka – photo by jcourtial for dronestagram. Sigiriya is an ancient rock fortress. The site was the palace for King Kasyapa (477 â 495 BC). It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We live in a seemingly endless loop of outrage. Nothing ever changes, because we waste energy on the âwhat-about?â arguments from both sides, each attempting to reframe the issue to their sideâs advantage. These discussions yield nothing, and solutions are never agreed. This adds to a generalized feeling of powerlessness: The view that everything that is important is out of our hands, and insoluble.
So it is with school shootings, with protecting the DACA kids. And with whatever Russiagate is.
At least the Mueller investigation will run its course. We have to hope that the results will be made public. But if they are released, it will only lead to more debate and disagreement. Until then, weâll continue to gleefully argue our respective Russiagate viewpoints in a fact-free vacuum.
We have experienced hysterical political times before, but they tended to be single issue events. Has there ever been a time when so many people in both political parties have been so single-mindedly determined to whip up anger?
When weâre looking at just a single issue, one side or the other often simply runs out of steam. Then the issue can be resolved both in Washington and in the mind of the public.
When we experience multiple issues simultaneously, the available energy is expended across the entire spectrum of problems. Thus, there isnât enough energy to direct successfully at a single issue. So nothing is resolved.
This is where we are in February 2018, in a kind of nervous exhaustion: Too many issues and too few resolutions.
Can something, or someone unite us? Will a big event allow a majority to coalesce around a point of view, or a leader?
History shows that when we are in the grip of anxiety, it can be a relief if something we fear actually happens. Think about when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. It was widely reported that the response of the public, including anti-war activists, was relief. There was a feeling that at last a course had been set, a key decision made. FDR united the disparate groups behind a war.
While the same situation doesnât quite apply today, we crave some sort of decisions, perhaps some sort of decisive act. What would that be? It isnât possible to see from where we are today.
As John Edwards said, there are two Americas. The one that sends their children to private schools, and the second one that sends their children to public schools. The second group has the kids who get shot by the gunmen. And politicians get away with platitudes about their thoughts and prayers.
Unfortunately, they then decide that fixing the problem is not worth their time.
We may have reached a breaking point. Shitty jobs, shitty pay, shitty hours, and little hope of advancement. No easy access to medical care, an uneven social safety net. Wrongo lived through the chaotic 1960âs. He endured Reaganâs show-no-mercy 1980âs. Those were bad times.
But, in a lot of ways, 2018 is worse. Today, there is an immense lack of mutual respect. And there is a ubiquitous atmosphere of a powerless people.
Wow, who said all that??
We desperately need a weekend where we can unplug from the media and focus on other things. In other words, we need a Saturday soother. Start by brewing up a big cuppa Stumptown Coffeeâs Holler Mountain Blend, ($16/12oz.) The Stumptown people promise flavors of blackberry, citrus and toffee in a creamy, full body. Your mileage may vary.
Now, get in your favorite chair and listen to some, or all of the musical score from the film âDunkirkâ. Both the score and the film are Oscar-nominated. The filmâs director Christopher Nolan suggested to the musical director Hans Zimmer, that they use Elgarâs âNimrodâ from the 1898-99 âEnigma Variationsâ as part of the theme. They decided that the movieâs music should be about time, and how for the men on the beaches, time was running out. They picked the âEnigma Variationsâ because itâs part of English culture, less a national anthem than an emotional anthem for the nation. Along the way, consistent with using time, they slowed it down to 6 beats per minute. Listen to their version from the movie:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
“Don’t tell me tomorrow isn’t the appropriate time to debate gun violence. If you’re a political leader doing nothing about this slaughter, you’re an accomplice.” â Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)
Can we get politicians to deal with gun violence? Politicians like to reframe the problem, like saying that we need more “good people” with guns. But, there were two armed police officers stationed at the Parkland FL school. Upon hearing that, the gun absolutists might argue: “If only the teachers and students had their own weapons, it probably would have worked out just fine…”
And we are getting numb. The LA Times editorial asks: (emphasis by Wrongo)
When does an epidemic stop being an epidemic and become just a basic part of regular life? It’s been 19 years since the nation was horrified by the carnage at Columbine in suburban Denver. It’s been just over five years since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Quick: What was the most recent mass shooting incident (at least four wounded) at a school before the one on Wednesday? Here’s the sick part: There have been so many school shootings that it takes a bit of work to answer what should be an easy question.
Who remembers clearly the particulars of the last school shooting? Not Wrongo, and probably not you. We have grown weary of being outraged after so many shootings. We’ve become numb to the sensations of outrage and pain for the victims and their families. It’s official. Guns have more rights than humans in our 21st Century America.
We have to control guns if we want to turn the tide. Consider this chart from the Tewkesbury Lab that graphs gun deaths by gun ownership:
There is a clear relationship between gun access and gun violence, and the US clearly has the most gun violence and the most guns. We might ask why some countries are above the trend line, and others are below it. When your country is above the line, your citizens not only own more guns per capita, they also have a harder time keeping their guns pointed away from other people.
Trump and Congress should have a goal of minimizing the risk of gun deaths. The best way to accomplish this is reducing access to guns. If you want to reduce your personal risk from gun related violence, you can move to a state or a country where gun laws are stricter and cultural norms surrounding guns are more progressive.
If you can’t or don’t want to move, you need to work to pass stricter gun laws where you live.
Politicians can argue about details, but the fundamentals are clear. It is like smoking. If you want to reduce smoking, you make it harder and more expensive to smoke. Only the tobacco industry and the politicians they had purchased really argued with that logic.
Why should it be different with guns?
We are unique in our worship of guns. The Second Amendment provides a big blanket of excuse for gun lovers to wrap themselves in, but Second Amendment rights shouldn’t be superior to the right of your kid to return home from school alive.
We need to control the number of guns. We need to make sure guns are being used for the right reason eg. hunting. My friend hunts and he told me about long range scopes reviewed, I can see why people enjoy shooting as a hobby but guns can also be very dangerous. Special care needs to be taken with guns. We also need to figure out how to change our acceptance and glorification of violence. It is young men like the kid who killed 17 in Parkland FL, who avoid mental health advice, because they don’t want to look weak. They are the same ones who are perpetually angry. They pick up a gun, and they let their gun do some punishing. And guns do that quickly and efficiently.
We have to stop them. Republicans are owned by the NRA. So first, we need to regain control of the House and Senate. We also need to have the gun control legislation ready for when that time comes.
We need better ad campaigns ads that spell out about what America loses with every shooting.
And until then, we need to protect our children with increased awareness and safety measures in schools, like every classroom having a bulletproof shield for example. We shouldn’t have to do this, but unfortunately, for now we do.
We can’t stop every wacko from harming people, but we can sharply reduce the percentage of wackos that have guns!
(There will be limited blogging until 10/17, as Wrongo and Ms. Right are visiting London to see five plays in seven days. We are also having dinner at Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey). Please keep your tray tables in the locked position while we are away.)
Another week of shocks to the system. Cartoons may help. The GOP reaction to Las Vegas is almost automatic, just like bump stocks:
Some are reluctant to give up their Congress:
The Senate is always on sale:
Tillerson tries to explain Trumpâs undermining:
Trump tosses different kinds of paper depending on the audience:
Lauterbrunnen, near Bern, Switzerland. Photo by Scott Hafer
Thought for today:
âThe right thing is usually not hard to do. And if it is, it’s still the right thing.â – Jason Hirschorn
Pam Keith is a Democratic candidate for Floridaâs 18th Congressional District. She was a Navy officer, and lawyer. She has a great take on what to do with guns in America. Here is a series of tweets by Pam:
(The Baker Act allows the holding of mentally-ill people against their will)
WTG Ms. Keith, all are good ideas! Outlawing âbump stocksâ should be added to this list, and it seems that the House is likely to do just that. Will we ever get the National Rifle Association (NRA) out of the business of dictating which gun legislation is, or isnât acceptable?
Assuming we want changes to our interpretation of the Second Amendment, we must force enough Republicans in Congress to listen, and act. We have control, if we choose to use it.
Or, we can accept the occasional mass slaughter as the âprice of freedomâ as Bill OâReilly says we must. The Second Amendment is neither inviolable, nor sacrosanct. We have built this edifice of carnage on the most willfully misinterpreted 27 words in the Constitution. Ms. Keithâs ideas could help save lives, without impacting the rights of responsible gun owners.
As the opening quote says, doing the right thing, even if it is hard to do, very hard, itâs still the right thing.
We could stand idly by, and accept that random, indiscriminate mass slaughter is our new normal.
Here is a musical interlude by the Wailinâ Jennys singing “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” from their soon-to-be released album, âFifteenâ, a series of covers. Here, they are covering Dolly Parton. They turn the tune into a reminder about resilience and hope in each new day. This is particularly appropriate given the Las Vegas mass murder.
They sing in perfect Ă cappella harmony. Inspiring and beautiful:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
If you guys feel like youâre losing out, fucking work harder. I donât know what to tell you. If youâre a white supremacist, if you think youâre the master race, how come weâre kicking your ass so easily? Youâre the master race! How come youâre not winning everything? Why arenât the Olympics dominated by you? Youâre the master race. What do you have left? Golf and tennis, maybe, maybe. And even then, the first black people you came across, youâre like, âWe canât play this game anymore.â Williams sisters, Tiger Woods. O.K.
Suppressing political violence is a matter of will. It requires that we rise above our tribal loyalties and defend the political system that is at the heart of America.
Trump is having trouble keeping members of his advisory councils:
Trump uses wrong finger:
Is the Confederate Flag about heritage? Absolutely:
