A thought just came to me. We keep hearing about a "civil war in the streets" which to me invokes a vision of a mass of people fighting against each other. What if their idea is to have these lone people with a high capacity AR-15 that can murder multiple people in a matter of seconds? What if that has been the plan all along?
GRU's definitely behind them, weakened gun laws through the NRA, radicalize dark triad vulnerable young men on 4Chan, 8Chan, Telegram, all throughout social media with bots, trolls, traumaganda, conspiracy theories, and cults. They'd love a full blown civil war but they'll take what they can get.
Yes, but can't you just see Roger Stone, and others at his level of humanity, coming up with this idea? And then laughing about the human sacrifice and chaos of those actions.
I share the rage I feel in your words: Yes, the Rs want this death and chaos; Yes, they will obstruct any efforts to proceed in a simple and logical way to end the violence; Yes, they will continue to control the narrative.
In my 72 years, I have voted and actively worked on many political campaigns for many, many years. I have worked as a teacher in the public school systems for over 30 years. I have participated in the subversion required by people who longed to change the state of Justice in the US.
And yet...the Senate is controlled by insurgents; the Courts are in the hands of racists and homophobes for the next 30 years; the POTUS is completely ineffectual in the face of the insurgency.
Voting, writing letters to congress and LTEs, working on campaigns, and educating others to be critical thinkers doesn't seem to have done much to prevent this. I'm not ready to give up yet, but I need a new plan, and I don't have one yet.
Clearly, our system is broken when the renegades in the federal government go against the wishes of 60% of the nation. I'd like to see a path through this, but I don't. Giving up is not an option. So...
It's very frustrating. Bad for one's mental health to try and solve unsolvable problems. The country cannot be repaired without throwing out the Electoral College and making the Senate less biased towards the ex-slave states. But we can't do that without ripping it up and starting over. I don't know where this is headed, but it's going to be ugly for a while.
I know who else wants this to happen: Putin, probably China, probably various Middle East countries. I don't have cold, hard facts to back that up. It's just a feeling that keeps coming up for me. So much for "Make America Great Again" acolytes. I do not want to diminish the disgust that I feel for what happened in Highland Park on July 4th but EVERY week in the City of Chicago at least that amount of people are shot. Here's a quote from WTTW (our local PBS station):
"Eight people were killed and 60 others were wounded in shootings across Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend.
According to Chicago Police Department data, 68 people were shot in 51 separate shootings between 6 p.m. Friday and 11:59 p.m. Monday night during the holiday weekend." (This does not include the Highland Park massacre).
This is pretty much every week in Chicago. It's disgusting and so so sad. The are a multitude of social issues in Chicago that allow this to happen. These issues are not easily solved. And it breaks my heart.
There is power in your words. I hope they go far. I hope a lot of "republicans" have their feelings hurt. It won't change whatever ails them, whatever sickness motivates them, but I hope their little teensy feelings get hurt.
Oh, Ellen, look at you! So generous to Republicans, endowing them with "feelings." If only that were true, the world might be a better place. A good weekend to you!
LOL! And a good weekend to you too! I did pause a bit, but then I considered how they are always whining about their various grievances, so I gave them credit for having a teensy bit of "feelings" - albeit not of the sort we might consider an attribute!
Thanks. These words will hurt them only when the likes of the President and the House Speaker start using them. Which they should, immediately. No more of this "my friends across the aisle" bullshit.
Other than catching ABC News, I truly don't know how the national media is covering Highland Park, but here in Chicago, it is still a top story and even last night, consumed the first 15 minutes of the 10 PM newscast. The community itself is devastated but is in the process of trying to heal. I can't even wrap my head around the idea that the most family-friendly, patriotic thing you can do in America, a parade on July 4th, could be destroyed like this because of an incel with a gun, and some "grievance" because, oh, I don't know, women wouldn't have anything to do with his weird, antisocial ass.
This is NOT mental illness. This is the planning and execution of people, just because. And daddy, apparently thought it was fine to sign for a FOID card for his son a few months after he'd said he'd "kill everybody" in the family. Illinois has had red flag laws for years! I am not a parent, but are parents simply INCAPABLE of seeing anything wrong with their children? They never question things like "motive" when a child, under 21, wants a Firearm Owners ID card? The incel didn't hunt, so what the actual fuck?
At least the local media has pulled back on showing the video of the shooting with the sounds of that high-powered rifle going off. I have never heard anything quite so terrifying, and I only heard it through some shitty TV speakers. I can't even imagine the terror in actually being there when it was happening. Just the sounds were horrific, let alone what each one meant.
Another thing I'll mention because I noticed it: when the shooter was first stopped after his car was spotted, he decided to try to flee. Cops followed him and caught him in a matter of minutes. In all the video I saw of that car stopped in a left-turn lane, I didn't see the car's rear-end riddled with bullets, there were no windows broken, and in fact, a police spokesman said that he "was arrested without incident." I honestly don't remember a Black arrest being explained later as "he was arrested without incident." I also don't remember a Black person trying to flee a traffic stop and living to talk about it.
Finally, I was in a comments section yesterday where even some MAGAts hang out apparently, and one of them, during a discussion of banning assault weapons, asked, "What's an assault weapon?" (You know the type, they also ask things like, "But, what did President Trump lie about?" and other self-evident questions) I responded that an assault weapon was any weapon you pointed at another human being outside the purpose of self-defense. Of course, I got no response. To me, that's the definition of an assault weapon. If I were KING, the first order on my agenda would be to temporarily suspend the 2nd Amendment, "until we find out what the hell is going on!" That seems to me to be WAY more reasonable than the last time we heard those words, which was when Trump tried to ban Muslims coming into the country.
By the way, Debbie Lesko DID say exactly what you quoted, Greg. It's on the video, yo! She didn't falter, she didn't "misspeak." She'd SHOOT her five grandchildren to PROTECT them! And they try to badly gaslight you into believing she didn't say it on Twitter! If I took the late and great James Lipton's questionnaire, my favorite swearword(s) is/are: fucking assholes. Now use it in a sentence: Republicans are ALWAYS fucking assholes!
Hope her grandchildren denounce her like Elon’s kid did. Hope Coney Barrett’s 3 Haitians adopted children discover that they are not white and denounce her ass too…after they discover what she did to their race. The justices should not be given any rest. Bombard their homes 24/7 with silent (but deadly…not really, but you know what I mean) protests. Makes them feel uncomfortable.
Yes, Steve. The fact that he was arrested "without incident" is very telling, isn't it? "Innocent until proven guilty" seems to only apply to people with a certain skin color and a certain address. We are living in a time of true "madness".
Well, to admit that your child could do anything wrong would lead to the parent taking responsibility for their own behavior. Taking responsibility for your own behavior requires maturity.
Violence has been with us since the first food fight over an apple. And will continuing to exponentially increase in a place inhabited by 8 billion soon to be starving human species.
Speaking of SCOTUS (which you weren't) this just popped up in my inbox. While the protest involved Roe and not guns, it's still worth noting that one SCJustice didn't get to enjoy his constitutional right to freedom of domestic tranquility, just like the rest of the nation is being denied theirs.
I feel like we need to find a way to make peace with thousands of years of our ancestors. They're still here, killing each other through our genes. It seems like the trauma of killing and being killed doesn't die when we die, and maybe it lives on in all of us until we deal with it, individually and as a culture.
Ah! Yes. Williamsport... St. Boniface Catholic School, in my hometown, was always known for its bullies and mean girls and I remember hearing that the 2001 girl shooter was indeed bullied. In the Home of Little League, if you didn't play ball, you didn't fit in. Period. Those once fun, family oriented games have become far too competitive and I don't see any team sports as good for kids these days. Us against them is just not a healthy mindset.
As previously mentioned, Williamsport was also among America's first small cities to experiment with cable TV and I remember asking Gram why the boys at church and school acted like The 3 Stooges and why all those girls were screaming and crying when The Beatles landed. Her answer, "They just nuts!" My centenarian great Grammy (1891-1991) was accredited with having raised over 600 foster children. And me.
A piece of furniture called the TV has babysat three generations of Americans. Boys were groomed to be tough guy bullies while we were programmed to become the codependent wives and mothers who condone everything they do. Do you know how many "great guy" dads, grandpas and uncles unwittingly bully their kids all in the name of fun? Teasing, poking, boxing... like THEY saw on TV.
Bullies are not just born. They were bullied by somebody and it's far more prevalent than the psychologists realize because they too have been TV desensitized. Hell, look at what Sandusky did, for so long, right under all those educator's noses!
One last point. American Theatre History class at Penn State taught that Nixon was afraid of Artists. Hence, the more profitable athletics were promoted in our public schools, and on TV, while expensive arts programs were likewise diminished and, over the decades, have become virtually nil. In fact, it's just recently that "creativity" was reattached to the educational learning pyramid but, since teachers are taught what to teach as much as how to teach, their own creativity visa-vi nurturing capacity is erased.
And when no creative outlet is provided for our kids, the pathway to violence is continuously repaved. 🏳🌈
I know people are starving all of the World as well as the U.S.A. but I can only handle so much misery! That's part of the problem in Chicago. Inadequate food supply otherwise known as Food Deserts. If people can't even get the things necessary for basic survival, how can you expect them to act civilly?
Hey, again. I just listened to HCR, Joanne Freeman, and Carol Anderson give a podcast about Racism and the Second Amendment. Carol Anderson is a respected historian, and is the author of "The Second," which looks at how slavery played a pivotal role into how we got the Second Amendment. At the end of the podcast, she gives her opinion about why rural and other folks do not want gun safety laws in this country. Perhaps you have heard this argument before but it was a new take for me.
These GRU orchestrated mass shootings are an insurgency.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/03/08/they-are-preparing-war-an-expert-civil-wars-discusses-where-political-extremists-are-taking-this-country/
It certainly feels that way.
A thought just came to me. We keep hearing about a "civil war in the streets" which to me invokes a vision of a mass of people fighting against each other. What if their idea is to have these lone people with a high capacity AR-15 that can murder multiple people in a matter of seconds? What if that has been the plan all along?
GRU's definitely behind them, weakened gun laws through the NRA, radicalize dark triad vulnerable young men on 4Chan, 8Chan, Telegram, all throughout social media with bots, trolls, traumaganda, conspiracy theories, and cults. They'd love a full blown civil war but they'll take what they can get.
Yes, but can't you just see Roger Stone, and others at his level of humanity, coming up with this idea? And then laughing about the human sacrifice and chaos of those actions.
I'm sure this idea has been around for centuries, since Russia became a country probably.
Yes, but now any "joe-smoe" can own an AR-15 and take it wherever they want, thanks to the SC's recent "decision".
Putin owns the Kremlin Court.
I share the rage I feel in your words: Yes, the Rs want this death and chaos; Yes, they will obstruct any efforts to proceed in a simple and logical way to end the violence; Yes, they will continue to control the narrative.
In my 72 years, I have voted and actively worked on many political campaigns for many, many years. I have worked as a teacher in the public school systems for over 30 years. I have participated in the subversion required by people who longed to change the state of Justice in the US.
And yet...the Senate is controlled by insurgents; the Courts are in the hands of racists and homophobes for the next 30 years; the POTUS is completely ineffectual in the face of the insurgency.
Voting, writing letters to congress and LTEs, working on campaigns, and educating others to be critical thinkers doesn't seem to have done much to prevent this. I'm not ready to give up yet, but I need a new plan, and I don't have one yet.
Clearly, our system is broken when the renegades in the federal government go against the wishes of 60% of the nation. I'd like to see a path through this, but I don't. Giving up is not an option. So...
Thanks for sharing.
It's very frustrating. Bad for one's mental health to try and solve unsolvable problems. The country cannot be repaired without throwing out the Electoral College and making the Senate less biased towards the ex-slave states. But we can't do that without ripping it up and starting over. I don't know where this is headed, but it's going to be ugly for a while.
I think you're correct about the near future. Big change will require urgency; I don't think we're there yet.
I know who else wants this to happen: Putin, probably China, probably various Middle East countries. I don't have cold, hard facts to back that up. It's just a feeling that keeps coming up for me. So much for "Make America Great Again" acolytes. I do not want to diminish the disgust that I feel for what happened in Highland Park on July 4th but EVERY week in the City of Chicago at least that amount of people are shot. Here's a quote from WTTW (our local PBS station):
"Eight people were killed and 60 others were wounded in shootings across Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend.
According to Chicago Police Department data, 68 people were shot in 51 separate shootings between 6 p.m. Friday and 11:59 p.m. Monday night during the holiday weekend." (This does not include the Highland Park massacre).
This is pretty much every week in Chicago. It's disgusting and so so sad. The are a multitude of social issues in Chicago that allow this to happen. These issues are not easily solved. And it breaks my heart.
https://news.wttw.com/2022/07/05/68-people-shot-8-killed-shootings-across-chicago-over-july-4th-weekend-police
Oh, yes, Putin wants this for sure. It's why his people infiltrated the NRA.
Chicago would have fewer shootings if Indiana had tougher gun laws. Which, of course, Chicago cannot control. It's a tragedy.
There is power in your words. I hope they go far. I hope a lot of "republicans" have their feelings hurt. It won't change whatever ails them, whatever sickness motivates them, but I hope their little teensy feelings get hurt.
Oh, Ellen, look at you! So generous to Republicans, endowing them with "feelings." If only that were true, the world might be a better place. A good weekend to you!
LOL! And a good weekend to you too! I did pause a bit, but then I considered how they are always whining about their various grievances, so I gave them credit for having a teensy bit of "feelings" - albeit not of the sort we might consider an attribute!
I actually read an irony in your post, Ellen...teensy, indeed!
Thanks. These words will hurt them only when the likes of the President and the House Speaker start using them. Which they should, immediately. No more of this "my friends across the aisle" bullshit.
Excellent column
Thanks, Cal!
Other than catching ABC News, I truly don't know how the national media is covering Highland Park, but here in Chicago, it is still a top story and even last night, consumed the first 15 minutes of the 10 PM newscast. The community itself is devastated but is in the process of trying to heal. I can't even wrap my head around the idea that the most family-friendly, patriotic thing you can do in America, a parade on July 4th, could be destroyed like this because of an incel with a gun, and some "grievance" because, oh, I don't know, women wouldn't have anything to do with his weird, antisocial ass.
This is NOT mental illness. This is the planning and execution of people, just because. And daddy, apparently thought it was fine to sign for a FOID card for his son a few months after he'd said he'd "kill everybody" in the family. Illinois has had red flag laws for years! I am not a parent, but are parents simply INCAPABLE of seeing anything wrong with their children? They never question things like "motive" when a child, under 21, wants a Firearm Owners ID card? The incel didn't hunt, so what the actual fuck?
At least the local media has pulled back on showing the video of the shooting with the sounds of that high-powered rifle going off. I have never heard anything quite so terrifying, and I only heard it through some shitty TV speakers. I can't even imagine the terror in actually being there when it was happening. Just the sounds were horrific, let alone what each one meant.
Another thing I'll mention because I noticed it: when the shooter was first stopped after his car was spotted, he decided to try to flee. Cops followed him and caught him in a matter of minutes. In all the video I saw of that car stopped in a left-turn lane, I didn't see the car's rear-end riddled with bullets, there were no windows broken, and in fact, a police spokesman said that he "was arrested without incident." I honestly don't remember a Black arrest being explained later as "he was arrested without incident." I also don't remember a Black person trying to flee a traffic stop and living to talk about it.
Finally, I was in a comments section yesterday where even some MAGAts hang out apparently, and one of them, during a discussion of banning assault weapons, asked, "What's an assault weapon?" (You know the type, they also ask things like, "But, what did President Trump lie about?" and other self-evident questions) I responded that an assault weapon was any weapon you pointed at another human being outside the purpose of self-defense. Of course, I got no response. To me, that's the definition of an assault weapon. If I were KING, the first order on my agenda would be to temporarily suspend the 2nd Amendment, "until we find out what the hell is going on!" That seems to me to be WAY more reasonable than the last time we heard those words, which was when Trump tried to ban Muslims coming into the country.
By the way, Debbie Lesko DID say exactly what you quoted, Greg. It's on the video, yo! She didn't falter, she didn't "misspeak." She'd SHOOT her five grandchildren to PROTECT them! And they try to badly gaslight you into believing she didn't say it on Twitter! If I took the late and great James Lipton's questionnaire, my favorite swearword(s) is/are: fucking assholes. Now use it in a sentence: Republicans are ALWAYS fucking assholes!
Hope her grandchildren denounce her like Elon’s kid did. Hope Coney Barrett’s 3 Haitians adopted children discover that they are not white and denounce her ass too…after they discover what she did to their race. The justices should not be given any rest. Bombard their homes 24/7 with silent (but deadly…not really, but you know what I mean) protests. Makes them feel uncomfortable.
We must NEVER surrender our right to protest.
And we must NEVER be stopped for doing so!!
Yes, Steve. The fact that he was arrested "without incident" is very telling, isn't it? "Innocent until proven guilty" seems to only apply to people with a certain skin color and a certain address. We are living in a time of true "madness".
There are certain parents who are incapable of ever thinking their kids do anything wrong. Those are the worst parents, IMHO.
Thanks for this, Steve. As usual, I quite agree.
Well, to admit that your child could do anything wrong would lead to the parent taking responsibility for their own behavior. Taking responsibility for your own behavior requires maturity.
Violence has been with us since the first food fight over an apple. And will continuing to exponentially increase in a place inhabited by 8 billion soon to be starving human species.
We'll be thirsty before we starve.
Thank you, Greg. All things considered, it wouldn't have hurt my feelings if you had posted more pics of the Grand Canyon from your vacation.
As it is, not all the murderers you speak of are the actual shooters. I count the Republican lawmakers among the guilty where that's concerned.
Thanks for saying so! I thought I overdid it!
And you're right. The GOP lawmakers have blood on their purple hands.
Speaking of SCOTUS (which you weren't) this just popped up in my inbox. While the protest involved Roe and not guns, it's still worth noting that one SCJustice didn't get to enjoy his constitutional right to freedom of domestic tranquility, just like the rest of the nation is being denied theirs.
https://dc.eater.com/2022/7/8/23200165/crashed-brett-kavanaugh-dc-dinner-mortons
Morton's, a Leonard Leo hangout. Fuck that place.
I feel like we need to find a way to make peace with thousands of years of our ancestors. They're still here, killing each other through our genes. It seems like the trauma of killing and being killed doesn't die when we die, and maybe it lives on in all of us until we deal with it, individually and as a culture.
Absolutely.
We can do it the American way...by "turning the page," pretending it never happened, and threatening to crush anyone who says otherwise.
Sigh.
Gail, I didn't like my other comment?
I meant U didnt like my other comment?
I hope we won't be starving but I definitely see your point!
Ah! Yes. Williamsport... St. Boniface Catholic School, in my hometown, was always known for its bullies and mean girls and I remember hearing that the 2001 girl shooter was indeed bullied. In the Home of Little League, if you didn't play ball, you didn't fit in. Period. Those once fun, family oriented games have become far too competitive and I don't see any team sports as good for kids these days. Us against them is just not a healthy mindset.
As previously mentioned, Williamsport was also among America's first small cities to experiment with cable TV and I remember asking Gram why the boys at church and school acted like The 3 Stooges and why all those girls were screaming and crying when The Beatles landed. Her answer, "They just nuts!" My centenarian great Grammy (1891-1991) was accredited with having raised over 600 foster children. And me.
A piece of furniture called the TV has babysat three generations of Americans. Boys were groomed to be tough guy bullies while we were programmed to become the codependent wives and mothers who condone everything they do. Do you know how many "great guy" dads, grandpas and uncles unwittingly bully their kids all in the name of fun? Teasing, poking, boxing... like THEY saw on TV.
Bullies are not just born. They were bullied by somebody and it's far more prevalent than the psychologists realize because they too have been TV desensitized. Hell, look at what Sandusky did, for so long, right under all those educator's noses!
One last point. American Theatre History class at Penn State taught that Nixon was afraid of Artists. Hence, the more profitable athletics were promoted in our public schools, and on TV, while expensive arts programs were likewise diminished and, over the decades, have become virtually nil. In fact, it's just recently that "creativity" was reattached to the educational learning pyramid but, since teachers are taught what to teach as much as how to teach, their own creativity visa-vi nurturing capacity is erased.
And when no creative outlet is provided for our kids, the pathway to violence is continuously repaved. 🏳🌈
Thanks for sharing that. Williamsport, Little League, of course.
You can see in old movies and stuff how it all was. I think it's much better now, but there's so much work to do.
And: fuck Nixon.
Gail, do some resesrch on Ukraine as a bread basket. Dutch Farmer issues.
And likeky African starvation
For a start.
And Elon Musk with 9 kids and still likely more to come.
I know people are starving all of the World as well as the U.S.A. but I can only handle so much misery! That's part of the problem in Chicago. Inadequate food supply otherwise known as Food Deserts. If people can't even get the things necessary for basic survival, how can you expect them to act civilly?
Also, Nick Cannon with 8 children. Quite a few screws loose!
Hey, again. I just listened to HCR, Joanne Freeman, and Carol Anderson give a podcast about Racism and the Second Amendment. Carol Anderson is a respected historian, and is the author of "The Second," which looks at how slavery played a pivotal role into how we got the Second Amendment. At the end of the podcast, she gives her opinion about why rural and other folks do not want gun safety laws in this country. Perhaps you have heard this argument before but it was a new take for me.
https://cafe.com/now-and-then/racism-and-the-second-amendment-with-carol-anderson/
https://www.professorcarolanderson.org/about
April 2023