May 25, 2022·edited May 25, 2022Liked by Stacey Eskelin
Your post is trenchant and moving, Stacey. I can find nothing in which you wrote that I can take issue with; more's the pity. There is a sheltered and self-serving minority of politicians in this nation, backed up by 5 right-wing justices on the Supreme Court, who were after all chosen for their fealty to their backers extremism, who have created a nation where holocausts in miniature are justified as the, "price of freedom." No. This is the price we pay for having prostitutes in suits whose primary objective is to fatten their checking accounts, the lives of innocents, even small children, be damned. I am gutted, I am angry, but most of all today I am ashamed to be citizen of a country wretched enough to allow this. We are essentially living in a hell that no demon would chose as a home.
You are right about all of it. And it's a hell of our own making. That's the part that floors me. We value guns and money above the needs of our children.
I've been angry and heartsick and angry and angrier still. The only way I've been able to process my pain and anger is by writing my way through it. I'm beginning to feel like a broken record, but I don't know what else to do. I don't feel any better when I finish one post, but it keeps me from crying...and I don't even have children. I can't imagine what a parent must be going through now.
Part of the problem is that a large segment of America believes the Tree of Liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of Patriots...or in this case, second- through fourth-graders and a couple of teachers. Mass shootings are simply the cost of freedom, the price of admission for maintaining our precious 2nd Amendment, the most willfully misinterpreted 27 words in the English languages.
I listened to Texas Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales dance around the question of common sense gun control by claiming that Democrats control Congress...so why don't Democrats do something. The disingenuous and the stupidity is strong in the GOP. They're so beholden to the NRA that you have to wonder what Wayne LaPierre has on them.
I keep thinking about the Onion headline: "No Way To Prevent This, Says Only Country Where This Regularly Happens." They've done 27 of those headlines, if memory serves...and the 28th probably isn't far off.
We're living in a Hell of our own choosing...and we don't even know that we have the key to let ourselves out.
John Stewart, Jon Oliver, most of the late-night talk show hosts are all comedians. It is their wry and sardonic observations that keep shining a light on this gross moral corruption. KEEP WRITING. The more voices that are raised against it, the better. And when we're gone, our voices live on.
I once wrote a blog post about gun ownership as a kind of identity politics. These aren't just objects that people own, they are the manifestation of their very selfhood; to limit or govern that ownership is an existential assault on their self, on their very existence.
No supposed right exists without limit. As much as we valorize free speech, there are limits. I've read something long ago that argued the "shouting fire in a theater" example is not as good as it might seem. But conspiracy laws are built upon the limit of speech rights; RICO prosecutions are entirely about such limits.
Obviously the same holds true with gun rights. The absence of basic decency -- to say nothing of a grasp of logic or law -- driving the gun fetishists is so wretched as to gag a maggot. I suppose it is always timely to remind people that the 2nd never had anything to do with opposing government over reach, and everything to do with putting down slave rebellions and native incursions.
Everything you just said. What's amazing is how hard it is for some people to engage in nuanced thinking. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is such a cogent demonstration of the limits of free speech, but the purists like Elon Musk willfully refuse to see it. And as for the gun fetishists, I know Freud said, "Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar," but, you know, I wonder.
A cigar is just a cigar when you can smoke it or not, put it down or pick it up, with no more effort or thought than you'd give to a glass of water. When it becomes the centerpiece of your life, when your very sense of self is shredded by anxiety by the mere thought of its absence, then it is far beyond just a cigar.
Your post is trenchant and moving, Stacey. I can find nothing in which you wrote that I can take issue with; more's the pity. There is a sheltered and self-serving minority of politicians in this nation, backed up by 5 right-wing justices on the Supreme Court, who were after all chosen for their fealty to their backers extremism, who have created a nation where holocausts in miniature are justified as the, "price of freedom." No. This is the price we pay for having prostitutes in suits whose primary objective is to fatten their checking accounts, the lives of innocents, even small children, be damned. I am gutted, I am angry, but most of all today I am ashamed to be citizen of a country wretched enough to allow this. We are essentially living in a hell that no demon would chose as a home.
You are right about all of it. And it's a hell of our own making. That's the part that floors me. We value guns and money above the needs of our children.
I've been angry and heartsick and angry and angrier still. The only way I've been able to process my pain and anger is by writing my way through it. I'm beginning to feel like a broken record, but I don't know what else to do. I don't feel any better when I finish one post, but it keeps me from crying...and I don't even have children. I can't imagine what a parent must be going through now.
Part of the problem is that a large segment of America believes the Tree of Liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of Patriots...or in this case, second- through fourth-graders and a couple of teachers. Mass shootings are simply the cost of freedom, the price of admission for maintaining our precious 2nd Amendment, the most willfully misinterpreted 27 words in the English languages.
I listened to Texas Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales dance around the question of common sense gun control by claiming that Democrats control Congress...so why don't Democrats do something. The disingenuous and the stupidity is strong in the GOP. They're so beholden to the NRA that you have to wonder what Wayne LaPierre has on them.
I keep thinking about the Onion headline: "No Way To Prevent This, Says Only Country Where This Regularly Happens." They've done 27 of those headlines, if memory serves...and the 28th probably isn't far off.
We're living in a Hell of our own choosing...and we don't even know that we have the key to let ourselves out.
John Stewart, Jon Oliver, most of the late-night talk show hosts are all comedians. It is their wry and sardonic observations that keep shining a light on this gross moral corruption. KEEP WRITING. The more voices that are raised against it, the better. And when we're gone, our voices live on.
TRUTH. Posting on FB
It is always good to spread the truth.
I once wrote a blog post about gun ownership as a kind of identity politics. These aren't just objects that people own, they are the manifestation of their very selfhood; to limit or govern that ownership is an existential assault on their self, on their very existence.
No supposed right exists without limit. As much as we valorize free speech, there are limits. I've read something long ago that argued the "shouting fire in a theater" example is not as good as it might seem. But conspiracy laws are built upon the limit of speech rights; RICO prosecutions are entirely about such limits.
Obviously the same holds true with gun rights. The absence of basic decency -- to say nothing of a grasp of logic or law -- driving the gun fetishists is so wretched as to gag a maggot. I suppose it is always timely to remind people that the 2nd never had anything to do with opposing government over reach, and everything to do with putting down slave rebellions and native incursions.
Everything you just said. What's amazing is how hard it is for some people to engage in nuanced thinking. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is such a cogent demonstration of the limits of free speech, but the purists like Elon Musk willfully refuse to see it. And as for the gun fetishists, I know Freud said, "Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar," but, you know, I wonder.
A cigar is just a cigar when you can smoke it or not, put it down or pick it up, with no more effort or thought than you'd give to a glass of water. When it becomes the centerpiece of your life, when your very sense of self is shredded by anxiety by the mere thought of its absence, then it is far beyond just a cigar.