I am going to take a mental health break from the news coverage of the Newtown Massacre by watching some football. However, I did watch Meet the Press this morning, and I noted that host David Gregory said that he had extended an invitation to 31 sitting U.S. Senators who he identified as “pro-gun.” I don’t know quite how he defined that, but none of the 31 would agree to appear on his show and defend guns in any way. That may be smart politically, but it seems like cowardice to me.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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What would we expect? The senators are taking big bucks with one hand and flipping their constituents off with the other, so they can’t show up on political talk shows and wring those bloody, bloody hands, can they?
Seriously, for all the bravado of the gun lovers and the politicians who service them, they really have no guts.
Wow. I am shocked to find that David Gregory has done something I approve of. That he would contact the pro gun senators is one thing, but that he would actually out them all for not being willing to appear on the show is another.
This must actually have touched David Gregory in some way, which is kind of shocking in itself since he usually seems to have no soul.
But he didn’t out them. He didn’t name them, did he?
Nope! Well, I didn’t watch the show but I”m guessing he didn’t. But now that the number 31 is out there, maybe someone will put names to the number. That would be progress.
Baby steps, you would not say of them “wel he didnt run a marathon”
Maybe Gregory goes back to crawling and never takes another step, after all he will be slapped by those who dont want him to walk. Maybe he will do some more steps, just to see how it feels.
Do you really want to slap him?
If the senators would not come, then the gun manufacturers should have been invited to discuss the proper use of their assault weapons.
Even better, show some pictures of the dead kids.
Did he name them? It’s time for these “journalists” to sacrifice an occassional party invitation and to afflict the comfortable.
Especially this weekend it is very important to publish a list of pro-gun pols. I can’t find one.
I’m sure Louie Gohmert from the House would have given it a go:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/louie-gohmert-guns_n_2311379.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
What those Senators recognize is that (maybe) the Newtown shooting has expanded the argument from the legality of gun ownership to a moral argument.
The NRA talking points sound crass to Americans’ ears today. Taking the lives of innocents…can’t be reasoned by a Senator on a Sunday Meet the Press when his actions have set the stage for this loss and just as surely, tomorrows.
I do wonder when there’ll ever be a rational discussion about all threats that we face based upon their actual threat level.
That is, I’m glad we’re having a discussion about gun control now, but consider the fact that climate change is expected to be the primary cause of death for about 100 million people over the next 2 decades, with another possibly 1 billion people dislocated. That’s a whole different league than guns, which is a whole different league than the minimal threat of terrorism. And yet the hierarchy of focus is reversed. When’s the last time we’ve had wall-to-wall blog/news coverage about ecocide?
Precisely. The further away from real mass murder a subject resides, the more media attention it gets. I am sorry for the people of Newtown and I am sorry for the people who are hurt by societally-based evils of all other kinds, but we really do not have our priorities straight in this regard. As I have said here recently, go to Google Maps and select Syria or any other North African/Middle Eastern country. Then zoom out as far as you can get. What do you see? A swath of arid land from the northwestern coast of Africa right on up through Kasakhstan that is much larger and much drier the any other area on the globe. And where is the unrest greatest on this good, formerly mostly green earth? It is in exactly the same area. Coincidence? I think not. The people there are feeling the changes. They may think that they are unhappy about other things, but we are animals just like birds and forest creatures. Raccoons and other critters know when it’s going to be a hrd winter and grow thicker coats. Birds know what’s up before it happens. So do we. Bet on it.
Wait’ll the Amazon rain forests begin to dry up even more than they are now. Wait until the polar icecaps really begin to melt. But don’t wait for the media to call this. They are too busy selling other things.
Bet on that as well.
AG
It feels strange saying this: Arthur, what you’re saying here makes sense.
Get used to it. My world may be “strange” to some people, but then…so are a lot of other quite reasonable things.
Check it out.
Go read some of my back posts. I have a damned good batting average.
AG
I’m not sure about that, but on this one you’re right because what you’re saying is backed up by good science.
I agree with you, its eerie. AG making sense, its not that people dont want to listen to you AG. Its your style that puts them off, certain idiosyncratic ways.
People dont want to pick out your gems from a heap of crap, and when pointed out that there is a lot of crap in your gems you just dump a whole new pile on top.I can feel a lot of frustration and anger in your posts.
Please more of this side of you, even tough i have made fun of you before i agree more often than not.
Yeah.
Me and Susan Rice. A “style” that puts people off.
And Charles Mingus and Miles Davis and Sidney Bechet and William Burroughs and William Faulkner and Malcolm X and Fidel Castro and Manny Oquendo and Mario Bauza and Frank Wess and G. I. Gurdjieff and Jimmy Knepper and Jimmy Breslin and a whole lotta other motherfuckers. I got some models, baby. Some models.
I got tired of being nice long ago and far away, bazzzz. It is often said that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Problem is, I don’t want to catch flies. Too damned many of them already. I want to catch people who have a certain kind of loose wire or two but are afraid to surrender to the information that those loose wires may be transmitting to their over-socialized selves.
WTFU.
You be bettah off.
Bet on it.
As an old Zen koan has it: “What are you drinking, the water or the cup?”
Think on it.
You be bettah off.
AG
.
Guns don’t kill, who are these people who go on a killing spree? Why are they often young white males, intelligent, loners with few friends,
empathy deficient and poor ability to communicate at social level. Intelligence, autism and violence.
Columbine – Aurora – Virginia Tech – Newtown
Cross-posted from my diary – Mourning and a Day of Remembrance
I’d add “bullying” to the list. It’s too early here and I haven’t had any caffeine yet and I can’t recall the name, but there was a brilliant story here a few years back by an old front-pager (or maybe the story series was promoted to the front page) linking Columbine (and other lesser-known incidents) to bullying by other male students attacking the perpetrators as effeminate or gay, whether true or not. Who was that…Terrence? TerrenceDC?
Anyway, it was a terrific series, a three-parter iirc.
Just watching the MSNBC rerun of Meet the Press now. Bloomberg was just on and Gregory made the statement about “no takers” from the 31 pro-gun senators. He reported a Tweet that “caught his eye” before the commercial break.
I’ve been thinking this lately myself. These massacres are America’s version of a Suicide Bomber. The mindset of someone taking as many down with him before he is killed or kills himself is unimaginable to most of us. But that’s what it is. If shoe bombs are forbidden in public, guns capable of filling 20 little kids full of bullets should be as well. And the cowardly loser who would pull the trigger needs to be removed from society before he has the chance.
We need to treat this epidemic – mass murder of innocents – with at least the same priority as we treated that one isolated “Shoe Bomber” incident.
Yeah, but…
There is real profit potential in a security state system. But not in banning weaponry. The U.S. makes its living producing weaponry of all sorts. Money buys politicians. You might as well expect the corporate UniParty system to go after Big Corp, Big Insurance or Big Med/Big Pharma. Ain’t gonna happen. Maealymouthing is all that is going to happen. Bet on it. Maybe some laws that won’t be effectively enforced will be passed as a sop to the marks. And then? Another 100,000 violent video games/movies/TV shows and on with the program.
Sorry, but there it is.
Watch.
AG
Yeah but there is no constitutionally protected right to “bear shoes”
There isn’t a constitutional right to bear guns, or bombs or nuclear weapons. There is a constitutional right to bear arms – a means of defending yourself. You can own a knife or an axe or whatever. But a gun capable of filling a classroom full of kids with multiple bullets apiece is a weapon of mass destruction. It is a weapon of war, not a means of self-defense in a civil society.
But I am sure you were joking, so nevermind.
All the same, it’s worth pointing out that “keep and bear” is not equal to “own.” In the context of a well-regulated militia, it suggests something more along the lines of what they do in Switzerland. I’d like to get my hands on a dictionary from that time and look up both of those terms.
these NRA fuckers walking out of church and picking up their weapons.
Jesus said “Those that live by the sword will die by the sword”. He told Peter NOT to try to kill the Roman soldiers who were going to arrest him.
How many religious leaders tell their flocks NOT to pick up the sword? Very few. Because these candy ass chicken shits are cowards. They do not want to tell truth to their parishioners. No, they want large collection plates.