Yesterday, when I arrived at my boy’s middle school to watch
Danny play soccer, the main entrance was blocked by six police cars, all of
them flashing blue light.
I proceeded to the “bus lot entrance” fifty yards farther on, and was soon chatting with friends, nervous about the “armed camp” and the surveillance helicopter overhead.
The rumor with most traction said that a man with a gun had come on campus.
A few minutes later, word of his apprehension spread, easing disquiet.
A full-sized American pickup pulled into a nearby parking space and oon an unknown soccer Dad was approaching our klatch just as I mentioned to Norm and Gretchen that “Our kids will be a whole lot safer when they can carry guns to school.”
The newcomer reacted by glancing at nearby Orange High School's parking lot. “I bet half those cars over there got guns in ‘em” he mumbled.
Detecting a certain “Don’t tread on me” prickliness, I mentioned my seven year teaching career at Orange and how staff members patrolled the parking lot, on one occasion expelling two (Hispanic) students for having a pocket knife in their car.
Ever since the infection of post-9/11 Lunacy, America has been beset by a sub-clinically paranoid mindset that sees menace everywhere. http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/0014706
The upshot of our consuming paranoia is that America has further entrenched itself as an armed camp.
Widespread perception of menace -- and the nation's corresponding hostility -- is not new.
Needed or not, we have carried a big stick for over a century.
Taking an even longer view of American hostility, Mario Cuomo holds that the United States is the most persistently violent culture in the history of the world. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mario_Cuomo
Those who think the holocaust and Islamic terrorism contradict Cuomo’s view have not studied the devastation of the American Indian nor the nuclear vaporization of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Assuming that "dropping the Big One" was essential to concluding World War II without worse carnage, why did we choose to drop a second one? On a civilian population?)
In the mid-1970s, I lived in Liverpool, England, and was amazed that British bobbies did not even carry simple sidearms. Billy clubs were enough.
As incredible as it seem, even now but “seven per cent of officers in London are trained in the use of firearms,” and in these instances, “firearms are… only issued to an officer under strict guidelines.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_United_Kingdom /// http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/70767/bobby
Americans contemplate such non-violent societies as Great Britain and, instead of admiration, snarl dismissive epithets like “Old Europe!” http://www.metronc.com/article/?id=1933
If American "civilization" is coming to an end, perhaps our "Armed Camp Mentality” will be the first casualty.
We are quintessentially violent people and like “fish in water," are largely unaware of our native element.
Not only is the United States drenched in violence (both domestically and internationally) most of us (including a preponderance of “good Christians”) think “the solution to violence” is arming ourselves to the teeth.
With dunderheaded obtusity, we propose legislation that would make it legal to “pack” concealed weapons in church. Jesus Christ! In church!
Quick! Guess which political party sponsored this bill.
I proceeded to the “bus lot entrance” fifty yards farther on, and was soon chatting with friends, nervous about the “armed camp” and the surveillance helicopter overhead.
The rumor with most traction said that a man with a gun had come on campus.
A few minutes later, word of his apprehension spread, easing disquiet.
A full-sized American pickup pulled into a nearby parking space and oon an unknown soccer Dad was approaching our klatch just as I mentioned to Norm and Gretchen that “Our kids will be a whole lot safer when they can carry guns to school.”
The newcomer reacted by glancing at nearby Orange High School's parking lot. “I bet half those cars over there got guns in ‘em” he mumbled.
Detecting a certain “Don’t tread on me” prickliness, I mentioned my seven year teaching career at Orange and how staff members patrolled the parking lot, on one occasion expelling two (Hispanic) students for having a pocket knife in their car.
Ever since the infection of post-9/11 Lunacy, America has been beset by a sub-clinically paranoid mindset that sees menace everywhere. http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/0014706
The upshot of our consuming paranoia is that America has further entrenched itself as an armed camp.
Widespread perception of menace -- and the nation's corresponding hostility -- is not new.
Needed or not, we have carried a big stick for over a century.
Taking an even longer view of American hostility, Mario Cuomo holds that the United States is the most persistently violent culture in the history of the world. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mario_Cuomo
Those who think the holocaust and Islamic terrorism contradict Cuomo’s view have not studied the devastation of the American Indian nor the nuclear vaporization of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Assuming that "dropping the Big One" was essential to concluding World War II without worse carnage, why did we choose to drop a second one? On a civilian population?)
In the mid-1970s, I lived in Liverpool, England, and was amazed that British bobbies did not even carry simple sidearms. Billy clubs were enough.
As incredible as it seem, even now but “seven per cent of officers in London are trained in the use of firearms,” and in these instances, “firearms are… only issued to an officer under strict guidelines.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_firearms_in_the_United_Kingdom /// http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/70767/bobby
Americans contemplate such non-violent societies as Great Britain and, instead of admiration, snarl dismissive epithets like “Old Europe!” http://www.metronc.com/article/?id=1933
If American "civilization" is coming to an end, perhaps our "Armed Camp Mentality” will be the first casualty.
We are quintessentially violent people and like “fish in water," are largely unaware of our native element.
"Terrorism And The Other Religions"
Uncle Sam's Mercenary Christians Kill 17 Iraqi Civilians. 2 Frenchmen Kill 12 In Paris
http://paxonbothhouses.
"Bush's Toxic Legacy In Iraq"
Hans Blix' Fruitless Search For WMD And Bush/Cheney's Rush To War In Iraq
Cheney's Lucid 1994 Rationale For NOT Invading Iraq. Conservatives "Must" See This
Not only is the United States drenched in violence (both domestically and internationally) most of us (including a preponderance of “good Christians”) think “the solution to violence” is arming ourselves to the teeth.
With dunderheaded obtusity, we propose legislation that would make it legal to “pack” concealed weapons in church. Jesus Christ! In church!
Quick! Guess which political party sponsored this bill.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/02/loosening_michigans_rules_on_w.html
America’s Boastful Barbarism confirms what is “hidden in plain view”: vast swaths of American “culture” are as decerebrate as those Islamic cultures that normalize “honor killing.” http://thehill.com/video/campaign/183941-dnc-video-attacks-gop-for-not-criticizing-booing-of-gay-soldier /// http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PFAAILiNxU&feature=related /// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing
A sure sign of clinical psychopathy is that “the afflicted” mistake the disease for the cure.
America’s Boastful Barbarism confirms what is “hidden in plain view”: vast swaths of American “culture” are as decerebrate as those Islamic cultures that normalize “honor killing.” http://thehill.com/video/campaign/183941-dnc-video-attacks-gop-for-not-criticizing-booing-of-gay-soldier /// http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PFAAILiNxU&feature=related /// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing
A sure sign of clinical psychopathy is that “the afflicted” mistake the disease for the cure.
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