#366 Musings Beyond the Bunker #366 (Wednesday June 1)
Good morning,
I had a completely different Musings for this morning but think it inappropriate to consider an issue other than the gun safety debate this week. Today, a series of bullets with thoughts and data, followed by the prophetic words of Langston Hughes, in “Kids Who Die.” Tomorrow, more thoughts from contributors:
Note that I called it “gun safety.” The movement to increase regulation of gun ownership and massive purchases of ammunition should be recharacterized from “control” to “safety.” Messaging is everything.
Three-quarters of all registered Republicans fear that the government may be “too strict” in instituting some gun regulation after the back-to-back violence of the past two weeks.
Yet, 80% of all Americans support universal background checks. 80% believe the minimum age to purchase a gun should be raised to 21. 80% support a three-day waiting period. 75% support a national database. 67% support a ban on assault-style weapons (Politico May 25 poll). This shouldn’t be that hard. But we are controlled by a legislature blocked by the minority and a federal court system increasingly populated by jurists designed to resist these and other reasonable measures.
Soccer moms will decide this election. The question is whether they will either (a) vote against inflation (which is largely beyond the control of legislators) or (b) vote for gun control and children’s safety, as well as sovereignty over their own bodies through access to birth control and abortion rights.
On Meet the Press this week, Senator Cory Booker invoked the power of the great Frederick Douglass, who said, “power concedes nothing without a demand.” How are demands articulated? Through votes, of course.
Speaking of Meet the Press, all 50 Republican Senators were invited last Sunday. Not one accepted the invitation. What, after all, can they say to defend their cowardice in failing to reckon with gun violence in this country?
Australia and New Zealand have increased gun control and have seen a marked reduction in murders and suicides. Here is an article on the Australian gun buy-back program: https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback
THEY DO NOT ACT ALONE
Each time a person is murdered by one of these lone gunmen, remember they are not “lone gunmen.” They are supported by the rhetoric of our leaders, who brandish guns in commercials, pundits and politicians who use violent language and stark categorizations of those holding opposing views as “the enemy.” They are supported by the NRA and the gun manufacturers, whose lobbies lavish millions on our legislators, all while being shielded from lawsuits. They are supported by conspiracy theorists and social media and bots from both within and outside this country. They do not act alone.
And remember that each person who is murdered leaves behind a devastated family, traumatized friends, and lives that were made incomplete. Whether it is from a gun or the proliferation of prescription medication, from whatever cause, the loss of a child changes everyone around them forever.
KIDS WHO DIE
Some poetry for this week of mourning our war dead and our innocent dead, including defenseless innocent children, the words of Langston Hughes in 1938, provided by Adam Torson:
This is for the kids who die,
Black and white,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
As always,
Eating blood and gold,
Letting kids die.
Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi
Organizing sharecroppers
Kids will die in the streets of Chicago
Organizing workers
Kids will die in the orange groves of California
Telling others to get together
Whites and Filipinos,
Negroes and Mexicans,
All kinds of kids will die
Who don’t believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment
And a lousy peace.
Of course, the wise and the learned
Who pen editorials in the papers,
And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names
White and black,
Who make surveys and write books
Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die,
And the sleazy courts,
And the bribe-reaching police,
And the blood-loving generals,
And the money-loving preachers
Will all raise their hands against the kids who die,
Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets
To frighten the people—
For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people—
And the old and rich don’t want the people
To taste the iron of the kids who die,
Don’t want the people to get wise to their own power,
To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together
Listen, kids who die—
Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you
Except in our hearts
Maybe your bodies’ll be lost in a swamp
Or a prison grave, or the potter’s field,
Or the rivers where you’re drowned like Leibknecht
But the day will come—
You are sure yourselves that it is coming—
When the marching feet of the masses
Will raise for you a living monument of love,
And joy, and laughter,
And black hands and white hands clasped as one,
And a song that reaches the sky—
The song of the life triumphant
Through the kids who die.
-- Langston Hughes, Kids Who Die (1938)
Have a good day,
Glenn
From the archives: