A Tonic For The Soul

Those who read this blog with any regularity would most likely describe me as an inveterate cynic. Indeed, it has become my default position. Nonetheless, when I see goodness and positive resolve in the world, my heart can still be touched, although not overwhelmed.

The massive anti-gun protests that swept the United States yesterday has occasioned a hopefulness that I haven't felt in a long time. Organized and led by young people, some of whom have been personally touched by gun violence, the Washington component of the massive demonstrations is estimated to have seen over 500,000 in attendance. And make n mistake about it - these were people with a strong and explicit message directed toward corrupted lawmakers: our lives are worth more than the money the NRA is paying for your deadly complicity in the deaths of far too many innocents.

“Vote them out!” they cried, over and over, on a dozen jam-packed blocks of Pennsylvania Ave., the street that connects Republican President Donald Trump’s White House with the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress. “Vote them out!”

Near the end of last night's NBC broadcast, two reporters were realistically positing the end of the massive coverage the media have given to this movement, news cycles being what they are. Apparently, the young people are undaunted by this reality; they intend to continue and deepen their campaign for sane gun laws through something they are very adept at: social media. I hope they succeed.

One of the most important aspects of these demonstrations, from my point of view, is that they have spawned a sense of unity, cohesion and oneness that is anomalous in a nation as fractured as the United States is. And that growing unity, that recognition of the commonalities that bind us together can transcend the things that separate us, is what the powers of darkness (for want of a better phrase) truly fear. The reactionary right is well aware their hold is facilitated by sowing division, discord and animus. As Abraham Lincoln famously said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

To that end, the NRA is bringing its mighty guns to bear in order to try to disrupt this growing unity. For example, while it maintained 'radio silence,' so to speak, for four days after the Parkland shootings (surely tactical move rather than a gesture of respect), after that brief period it strengthened its digital presence:

The NRA was already spending an average of $11,300 per day for online ads alone before the school shooting on February 14. Since February 18, online ad spending has more than quadrupled with a daily average of $47,300.

The majority of this increase was spent on Facebook in advertisements that were targeted to Florida residents. The National Rifle Association also jumped into the top 100 advertisers on YouTube and has maintained this new status since February 21.

But that is but one of their tactics. Consider Colion Noir,
a pseudonym for Collins Iyare Idehen Jr., a lawyer and gun rights activist from Houston who has nearly 650,000 subscribers on YouTube.



I imagine there are few things the NRA would not do to continue its stranglehold on America's soul. It is now up to those who have seen and experienced so much violence and death in their young lives to do mighty and sustained battle against a seemingly implacable foe.

May They Inspire Us All

Their voices, I hope, are growing too loud to be ignored any longer:

And The United States Considers Itself A Civilized Country?

Enough To Warm A Cynic's Heart

No matter how bleak and pessimistic I may sometimes feel about my species, something always comes along to lighten my heart:





May they thrive, and may their momentum be unstoppable.

Student Passion Versus NRA Polish

I'll put my money on student passion.

Who Speaks For The People?

The NRA's Dana Loesch?



Or Parkland student Delaney Tarr?



You decide.

A Dying Cause

As a reasonably rational individual, I no longer look upon the ongoing cascade of gun massacres in the United States with either horror or sadness; the only real emotion I have left for that country is profound disgust. How else can it be viewed when it puts some mythically-infused Second Amendment rights above the safety and lives of its children?

Despite its hubristic clamour about being "the greatest country on earth," in my mind the U.S. is but an abjectly failed nation.

Even the latest tragedy, which saw 17 children and teachers murdered in Parkland, Florida, has left the NRA unbowed.

The head of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, leveled a searing indictment on Thursday against liberal Democrats, the news media and political opportunists he said were joined together in a socialist plot to “eradicate all individual freedoms.”

Wayne LaPierre can rail all he wants about elites who don't care about American schools. What is important, however, is that finally, real pushback is being exercised. There is, of course, the valiant and passionate efforts of American students who are all too often the victims of NRA-induced gun madness. But add to that the fact that many national business are starting to take something of a stand, which I would call a good but modest start, against the NRA.

It began with a Twitter announcement by First National Bank of Omaha:

Customer feedback has caused us to review our relationship with the NRA. As a result, First National Bank of Omaha will not renew its contract with the National Rifle Association to issue the NRA Visa Card.

That was followed by

car rental company Enterprise (which also owns Alamo and National) announc[ing] they would no longer be offering discounts to NRA members.

The pressure and the momentum are building:

These companies have partnerships with the NRA. Demand they #RejectTheNRA. #BoycottNRA pic.twitter.com/EyrltUEHgq

— CAP Action (@CAPAction) February 23, 2018

Subsequently, more companies have severed their ties with the merchants of death:

Both Allied Van Lines and North American Van Lines, moving companies operated by the same parent company, offered unspecified discounts for NRA members. On Friday, the parent company announced those benefits would be ending.

That has been followed by Insurer Chubb Ltd, Avis and Hertz car rentals and Symantec. As well, both Delta and United Airlines are ending their discounts to the annual gun-toters' convention. The Best Western hotel chain has done the same. I'm sure more will follow.

However, given the deeply-ingrained nature of American gun madness, it would be simplistic to think that success in bringing about even a modicum of sanity to gun laws is assured. Consider the NRA's reaction to this corporate hand-washing:

In a statement released Saturday afternoon, the group accused companies of “a shameful display of political and civic cowardice.”

“Let it be absolutely clear. The loss of a discount will neither scare nor distract one single NRA member from our mission to stand and defend the individual freedoms that have always made America the greatest nation in the world.”

Fanaticism has always been a force difficult to tame, let alone defeat. It will take more than passionate students and corporations that have recently grown a conscience. It will take the collective goodwill and rationality that I'm sure still resides in parts of the Unted States.

The question remains to be answered, however, is whether even all of these forces combined will be enough to defeat the powers of darkness epitomized by the National Rifle Association.

Crowdsourcing, Anyone?

Like millions of people around the world, I have been deeply impressed and moved by the passionate conviction with which young people, spearheaded by the survivors of the horrific shootings in Parkland, Florida, are organizing and demonstrating to bring some sanity to the gun laws of the United States. Their biggest obstacle, of course, are the politicians bought and paid for by the NRA.

Today's Star has a flurry of letters about the national obsession that has resulted in far too many unnecessary deaths. To my mind, the best suggestion for remediation comes from Scott Heaslip, of Stouffville, who writes:

I have a suggestion for the young people concerned that their elected officials refuse to support effective gun control measures. They should crowd source a fund to hire a team of lawyers and private investigators to look into the backgrounds and business activities of those elected officials who are more interested in the continued support of the National Rifle Association than protecting the lives of their fellow citizens. These officials may then develop the backbone to do the right thing.

That is the kind of campaign many, many people, I'm certain, would be happy to get behind.

The Ugly American

I'll let the oleaginous Republican Senator Ted Cruz stand in for the rest of his ilk:

NEW VIDEO: “Ted Cruz’s Top 10 Tips on Being a Hooker for the NRA” pic.twitter.com/dYXBj2kisj

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) February 16, 2018

A Truly Alien Nation

This weekend we celebrate with family and friends our Canadian Thanksgiving. As is the custom, we reflect upon the things for which we are grateful, and duly give thanks for them. This day, I am particularly thankful for what I am not - a resident of the United States.

The benighted nation south of us, which calls itself, without a hint of irony, "the greatest country on earth," suffers from a serious rupture from reality. To me, it is an egregiously failed country, one so foreign from my experience and understanding of what constitutes a civilized and mature society that it might as well exist on a another planet. It is truly an alien nation.

In today's Star, Daniel Dales writes about the most conspicuous aspect of the United States' moral sickness: its insane gun laws which, signs suggest, are about to go even further down the rabbit hole.

Even with so many deaths and grievous injuring marring the American landscape, including the latest massacre of 58 people in Las Vegas, the full-court press to make guns even more accessible proceeds apace:

This year, for example, Missouri Republicans allowed people to carry guns without obtaining a permit. Georgia Republicans allowed permit-holders to carry on college campuses. Ohio Republicans allowed gun licence holders to carry their guns at daycares that don’t put up No Guns signs and to store their guns in their cars on school property.

Before the Las Vegas shooting, House Republicans had been pushing a bill to make it easier to buy gun silencers [the euphemistically-titled Hearing Protection Act] . They have now delayed that effort a second time. The first delay came after a shooter attacked party congressmen on a baseball field in nearby Virginia — which, tellingly, prompted some to talk about loosening gun laws, for self-defence.

While a few states have slightly tighted rules, most are embracing, even extolling, looser restriction:

Charles Heller, a spokesperson for the Arizona Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group, said Arizona has passed “58 positive bills, signed by three governors, over 13 years.” He is pushing for more — such as a law allowing people with gun licences to bypass metal detectors at government buildings, as at the Texas state capitol, and a law making it legal to brandish a gun against assailants who have not yet caused physical harm.

Americans, it seems, have become inured to statistical evidence of the carnage caused by guns:

More than 33,000 Americans were killed by guns in 2014 — more than 90 per day. In 2015, the Washington Post found, 23 children were shot every day. Almost two-thirds of the gun deaths were suicides, which tend to receive the least attention.

One always reads that the main obstacle to passing laws controlling and restricting these weapons of mass destruction is the NRA. Of that I am not so certain. Sure, that dark organization has an almost unlimited war chest when it comes to influencing and buying legislators, but I doubt its agenda could reign supreme without one other element: a citizenry so deeply flawed, so deeply divided and so deeply fearful of their neigbours that only brute force and personal arsenals can offer a balm to their deeply, deeply debased psyches.

"They're Coming": A Paranoid NRA Interpretation of The Orlando Massacre

A little something to disturb your Father's Day celebrations:

In the wake of the massacre at Pulse night club in Orlando, National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre argued on Sunday that American families should arm themselves because terrorists were “on the verge of overwhelming us.”

LaPierre told CBS host John Dickerson that “we all mourn” for victims of the Orlando shooting, “but we face a terrorist challenge where they are on the verge of overwhelming us.”

The Home Of Free Speech?

Guess it depends on what you have to say:

A journalism professor at the University of Kansas was placed on indefinite administrative leave Friday after he Tweeted about the Navy Yard shooting, saying “blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters.”

This situation is a case-book illustration of Chris Hedges' thesis in Death of the Liberal Class.

Guns Don't Kill People - Video Games Do: Pretzel Logic From Fox

I'm sure this makes sense to many Americans:

And Now, A Word From America's Most Powerful Lobby

Such unctuous and pious hypocrisy I have rarely seen or heard:

BTW, what law were the protesters breaking that got them ejected?

Another Thing Americans Have To Worry About

Think how much worse things could be if guns killed people. But as we all know, thanks to the reassurance offered by the NRA, guns don't kill people; people kill people.