On 12/27/12 I posted on TMV to discuss in part the issue of gun control – and so have many other TMV writers since 12/14/12 when someone shot some very young kids and teachers at a Connecticut grade school. Most of our nation’s 24/7 info-entertainment Media outlets obsessed on this subject for weeks and articles were written and published by every well-known and unknown commentator, pundit, blogger, writer and opinionator. Now a month later, the pervasive indifference resumes. How many people in the U.S. outside those directly affected even remember (or care) what happened?
So much has transpired in the U.S. and around the world since that day. Republican lunatics in the U.S. House of Representatives are threatening general Federal Default and government shutdown for March. It might be plausible and understandable to simply push gun control to the far recesses of our ADHD minds – or completely forget those debates as the National Rifle Association (NRA) would prefer.
Before anyone starts to claim I’m the cold, heartless, sociopathic one on TMV, I’m none of those things if you have read even a handful of my posts since I started part-time blogging in early 2009. However our national dialog has become so partisan, shallow, moronic and nasty that the best way to silence any discussion of any subject is to falsely and personally attack a participant with whom you disagree. Beside, facts and reality no longer matter in 21st Century America – only base emotional responses are encouraged within a completely diversionary and superficial entertainment context. It makes blogging so much easier and fun when facts and reality are no longer needed to voice opinions.
Too many Americans have degenerated to a state of perpetual amnesia and willful ignorance. I am more accurately described as a negative realist who is a mere observer and commentator of the rapid economic, political, social and environmental decline of this nation and entire planet. If my TMV rants upset you, then I’m pleased. I don’t like idiot “ditto-heads” anyway.
Many conservative zealots and Republican reactionaries do not view any government jobs as “real” unless the “job” entails a person packing heat (carrying or using a gun). Over the past few decades of cutting government programs at all levels, Republicans rarely cut those in the Military or Police – and the essential part of these publicly-funded jobs is to ensure law & order and impose centralized political and social will by means of threats of physical harm or punishment, or by using guns and other fun weapons to subdue criminals, terrorists, dissenters, and citizens.
The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world – per capita and by sheer numbers – compared to all other nations on the earth. We have the largest military on the globe with annual spending that exceeds the collective total of all other nations on the globe. Half of all the world’s private weapons and guns are found in the U.S. If an American is not enamored with power, guns, violence and war, he or she is probably an outlier and may be considered by some in our vast national security complex as a suspected “terrorist.” (This is a perfectly plausible yet peversely convoluted form of analysis that is pervasive in our society today.)
There have been some worthwhile proposals to limit access to guns by expanding and enhancing existing technology/biometrics to those people who have passed periodic licensing requirements so only certain guns could be fired by authorized individuals. (This one came from my old TMV nemesis Elijah Sweete.) Other proposals would heavily tax bullets and ammunition to ensure there would be fewer bystander murders when there are shootouts. Less enforceable ideas would limit the sales of certain weapons due to their particular attributes or to expand any national background checks and close existing “gun show loopholes” to actually weed out sociopathic gun nuts.
The nation is still highly polarized and divided over the possible need for and format of any gun control. The psychopathic NRA principally represents gun manufacturers and individual gun nuts across the U.S. It will ensure no gun control legislation will ever pass Congress – no matter how many Sandy Hook massacres occur in the future. All the periodic massacres and calls for gun control legislation merely increase gun sales – which in a perverse sense increases economic activity. It is important to note that new 3-D printers can now create working handguns in many types of metals (without any serial numbers or background checks) for use by any deranged person. So let’s move onto things that we can actually change instead.
I thought the original NRA plan to have armed security officers at every school could have been a good national economic stimulus proposal. If the Federal government would hire and train millions of new security officers to patrol schools, universities, shopping malls, public buildings, sports venues, and places of worship, we would have a new national jobs program. It doesn’t matter if people are just digging up things, building infrastructure, flipping hamburgers, watching porn on computers, marching around to Sousa music, or walking around public venues squinting seriously while packing heat, they would spend their paychecks and expand the economy in various ways so we could make some serious efforts to escape this long and persistent deep recession.
But no, some commentators to my prior post and politicians around the nation are simply too cheap. They want to “protect” us for free – or on the cheap by not spending much at all. The most popular proposals now advocate using existing teachers by having them (and school janitors, nurses and cafeteria personnel) carry weapons – since they are already on the premises and are being paid to “teach.” Naturally, most “bleeding heart liberal” teachers and educators objected – as if they didn’t have enough to do during the school day – than to assume the new and unpaid duties of security officers. But they were short-sighted and they cannot see the “big guns” from the huge piles of little ones.
The largest single expense for most all state and local governments is for public education. And over the past few decades – where have most of the reductions in public spending have occurred following endless tax cuts to further enrich our financial sector? Yes, in public education. This is for a variety of reasons but two stand out: 1.) Many older whites who constitute a large part of the electorate simply don’t care to pay taxes to educate a bunch of useless non-white children and kids of illegal aliens. 2.) We’re essentially cheap as a society when it comes to everything that is really important – i.e. paying for environmental protection, infrastructure maintenance, and education.
A slight majority in our society prefers to collectively waste billions of dollars encouraging fraudulent financial schemes and bank bailouts, and endless foreign wars and bloated defense spending. Individually we prefer to waste money on junk food and every new personal technological gadget that distracts us from relating to our fellow human beings and reality in general. In either case, too many of us really don’t value human life or the long-term viability of humanity on a planet with an environment we are negatively and rapidly influencing to our detriment.
But if teachers were considered essential parts of our beloved defense and national security industries, then they would be held in greater esteem in our society and they would have far greater job security. If it takes arming all teachers to stop cuts in funding for public education, then that would be a policy all teachers should embrace. They might even get tax deductions or credits (or direct financial assistance) to purchase guns and bullets, and get trained on how to use them. Teachers certainly constitute a group that is well acclimated to extensive background checks and periodic licensing requirements.
Perhaps if we changed their titles from “teachers” or “professors” to pre-ROTC “commandants” or “security officers” they would endear themselves to the far right ideologues that still dominate our public discourse and education policy initiatives. Is it not better to have well-trained salaried persons who will use guns only as a last resort in our schools than having a bunch of “itchy-finger” unpaid volunteer “gun nuts” protecting children? They should occasionally and randomly offer up some “problem” students to the NSA, FBI, local police and Homeland Security to ensure they are viewed as part of our Defense apparatus and to protect their overall job security before more public spending is slashed.
If education cuts persist and teachers continue to be laid off due to extreme right-wing ideology that no longer values public education in a nation ruled by a corrupt, greedy and sociopathic oligarchy, then at least teachers would already be trained in a number of viable alternative career paths for the 21st century that involve the use of guns – the only places where significant increases in Federal and state spending have occurred over the past decade. Not only could some former teachers serve the wealthy as bodyguards but they could also simultaneously serve as nannies and in-house teachers for their lucky spoiled children who will inherit most of the globe’s wealth over the next few decades. Better to suck up to the owners than starve to death. (I’ve been stupid in my life to not realize this, so that’s why I’m in the outhouse.)
I am surprised by the reactions of some TMV readers and contributors, and by many people I meet, that I’m not serious and I’m just arguing ad absurdum. In this surreal 21st century we now inhabit – devoid of most reality and based principally on subjective emotional thoughts – such offbeat proposals (aka “bat-sh*t crazy ones) are the only ones worthy of consideration and any possibility of widespread adoption.
If you can’t beat them – join them.
Submitted on Monday, January 14, 2013 by Marc Pascal, ranting happily from sunny but cold (under 50 degrees Fahrenheit) Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve got a front-row seat to all the lunacy and insanity that accompanies the final years of a global empire – and I’m loving every minute of thie view from outside the Matrix.