Washington, DC – One can only hope that henceforth there will be no one sitting behind any candidates this election season. A young man, having nothing better to do, took his father’s rifle and thought, “It’s hot,” let’s go shoot at Trump. He killed one man and critically injured two others while barely missing Trump’s head.
There is always much angst about the why of all of this madness. There is no why. Someone just felt like it. That’s not mental illness; that’s soul sickness. The how is much more important, and so is the why of the catastrophic failure of all the law enforcement entities tasked with ensuring such a thing doesn’t happen.
Since it has been decided by our sequential governments, all branches, that it is more important to allow business enterprises to rake in money by creating and selling weapons of mass destruction to all and sundry, human life no longer counts for much unless, of course, it hasn’t gotten born yet.
Like Romney said, corporations are people too. Seriously, he actually said something that stupid. Corporations are not people, but they do have legal rights. In many cases, those rights supersede those of flesh and blood, you and me.
Currently, there is an effort from the “right” to further roll back environmental protections since those regulations cost businesses money. There are increasingly more areas where water isn’t potable. Those of us who are of a certain age well remember what it was like to have air you could see. Los Angeles was under so much smog, week after week, that it couldn’t be seen from above. California’s attempts to regulate the filth that comes from cars is getting pushback. The under-financing of the FDA has led to food adulteration becoming a weekly occurrence. Our food, water, and air are under assault because corporations have more rights, it seems, than our right to breathe.
What will it take to wake folks up to the rollback of regulations put in place to protect humans from foul air, polluted water, and food? Most of the humans currently living here have been able to take for granted that the government will make sure everything is ok, but gradually, with attacks on regulations and courts who, having given preferred status to business entities, make decisions that favor profit over a healthy environment, that is no longer true.
What will it take to wake folks up to the horrifying carnage occurring each day, every day, not just in the cities but anytime, everywhere: a car show, a park, a church, a school, a store, a movie house, a business? Everywhere, every day. Our government and OUR courts have decided that our right to life simply cannot compete with the rights of gun makers to make weapons designed for war and sell them to anyone and everyone.
We humans don’t have lobbyists. We don’t advertise on TV, in magazines, and every social media outlet. We don’t pay “influencers” to spread false or misleading claims. We are outgunned and outspent. We get to vote, but since campaigns are so expensive, every candidate depends on big money. All that blather about small donations simply obfuscates the real influencers. You have to stay with the one who bought you, or you won’t have a job after the next go-round.
The billionaires who control access to social media take no responsibility for the lies spread on their platforms. A grotesque amount of money comes from all those pop-up ads constantly showing up wherever one tries to look. Every time you look, that information is used to influence your next move, and the money rolls in.
For the next four years, it is very likely that this country will experience an incipient “strong man” government. We have been warned. We read their plans. Now, Americans will get to live through a nasty period of upheaval not seen since the Civil War. It will be equally uncivil, and we can only hope it doesn’t precipitate an actual hot war. It can happen here. It probably won’t last long. Trumpism depends on there being a “Trump”. When the Donald goes, as we all must at last, the cult goes. Watching all the toadies try to grab a piece of the pie will be interesting.
