Writing more seriously?
... I mean, I feel like what is there to say that anyone who is decent and non-racist has not said already: Trump's racism (and it's not even dogwhistles; it's just explicit racist provocations to his base) supports, encourages, prods, and gives cover to white supremacist terrorists. Add to that misogynist haters of women. When I was little, growing up in a socialist family, gun control was a thing most socialists I knew distrusted -- don't leave the police the only ones armed, went the thought, or (more pie-in-the-sky-y) don't disarm the people in case of the revolution. Not that my family's flavor of socialism were wacky unrealistic believers in The Coming Revolution in the short or medium term. They weren't. But the general idea that it shouldn't only be the police and the national guard and the army that were armed for self-defense was popular, and the Black Panthers offered an impressive (and chic) example.
So when Columbine happened (or does this whirlwind begin with the Oklahoma City bombing? Which isn't guns, but is right wing white supremacist etc.) it was hard for me to see that gun control could ever happen -- not because of the recalcitrant (not to say absolutely sickening and corporate) NRA so much as the fact that individuals owning guns for hunting or whatever seems so much part of American history. Bad history, for sure. Colonialist and imperialist history, slavery history, race riot history, lynching history. Also better history: the Revolution itself, Shay's Rebellion, insurrections of the enslaved in the United States and in Haiti, arguably Reconstruction before the Compromise of 1877, etc. It is hard to imagine any kind of legislation that could literally go collect up people's guns. Yes, all the tightening on restrictions, that seems possible if the NRA's lobbying is resisted... but actually getting guns away from white supremacist terrorists seems hard.
On the other hand, what the fuck can we do? We must do something about this. Bernie Sanders had a petition demanding that all Congresspeople be called back into emergency session, which is a good shake up call. My sister thinks that the FBI and NSA should earn their fucking salaries and spend shitloads of time monitoring actual racists and neo-Nazis on the web. It's not like these people try to hide their fucking opinions. And a friend of mine who was a delegate at the Democratic Socialists of America convention this past week in Atlanta posted the absolute most depressing piece of political writing I've ever seen on Facebook (not as a result of the convention, which he said had its issues but was good overall) after El Paso and Dayton, that one-two punch. I don't generally think of this friend as alarmist or extreme -- he does a lot of work around grassroots DSA electoral campaigns like the recent successful Aldermanic ones in Chicago, where he lives. But he wrote (since I'm not attributing it to him, I think he won't mind if I quote it): "For the past several years I've been fearing the possibility of a civil war in North America, and recent events make that fear feel more legitimate than ever." That's all. But the comments (virtually all of them by socialist comrades, some of whom I know, many of whom I do not (now that DSA is about 55,000 people strong... though granted, LOTS of them are inactive online members. Like me, for the most part!) were something.
One Latinx immigrant rights activist commented that their people were now being hunted in the streets, and as far as gun control goes, if that shit accelerates (which was a whole other sub-discussion, about some 8chan [when did it double?] racist game plan called "accelerationism" with "lone wolves" testing the waters, as they've definitely done from New Zealand to El Paso) then when the community does react, people shouldn't expect "showers of flowers. So let that sink in." And my friend added that his fears are partly what happens if Trump loses the election and refuses to cede power, claiming his loss was staged. Would he get military and National Guard support? That's hard for me to picture, but as I say, I don't generally think of this friend as an alarmist. With fucking concentration camps for immigrant refugee children, it is harder and harder to resist using the F word to describe the president and the Republicans.
So when Columbine happened (or does this whirlwind begin with the Oklahoma City bombing? Which isn't guns, but is right wing white supremacist etc.) it was hard for me to see that gun control could ever happen -- not because of the recalcitrant (not to say absolutely sickening and corporate) NRA so much as the fact that individuals owning guns for hunting or whatever seems so much part of American history. Bad history, for sure. Colonialist and imperialist history, slavery history, race riot history, lynching history. Also better history: the Revolution itself, Shay's Rebellion, insurrections of the enslaved in the United States and in Haiti, arguably Reconstruction before the Compromise of 1877, etc. It is hard to imagine any kind of legislation that could literally go collect up people's guns. Yes, all the tightening on restrictions, that seems possible if the NRA's lobbying is resisted... but actually getting guns away from white supremacist terrorists seems hard.
On the other hand, what the fuck can we do? We must do something about this. Bernie Sanders had a petition demanding that all Congresspeople be called back into emergency session, which is a good shake up call. My sister thinks that the FBI and NSA should earn their fucking salaries and spend shitloads of time monitoring actual racists and neo-Nazis on the web. It's not like these people try to hide their fucking opinions. And a friend of mine who was a delegate at the Democratic Socialists of America convention this past week in Atlanta posted the absolute most depressing piece of political writing I've ever seen on Facebook (not as a result of the convention, which he said had its issues but was good overall) after El Paso and Dayton, that one-two punch. I don't generally think of this friend as alarmist or extreme -- he does a lot of work around grassroots DSA electoral campaigns like the recent successful Aldermanic ones in Chicago, where he lives. But he wrote (since I'm not attributing it to him, I think he won't mind if I quote it): "For the past several years I've been fearing the possibility of a civil war in North America, and recent events make that fear feel more legitimate than ever." That's all. But the comments (virtually all of them by socialist comrades, some of whom I know, many of whom I do not (now that DSA is about 55,000 people strong... though granted, LOTS of them are inactive online members. Like me, for the most part!) were something.
One Latinx immigrant rights activist commented that their people were now being hunted in the streets, and as far as gun control goes, if that shit accelerates (which was a whole other sub-discussion, about some 8chan [when did it double?] racist game plan called "accelerationism" with "lone wolves" testing the waters, as they've definitely done from New Zealand to El Paso) then when the community does react, people shouldn't expect "showers of flowers. So let that sink in." And my friend added that his fears are partly what happens if Trump loses the election and refuses to cede power, claiming his loss was staged. Would he get military and National Guard support? That's hard for me to picture, but as I say, I don't generally think of this friend as an alarmist. With fucking concentration camps for immigrant refugee children, it is harder and harder to resist using the F word to describe the president and the Republicans.