|
Post by dharma4one on Dec 16, 2012 16:15:59 GMT -8
It took me a long time to figure out how to write something new on here but I think I found it. I am so mad though that I can't bring myself to recreate what I just wrote on my face book page so I'm going to paste it here:
Sam Scibetta 4 hours ago · What's on my mind? I can't put it into words. But I'm dismayed that life goes on here on the pages of face book. Nothing can be the same after the madness in Connecticut. I don't know why similar mass shootings have not had an impact on me but I am just wrecked by this and the realization that beyond the victims, the parents lives are effectively over. Sentenced to a living hell that can never be fixed. And what will we do as a nation? Something? Anything? If the killer had been Al Qaeda the planes would already be in the air. The shoe bomber forced the nation to take off their shoes at airports everywhere. What will this force us to do? "The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots from time to time", but these patriots are not soldiers they are children. Children sacrificed to preserve our right to privacy. "My child is not crazy!" say's the desperate mother as she refuses to sign the authorization for the special ed class in school. So who do you blame. The world is complicated beyond our capacity to navigate it and neither the Bible nor the Constitution are up to the task. Will we act or will we just react. Let's see which America comes forward.
Patty Wells Turnage Well said, Sam. 3 hours ago via mobile · Like
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I took the easy way out I know but this subject makes the tears flow and the more details I hear, the worse it gets.
Sam Scibetta
|
|
Brian
Administrator
Posts: 3,802
Member is Online
|
Post by Brian on Dec 17, 2012 0:09:21 GMT -8
Sam, I second what Pat Wells said on your face book page and add that you've captured the depth of feeling and thinking over this tragedy better than anything I read this weekend. I largely gave up watching television news on Friday after I found myself yelling at Jay Carney, whom I usually respect.
This might prove to be the mass shooting that finally requires Americans to confront the shared national sickness in our soul, both the causes and the means. We are a caring, empathic people. You said it -- what will we do? If more people -- it wouldn't take everybody -- just loved their neighbors after learning how to properly love themselves, perhaps the murderer, a kid himself, would have been better cared for and mom would not have felt the need to stockpile guns.
|
|
|
Post by dharma4one on Dec 17, 2012 10:27:58 GMT -8
Brian, I am cautiously optimistic that this is the time. I saw the vigil last night and I heard Obama. If he can just turn that into action then this may be the time. Re frame the argument. Our rights are not being taken from us. Instead, we live in the land of over abundant freedom. We have freedoms to spare. Will we trade some to save the lives of our children? There are monolithic and monied interests standing in the way of change. Will they prevail again? Money did not buy the last election though I was sure it would. The mourning process has not gotten started. There is more to come.
|
|
|
Post by Jeanne on Dec 18, 2012 20:06:25 GMT -8
Hi everyone,
The Abrahamic Faiths Peace Initiative is having a vigil at City Hall in LA tomorrow at 5, gathering at 4:30. We have a full car leaving from the CVUMC parking lot at 4. Anyone want to come?
|
|
Brian
Administrator
Posts: 3,802
Member is Online
|
Post by Brian on Dec 19, 2012 0:00:57 GMT -8
Thank you, Jeanne, for posting about the vigil by the Abrahamic Faiths Peace Initiative. What a great group. I hope that others can go with you. I'll be at a seminar on Wednesday.
Back to Sam: Specifically, what freedoms are you thinking about trading for safety? There seems to be a powerful momentum for some restrained and retreaded federal gun controls in the past few days, and maybe more resources for mental health care. Would you take it further?
I remember thinking on September 11, 2001 that air travel would never be the same. Since nobody has a constitutional right to be an airline passenger, I thought that even if someone had to consent to a strip search to fly, it wasn't prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. As for the Second Amendment, I believe that allows a male citizen to possess muskets that can only shoot once every minute or two, between reloads, while serving in his organized state militia. Wasn't that the founding fathers' original intent? (I'm an absolutist when it comes to the First Amendment.)
You're right on -- we need to act. Pass new laws, start enforcement and invest in social services. More immediately, we as a nation also need to stop sending drones to places like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen that kill innocent children, however unintentionally, in our name and with our dollars.
|
|
|
Post by Nancy on Dec 21, 2012 11:09:30 GMT -8
....As for the Second Amendment, I believe that allows a male citizen to possess muskets that can only shoot once every minute or two, between reloads, while serving in his organized state militia. Wasn't that the founding fathers' original intent? .... More immediately, we as a nation also need to stop sending drones to places like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen that kill innocent children, however unintentionally, in our name and with our dollars. Thank you Brian. I'm so fed up with convenient ommission of the first part of the Second Amendment sentence by gun freaks. Would they wear a jacket while hiking in 102 degree weather if they read this guideline: "In order to avoid hypothermia in the Alps in January, all hikers must wear insulating garments?"
|
|
|
Post by dharma4one on Jan 1, 2013 12:34:22 GMT -8
So I let 2 weeks pass before returning to this subject in order to let some of the pain and anger subside. It has not. What has subsided, in my estimation is the public outrage. They've moved on to the fiscal cliff or the football playoffs or who knows what. The NRA had its day. No surprise there. More guns is the answer. I am dismayed that life continues to go on. I feel the world has no right not to stop and take notice of this heinous of crime. I continue to recite the W. H. Auden poem in my mind, "stop all the clocks":
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.
"....nothing now can ever come to any good"
Hours after the shooting, one of my Face Book "friends" posted an article claiming US drone strikes had killed 178 children in Pakistan. He made no other comment. I exploded on him calling him tasteless and cowardly and a few other things and then blocked him from my page. I was mad, yes. He was right but he was wrong. What is the old saying, tragedy + time = comedy or something like that? He got the first part right but not the second. Children die all over the world and we remain blind to it. The US has a large footprint on the globe and we don't always pay attention to what's stuck to our shoe. But this has less to do with children and more to do with the identity of our nation. What kind of country are we and what will we become? Currently I am being influenced by a couple divergent sources. I am watching the HBO series "John Adams" and I am finally reading "The rise and fall of the third Reich". The former of course is showing the true nature and necessity of an organized militia and why it was essential to the survival of the infant nation that the right to said militia be preserved at all cost. We continue that today, the ALL COST part I mean. The second, the story of Hitler and how he was able to seduce a nation is, I think, essential reading right now. I have marveled for years at how politicians can convince people to vote against their own interests, and like it. I want to find out the secret because the gun debate is about to start again and if all it does is ban "assault" weapons ( with 863 exceptions) then we have learned nothing. We have much freedom but we sometimes lack the good sense to use it.
When I look up from the keyboard, above is my stereo amplifier. It has a big silver knob for volume control. It is numbered from zero to ten. If you will, I am free to turn it to ten. Who's going to stop me? But of course doing so will destroy my 38 year old speakers in a matter of seconds. Freedom. Worth it? A comfortable listening level is between 3 and 4. Which is to say that just because I can is not a good enough reason to say I should.
It may take a generation for this trend toward mass violence to be turned around but it must start at home. It must start at home and then ooze out into society and into our art, our religion, and finally, our politics. It must drill down to the smallest building blocks of the family and the way parents care for their children. Many things can shape the human personality but time is of the essence. Society should intervene at the first sign of trouble. No more burying the "problem child" in "special ed" classes and then forgetting about them. Do they have a learning disability or are they mentally ill? Every dollar we take from education is another step closer to the next tragedy involving a kid who's not right with the world. Who remembers when Ronald Reagan cut funding for mental health in this country? I do. I remember the tangible increase in people living on the street. That was a turning point, as so much of the Reagan administration was, in how we care for our neighbors and where the responsibility for that care lay. Reagan said not here. Not in government. And so it was. And the dominoes fell... through the cracks. So we forgot about the mentally ill in this country. Throw them in the street. Eliminate all but the most rudimentary care(the 72 hr. hold) and then sit back and wait for that bomb to go off. It will take a while but it will happen. We have dismantled our mental heath safety net in this country because we don't want to pay for "someone else's problems" and because we cherish our right to privacy. If anything is to come of the Sandy Hook tragedy we need to get a comprehensive retooling of our social safety net. Yes, the NRA is tone deaf and completely misguided in it's response to this tragedy but that doesn't mean that many of the things it said did not have merit. I have made a very good living in the entertainment industry for over 30 years but I will be the first to say that the portrayal of violence in films and tv and video games is outrageous, but it is just one of many parts to the problem . No, their proposal fell flat because it failed to acknowledge that the gun industry was even at the very least an unwilling party to the problem. They simply removed themselves from the equation. That's not being responsible, that's more like a lobbyist.
It's the first day of 2013. Do I think that any good will happen on this subject? Not nearly enough. Senator Fienstien will be heard from. The NRA will pound it's fist. The President will throw his weight behind it, but 20 young children will still be gone, and their parents will be scarred for life.
|
|
anni
Administrator
Administrating Designer
Posts: 1,608
|
Post by anni on Jan 2, 2013 19:36:20 GMT -8
Sam, this is exactly the kind of discourse Brian and I had in mind when we started the Montrose Peace Vigil message board. In truth, I think Brian's vision was more clear as well as far reaching than I ever dreamed possible. Thank you for giving substance to the dream.
For quite a time after the murders...all of them...I could only cry. Relentless tears. Still, I'm crying and sick of heart. I missed the anger stage, skipping right to, "What can I do to change things?" Start by keeping my ears and eyes open to any opportunity to help a fellow human. On Xmas Eve day, on my way to Curves (which was closing in one hour), driving down Haines Canyon...in the drizzle...an elderly gentleman, trying to navigate his wheelchair in/out of another muddy gutter in our hood. Just as I passed he stuck out his thumb. He needed help. He asked me to help him...and I did. Turns out he was trying to get to the Methodist Church a few blocks away, he had run out of food at his house...he was all alone and 92 years old and he knew the church served food to the hungry. So we got him into the car. With his wheel chair. At the church...only one car in the whole parking lot. I found the saint of a secretary and she said the soup kitchen wouldn't be open until the day after Christmas and she proceeded to put together a "care package" for Frank...bananas, eggs, a loaf of whole wheat bread. Taking Frank back to his house...helping him inside with his chair and groceries...I said good-bye...wishing, knowing I could/should do more. Telling myself, "It's a good beginning."
I will continue to sign every petition that comes to my attention and keep writing letters to my representatives. It's a start...but I want to do more.
|
|
|
Post by dharma4one on Jan 2, 2013 22:45:59 GMT -8
That's a start Anni. You know, Frank should not be roaming the streets at his age, but then, that hunger thing does sort of drive people to extremes. But seriously, Thank you for your comment. I have my face book page for pseudo-intellectual one liners but it's nice to have a long form space to really stretch out with some righteous indignation from time to time. I will be back when another thought presents it'self.
|
|
|
Post by Jeanne on Jan 3, 2013 7:18:23 GMT -8
Sam, this is exactly the kind of discourse Brian and I had in mind when we started the Montrose Peace Vigil message board. In truth, I think Brian's vision was more clear as well as far reaching than I ever dreamed possible. Thank you for giving substance to the dream. For quite a time after the murders...all of them...I could only cry. Relentless tears. Still, I'm crying and sick of heart. I missed the anger stage, skipping right to, "What can I do to change things?" Start by keeping my ears and eyes open to any opportunity to help a fellow human. On Xmas Eve day, on my way to Curves (which was closing in one hour), driving down Haines Canyon...in the drizzle...an elderly gentleman, trying to navigate his wheelchair in/out of another muddy gutter in our hood. Just as I passed he stuck out his thumb. He needed help. He asked me to help him...and I did. Turns out he was trying to get to the Methodist Church a few blocks away, he had run out of food at his house...he was all alone and 92 years old and he knew the church served food to the hungry. So we got him into the car. With his wheel chair. At the church...only one car in the whole parking lot. I found the saint of a secretary and she said the soup kitchen wouldn't be open until the day after Christmas and she proceeded to put together a "care package This communication community is great and I appreciate the tlc that Brian and anni have given this forum. anni, I am really moved by your story. The fact that you abandoned your routine and plans to help someone is love in action. I'm wondering if you realize that that Methodist church is one of the recipients of Empty Bowls funds. So besides your faithful weekly bowl making, you directly helped someone receive your contribution. Sam, I am glad that you are aware of the depth of your grief and are expressing it. I pray that you will be able to transform it into some kind of positive change when the time comes. One thing we can do is to persuade local mayors to join a national coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/html/about/about.shtmlI realize that changing laws is not enough. We need to change our nation's consciousness. Laws are a start. Stopping to help someone in need is another. Hope is subversive. Let's persevere and change what we can.
|
|