As for what can be done to stop this madness, here's a crazy idea. School age parents, K-12, refuse to send their kids to school until they're safe from being murdered there. Yeah, that's millions of children boycotting schools, civil disobedience on a mass scale, but what better cause could there be than the safety of our own children? I said 'crazy' and it is, but what's sane about the gun situation as it is now? Is it crazy to not expect your child to be killed in his/her classroom? Is it sane that this is the only country on Earth where this happens? Whatever the outcome it would certainly get a hell of a lot of attention.
One reporter, Amna Awaz, said that she talked to a child survivor. She smeared the blood from her dead friend onto her own body to fake being shot so the gunman wouldn't shoot her and it saved her life. Why is it on the kids to figure out how to save their lives? How did she think of doing this at such a grievous time? She is beyond amazing.
The sad truth is that there is no number that will be enough to satiate the NRA's blood lust.
It's going to get even worse when the corrupted court throws out New York's gun laws and rules all gun laws unconstitutional.
If there had been a breaking point it would have been when Republican Congressmen were shot at and Scalise was critically wounded. Instead Scalise doubled down on his opposition to any gun control and the rest of the Republicans march in lockstep.
We passed that number ages ago. Maybe it is an imaginary number. A negative with no tangible result. We love guns. We wallow in violence. Aggression is our behavioral legacy and practice. Our history is soaked in blood. Change it? We are numb and distracted. We do not set or own the agenda. What is the number of CO2 particles in the atmosphere that will finally drive us to confront irreparable global warming - 415 ppm, 450 ppm, 500 ppm? How many Western wildfires and burned-out homes will finally convince us that it is not "drought" but incipient desertification stalking the land? What financial inequity ratio between workers and the corporate elite will compel us to finally say "too much"? How many suicides, drug overdoses, mental pathologies, instances of severe bullying and sexual predation will occur before we admit that we are screwing our children and ripping away their future? How many blacks have to take a bullet in the back for a traffic violation before we confront our endemic racism? How large a homeless population is too large? What is the upper level of toxic chemicals and plastics in our food and water that will give us pause? Etc., etc. The rot is not a number. It is amorphous moral decay creeping into everyone's cultural bloodstream. It is easy acceptance of narcissistic leaders, selfish runaway individualism, gluttonous materialism. Vote the f+++++s out of office? We have all the numbers we need. When? When?
You always seem to find the right words, Michael, no matter how hard the situation. And THIS is by way one of the hardest, for the parents, for the school, for the people and for the country as a whole. I don't live in America, I'm not an American citizen, but people all around the world have seen what happened and we feel for these families who have lost the sunshine of their life, forever. America needs a change, we all need it if we want the kids to grow up in a better, safer world. It's on us to make that happen. Thank you for all these years you dedicated to this cause.
I am heartbroken and rage tweeting, donating, and sharing every anti gun post on FB. It seems like nothing, but doing nothing is worse. Can we gather a fleet of ice cream trucks, covered with the pictures of these slaughtered babies, the coward officers who stood silently by doing nothing but harassing the parents. Lets include pictures of every politician that is complicit, their NRA rating and cost of their silence. Audio of the shooting, 911 calls, police bullying, maybe the survivors stories. Project video of all the horrors. Drive these trucks through politicians neighborhoods, on their travel routes, anyplace these monsters gather.
If your podcast on how a small group of folks in the US own all these lethal guns/weapons is correct, how on earth do they have so much power??? Forget the numbers, the majority of us has got to take back control of this public health crisis!!! We need to be strategic, courageous and cohesive to shut this scourge down!!! I’m so angry about all the mass shootings and hearing those NRA suck up politicians spewing the same inaccurate & idiotic solutions and defending their precious guns over the very real loss of American lives! We collectively need to shut them down for the sake of all US citizens. Other countries have shown the way successfully, we can do it too!!!
Dearest Michael I could hear the weariness and heartbreak in your voice-You have been the lone voice in the wilderness for so long but please know you are not alone-your life's work has changed hearts and minds with laughter and tears. The Hopi Elders gave the US a prophecy on June 8,2000- It is titled the Hopi Elders Speak -It is imo profound and spiritual and I thought you would think so too.Please take care of yourself -rest and disconnect and renew yourself-we need you as we "let go of the shore,push off into the middle of the river,keep our eyes open and our heads above the water"
You know what will enact change ? Everyone walking off the job. Everyone refuse to go to work, hit corporate America in the pockets. Shut the country down. They will cave in a matter of days if we all stood united. They would force congress to get a bill passed.
I have felt for decades that we live in a very sick society. I came to the realization that America is eating its young. First, it was the young adults going off to serve in the military, some never to return or returning maimed or overcome by PTSD.
And now the young that are being eaten are small children. 😥😔
recall Albright's response to 500,000 Iraqi children killed by U.S. power: "...worth it." Recall Che's comment: "The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth."
I have said for years and years that Americans will kill each other in greater numbers than invaders or poison (remember Anthrax after Sept 11). Gun violence is so entrenched in our culture, so deep in the psyche of so many Americans, that it seems hopeless, an irreversible American oddity that is just that, sadly enough. Living overseas for many years and working in tourism, I would meet fellow Americans from parts yon hinter to the East Coast. Oh, they need guns in their cars because they might have to shoot a snake in the street, a bear might be in their back yard. An intruder might enter their home. The list goes on and on. There was that billboard in Times Square for years that had the number of Americans killed each month by guns! At that time, the entire European Union was 320 million people on 20% the size of the US . At that time, about ten years ago, more people died from guns in one month in the US than in one year in Europe, with almost the same population! Since half the households in the US have no guns and half have at least one weapon, there is no easy path ahead. Most deaths are accidental, which in my mind disputes any right to have a gun, unless it was locked in a special cabinet in your house, as used to be the case in the UK. When one wanted to go hunting, one would call the warden, who would open the cabinet--ah ha, the gun owner would be registered and the police would know when the weapon was being used. How could we convince fellow countrymen that this is safe, that this is sane? Too many people still believe they have a right to an arm, they are special and need to be able to protect themselves. It is a self fulfilling prophecy, a spinning wheel that just keeps turning and turning. We must begin to value life, to engage in family appreciation, whether good or bad, but so that the impulse to destroy life is somehow abated. We do not fight with fire. We put the fire out and that means extinguishing, period. Would a paid melt down work? To discuss. In the meantime, I pray everyday that we do not have to hear about these sickening aberrations. We can start by negating the idea of guns and weapons and westerns, as if we all lived on the prairie. What can be done to make lawmakers move? Any ideas are appreciated.
As for what can be done to stop this madness, here's a crazy idea. School age parents, K-12, refuse to send their kids to school until they're safe from being murdered there. Yeah, that's millions of children boycotting schools, civil disobedience on a mass scale, but what better cause could there be than the safety of our own children? I said 'crazy' and it is, but what's sane about the gun situation as it is now? Is it crazy to not expect your child to be killed in his/her classroom? Is it sane that this is the only country on Earth where this happens? Whatever the outcome it would certainly get a hell of a lot of attention.
Maybe it’s not just a number but if the victims were children of certain politicians and weapons manufacturers perhaps the needle would move?
One reporter, Amna Awaz, said that she talked to a child survivor. She smeared the blood from her dead friend onto her own body to fake being shot so the gunman wouldn't shoot her and it saved her life. Why is it on the kids to figure out how to save their lives? How did she think of doing this at such a grievous time? She is beyond amazing.
No more. I’ll be in Lansing, Michigan June 11 for March for our Lives.
It’s “their” fear, or our fear.
The sad truth is that there is no number that will be enough to satiate the NRA's blood lust.
It's going to get even worse when the corrupted court throws out New York's gun laws and rules all gun laws unconstitutional.
If there had been a breaking point it would have been when Republican Congressmen were shot at and Scalise was critically wounded. Instead Scalise doubled down on his opposition to any gun control and the rest of the Republicans march in lockstep.
We passed that number ages ago. Maybe it is an imaginary number. A negative with no tangible result. We love guns. We wallow in violence. Aggression is our behavioral legacy and practice. Our history is soaked in blood. Change it? We are numb and distracted. We do not set or own the agenda. What is the number of CO2 particles in the atmosphere that will finally drive us to confront irreparable global warming - 415 ppm, 450 ppm, 500 ppm? How many Western wildfires and burned-out homes will finally convince us that it is not "drought" but incipient desertification stalking the land? What financial inequity ratio between workers and the corporate elite will compel us to finally say "too much"? How many suicides, drug overdoses, mental pathologies, instances of severe bullying and sexual predation will occur before we admit that we are screwing our children and ripping away their future? How many blacks have to take a bullet in the back for a traffic violation before we confront our endemic racism? How large a homeless population is too large? What is the upper level of toxic chemicals and plastics in our food and water that will give us pause? Etc., etc. The rot is not a number. It is amorphous moral decay creeping into everyone's cultural bloodstream. It is easy acceptance of narcissistic leaders, selfish runaway individualism, gluttonous materialism. Vote the f+++++s out of office? We have all the numbers we need. When? When?
You always seem to find the right words, Michael, no matter how hard the situation. And THIS is by way one of the hardest, for the parents, for the school, for the people and for the country as a whole. I don't live in America, I'm not an American citizen, but people all around the world have seen what happened and we feel for these families who have lost the sunshine of their life, forever. America needs a change, we all need it if we want the kids to grow up in a better, safer world. It's on us to make that happen. Thank you for all these years you dedicated to this cause.
excellent summary & commentary....Michael is our national saint...
I am heartbroken and rage tweeting, donating, and sharing every anti gun post on FB. It seems like nothing, but doing nothing is worse. Can we gather a fleet of ice cream trucks, covered with the pictures of these slaughtered babies, the coward officers who stood silently by doing nothing but harassing the parents. Lets include pictures of every politician that is complicit, their NRA rating and cost of their silence. Audio of the shooting, 911 calls, police bullying, maybe the survivors stories. Project video of all the horrors. Drive these trucks through politicians neighborhoods, on their travel routes, anyplace these monsters gather.
If your podcast on how a small group of folks in the US own all these lethal guns/weapons is correct, how on earth do they have so much power??? Forget the numbers, the majority of us has got to take back control of this public health crisis!!! We need to be strategic, courageous and cohesive to shut this scourge down!!! I’m so angry about all the mass shootings and hearing those NRA suck up politicians spewing the same inaccurate & idiotic solutions and defending their precious guns over the very real loss of American lives! We collectively need to shut them down for the sake of all US citizens. Other countries have shown the way successfully, we can do it too!!!
Dearest Michael I could hear the weariness and heartbreak in your voice-You have been the lone voice in the wilderness for so long but please know you are not alone-your life's work has changed hearts and minds with laughter and tears. The Hopi Elders gave the US a prophecy on June 8,2000- It is titled the Hopi Elders Speak -It is imo profound and spiritual and I thought you would think so too.Please take care of yourself -rest and disconnect and renew yourself-we need you as we "let go of the shore,push off into the middle of the river,keep our eyes open and our heads above the water"
Love you Brother Michael
You know what will enact change ? Everyone walking off the job. Everyone refuse to go to work, hit corporate America in the pockets. Shut the country down. They will cave in a matter of days if we all stood united. They would force congress to get a bill passed.
Zero. It is not the number.
I have felt for decades that we live in a very sick society. I came to the realization that America is eating its young. First, it was the young adults going off to serve in the military, some never to return or returning maimed or overcome by PTSD.
And now the young that are being eaten are small children. 😥😔
There is no number 😕.
PEACE to all who heard your awesome words, Michael, and the thoughtful music,that surround them, Moves me.
On June 11 in Seattle, WA., MARCH FOR OUR LIVES, the sequel; I will attend.
I will think of you at the MARCH FOR OUR LIVES in Lansing, Sean.
After the shock:
Despair is not an option, put one foot in front of the other today, we go forward together.
recall Albright's response to 500,000 Iraqi children killed by U.S. power: "...worth it." Recall Che's comment: "The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth."
I have said for years and years that Americans will kill each other in greater numbers than invaders or poison (remember Anthrax after Sept 11). Gun violence is so entrenched in our culture, so deep in the psyche of so many Americans, that it seems hopeless, an irreversible American oddity that is just that, sadly enough. Living overseas for many years and working in tourism, I would meet fellow Americans from parts yon hinter to the East Coast. Oh, they need guns in their cars because they might have to shoot a snake in the street, a bear might be in their back yard. An intruder might enter their home. The list goes on and on. There was that billboard in Times Square for years that had the number of Americans killed each month by guns! At that time, the entire European Union was 320 million people on 20% the size of the US . At that time, about ten years ago, more people died from guns in one month in the US than in one year in Europe, with almost the same population! Since half the households in the US have no guns and half have at least one weapon, there is no easy path ahead. Most deaths are accidental, which in my mind disputes any right to have a gun, unless it was locked in a special cabinet in your house, as used to be the case in the UK. When one wanted to go hunting, one would call the warden, who would open the cabinet--ah ha, the gun owner would be registered and the police would know when the weapon was being used. How could we convince fellow countrymen that this is safe, that this is sane? Too many people still believe they have a right to an arm, they are special and need to be able to protect themselves. It is a self fulfilling prophecy, a spinning wheel that just keeps turning and turning. We must begin to value life, to engage in family appreciation, whether good or bad, but so that the impulse to destroy life is somehow abated. We do not fight with fire. We put the fire out and that means extinguishing, period. Would a paid melt down work? To discuss. In the meantime, I pray everyday that we do not have to hear about these sickening aberrations. We can start by negating the idea of guns and weapons and westerns, as if we all lived on the prairie. What can be done to make lawmakers move? Any ideas are appreciated.