67 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 15 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
General News    H3'ed 12/16/12

On The Massacre in Connecticut

By       (Page 1 of 1 pages)   1 comment
Message Sherwood Ross
Become a Fan
  (46 fans)

(Article changed on December 16, 2012 at 23:20)

We are a nation that is not only starts wars around the world but which is at war with itself. That's a generality. But add up the availability of 300 million firearms with the psychological impact of  saturation violence filling the eyes and ears of our people from all forms of media and you have a lethal combination that predictably leads to massacres by unstable individuals. There aren't enough medical professionals in America to identify and treat every disturbed person with a notion to wreak violence. We have to take away the means by which disturbed individuals kill; we need to outlaw handguns and assault weapons right off. We've also got to stop the wave of psychological impressions that are pouring in over the airwaves and from video games and TV commercials that suggest it is okay to commit violence, that it is all right for Batman and Captain America to take the law into their own hands and use violent means to bring the "bad guys" to justice. We could also remove from video game arcades the machine guns players use to mow down their enemies and to ban sale of violence-filled "games" that make random violence appear "normal" to our children. There is also the matter of those Pentagon recruitment videos that depict armed young men storming across a battlefield holding lethal weapons who are supported by tanks and fighter planes----as these pictures glorify war.  No law passed by Congress is going to work (and I support such legislation) without a basic change in our culture.

This is a change that needs to begin with President Obama, who is consoling that relatives of the massacre victims while he is himself a culpable war criminal responsible for the illegal deaths of thousands of innocent victims in the Middle East, including children, by his military assaults and drone warfare----drone warfare that the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in UK says has killed more than a hundred children. Explain it to me: Why is the life of a child in Pakistan worth less than a child in Connecticut? Capital punishment, even with due process, is revolting but taking human lives without legal proceedings is madness.The use of drone planes in the Middle East is terrorizing populations, making parents reluctant to send their children to school or into the street to play---and President Obama bears direct responsibility for this. No, we need to put down our weapons everywhere, overseas in Pakistan and Yemen and Afghanistan and also in Chicago----where more citizens are being murdered by gun violence annually than the U.S. is losing troops in Afghanistan. Yielding to public pressure, President Obama may propose "gun control" legislation. But let him begin in the Oval Office. Let him call back U.S. troops from around the world and close down those 1,000 foreign military bases. Let him slash the Pentagon's budget and expand the Peace Corps budget.

The United States today is an insane asylum, and the President, tragically, is one of the crazies; he is responsible for the deaths and wounds of those he sends needlessly and illegally into battle. And his past inaction on gun control makes him responsible in part for the slayings at home.  We have slaughtered 160,000 of our own people by firearms since 2000 and we have killed several million abroad. I am deeply ashamed of my country, especially as we are capable of better things. After all, this is the nation that gave the world the Bill of Rights and the electric light, winged flight, the skyscraper, the motion picture, open heart surgery, great art, great literature, and much, much more. We need to make our culture glorify non-violence and diplomacy rather than aggression and war, and suit our foreign policy to that standard. Otherwise, we will continue to pay lip-service to the memory of Rev. Martin Luther King, whose call for non-violence the U.S. has never tested abroad, even though love is its animating power and must triumph in the end. The UN Charter says that wars begin in the minds of men. We need to pass laws, yes, but as well we must change the pictures we are putting into  those minds.
Supported 1  
Rate It | View Ratings

Sherwood Ross Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Sherwood Ross worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and contributed a regular "Workplace" column for Reuters. He has contributed to national magazines and hosted a talk show on WOL, Washington, D.C. In the Sixties he was active as public (more...)
 
Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

U.S. Overthrow in the Ukraine Risks Nuclear War With Russia

Radioactive Ammunition Fired in Middle East May Claim More Lives Than Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Obama Expands the American Warfare State

NSA MAY BE READING WINDOWS SOFTWARE IN YOUR COMPUTER

Inside America's Biological Warfare Center

Is George W. Bush Sane?

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend