Guns, More Guns - Will We Ever Have Enough?

We were away in Britain when news of the horrific massacre in Las Vegas occurred. We were actually approached on the street in the small Cornish town of Fowey by an older fellow who overheard us chatting and noted our North American accent. He wanted us to try and explain to him how it is that Americans are so crazy about guns. The impromptu conversation also digressed into Trump, Teresa May, health care…

I think our reply to his initial query was less than sufficient. However, the following day British journalist Gary Younge who lives in the US and also does a column for The Nation, penned a penetrating response to that same question in The Guardian. It was so good I referred other Brits to it in subsequent discussions we had there before we came home a few days ago. It deserves much wider review.

But I don't need to tell any reader of this blog that we are bathing in a culture of violence. Younge talks about gun violence but he also notes the larger culture of violence as manifested in American exceptionalism. We returned home to see that the U.S. Senate had approved a military spending budget of a record $700 billion. As a culture we throw money at the military (not the veterans who have served) without regard for what we buy. Of course the powerful interests, especially the weapons makers and hawks will be the first to scream when an impoverished person grabs a little extra benefit for themselves or  their family, but not a whisper when it's the Goliath doing the thievery of the public purse.

Fortunately, there are a few dedicated organizations that try to help us see the waste and fraud, not to mention the foolish expenditures that come from military spending. In just the past week we see the Project on Government Oversight reporting on the $20-40 billion waste on the F-35. Or even more dramatic the many holes of waste shared by William Hartung in his piece last week for TomDispatch. Also on Tom Dispatch we hear from military veterans Danny Sjursen and Andrew Bacevich each making visible more tales of military fiascoes. 

Yet, if one was to follow our elected senators and representatives public comments or the mainstream media we would rarely ever hear a mention of such public ripoffs. Instead, we see a  military spending bill loaded with perks for each state and district, brazen enough to request items the Pentagon hasn't even asked for. The ground based missile defense system expansion and new satellite war toys are among the latest boondoggles our elected leaders are trying to bring to their home states and districts.

It's not good policy. But it is a reward to the many contributions the military industrial complex has showered on the Senate and the House members, not to mention the millions spent on lobbying them once they get elected. Without a strong citizen outcry, this game will continue with the rules concocted by those with the power and money. Time to get vocal. As the old chant from the 1950's urged, "Better Active Than Radioactive."

Call your Washington Reps and tell them to cut the military waste and boondoggles and use the money to help our neighbors who are hurting from climate catastrophes, poverty, and savage inequality.

Not Enough Bullets

I am struggling to remember an earlier time in my life when I felt like the world was as surreal as I find it now. We have a person in the drivers seat so self-absorb, most professional mental health experts I know concur  that he suffers from Narcissistic Behavior Disorder (NBD), based upon his public statements and behavior. 

        "Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultraconfidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism." (Mayo Clinic)

 As a result, he is making decisions that defy any rational worldview while bringing great embarrassment to the country he represents. If it was just the embarrassment, I would not be so worried. But his policy decisions are almost mind-numbing. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in his recent budget proposal that trades $54 billion for more militarization of our already overly militarized society, in exchange for a combination of tax cuts- mostly for the wealthiest, and reductions in social, environmental and diplomatic programs.




The utter folly of this approach is clear to most serious economists.  CNN Money Magazine called it

"President Trump's first budget can be summed up like this: Big gifts for the rich, big cuts for the poor."

     He would give a lot more money to the defense industry and wealthy                      taxpayers, and he would pay for that with an unprecedented slashing of safety      net programs for America's poor. (CNN/Money)


Of course, when someone does offer criticism the NBD individual often exhibits the following symptoms:

    "At the same time, you have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have secret feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation. To feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and try to belittle the other person to make yourself appear superior. "(Mayo Clinic)

While our NBD leader continues to keep everyone off balance trying to anticipate his next decision, tweet, or comment, others are busy at the state level reeking havoc on our society. Our legislature here in Michigan tried to pass legislation to repeal the state income tax while our schools, colleges, infrastructure, health care and safety net are disintegrating as we race to beat Mississippi to the bottom of the rankings.

While we dodged that bullet for the moment - they are regrouping, another gang of NRA legislative servants have moved to do away with permits for guns, and therefore with any required training one might hope the vigilantes would receive. Of course, they argue that the 2nd amendment absolutely permits citizens the right to own and bear arms of any kind, any where, any time. As I left the hearing room last week after offering testimony urging the committee members to slow the arms race, not to accelerate it, I was followed out by an open-carry advocate all the way to the elevator, concerned that I was willing to allow the police to be the only perpetrators of violence.

I am not a psychologist, but I wonder if the ardent gun enthusiasts suffer from a syndrome not unlike the NBD. They seem either paranoid that they will be randomly attacked by some scheming criminal just waiting for them to walk by, or they get some strange rush from having the feel of cold steel next to their body. They talk as if there are criminals everywhere looking for strangers to assault, whereas we know that most gun deaths are among people who know each other. Such was the case of the young man I saw shot and killed a few hundred feet away nearly 50 years ago. They had been playing pool the night before.

The committee just passed this legislation on a party-line vote (guess who voted for and against). The insecurity industry that feeds the fear is aided and abetted by the television and motion picture industry which fill the airways and theater screens with endless violence. Violence, where the hero, like in the old westerns of the last century, always manages to shoot quicker, aim straighter. The villains are dispatched and everyone lives happily ever after. Of course, those fictions never have innocent bystanders harmed. We don't see the orphans, the widows, the maimed. 

Our addiction to violence in guns runs from the continued enlargement of the US military footprint - now more than 800 military bases around the world, the number one seller of arms of all kinds to almost anyone willing to pay. Heck, if you're a friend (especially if you're a dictator or monarch) we'll give you the weapons as foreign aid. Who wins - the weapons makers. Lockheed Martin's stock goes up every time there is a rumble somewhere on earth that the US might get involved with. Who stands to make a killing if the US follows through with President Obama's plan to spend $1 trillion on our nuclear weapon arsenal? Will the guy who now holds the launch key, up the ante? 

The arming of citizens in our public spaces is simply a parallel response to the fear that has been sold, often by those who can profit by it. The gun as solution prevents us from addressing the causes of violence, the lack of a hopeful future and the escalating inequality. The temporary elixir of superior power is an addictive drug that permeates our society. A war on this addiction is not the answer any more than was the war on drugs or the war on terror. Instead we need an investment in social and mental health therapies. Starting with the guy with the nuclear codes.

Arming Ourselves to Death

Such a fixation our culture has on guns and violence as a response to fear. From Dwight Eisenhower's famous farewell speech warning against the Military Industrial Complex to the NRA's no holds barred to make sure everyone has a gun on them at all times, our culture is sick, probably cancerous, and possibly stage 4.

A report last week from a Credit Suisse conference in West Palm Beach, noted

       "major defense contractors Raytheon, Oshkosh, and Lockheed Martin assured investors that they stand to gain from the escalating conflicts in the Middle East. Lockheed Martin Executive Vice President Bruce Tanner told the conference his company will see “indirect benefits” from the war in Syria, citing the Turkish military’s recent decision to shoot down a Russian warplane.
        The incident, Tanner said, heightens the risk for U.S. military operations in the region, providing “an intangible lift because of the dynamics of that environment and our products in theater.” He also stressed that the Russian intervention would highlight the need for Lockheed Martin-made F-22s and the new F-35 jets. [The Intercept, Dec.4, 2015).


Who says war doesn't pay.Why else would the Center for Responsive Politics be able to show that in 2015 alone, as of data reported by October 23, the defense industry had spent more than $95 million lobbying our government to insure their profitability.

Researchers William Hartung and Stephen Miles reported last summer what that looks like by looking at campaign contributions to House Armed Services Committee Chair, Mac Thornberyy (R-TX). I'll spare you the details here, save he has collected a mere $250,000 so far this election cycle. Put simply more evidence that Eisenhower was right.

With that kind of money floating around, and it's only the money that isn't hidden or dark, we can see an increasing part of the corruption that is our electoral and political system.

The US discretionary budget is now mostly military spending. When you add veteran's benefits it exceeds 60% of discretionary spending!!!!


Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates used to joke that he had more band members than the State Department had foreign service officers. We have 800 or more military bases on foreign soil and constantly flirting for more. The more bases, the more we need arms to equip those we station there -- an arms merchant's fantasy.

But it is not simply our military that's loaded for bear, it's increasingly our domestic culture. Even since the tragedy of San Bernadino last week, guns are flying off the shelves; the same shelves that supplied the deranged killers with their tools for tragedy. Here in Michigan, our medieval legislators are trying to lift any restrictions on concealed weapons being in our schools, libraries, or other public places. Do we really live in a Gunsmoke world where we need to deputize and arm everyone to shoot when someone looks threatening?

By this picture our priorities, both national and individual, are responsible for accelerating the violence our fear mongering culture readily glorifies in television and motion picture crime and terror, that seems to get bloodier and bloodier with each passing season. There seems to be few willing to stand up and oppose this runaway madness. Congressional candidates are largely afraid they will be labeled soft, or will unleash large funds against their re-election campaigns, if they stand up to the military, gun toting mindset that so holds our nation's conscience hostage. 

Enough! It is time to challenge the constant feeding of endless war in our name through the upcoming budget process. Our elected officials need to hear from us that it is time to shrink the military budget and the number of bases and weapons that arm the world. Especially because the Defense Department has never been audited!!!  Legislation that would require an audit of the Pentagon has been languishing in a Republican controlled legislature for years. Why wouldn't self-described fiscal CONSERVATIVES want to insure that the funds we collect are spent well?? Who could possibly be against this?????? Perhaps we need only look back up to origin of the $95 million figure at the beginning of this blog.

H.R. 942 "Audit the Pentagon Act" should be on everyone's agenda. Check it out yourself and then contact your representative and senators to co-sponsor and support it's passage.

The countervailing pro-active response would be two actions:

1) Fulfilling our commitments to the UN Peacekeeping missions in which we are currently in arrears ($337 million in 2014)

2) Support the Department of Peacebuilding Act, H.R. 1111 which would establish an agency which's first job is peace through non-military efforts while building a culture of peace globally and domestically.

And speaking of domestically, the clear first choice in my mind is to outlaw the reproduction, sale and use of assault weapons. They were designed to kill people. they are by design a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION.  They have no use beyond that, unless making people afraid is a legitimate use. While I have no problem with people owning rifles or handguns on their property, their carry into public places is an anathema to me. 

These are much more sustainable choices than feeding the growing trends that promise to arm us all to death.Don't let the fear mongers win.