Shortly before his death in 2007, writer Norman Mailer in one of his last interviews, stated that he believed that “evil was on the ascent.” Worldwide, according to Mailer, the forces of evil were triumphing over the forces of good. Judging by recent events, and going far, far back into history, who can deny the validity of his statement. The horror the world has just witnessed in Colorado is but the latest example of evil spreading over the globe like a deranged but insidious blob. About a week and a half before the Colorado slaughter, another insanely murderous young man got on a bus in Bulgaria that was filled with young Israeli tourists going to the beach for a holiday, and detonated a bomb that killed six people. Supposedly a terrorist attack arranged by Iran to murder as many Jews as possible. As I’ve written before, a terrorist is just a serial killer looking to pile up more bodies. And the massacre in Colorado is almost one year to the date, that another lunatic in Norway went about the methodical process of slaughtering 77 people in a murderous rampage.
Of course, the murderous slaughters carried out by lone individuals is small potatoes compared to the activities of evil, brutal, government dictatorships that exist in far too many countries. In Syria, for example, the people’s efforts to bring down the tyrannical dictatorship of the Assad regime has resulted in in swift reprisals by the dictator’s military forces that have led to the killings of between an estimated 15-20 thousand people fighting for their freedom. The situation in Syria has been going on for over a year and has now developed into a full-fledged civil war, with unbelievable massacres and destruction of entire cities, but Basher Assad, a cold-blooded murderous dictator, refuses to give up power. The U.N. and world leaders, including our own, have routinely condemned the actions of the Assad regime, but refuse to take any action that would remove him from power. So Assad goes on slaughtering his own people, many of them unarmed civilian bystanders, while the rest of the word’s Gullivers look on as if helplessly pinned down by this despot, and take no action. In the latest developments, Assad is now threatening to use chemical warfare if the opposition appears to be achieving too much success. Won’t that be a joy.
Tyrannical despots rule many other countries besides Syria, but all have one thing in common. If there is any opposition to their regimes, the first impulse is to jail or murder the “troublemakers.” Freedom as we know it, doesn’t exist in places such as North Korea or Iran, or even in several countries in Latin America. It’s estimated that both N.Korea and Iran have murdered tens if not hundreds of thousands of their citizens who might have protested their dictatorships, while thousands more languish in their prisons, for simply advocating for free speech or press. Iran also is the largest state sponsor of Islamic terrorism, mostly directed against Israel and the U.S., and is rushing ahead in a frenzy to develop nuclear weapons. Both presidential candidates have vowed to take action to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear bombs, but don’t hold your breath. Only military action can prevent that from happening. My reading is, that, whichever one is elected president will not have the fortitude to undertake such military actions, and the window of opportunity is rapidly closing. If we don’t go in there militarily by sometime before the middle of 2013, Iran will almost have nuclear bombs. And their hatred of Israel and the U.S. is so intense that they’re just crazy enough to use them. Of course N.Korea already has nuclear weapons so it’s something the entire world has to live with. A highly paranoid, fascist, tyrannical regime with the power to destroy the world as we know it. I’ve written before about the evils of fascism, and we call all witness them currently on display in both N.Korea and Iran.
We don’t have that kind of tyranny in this country, but we do have a penchant for violence and paranoia. Some author once said that violence is as American as cherry pie. He might have also said that the guns to commit such violence are as available as cherry pie. The murderous tragedies in the U.S., just going back about 15 years from Columbine to the latest in Colorado have all been made possible by the wide availability of guns, ammo, bomb making materials, etc. to just about any individual, sane or deranged. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, there was an immediate surge in gun and bullet buying throughout the country. Guns (which are not cheap by any measure) and ammo were flying off the shelves. Gun store owners couldn’t keep up with the demand. There was, apparently, a wave of paranoia and fear throughout a large chunk of the population, that a liberal Democrat would somehow take everyone’s guns away, and people would be defenseless. Let’s face it, this country has a gun fetish.
The source of that gun fetish is, of course, is the National Riffle Association(NRA) which wields enormous political clout. Both Republicans and Democrats running for every political office, from president on down to dog catcher, pays homage to the NRA. Its been said that Al Gore lost to George Bush in 2000, because the NRA promoted the idea that Gore would confiscate all private guns if elected. The NRA avidly believes that every adult should own at least one gun, if not more. So in even the poorest slums, almost every individual possesses firearms which cost at least several hundred to over a thousand dollars. Guns are as prolific in America as candy. Any attempted discussion of even modest gun control legislation is met with fierce opposition by the NRA. Hence, we have a society where guns are readily available to any nut-case who has any real or imagined grievance against any persons or organizations they feel did wrong by them. What better way to relieve these grievances than to start randomly shooting innocent, unarmed people. It’s so easy too, thanks to the wide availability of weapons.
As long as the the NRA is allowed to wield the huge clout it currently has, we can look forward to more Columbines or killings at the movies. We’ve got a big problem in this country due to the wide availability of weapons and it’s not going to get any better until the population’s attitude toward gun control and distribution begin to change. That may be never, at least not in my lifetime.
realityincorporated 