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They sang all day long again today of a few futile murders in Arizona.
No talk of Afghanistan, no news of Iraq, nothing about the rain of robot bombs in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Nothing of veterans care, nothing about the soaring costs of gasoline, driving to stratospheric heights by the soulless speculators. Nothing of the homeless, no news about the silent unobserved foreclosures. Foreclosures crushing families like during the Great Depression. No mention of the homeless families and the growing dependence on handouts. [We cut welfare - we couldn't afford to feed the poor and unemployed.]
Mental healthcare, a pariah in the land of macho...missing in action... along with access to healthcare for the working and non-working poor. Blame the immigrants you waiting wanting Americans. "What are they expected to do?", asked a visiting Canadian, who asked about the poor - "Die quickly and unobtrusively." I explained.
Blame the immigrants, you Americans struggling at the edge of economic uncertainty. No surer of any step; than the tightrope walker poised between the Skyscrapers of Banking and Insurance. Your children in crumbling and unfunded schools, who visit the disappearing libraries in smaller and smaller numbers. But now thanks to the GUN LOBBY in Congress WE CAN bring our GUNS to the underfunded National Parks.
But lets focus on a couple deaths in Arizona, not the many deaths in Pittsburgh or Detroit, in New York or Chicago or Dallas and Atlanta no news of the lost and hungry children there. No news about a child shot in an invisible inner city neighborhood nothing worth reporting there. Hardly worth mentioning when we can moan and tear our hair about an important and significant tragedy like the shooting of a photogenic Congresswoman.
We can even take a moment to nod sagely and briefly mention non-existent Mental Health Services, and the peculiar American custom of holding the mentally ill, apart as if contagious and somehow morally responsible for their own illnesses.
And guns, [gun sales are up praise Jesus] despite the needless deaths of Kennedys and Kings. We must preserve the casual sales of high powered
repeating fire arms, because without the ability to commit bloody mass murder could we really be FREE? Without the free availability of weapons of mass destruction, we could hardly be the distracted indentured servants we are... I mean Americans.
We can hold secret prisoners in BLACK SITES, and call ourselves Americans, we can arm Israel as it drives tanks over children in occupied Palestine and call ourselves Americans. We can send Smart Bombs and foolish Congressmen to Afghanistan and Pakistan while spending palettes of bribes to tribesmen across the deserts of central, and bravely wave our flags.
No news this week from Afghanistan or Iraq, nothing about the secret prisons, no news about Bradley Manning or the nameless unmentionables living in silence in Guantanamo or Bhagram or any of a dozen other unknown BLACK SITES. Where they are being kept like apples, except the apples aren't kept in stress positions. Let's not mentioned the expensive returning wounded vet, the draped coffins, the missing limbs and lost innocence. THAT'S NOT NEWS... we have a wounded photogenic Congress person to discuss, oh, and TODAY's BIG GAME.
But let's not care for our mentally disturbed, because we can't
afford it. And by all means lets insure that the mentally unstable freely wandering the indifferent streets can still buy, rapid firing weapons. That's what makes America... free?
1 comment:
Richard,
I feel very much the same as you do. My sincerest best wishes go out to the families affected by the Tucson tragedy, I am constantly amazed at the lack of reporting on the chronic sadness experienced by the families of killed and injured military men and women. We need to increase media attention to the plight of the mentally ill as well as the hungry,homeless and evicted families in our country. How do we do that?
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