Beltane                                                Moon of the Summer Solstice

Here’s another strange phenomenon with the American nightmare. Each time a mass shooting happens, no matter the apparent motivation, no matter the carnage, pro-gun forces use it to emphasize how we need more guns. And, in another very peculiar and sad phenomenon, organizations like the NRA convince gun owners or would be gun owners that the ensuing backlash will, this time, restrict weapons purchases. The result? More people buy guns.

This is a world of inverted value, a world in which George Orwell would have felt at home, a world of a never ending Feast of Fools. Common sense notions like people use guns to kill other people become a rallying cry for increasing gun ownership.

The American dream. Yes, a true and continuing nightmare from which we seem unable to awake. Gunpowder falls over us like an evil pixie dust. People die beneath its enchantment. What other than a curse could explain the twisted logic we find in our newspapers, our online news sources?

Into this toxic environment clomps the drum major of fear’s dark parade: Donald Trump. Could he be the Lord of Misrule who finally captures real power? If we wish to sleep peacefully in our own beds, he had better be stopped. Otherwise angry dreams will more and more intrude on waking life, making this great country a Day of the Dead version of itself.

Beltane                                                     Moon of the Summer Solstice

Orlando. The Pulse shooting. A strange phenomenon is emerging in the reporting of mass shootings, at least strange to me. A question arises early in the news cycle. Was it an act of terrorism? There is then a back and forth about the shooter, their background, their possible motivations. If it’s determined that the shooter had jihadi links, then we put the act over here with a smug “I told you so.” See the Donald’s reaction to Pulse.

On the other hand, if the shooter does not seem to have Middle Eastern terrorist ties, then it becomes a person who was mentally ill and yet another instance, from the NRA perspective, where a gun was misused. No need to control the tool which, like plague bacteria, spreads death in its wake.

Do you see the strangeness here? The peculiar and often commented upon violent tendencies in American culture have become indistinguishable from the very enemy we fight. So much so that an initial analysis is required to separate good old homegrown American violence, just another mass shooting by some whack job, from an act of venal terrorism.

Pogo, “I have seen the enemy and he is us.” I said it before here. The NRA must be seen an organization that supports terrorism, both domestic and foreign. It’s policies have led directly to the rise in mass violence. Let’s shut it down.