by Ernie McCray
My goodness.
Evil people slaughter
our children
and all we do is pray
and send loving thoughts
the survivors’ way
and TV punditry
airs it out
this way and that way
and the folks
we vote in
to protect us from such tragedies
suck up to the NRA
and let the opportunities
to deal with this American problem
drift away
like gunshot residue
fading into nothingness,
folks beneath worthlessness,
and when I hear them hem and haw
and withdraw
from conversations regarding
what to do
I feel like doing that
“nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah” chant we do
with our hands tapping our ears
when we don’t want to hear bad news
and I try to hear music,
in my “nah-nah-nah-ing,”
any music to drown out
their miserable excuses,
their cowardice,
music with blaring horn sections
and drums setting marching beats,
flamenco dancers
rapidly tapping their feet,
an upright bass in a jazz band
being slapped soulfully,
Yo-Yo Ma on the cello,
Gerry Mulligan, on the baritone saxophone,
Luther Vandross
singing a sweet love song…
Oh, how long
will we let this go on?
Can’t stand how they prolong
doing what it takes
to end this wrong.
Don’t they know that by
continuing to not do so,
the massacres will persist
down the line,
that this wretched form of gun violence
will continue to leave our children dying,
that protecting them should be uppermost
in our collective minds?
I tire of having to “nah-nah-nah” to drown
out the sounds of nothing going down
to keep our children safe and sound,
of having to scream for music
to ease my troubled mind.
Shame on us!
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Ernie, very sad but true. Unfortunately, Republicans only care about life when it is still in the womb. After that, they can’t be bothered.
Ernie, these killers aren’t ‘evil’ they are hurt, damaged, indoctrinated, manipulated, controlled, directed, and suicidal more often than not.
Mass shooters abound in the US but the Swiss have an 8.3 million population (children included) and 2 million privately owned guns but zero school shootings, mall shootings, church shootings!
This interview points towards the real problem, this country’s twisted culture. Nazi symbols and Confederate flags flying, threats and intimidation by religious zealots and racists who want to take this society back to the 14th Century…it is everywhere one looks. Now a ‘disgruntled’ so-called patriot can use a car to run protesters over in certain places and get off just like the vicious Stand Your Ground laws; and the Qualified Immunity rules for cops which is OH so very similar! And at 40mph into a crowd it will do enormous damage to human bodies. How do we change the mindset of a country founded on racism, genocide, and misogyny? It is so deeply embedded…
Switzerland: So Many Guns, No Mass Shootings | The Daily Show Throwback
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkuMLId8SqE
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from counterpunch.org’s Roaming Charges:
+ How many mass shooters are misogynists? The Uvalde shooter frequently harassed and threatened girls in his high school. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/28/uvalde-texas-gunman-online-threats)
He sent them photos of guns and threatened to rape or kidnap them. This behavior reminded me of one of the bloodiest mass shootings in Texas history, the Luby’s diner massacre. In 1991 a man ran his truck into a packed cafeteria in Killeen. Before he started firing his semi-automatic handguns, he screamed: “All women of Killeen and Belton are vipers!” He shot 50 people, 23 of whom died.
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Sorry Not Sorry: Agreed that nearly all of the mass shooters have been so-called ‘conservatives’ (who are NOT conserving anything) that seriously lean towards the extremist Talibangelical side of the Rethuglicans.
The majority controlled by the whacked-out minority. What a country.
sealintheSelkirks
Interesting thing you pointed out about the Swiss. A lot of people are totally unaware that Switzerland has one of the most lax set of gun regulations in the world and yet as you said, not mass shootings. It goes to prove that not everyone who owns a gun is a right wing fanatic. Biathlon is a popular sport in the colder regions of Europe and no one associates it with “gun culture”.
As for saying nearly all mass shooters are conservative, that’s a stretch. Sure most are but often mass shootings are not politically motivated. The Oklahoma shooter was not white and his reasoning for shooting those people were not political.
White’s make up most of the mass shooters but a significant # are not:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/
My comment was directed at conservative politicians who neglect to do ANYTTHING about this Bulls**t. Their first response after these mass shootings is “This is not the time to discuss this” or “let’s not react with emotion”. Later, nothing ever gets talked about and we keep riding this merry-go-round. The only children they care about are the unborn ones. Once they are born, they don’t care if they get killed in school, at home, or on the street.
RIGHT ON! MUCHISIMAS GRACIAS PARA JAZZ MUSICA!
Mass media has no one to blame but themselves…
‘’we have met the enemy and he is us’’… ( Walt Kelly. ‘Pogo’..1987)
Guess who the next mass shooters are looking for on TV and reading the paper…
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Yep… ‘’How could I get the most notoriety on the way out of this world that has bullied and pushed me around..”
“Shoot ‘em up is the answer….. I just saw it on TV”
…Thinking like the nut case who is bound to get even … even if it cost them their life…
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Mental illness and access to guns non withstanding….. The Media is their inspiration…
Mass Media has got to stop aggrandizing this type of behavior… by publicizing it….
Stop mentioning the name of the shooter and showing his/her picture on TV ad in the newspaper….
Stop this nonsense and do not feed the ego of the ‘nuts’ out there are just waiting for an excuse to get even and get some notoriety…
That’s my story and I’m stickn’ to it..
!Andale! Right-On; Gracias companeros y companeras !!