Now, Uvalde: Let's Get Biblical - It's Time

Of all the mass shootings in America, none rattles us like the school shootings. For obvious reasons, they cut us to our core. We cry in unison from a thousand miles away. Sandy Hook, Parkland, Columbine; now Uvalde. Between sobs, our leaders invoke such rantings as, "Something must be done!" But, there is no mention of sacrifice because there is no heart for true sacrifice where sacrifice is desperately needed.

These mass shootings are like singular plagues, the kind that rocked Egypt during the time of Moses - boils, lice, blood, darkness... "even darkness which may be felt" (Exod. 10:21). Each plague, though devastating, failed to sway the Pharaoh from keeping his Hebrews enslaved. What will it take to sway America from keeping its guns? (I wouldn't want to say even if I knew because it will be so terrible that all 330 million of us will run with our guns to the nearest ditch, and throw them into the fire; and, strange to say, suddenly begin to live better lives.) Just think, for all of the ten plagues God visited upon Egypt, it took the parting of the Red Sea to free Pharoah from his addiction. 

Let's face it: Americans are no more capable of solving their gun problems than Pharaoh was of solving his issues. Such a daunting task is not for men and women whose true purposes is to serve their vanities. First, overshadowing all efforts to fix this problem is the 2nd Amendment - Americans' right to bear. Apparently, that right is sacrosanct. But, how sacred could such a right be when no other nation espouses it; nor does any other document, save our own U.S. Constitution, which once espoused this right 250 years ago? Given a chance today speak for itself, that same Constitution would not dare espouse that right again. 

Today, America is a war zone: 400 million guns in the hands of 330 million citizens. What are the targets of so many weapons?  Can't be wild animals. We've killed most of them. The few poor creatures left must keep their heads down last trigger-happy America shoots the survivors for fun. The targets must be Americans, themselves. With that in mind, what individual would unilaterally disarm, leaving himself at the mercy of fellow Americans who choose not to? The alternative is what we have: Lock & load: (keep up with the Joneses)

For Americans to simply toss their guns away would be the equivalent of the antebellum South having the strength and wisdom to cast aside slavery. They didn't have it First, the South was firmly convinced that slavery was their right, safely embedded, as it was, in the Constitution. Second, they loved slavery; they loved their slaves. 

Thenn, came Abe Lincoln, and the Union army. The northerners wrested slavery from the South, and ended it. The North was able to do this only after spending the previous 200 years weaning itself off of slavery. Imagine how impossible ending slavery in American would have been had the North continued to embrace it along with the South. Fortunately, we were deeply divided. When it comes to guns, however, borth sides of the Mason-Dixon line is enthralled - so much so, that he - (guns) - is unregonizable as a killer, and is played off as an innocent, even as a savior. Do not be fooled. Guns are not innocents. They are bombs waiting for a chance to explode.  

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, and the subsequent ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865, abolished all slavery in America. This nation was finally released from its self-imposed shackles - freed to become the democracy it had previously only pretended to be. Now, we are faced with another such desperate, and defining moment. 

Four hundred million guns in the hands of America's citizenry is every bit a failure of our society as was four million African-Americans in bondage. Only through the abolishment of these weapons will America become a society worthy of the future the Founding Fathers once envisioned. Absent that, America will continue its headlong descent into more death, and darkness. 

Russia v. Ukraine

 "He has come to open the purple testament of bleeding war." - Richard III, Shakespeare

What has gotten into these people? Look at the Ukrainian soldiers hunkered down in the Azovetal Steel plant in Mariupol. While we marvel at their courage, we must wonder, "Why don't they surrender?" 

In World War II, Stalin forbade his troops to surrender to the Germans. He expected them all to fight to the death. If they surrendered, he considered them traitors. His own son was taken prisoner by the Germans. When the Germans realized they had captured Stalin's son, they offered him up in a prisoner exchange. Stalin replied, "I have no son."

Hitler was no better. He forbade his generals to retreat, no matter the circumstance. In Stalingrad, over 100,000 German soldiers of the 6th Army were trapped by Russian troops. To preclude a surrender by the commanding general, Friedrich von Paulus, Hitler promoted him to Field Marshal. That was the highest honor. No German field marshal had ever surrendered his army. Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrendered anyway. Ninety thousand German troops were marched from Stalingrad to Moscow in the dead of winter. Of those 90,000 men, only 5,000 made it back to Germany alive. That is the nature of these people. Their history is in them. 

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Chemical Warfare

What is the difference between nations using chemical weapons against their enemies - which is a war crime according to the Geneva Convention - and the police using tear gas, which is a chemical agent, against their own citizens? 

I know what tear gas does. I was tear-gassed, indirectly, (collaterally). I thought I would die. When it happens, you can neither see it, nor smell it. Suddenly, you simply cannot breathe. It starts with a cough, then gagging. Panic quickly sets in. (That's what happens when you find you can't breathe.) Someone yells, "Tear gas!" Now, you understand. But, there is nothing you can do. Too late to cover your nose, your mouth. It is not about tears, it is about breathing. Most people survive a tear gas attack. But, they never forget that moment when they could not breathe. 

Terror of the Wand

Ten years ago, the Michigan Department of Corrections implemented a high-tech system for doing prisoner count: Each officer is issued a heavy, metal wand they use to press against a metal nodule embedded in each prisoner's door. Presumably, they are to gently press the wand against the nodule to register a requisite "beep". Being that the wand is a sturdy object, however, allows the officer, if he pleases, to slam it against the nodule (with no apparent effect upon the wand, itself). The negative effect of said "slamming" upon prisoners' mental and physical health should not be understated. 

These officers do not need to bang against the prisoners' cell doors to complete their count. We know this because there are officers who come in and do their jobs - perform their prisoner counts - without a single "bang." The only noise they generate is an innocuous "beep."  

Banging against the doors seems to be a matter of choice, (if not one of peer pressure to conform to this aberrant norm.) They do not always slam their wands against the doors. Sometimes they rake it over the nodule, or tap, tap, tap at it, always producing that discomforting, grating sound of metal against metal. (Who would devise such a clunky system in the 21st century? Who would buy it, and place it in the hands of a workforce that, throughout history, has been notorious for its visceral cruelty?)

Observing these officers as they wield their wands, I am startled at their unbridled insensitivity. Could they be as oblivious to the stress they wreak upon prisoners as they appear? But, no, even the worst offender will favor a prisoner, from time to time, and go light on his door, signaling a consciousness of wrongdoing; confirming that much of their banging is purposeful, and malign. 

This prisoner count occurs every half hour, day and night. For a prisoner to be subjected to such a consistent barrage might be construed as a low-level form of torture. (Sometimes they rap it so hard, my insides quake, and my blood pressure soars.) Please, imagine someone banging on your door, your wall every half-hour of every day - while you eat read, and sleep. How long would it take for your nerves to begin to fray; like mine have frayed?

I once told an officer, "I wouldn't kick the side of a dog's house the way you (figuratively) kick ours - not even a dog I disliked - because that would be cruel." What these people are doing is the equivalent of zookeepers poking at the caged animals. No one would allow that. Yet, here men as helpless as animals are poked all day long. 

Mind you, these are not renegade officers who bang on our doors. The exception is the officer who does his count without cruelty. The rule is officers who perform those duties with a callous disregard. And, it isn't just the prison guards. Mid-level and upper-level administrators condone this behavior. (How else could it have gone on for years throughout Michigan's prison system?) Besides, many of the administrators bang on the doors, themselves. Even healthcare workers - people whose profession it is to relieve suffering - bang on the doors. I have personally appealed to nurses and doctors, and nothing has changed - not the behavior of the officers who work beside them, nor their own behavior. 

One healthcare worker told me there was nothing she could do and suggested that I find a way to accept it That is like telling someone who is being waterboarded to find another way to breathe. Why should anyone have to accept abuse? Get used to it? That is impossible. You don't "get used" to abuse. You might survive it, but each day of that survival stretches thin your humanity until you become a sliver of who you were. 

Noise affects all human, and animal lifeforms. Noise frightens and unnerves us. It negatively impacts what sense of security we may possess. There is no reason to implement such an oppressive system that ensures gratuitous noise where no noise is needed to complete the required task. The people who approved this count system, and those who execute it, seem to proceed from the notion that the imprisoned have no feelings free men are bound to respect. That would be a false conceit.  

Hypocrisy Run Amok

American sanctions against Saddam Hussein caused the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi children. When asked by ABC's Barbara Walters if it was worth it, then-Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright - on national TV - paused for a moment, and said, "That is a tough question, but, yes, it was worth it to protect...blah, blah, blah...the American people...blah, blah, blah...from Saddam Hussein...blah, blah..." 

I was astounded. Albright not only acknowledged that it happened, which is extraordinary, but she said: "it was worth it." One hundred thousand children sacrificed to secure an ideology. Sounds like something Stalin would have done. Yet, this happened in America, by Americans, on the eve of the 21st century. 

Then last week, on Fox's "The Five," co-host, Geraldo Rivera, called Russia's President Putin "a beast" whose shelling has caused the deaths of 105 Ukrainian children. Fellow co-host, Jesse Watters, lamented how these "civilized people" were being murdered, (as though the uncivilized people of Iraq and Afghanistan were simply collateral damage.) I suspect to Rivera, Korea who, thanks to US sanctions, die as we speak, do not matter much, either. I just wonder: Do we Americans has a national conscience, besides the fake one, I mean, that tells us how compassionate we are. 

Last month, President Biden decreed that of the seven billion dollars of Afghan funds the US holds, he will give 3.5 billion to 911 survivors - the same survivors whom we have already lavished millions upon since that tragic day 20 years ago. Biden, too, must consider the Afghan people "uncivilized" and therefore unworthy of what belongs to them, and what they so desperately need.  

America's hypocrisy runs amok. Do we not see ourselves? Are we not still a Christian nation? Do not believe God is watching? Do we care? 

King James

Lebron James, who is recently averaging close to 40 points a game, declares he is having "the time of his life." His team, on the other hand - the Los Angeles Lakers - are getting their doors blown off most every night. They are currently 11 games under .500. I wonder if his teammates are having as much fun as he. Lebron seems to have taken the tact, "Hey, I'm winning my match-ups every night. They're the ones losing." 

Something has changed with Lebron. He was "old school" - of the fraternity of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Kobe Bryant. There, losing is hateful. That's all. Suddenly, Lebron finds a way to factor losing into a good night?  

Hands Down, Play Ball

Defense wins games; offense sells tickets. This might have presented a conundrum, except NBA teams, and the league, itself, work from separate paradigms. Teams want to win games. They will be happy winning a game 50-49. The league, on the other hand, wants shoot-outs. It doesn't care who wins. When offenses are spectacular, ratings rise; the league wins. And, the league has made this decision: Hands down, play ball.

The NBA will not admit it, but it discourages defense. (Why do you think they let players "step" all over the place?) Contesting shots only slow the game down. And teams - certainly players - are willing falling in line. Think about it: They accumulate most of their fouls on the defensive side of the ball. Play too much defense, like Giannis Antetokounmpo did the other night, and you end up fouling out, which severely limits your offensive output. Just ain't worth it. Besides, adulation, pay checks, post season honors, are all infinitely more impacted by offensive production, than what is done at the other end of the court. 

Lebron James know what time it is. Once a stellar defender, he now saves his 37-year-old legs for the offensive end of the court. He doesn't win many games, these days, but as he, himself, says, he is having a damned good time.  

 

More Weapons, More Weapons...More Blood

There is no romance in war. Romance is for the movies, and literature books. War is bloodshed and death. Yet, Americans want to romanticize the Ukraine debacle, and pretend that the glorious Ukrainian people have reaffirmed our faith in the human spirit. They have not. The nature of most biologies, when cornered, is to fight back. Putin has done the reaffirming. He has reaffirmed man's inhumanity. 

Ukraine made a mistake when it lined up and fought the Russians. There was a middle ground they could have chosen, one that would have admitted humility, but would have spared their families and their cities the devastation they now will be left with. What a tremendous waste. 

Now, we want to label Putin a "war criminal." Of course, Putin is a war criminal for his unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation. So, too, are John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon war criminals - that trio who led an unprovoked invasion of an agrarian society, and slaughtered a million Vietnamese people. George W. Bush is a war criminal. He launched an unprovoked attack upon the Iraqi people under the guise of ridding the world of "weapons of mass destruction." Finding none, he killed 100,000 Iraqis in the ensuing conflict. Then, there is Obama, Trump, and Biden who continued Bush's "war of choice," killing countless men, women, and children because we were there.  

How soon we forget, though it was only months ago when Biden slaughtered a family of eight with a drone strike on his way out of Afghanistan. Who will adjudicate Putin's crimes - the International Criminal Court, the same people who looked the other way when America committed similar crimes, and worse? 

Putin is Putin. He is a relic of the Soviet past. He cannot help himself. What is our excuse? Let us look in the mirror and see the modern war criminal: It is us who cry for "more weapons" to feed the Ukraine, who cry for "more blood" to be spilled. It is the media, the politicians, the average American citizen who lionize those "brave Ukrainians" who fight and kill and die; they who blow up their own bridges (until their own refugees cannot get away); they who watch as the future of their nation - those precious, precious babies - flee a gutted country, while we cheer them on. We stop to commisserate over the  carnage, then cry for more weapons to create more carnage in the name of twisted romance. 

We supposed-civilized people are the war criminals who wisdom has forsaken us, whose imagination has shrunken to a primordial cry for "more weapons, more blood."

Make Sense of Today by Looking Through History's Prism

In support of their independence from Russia, Ukrainians assert their "own history" prior to once being a part of Greater Russia. To that, I say, almost every state on Earth had its own histories before being incorporated into the nations they belong to today. Germany, Japan, Italy - each started out as collections of geographical regions, like the city-states of Athens, Ithaca, Sparta, etc., who clung to their singular identities until they combined to become the Greece we know today.

In the United States, Texas can legitimately claim to have had its own history before becoming part of this great nation; so can every other state in this union. Once each state became a part of the U.S., each of their singular histories became subservient to the history of the whole. 

Without defending Putin, I suggest that his obsession with Ukraine is similar to the obsession this nation had with Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, and the other states who quit the U.S. and formed the confederacy. It was a secession President Lincoln, and the states which elected him refused to recognize as legitimate. As a consequence of this secession, the Union pummelled the secessionist states, none so vigorously as the state of Virginia. 

In a lot of ways, Virginia was to the Confederacy what the Ukraine was to Russia. Its size, resources, and political importance made it critical to the visibility of the larger state. And, like the Ukraine, which bore the brunt of World War II, Virginia bore the brunt of America's Civil War. 

President Lincoln, himself, told General Sheridan to lay waste to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, the breadbasket of the Confederacy, "until even a crow flying over, will have to carry his own provender." More battles were fought on Virginia soil during the Civil War than any other state in the Union. Likewise, the Ukraine became the central meeting place for the slaughter that became World War II. At the end of a single battle between the Germans and the Russians - the Battle for Kyiv - the Germans took 600,000 Russian soldiers prisoner and marched them to slave labor camps in Germany. Other great battles followed on Ukrainian soil - Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zhytomyr, and the bloody sieges of Odesa and Sevastopol. Russians bled a river defending the Ukraine from Hitler's Germany. 

Perhaps, Putin feels that Ukraine's place in Russian history is far more fundamental than any history Ukraine can muster on its own. This does not excuse his invasion of the Ukraine. It only gives it some perspective.