New York Times article Normalizing Gun Violence

Why bother? The United States of Arms is all about weapons, gun sales, weapon industry, wars. Individual freedom to defend oneself, uh, when there’s so much inequality and such an immense rift in opportunities for health, food quality, education, housing and job opportunities between Billionaires and poor.

And the Hollywood Marketing World of the United States of Apathy is all about manufacturing lies by the advertising industry and the marketplace, who care more about selling a product, than honest communication about raising peoples’ awareness and consciousness about what it is to be alive and in love and mystified with this incredible planet earth and all of its majestic creatures, with water, with soil, and free to really use one’s heart and mind to its full potential and to live cooperatively with one another in true community.

Instead, the power and financial gap keeps widening, and the freedom is about freedom to own and buy, as opposed to freedom to truly become the individual person who shines through their own joy living their true essence.

This enormous lie {elephant in the room that hardly anyone is even aware of} because we are so manipulated and convinced that material things are where freedom comes from, that all are

consumed with consuming.

That enormous gap and lie is what drives violence, addiction and poverty of spirit. I’m afraid this virus has spread all over the world. And nothing sickens me more than to see people proudly holding out their phone, or glued to its screen as they walk,

o b l i v i o u s

and

a p a t h e t i c

to what is around them.

Deadly Louisiana Shooting Caps a Holiday Weekend of Violence

I was reading about the shooting in Shreveport, Louisiana after there had already been (within 48 hours or so) a mass shooting in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and then in Shreveport, “The shooting, which left four dead and seven wounded, was one of several in multiple cities since Friday.” 

Never was it so viscerally clear and revolting to me regarding the term ‘normalizing’ (in his case the presence of guns and gun violence in the United States of Arms), until I read these sentences in this article, 

“None of this was particularly unusual for the holiday that marks the birth and independence of the United States, at least in recent years. The period from June 30 to July 7 has seen about a dozen mass shootings every year since at least 2014, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Gun violence tends to increase during the summer months. And while the reasons have been the subject of debate among criminologists, some speculate that, in a country bristling with weapons, more people gathering for parties and barbecues may lead to more disputes that result in deadly gunfire.”