Author: R J Adams

The NRA annual get-together this week appeared like a Who’s Who of the top idiots in America. Topping the bill was the United States’s second favorite, right-wing, nutty talk-radio host, Glenn Beck.^[1]

Hasn’t the, “From my cold, dead, hands…” bit, been done already?

It might have passed off like most other NRA conventions – that is, hardly noticed by the saner elements of society – had not the whole show been eclipsed by one five-year old from Kentucky who chose just the right time to shoot dead his two-year old sister, with his very own .22 caliber rifle.^[2]

Surprisingly, it’s illegal in America for a toddler to walk into a gun store and purchase a firearm. It’s perfectly acceptable, though, for an adult to purchase a rifle, or, conceivably an AK47, and present it to a five-year old as a birthday gift.

Whether or not parents who give toddlers lethal firearms to play with should be certified as criminally insane and locked away forever in a mental asylum is not for discussion here. Suffice to say, if you’re any nationality other than American, the answer to the question is patently obvious.

Remember a time when this was the birthday present of choice for a toddler?

Now, it’s been replaced by this:

Keystone Sporting Arms, makers and marketers of Crickett and Chipmunk firearms for toddlers (available in certain Walmart stores) have remained silent about this latest killing. Much was made of the company pulling its website after the event, but it’s now up and running again.

Obviously, the owners – Bill & Steve McNeal of 155, Sodom Road, Milton, Pennsylvania (no comment on the aptness of the address) – have no further wish to lose sales.

The NRA failed to officially recognize the incident in an attempt to make it go away and not spoil their little gathering. One guy determined to help this happen is Cody Wilson, founder of Defense Distributed in Texas (where else!) who chose this week to announce his latest invention: an all-plastic, thoroughly lethal handgun fashioned on a 3D printer. Cody intends to publish the plans on the internet.^[3]

“I recognize that this tool might be used to harm people,” Wilson told Forbes. “That’s what it is — it’s a gun. But I don’t think that’s a reason to not put it out there. I think that liberty in the end is a better interest.”

Liberty? The freedom for any terrorist to carry one of these non-metallic weapons through airport checkpoints unnoticed, board a plane, and commit another horror like that of 9/11/2001?

That’s just the kind of liberty Cody Wilson, Bill & Steve McNeal, and the NRA strive to achieve in today’s America, and they begin by brainwashing the youngest and most vulnerable.

Perhaps the next invention of liberty might be printed, plastic, pressure cookers – an ideal device for the would-be, home-grown, terrorist bomber?

^{[1] “Glenn Beck and stagecraft wizardry: Why his NRA talk trumped all” CSM, May 7th 2013}

^{[2] “US reels after five-year-old kills sister with ‘my first rifle'” NDTV, May 3rd 2013}

^{“Shots fired from world’s first 3D-printed gun” Fox News, May 6th 2013}

Corporate control: we see it everywhere. Can any of us be blind to the ‘take it or leave it’ attitude that passes for customer service these days? It’s not just technological advancement that’s resulted in every large corporation greeting our telephoned requests for attention with some digital menu that spins us round in ever decreasing circles, and eventually spits us out, dissatisfied, at the other end.

Not that you’d recognize this utter lack of concern for customer satisfaction from the glossy advertising and blurb that is the staple of all corporate marketing strategy.

Perfectly manicured females, with their photo-shopped smiles, are the norm when we’re being seduced with empty promises of wondrous goods on offer, in exchange for our hard earned dollars. It’s not until the newly acquired washing machine floods the laundry, or the super-size TV puffs smoke from its rear, that we realize this delicious doll is no more than a digital mp4 file droning out monotony down our ear-hole, and leaving us with about as much chance of connecting with a real human being as Kristen Stewart has of winning an Oscar for ‘The Twilight Saga’.

It’s all a result of perfectly acceptable companies growing so huge – often due to take-overs or mergers with larger corporations – that they no longer see the necessity for a personal service. It’s more important to divvy out a few more dollars to the shareholders, than pay a living wage for someone prepared to answer a telephone and provide some genuine customer satisfaction.

“Too big to fail” has become the catchphrase of corrupt politicians and bent Wall Street economists, who realize any such ‘failure’ means they’ll become drastically poorer very quickly. It’s come to signify the awesome power of the banking sector, but applies equally to other, overly-gigantic, corporate establishments.

While corporate and political corruption in so-called ‘Western democracies’ has reached levels on par with dubious African and Eastern European dictatorates, far more disturbing is the degree of control this corrupt association of political and corporate power has unleashed on us – the people.

As competition is swallowed up wholesale by the mighty jaws of corporate monstrosity, not only are we denied choice, but the very way we live our lives and conduct our business is being dictated by those anonymous corporate controllers who have gained the power to decide our future.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the technology/internet industry. Microsoft’s control of the commercial computer operating system market is just one example of we, the people, losing control of our computers. Microsoft dictates how we operate our virtual lives (unless, of course, you’re running a Mac, in which case, it’s Apple).

Then there’s Google. This mammoth’s top man, Larry Page, (worth around $23 billion) is constantly striving to tell us how jealously his company guards our privacy, while doling out our personal information to the US government at the rate of 5,900 instances in 2011, and rising every year. It can be argued that Google’s cooperation with crime fighters helps keep us safe, but it’s a short step from there to spying on all our internet activities. We have no way of knowing if Microsoft, or Google, is recording our website visitations, and where that information may be ending up, but we do know it’s used to benefit the bank balances of other corporations, who pay well for the information.

Google is also dictating our preferences with its software. Only recently we learned ‘Google Reader’ is to be discontinued in favor of its latest creation, ‘Feedly’. Is ‘Feedly’ better equipped to record our RSS interests? Perhaps not, but we have no way of knowing.

It all begs the question: what can we do about it? After all, these corporate monsters are in control and have the politicians in their pockets. It’s not easy, but there are ways. The Achilles heel of all capitalist corporations is their bank balance. We, the people, make them wealthy. Isn’t it time we looked at alternatives?

Whether it’s Walmart or Microsoft, Goldman Sachs or Google, it behooves us to kick them into touch, if we can, and seek out alternatives that might help whittle these behemoths down to a more manageable size. After all, without we, the people, Walmart would still be a struggling grocery store somewhere off main street.

There are alternatives to Microsoft and Google. Linux is still a pain in the butt to install (as I’ve found out to my cost), but it’s getting better all the time, and above all, it’s free! As is all its open source software.

There are now Coop stores in most towns throughout the US, stuffed with fresh organic foodstuffs, and lacking the chemical fertilizers so beloved of Walmart produce. It is more expensive, but with careful shopping the weekly bill may not prove too disastrous to the bank balance, and it’s healthy, nutritious, and great for the environment.

As for Goldman Sachs, and all the many other financial institutions grown fat and wealthy from our hard-earned dollars, the choice is between them and a Credit Union run not-for-profit, with better dividends, virtually no fees, and staff that don’t look down their nose at you when you dare ask them to part with a few of your own dollar bills.

There are times when the monolithic corporations seem much too powerful to ever be thwarted, but it pays to remember that it’s we, the people, that made them that way. Without our money none of them would exist. And, just as we created those monsters we, the people, have the power to shackle them, tame them, and, if necessary, bring them down.

The corporations don’t own this world. We do. Isn’t it time we said enough is enough?

Tonight, it was my intention to discuss the Boston bombings, but I’ve just sat through God-knows how many hours of Brian Williams and NBC News putting on free entertainment for the American masses; a show so packed with inaction and supposition it, no doubt, held the US public mesmerized, as nine thousand law enforcement officers descended on Watertown to apprehend one nineteen year old kid.

Nine thousand to arrest one? PC George Dixon of Dock Green would have managed it on his own. “Evenin’, all!”

(If you’re too young to know who the hell George Dixon was, then you’re definitely young enough to Google him, and maybe discover how policing was once carried out, before every law enforcement officer metamorphosed into Robocop).

While nothing can condone the murderous atrocities committed in Boston this week it seems likely the surviving (alleged) bomber was very much under the thumb of his older brother – his partner in the crime. In his haste to earlier escape the law, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran over his brother with a car as he lay on the ground following a police shoot-out.

Quite why two Chenchens, resident in the US, should take it upon themselves to commit a terrorist act is yet to be reasoned. It’s one of the few areas in the world where US interference has been minimal. One possible explanation is the United States’ pact with Russia to fight Islamic terrorism, though it hardly seems cause for such an atrocity.

The use of nine thousand to apprehend one is highly reminiscent of that old adage about flies and sledgehammers. There is little doubt Tsarnaev would have been apprehended eventually, had the whole matter been left in the hands of the State police.

No, this was less law enforcement, and more politics. A clear sign to the world outside: “Don’t mess with America. We only get caught with our pants down once.” Which would be fine, if only they didn’t turn the whole sad process into a nighttime’s entertainment.

Equally sad, and perhaps even more indicative of the malaise affecting this nation, was the failure by Congress this week to commit themselves to any action on gun control. One man stood out from the rest – Wyoming’s Republican senator Michael Bradley Enzi.

Michael’s stance was a simple one (in more ways than one). It’s the parent’s fault. We don’t need any gun control legislation; we don’t need background checks. All it takes is for parents to teach their kids it’s wrong to kill people.

There is no doubt that we need to do more to curb the senseless acts of violence that continue to occur in this country. One of the things we need are parents, parents to be more careful and more repetitive at telling their kids that it is not right to kill people. It’s not even right to bully them. And it’s definitely not right for them to kill themselves. Until we can get that message across to our kids, I hope that we don’t rely on a few votes by this body to make everybody feel comfortable that all the problem is taken care of.”

Okay, Michael, if you’ll walk this way there’s a nice old people’s home with senility nursing capability just waiting to welcome you.

Thank you, Congress. You’ve just proved the kids of Sandy Hook Elementary School died in vain. Your rejection of sanity, in return for whatever favors the NRA offered you, also prove you don’t give a damn about dead children, their grieving parents, or the vast majority of your voters who are demanding stricter background checks on gun purchases. In fact, you don’t give a damn about anyone other than yourselves and, of course, your overly-fat bank balances.

The one question remaining is why the fuck your constituents voted you into office in the first place? The only answer I can come up with is that they are even more stupid, and self-obsessed, than you are.