Author: R J Adams

How many more innocents are going to be gunned down by maniacs and lunatics before the people of this country realize common sense and end their ridiculous obsession with firearms?

The answer to the above question is – probably not in the next hundred years.

It’s a frightening fact that having spent many years in this country it’s become obvious to me that it’s not just the nutters and testosterone-fueled delinquents who consider it their “right” to carry around firearms. No, sadly, the vast majority of Americans I’ve known and been involved with over my thirteen years in this land – otherwise normal, intelligent, often well-educated people – cannot visualize a society without the right to ‘bear arms’.

Even those who find the idea of automatic weapons repugnant still deem it their right to carry a handgun while in a town or city. Only this week one man said to me, “You never know when someone might pull a gun on you. You need to carry a weapon to protect yourself.”

When I pointed out to him that, if no-one had a gun, there’d be no need for him to carry one, his eyes glazed over with that ‘this does not compute’ look, then muttered quietly that, “…it will never happen.”

The Second Amendment of the Constitution has much to answer for – including many wasted lives. This country’s founders no more desired to see their citizens crazily slaughtering each other, than they wished to see their fledgling nation turned into a plutocracy, or theocracy. The document is quite clear in interpretation and cannot sanely be considered at all relevant in today’s modern American society.

Sadly, for Americans and America, senseless slaughter such as occurred on live TV in Virginia this week, is destined to continue indefinitely.

President Obama’s pleas to Congress to enact gun control will, as always, fall on deaf ears.

This will be a short post. I’ve written on this subject many times over the years, and still it appears, like an annual carcinoma.

Two days ago, on August 6th, the world – or, at least, parts of it – ‘celebrated’ the 70th anniversary of the United States (with the full support of its major allies) subjecting a heavily-populated city to an instant rise in temperature of 60 million degrees.

Both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were optimized for the burning of civilians. They were carefully constructed for that purpose by the scientists of the Manhattan Project. Thousands were immediately annihilated and perpetual suffering created for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, from the ongoing generational effect of intense radiation.

“Hiroshima” – one only has to say the word to comprehend its horrific meaning, the depths to which human beings sink in their treatment of one another. It was the first of two of the greatest war crimes in our history – Nagasaki was the close second.

The BBC dutifully remembered, as it does every year, those events of seventy years ago. At the end of its website report it asked the same old question – as it does every year:

“Was it right to drop the bomb on Hiroshima?”

Out come the same old platitudes we’ve all heard multitudinous times from those responsible for, or in favor of, the atrocities. As though repeating them will somehow ease the weight on their guilt-ridden souls. Guilt for two unspeakable acts of barbarism. For which no-one, except the victims, has ever paid the price.

Isn’t it time we stopped asking that ridiculous question?

To continue to do so is merely to admit we still don’t know the meaning of ‘right’ from ‘wrong’.

This post began life as a response to a comment on the previous post from my good blogging friend, WiseWebWoman. It grew too long, so instead I decided to post it here.

I’ve lived in the US for thirteen years – came here exactly one year after 9/11 – and for a time believed I’d make it my home. But the longer I stay here the more I’ve come to realize I have to get out. This nation hasn’t yet learned to handle its immense power with any degree of dignity and maturity. Frankly, I doubt it ever will.

The opportunity was there in the aftermath of the atrocities of September 11th, 2001. The world stood solidly behind this country in its grief and suffering. America could have won the admiration of every nation on earth at that moment had it responded with any degree of wisdom and maturity. Instead it tossed them to the dogs (remember, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists!”) by its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It never recovered respect after those monumental blunders, and I don’t believe it will ever have that opportunity again.

While the western states burn, water disappears, and Americans suffer and die due to weather extremes never before experienced in such severity and abundance, the frenetic drilling and mining for MORE oil and MORE coal continues unabated.

The crazy national obsession with firearms grows ever stronger, appearing to those beyond US borders as akin to the behavior of a mentally retarded child. Even in the aftermath of a series of appalling gun crimes, recent polls indicate that nearly 60% of Americans are against any form of gun control. Media brainwashing over ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorism’ ratchets up daily, provoking further insane gun attacks on innocent civilians in cinemas, schools, shopping malls, or wherever there are suitable numbers of people to slaughter.

As for this nation’s politicians, I consider every Republican candidate standing for President could serve his country best if locked away for life in a secure mental institution, rather than allowed within a hundred miles of the White House. The present political ascendancy of Donald Trump must surely prove that the louder the drivel from the political mouth, the more fervent the applause of the sad, demented, folks taken in by it.

I believe there are only two politicians in this country worthy to be President of the United States, and one isn’t even running – Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Even if Warren were running, they’d stand about as much chance of winning as Donald Trump has of ever getting into Heaven. And that says a lot about America and its voting public.

So, I’ve decided to move to pastures new. I’m sure there are many who are happy to say, “Good riddance!” When Americans I meet ask why I’m leaving America to live in France, they look at me like I’ve decided to give up Heaven, in favor of Hell. They don’t realize they’re the ones in Hell, but like Plato’s prisoners in the cave, their view of the ‘outside’ is distorted by a lifetime of false impressions fed by a politco/corporate controlled media that has been selective in its version of the truth for decades.

None of this in any way decries the many fine, caring, people I’ve come to know in this country; they who are fully aware of the way this nation is failing itself and the world, good people with intellect and vision, though sadly, in the minority.

I may be leaving America, but Sparrow Chat will continue. Perhaps from back in Europe, my perspective on America will change somewhat.

I doubt it will be for the better.