“We’re going to have to come together to meaningful action on this, regardless of the politics…” ~ President Barack Obama, following the shootings this morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
“There is, I am sure — will be, rather — a day for discussion of the usual Washington [gun control] policy debates, but I do not think today is that day.” ~ White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
Another twenty dead.
In a country where the government considers it acceptable to hand out deadly firearms to all and sundry, regardless of age or mental fitness, where schoolchildren are regularly and frequently slaughtered by weapons that have no right to be anywhere in peacetime but under the stout lock and key of a military armory, is there any better day than today to debate the horrendous consequences of unregulated gun ownership in this country?
If I were the parent of one of those dead kids tonight, Mister Carney…I would vehemently disagree with you.
I’ve been an alien for ten years. Ever since I came to America. I used to hate the description, found it demeaning. Now, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
The lack of posting on Sparrow Chat of late has been due partly to pressure of responsibilities elsewhere, but mainly out of frustration -and, it has to be admitted, a degree of disgust – at the apathy of a generation (both American and British) that seems hellbent on personal financial self advancement at the expense of its fellow human beings. The “Fuck you, I’m alright, Jack,” generation is alive and well and living it up while others are homeless, existing in their cars (unheard of ’till I came to America), or blowing their (or others) brains out from desperation of their plight.
While the British do, at least, have a modicum of non-propaganda news in the form of the BBC, which perhaps gives them less of an excuse for this self-centered, grab-it-all, mentality, than the Americans whose media perpetuates the ‘American Dream’ myth 24/7, neither can take pride in being the first generation to leave full-time education with the sole ambition of making pots of money for themselves. Gone are the youthful dreams: “making the world a better place”, “joining the Peace Corps”, or “helping those less well off than myself”. Now, they just stab each other in the back for the prime jobs at Goldman Sachs or J.P.Morgan.
On the subject of American media, one has to marvel at a major news outlet, ABC, on its flagship World News show tonight, sparing valuable program time – amid the crisis in Syria, the Egyptian riots, US universities dropping to 14th in international rankings, all of which it failed to cover – to a precocious eight year old girl getting nipped on the hand by a dolphin at SeaWorld. America waited breathlessly through all the adverts to hear “what the parents had to say about it.”
Don’t bother with the expense of flying a reporter out to the Democratic Republic of Congo to interview the parents of the latest atrocity victim, raped and beheaded by rebel soldiers while the Chinese pillage the country of all its vast mineral wealth to make fucking Ipads for the indolent youth of Britain and America. That same indolent youth isn’t interested in “what the parents of that child had to say about it.” No, they’d rather have some cozy little home-spun yarn involving an all-American sweetie and an overly playful dolphin.
ABC obliged.
And, while we’re at it, the whole western world is simply agog to know where the hell David ‘bore the pants off me’ Beckham is off to next. Is it Monaco, or isn’t it? Will he be having a piss in the next ten minutes? Does he fart while making love to that skinny bint he married?
These are all questions of inexplicable importance to the populace of Western nations. Did you know Lindsay Lohen’s been arrested again today for slapping a woman in a nightclub? I couldn’t bloody well care less if she drops her knickers and shows her arse in Walmart’s window.
What’s the matter with people today? Why do they shut out the important happenings in the world, in favor of the trivial and absurd?
Yesterday, some NFL player shot his girlfriend dead. Then, he drove to the football ground and killed himself. This criminal act resulted in the orphaning of a three month old baby. The media treats him as some sort of fallen hero. Three minutes silence before the football game commenced today in honor of this man. He was a murderer, for God’s sake! He shot and killed another human being in cold blood. Yet, we’re told by the media, “it’s a tragedy” and we have to feel sorry for him. No-one suggested we should feel sympathy and compassion for campus killers, or the guy who shot up the cinema in Colorado recently. But then, they weren’t aspiring football stars.
You know, he can be forgiven for leaving his three month old daughter parentless, but had he persuaded his girlfriend to have an abortion six months ago, they’d probably have lynched him.
It’s been exactly a week since President Obama was re-elected for another four years, and already it’s started. The will of the majority no longer holds any meaning for American politicians.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, otherwise Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have been shouting their mouths off about President Obama’s possible nomination of Susan Rice as Secretary of State, to replace the retiring Hilary Clinton.
Rice is an eminently suitable choice for the post, given her experience as US Ambassador to the UN. The only reason McCain and Graham can give for opposing her nomination is that she ‘misled’ the American people five days after the Benghazi embassy attack. She stated it was likely an escalation of violence, following on from the riots in Cairo that resulted from the anti-Muslim video published on the internet, that had caused the Benghazi incident in which four Americans died.
As the American people have still not been shown any concrete evidence to support the ‘9/11 terrorist attack’ theory, now bandied as ‘fact’ by the media and certain politicians, Sparrow Chat still considers the initial explanation the most plausible.
Perhaps, the date of the Benghazi incident, coinciding with “THAT” anniversary, was just too good an opportunity for certain factions in American politics to miss?
“Keep the War on Terror alive, at all cost, lads!”
Incidentally, the question Lindsey Graham was asking on the Fox News image above, is one he already knew the answer to. The reason so many requests for additional security were denied was because Lindsey Graham and his fellow Republicans had drastically cut the national security budget.
In 2011, Hilary Clinton warned:
The scope of the proposed House cuts is massive. The truth is that cuts of that level will be detrimental to America’s national security.”[1]
Despite Clinton’s remonstrations the cuts went ahead.[2]
Meanwhile, this week, America races towards the ‘fiscal cliff’, while Europe erupts into general strikes and pandemonium as Greeks, Spaniards, and even Germans, give vent to rage and frustration as governments continue to bail out the banks and hand their electorates the bill.
America’s top military brass have finally managed to convince us all they really are human beings by fornicating readily with other men’s wives and girlfriends, while the media make loud, “tut-tutting” noises and use words like ‘sordid’ and ‘tawdry’. Excuse my ignorance, but I always thought that’s what soldiers did? I guess the crime was to be found out.
Climate change finally got a mention on the CBS News tonight, as the national weather service admitted Hurricane Sandy was probably made much worse by the effects of global warming. Even so, the news segment was well peppered with, “possibles”, “mights”, and “maybes”.
I guess the powers-that-be have decided times are right to begin hinting at the possibility that man-made climate change could be real after all. Better to give the masses a bit of warning before all hell breaks loose and civilization as we know it disintegrates totally.
Though, given all the other news this week, can anyone really still have doubt it’s not already happening?
