What’s Wrong With Us December 16, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Gun Control/Violence.Tags: abby zimet, Connecticut Shooting, Crime News, gun control, Newtown, Newtown Elementary School Shooting, Newtown School Shooting, roger hollander, sandy hook, Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting, School Shooting
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by Abby Zimet, http://www.commondreams.org
Here’s a South Carolina newspaper’s coverage of the massacre at Sandy Hook alongside a huge ad for Christmas deals on Smith & Wesson handguns and assault rifles. They later issued an apology for the “unfortunate juxtaposition.” That doesn’t begin to cover it – nothing says celebrating the birth of baby Jesus like an AR-15 assault rifle – but okay. In response, chilling editorial cartoons, and, below, the most succinct reasons ever why this is wrong, and cannot stand.
CHARLOTTE BACON, 6
DANIEL BARDEN, 7
RACHEL DAVINO, 29
OLIVIA ENGEL, 6
JOSEPHINE GAY, 7
ANA G. MARQUEZ-GREENE, 6
DYLAN HOCKLEY, 6
DAWN HOCHSPRUNG, 47
MADELEINE F. HSU, 6
CATHERINE V. HUBBARD, 6
CHASE KOWALSKI, 7
JESSE LEWIS, 6
JAMES MATTIOLI, 6
GRACE MCDONNELL, 7
ANNE MARIE MURPHY, 52
EMILIE PARKER, 6
JACK PINTO, 6
NOAH POZNER, 6
CAROLINE PREVIDI, 6
JESSICA REKOS, 6
AVIELLE RICHMAN, 6
LAUREN ROUSSEAU, 30
MARY SHERLACH, 56
VICTORIA SOTO, 27
BENJAMIN WHEELER, 6
ALLISON N. WYATT, 6
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Tamsen Miller
I must ask why is Santa selling guns? Santa is for children, guns are for adults, so why is Santa selling guns? Santa does not belong on an advertisement for mass killing machines, Santa is supposed to make and deliver toys. what a disconnect. it makes no sense.
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HenryWallace2012
Agreed! Tell it.
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jrp1900
Tamsen Miller: “Why is Santa selling guns?…It makes no sense.” Of course it makes sense. This is the United States of America, and GUNS R US!
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HenryWallace2012
Abby I love irony. But actually quotation marks will help people see you’re being ironic which is very much called for with these gun psychopaths. But “they know not what they do” so said a long haired socialist Jew.
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jrp1900
The naming of the victims is always deeply painful. I have great sorrow for the murdered adults. And then all these children–these beautiful young children–lost to the world forever. In that list of names, there might have been some great artists and musicians. Some of these children might have grown up to be doctors, nurses, teachers. One of them might have become a pyschiatrist, who would treat a future “Adam Lanza” and prevent a repeat of the horror we now have before us. I can imagine that among the lost children was a future great veternarian, perhaps a sportstar or two, certainly a few of them would have been political idealists, comitted to improving the world. All the children had it in them to become vibrant teenagers, alive to all sorts of possibility. Many would have become loving and caring parents. And as parents, they would know, as all parents know, that children are the hope of the world. Adam Lanza wanted to hurt the world in the worst way possible, and so it stands to reason (his twisted reason!) that children were the appropriate target.
The “unfortunate juxtaposition” in the Newspaper says a lot about who “we” really are as a moral culture. American society sentimentalizes children and weeps over their sufferings. But at the same time, the society promotes the most ruthless and amoral values that makes the world a hellish place for “our children.” Look at the number of children in poverty in the USA; look at so many of our schools; look at the way the American empire treats children overseas, and ask yourself if we really are a child-loving society…
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6 comments
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Tamsen Miller•21 minutes ago I must ask why is Santa selling guns? Santa is for children, guns are for adults, so why is Santa selling guns? Santa does not belong on an advertisement for mass killing machines, Santa is supposed to make and deliver toys. what a disconnect. it makes no sense.
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HenryWallace2012 Tamsen Miller•16 minutes ago Agreed! Tell it.
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jrp1900 Tamsen Miller•17 minutes ago Tamsen Miller: “Why is Santa selling guns?…It makes no sense.” Of course it makes sense. This is the United States of America, and GUNS R US!
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HenryWallace2012•23 minutes ago Abby I love irony. But actually quotation marks will help people see you’re being ironic which is very much called for with these gun psychopaths. But “they know not what they do” so said a long haired socialist Jew.
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jrp1900•an hour ago The naming of the victims is always deeply painful. I have great sorrow for the murdered adults. And then all these children–these beautiful young children–lost to the world forever. In that list of names, there might have been some great artists and musicians. Some of these children might have grown up to be doctors, nurses, teachers. One of them might have become a pyschiatrist, who would treat a future “Adam Lanza” and prevent a repeat of the horror we now have before us. I can imagine that among the lost children was a future great veternarian, perhaps a sportstar or two, certainly a few of them would have been political idealists, comitted to improving the world. All the children had it in them to become vibrant teenagers, alive to all sorts of possibility. Many would have become loving and caring parents. And as parents, they would know, as all parents know, that children are the hope of the world. Adam Lanza wanted to hurt the world in the worst way possible, and so it stands to reason (his twisted reason!) that children were the appropriate target.
The “unfortunate juxtaposition” in the Newspaper says a lot about who “we” really are as a moral culture. American society sentimentalizes children and weeps over their sufferings. But at the same time, the society promotes the most ruthless and amoral values that makes the world a hellish place for “our children.” Look at the number of children in poverty in the USA; look at so many of our schools; look at the way the American empire treats children overseas, and ask yourself if we really are a child-loving society…
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