26 IS NOT ENOUGH
I have never wanted to be wrong more fervently as I do now.
But I fear that 26 victims are not enough to bring forth the changes in America that need to be made. 20 innocent children; slaughtered in Connecticut without chance of escape, except for a few heartbeats of heroics, 6 female teacher die in the frenzy too. This adds another sorrowful chapter to our massacre-count of 61, which swallows the present of grieved families who feel they may never be whole again; and predicts a national future shrouded only in the mystery of who is next. One is too many yet 26 more, are still not enough.
All I have is boiling sorrow and sadness which compels me to cry that Americans have no right to shock. We should have learned by now to expect this kind of tragedy that tears through the flesh of random communities, because it keeps happening. Why? Perhaps because all of the factors that lead to horrific violence are embedded deep within our society, our legal system and we only talk about the obvious few. And talk. And talk some more. I feel voiceless, yet nevertheless want to restate what I believe are factors that continue our national nightmare, in hopes of expanding our perspective so we move toward more comprehensive solutions.
**We allow the National Rifle Association to spew their twisted spin on ‘freedom to bear arms’. Is this what freedom looks like? Freedom that is killing us? Is security only to be found at the end of a gun barrel? By their rhetoric, we must not fear guns, the danger lies in not carrying a gun. Politicians seem to fear the NRA more than mass murder. They do the bidding of the NRA to avoid political attack, albeit without a hail of bullets. It is as if the NRA not only exists to preserve weapons but functions as a weapon. But isn’t this the way our government works at all levels? politics ala special interests? Money buys a heck of a lot of power and speech. Also factor in what is purchased at the state or local level.
Fortunately, or not, most citizens escape the grief that might compel us to demand change. We feel bad enough only to talk and righteous enough to condemn while asking over and over how this can happen again and again. Leaving the heavy lifting to politicians and those who own them.
Where is the outrage? Where is the empathy and compassion for the victims and shattered survivors? After the passing of weeks/months we are sanguine and silent once again. The NRA waits for this. We do not disappoint them.
Consider too that weapons sales, domestic and global, create tremendous profit, an estimated $1.75 trillion a year. Domestic guns laws, as well as international trade pacts fall under the same control of lobbyists giving way to a staggering degree of corruption.
*Americans have a love affair with violence and guns. It is inextricable from our entertainment; whether in movies, TV, sports or video games. It is only excited fantasy, right? Except it morphs into education and behavioral practice for our kids. Who holds their breath to learn the lessons of conflict or anger management and diplomacy? Violence is easier to learn and offers an adrenaline rush besides. The linking of masculinity and brute force is unmistakable, regardless of who sends the message.
*Much violence, or that which is acknowledged, is acceptable in America. Beating of women and abuse of kids in America is tolerable. That is what shelters are for. Short term protection, yes, but as much to keep victims out of sight while they struggle to survive with scant assistance; like body armor made of paper in the form of legal restraining orders. Women hide within shelters from perpetrators as well as from the public in undisclosed places where they often run in the cover of night.
Kids alone have entire state agencies devoted to their protection. Throw in some boot camps and the proliferation of for-profit detention centers for youth. Just consider how central our schools are in not only educating but caring for our kids. Education itself is under attack. Budgets squeezing the life out of public schools increasingly made for profit with less to none of what disabled or high risk kids need. This includes a lack of mental health counseling as well as a dearth of vocational guidance. The opposite of meeting those needs can be found in our ‘school-house to jail-house track” that capture troubled youth. This path was found in three distinct and large school districts in our country. It revealed the pathway that is crafted to capture kids who don’t quite make the grade or display high-risk, oppositional behavior. It amounts to a fast track to incarceration for troubled kids. When kids see no future, and lose hope, depression mixes with isolation leads to desperation; and too often a deadly scenario ensues.
Our acceptable levels of violence also parallel the standards we set for the world as well as dictates our national policy.
*Then there is the brutality and violence within our prison-industrial complex. If one is imprisoned, it can come easily. We imprison more of our citizens than in any other nation; and if they were not violent going into prison, and many are not, they sure are when they exit. Prisons are often forced to function as mental health centers, often doing so without the treatment part. Restraint, isolation and brutality are hardly prescriptive but when the police are called, it fits our system for unruly, dangerous crazy-type people to get locked up. Alternatives are lacking.
Hand in glove with our prison/punishment culture is our popular death penalty. Many of us like when our government kills someone convicted of crime. Who cares if we kill a few innocents? Isn’t justice worth it? Some count the high numbers of exonerated, in general population as well as death row, as evidence that our justice system works. When more often they are the ‘lucky ones’ whose cases make it to the few programs like the Innocence Project that manages to provide actual defense.
By popular opinion (although ebbing), state killing is righteous; unless you take an honest look to discover it is not justice but revenge. It is further mischaracterized through political rhetoric as “closure for victim’s families”; or cashed in as being ‘tough on crime’. Until you learn from the many who fight the death penalty that it brutalizes our society while lying to those with broken hearts longing for solace and healing.
*How about the proud pinnacle of America’s devotion to violence in terms of a national security policy, our military. Who would dare not “support the troops”? Count cars around you for bumpers sticker or ribbons on this one. But I dare you to be realistic about the many ways we kill worldwide especially since the vast majority of Americans will never serve as witnesses to this so-called national security policy. Maybe 3000 is a better number than 26? 3000 plus two twin towers. Yet did that terror only beget more terror and killing via America’s longest running wars in two nations? Lest we forget, terror and terrorism is not limited to ground level. Skies are increasing filled with drones that raise fear and bring death to any and all within range. Does this make us safer? Or simply increase threats against us while creating casualties that are rarely counted here at home? How about the CIA’s spy biz evolving into a killing force; Or paid mercenary forces under contract for the US government.
**Stricter gun laws pale pathetically as a response to this latest massacre, when we float in the seas of society awash in weapons with tolerance for violence and abuse. Multiplied by countless accounts of mental health care that we care so little for; the danger so easily dismissed due to budgets that are strained or priorities that are sadly misplaced. Contrary to what many believe, one does not need to be ‘insane’ to be homicidal.
We, myself included, must accept the responsibility we all bear for the violence we tolerate, the murder and mayhem we allow to occur day after day, if only by looking away. 26 is not enough for us to change lest we truly face the reality that as a nation, we enjoy violence, accept errant laws and insane freedoms, and wage war with a shoot first--diplomacy last strategy.
For this tragedy and America, I weep along with many others. But what is the magic number of real change?