The shooter has mental health issues. Duh, I think anyone who perpetrates a mass shooting has mental health issues. I also believe most of us have mental health issues. The rest of us work at keeping ours under control. The problem is that it is getting harder and harder to do that.
The country is under siege. Everyone is upset, angry, frustrated. Many people have no idea what is going on. In eras gone by, the political party in charge would ram their bills down the throat of the other party. If people got mad they could get mad at the opposing party. Today, the party in charge doesn’t seem to be in charge and they appear just as unhappy as the rest of us.
A simple comment on social media gets attacked by dozens of opposing views, some not even related to the original comment. The name-calling is horrendous.
A football player protests the killing of black men by police and it is turned into an anti-American, anti-flag, anti-national anthem crusade. The country becomes more divided.
A horrible massacre occurs and some media call it the worst in American history. Then others point out the killing of Native Americans at Wounded Knee was worse, so we argue about which massacre is worse.
Puerto Rico is devastated, and it becomes a political football kicked around as if people weren’t important. We would rather play the blame game than hurry with solutions.
Under our current political situation there is little hope for change. Money rules and owns our Congress. Forget about gun control. Too much money made from violent weapons and too many in Congress owe their election to the big money bosses that bought it.
Forget about pharmaceutical price controls, climate change, the health of the environment; all these are secondary to the money that can be made. We have to stop the corporate control of Congress. If we can’t elect representatives who truly represent the people of their district and not the money lenders then, well, it’s not going to get better. And, people are going to keep striking out in desperation.
The Senate passes a multi-billion dollar Pentagon bill but cuts health care for children, threatens Medicare, reduces funds for education and there are no jobs programs or infrastructure repairs. No wonder people are angry.
I am angry too. I am especially bothered by the labelling. Why is “liberal” considered synonymous with communist or anti-American? Am I so old that I am the only one who remembers a thing called a “Liberal Republican?”
And why is it any time there is a move to help people less fortunate, someone has to label it “socialism,” and do it with such hatred that it’s as if socialism itself were the road to hell. Yet, we are a socialist society. The government stepped in, as best it could, during the natural catastrophes, should we have waited for the “free market” to help those in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico or our own fire victims?
I have a Vietnam veteran friend who once asked me, “How come the alt-right has the only claim to the flag? It’s just as much my flag as theirs.” Of course, he is right. But somehow the flag has become the symbol of the right and not the rest of us.
Don’t tell me mental health issues caused the latest shooting; there are a lot of normal, healthy regular folks who have the urge to get up in a tower and start shooting. We need to change that urge, now. But it won’t be easy.
Gabriel A. Fraire has been a writer more than 45 years. He can be reached through his website at: www.gabrielfraire.com.
