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what are the problems here? first off, there's been a shooting. it happened within an extremely poisoned political atmosphere and tucson (a little dot of blue in a sea of red it was described as in an article i saw earlier about those fine people from westboro baptist who plan to protest the funerals tomorrow. what christians. what excellent souls.)....so there is a context, like it or not, and that context is poisoned largely because of the way the right has operated since the debacle of the bush administration. so that's one problem. want a solution to that? conservatives would have to stop playing the victim long enough to think about what's being said.
but the more directly linked problems are: how could this guy get a glock? information is still coming out about this. i don't have an a priori view on the matter beyond finding it incomprehensible that people can buy a glock. what do you hunt with one of those besides people?
the other is more tenuous and has to do with cuts to mental health services---which is a problem---but there's a lot of stuff circulating out there that seems to depart from the idea that had these cuts not been in place this guy would have been prevented from acting somehow. this i don't really understand---it seems like wishful thinking. but that doesn't detract from the Real Problems that have attended the devolution of mental health services since the reagan period.
beyond that....the real problems that are facing the united states are in no way broached by this unfortunate event. i think is absurd to decry that....why aren't we talking about something entirely different? because something entirely different didn't happen.
would it be good to have a serious discussion about, say, unemployment and what might actually be done to address it? of course.
but no-one seems to want to have such a discussion. particularly not conservatives. but that's another matter.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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