Friday Homestead Dispatch
Furacious Gripulous Havoc
“Love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact, that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way. And if we are to live together and not to die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.”
– Bertrand Russell, 1959
1.
Business as usual. Most likely those of you reading this share views similar to mine so this is not news to you. I am just trying to sort out my thoughts on the continual mass shootings by writing here. I agree with Russell in the general sense, but to not have opposing viewpoints and dissent when called for is the end of any kind of democracy.
The National Rifle Association's annual member meeting in Houston this weekend is a gathering of Republicans who profit mightily from said organization. At the helm will be top con man Frump along with Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Gov. Kristi Noem (S.D.). In an irony only seen by sentient humans, the NRA, at the request of the U.S. Secret Service, will ban guns from the convention hall during Trump's speech Friday despite the association's longstanding stance against gun control. (supposedly for reasons unrelated to Uvalde, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (TX) and Texas Sen. John Cornyn will not be present)
Even before the shooting in Uvalde, Forbes reported that nearly 60% of registered voters think it’s at least somewhat important for lawmakers to pass stricter gun laws and a majority also want Congress to pass legislation that places “additional restrictions on gun ownership,” with 34% saying it should be a “top priority” for lawmakers and 22% believing it’s an “important” priority, but not a top one.
Speaking of dissent, we need the disrupters in office, and those willing to shake things up…Beto O’Rourke on Twitter: Governor Abbott, if you have any decency, you will immediately withdraw from this weekend’s NRA convention and urge them to hold it anywhere but Texas. And Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, in response to his colleagues' tweets of ‘thoughts and prayers,’ called Texas Sen. Ted Cruz a "f--king baby killer." The Houston Chronicle reported that When challenged in the comments by a Twitter user who called Gallego one of the clowns who "probably don’t own a firearm, have never shot a firearm, nor understand the training that we go through to be responsible gun owners," Gallego reminded him and others on the platform that he's a Marine infantryman and Iraq war veteran who owns "several" weapons.
Gallego did more than just rant aimlessly in the wake of Tuesday's tragedy. His next message was to Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, pushing her to end the filibuster in order to "pass sensible gun measures." He also challenged GOP members who soley focus on mental health during mass shooting instead of weapons, and he suggested changes and regulations to existing gun laws, including disallowing 18-year-olds from obtaining AR-variant rifles.
You can see and hear from the video above that O’Rourke said tougher gun laws are not a real solution. The time to stop the next shooting is right now, and you are doing nothing. You said this is not predictable…. This is totally predictable…. This is on you, until you choose to do something different…. This will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed, just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.
About Beto’s rant, Lis Smith, a Democratic communications strategist and a senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, said That’s a great example of going on the offensive, generating the emotion and pissed-off-ness that Democrats need to turn out our voters in the midterms. We often lose the gun debate because it’s about policy particulars. If Democrats can channel the outrage that a lot of Americans feel — particularly parents — toward the politicians who are just sitting behind tables and choosing inaction and make this about political courage, we can potentially flip the script. Sometimes these sorts of confrontations can come across as a little stunt-y, but in this case, it was executed well and made Governor Abbott and his lackeys look cowardly.
She went on to say, We need to be screaming from the rooftops about what the Republicans in Congress are doing. They voted against the American Rescue Plan (then took credit for the checks that went to American households), mostly voted against infrastructure (then took credit for projects in their districts), mostly voted against capping the price of insulin, voted against stopping oil companies from price gouging, mostly voted against a bill that would include importing baby formula. Why? Because they want to impose as much misery as possible on the American people so that voters blame Biden and vote Republican in November. And then when they win, they want to criminalize abortions and ensure that we never have free and fair elections again.
In the New York Times on Wednesday, columnist Roxane Gay wrote when asked for solutions, Republicans talk about arming teachers and training them to defend their classrooms. We hear about how good guys with guns will valiantly stop mass shootings, even though there have been good guys with guns at several mass shootings and they have not prevented these tragedies.
These politicians offer platitudes and prayers and Bible verses. But they do not care to do what must be done to stop the next gun massacre or the average of 321 people shot a day in the United States — including 42 murders and 65 suicides. It is critical that we state this truth clearly and repeatedly and loudly. That we don’t let them hide behind empty rhetoric. That they know we see through their lies. They must know that we know who they truly are.
Also in the Times, Most Republicans in the Senate represent deeply conservative states where gun ownership is treated as a sacred privilege enshrined in the Constitution, a privilege not to be infringed upon no matter how much blood is spilled in classrooms and school hallways around the country.
“We don’t want to take away the rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican, explaining why members of his party have no interest in imposing new regulations on gun purchases, even after the murder of 19 children and two teachers, the latest in a seemingly unending series of shooting massacres in the United States.
Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, said most voters “would probably throw me out of office,” if he were to support any significant form of gun control legislation. Cramer, who has an “A” grade from the N.R.A., also said “It is a fundamental right for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves with firearms. It is fundamental. It is exactly that. It is constitutional.”
For the record, and relating to Republican’s arguments that armed guards will do the trick in school shootings, multiple new videos and eye-witness accounts from the scene of the entirely preventable tragedy—which claimed the lives of 21 people—have revealed that several armed officers were on the scene and, in fact, did nothing to stop the 18-year-old shooter, Salvador Ramos. If you can stomach it, you can read more about these events in this Jezebel article.
2.
Most importantly, thus far, their names are (out of order from photos below) Uziyah Garcia, 9, Jose Flores, 10, Amerie Jo Garza, 10, Xavier Javier Lopez, 10, Naveah Bravo, 10, Alithia Ramirez, 10, Tess Marie Mata, 10, Alexandria Aniya Rubio, 10, Layla Salazar, 10, Makenna Lee Elrod, 10, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10, Jailah Nicole Silguero, 11, Eliana “Ellie” Garcia, 9, Eliahana Cruz Torres, 10, Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10, Jacklyn “Jackie” Cazares, 10, Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, 10, Rogelio Torres, 10, Miranda Matthis, 11, Eva Mireles, 44, fourth-grade teacher, and Irma Garcia, teacher for 23 years. For more details about these young ones and the two teachers, click here.
3.
“About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear. Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality,” said the racist, white Senator from Louisiana, Bill Cassidy. (For the record, Cassidy opposes gun control, as he believes it would not stop mass shootings or decrease gun crime. In January 2019, Cassidy was one of 31 Republican senators to cosponsor the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, a bill introduced by John Cornyn and Ted Cruz that would grant individuals with concealed carry privileges in their home state the right to exercise this right in any other state with concealed carry laws while concurrently abiding by that state's laws. He also opposes any federal funding for abortion)
What politicians don’t talk about is that racism, classism, and gender oppression are at the root of unequal health outcomes. Joia Crear-Perry, M.D., an obstetrician and gynecologist, said in an article in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute website, “Our use of language and our desire to raise awareness about the huge inequities encroaching on the lives of Black women have conflated, even equated, Blackness and disease. Race is not a factor for illness and death, but racism, bias, and discrimination definitely are. Without proper context, social determinants lose their meaning and end up presenting disparities, such as Black women’s high rate of maternal mortality, as if they were natural phenomena. We haven’t really addressed the underlying root causes of the problem, so it’s easy for people to still blame and shame communities of color by using the social determinants frame.”
Veronica Gillispie-Bell, medical director of Louisiana’s Perinatal Quality Collaborative and Pregnancy Associated Mortality Review and an obstetrician at Ochsner Health, said “There are two things that are always going to drive the disparities. It’s going to be systemic racism — the historical processes and policies that have been put in place that disenfranchise Black and brown people — and then the other part of that is going to be implicit bias. Black and brown individuals don’t always get the same quality of health care in the health care system as their white counterparts.”
The midterm elections will be on us before you know it. 2018 marked the highest voter turnout seen in midterm elections since 1914, at 49.4%. Can we make it at least 60% this year? Just Vote. Blue. And pass this on. Seriously.
4.
Too many deaths recently here in the Ol’ Pueblo. One of Tucson’s greatest performers, Alan Lewis Curtis (AKA: Al Foul), died Wednesday after a long fight with (fuck) cancer. His wife, KXCI’s Hannah Levin, said He roared when he died at sunset last night. This is not a metaphor. Like a lion. My love, like a lion.
Al had an amazing ability to merge old school rock ’n’ roll and punk with more recent technology…and usually accompanied by the record spinner known as the French Tourist.
And now…
