I'm sure you know how I feel about guns and gun violence. And how I feel about those who hurt children. So you can imagine how I feel about this horror. A heavily armed man opened fire inside a Connecticut elementary school Friday leaving 27 dead — including 20 children — and forcing students to cower in classrooms and then flee with the help of teachers and police. But for hours I wasn't able to write anything about it. I had to write about something else. Not because I was sad, although I was. But because I was so angry.
A Congresswoman is shot in the head. A judge, a nine-year-old girl, and four others are killed. Eleven people are wounded some of them critically.The madness.The horror.
Because Giffords is a Democrat, the Republicans are weeping crocodile tears, and claiming a crazy man did it.
But nobody can dodge responsibility for the kind of society America has become. A violent militaristic one, where racism still divides, religious fanaticism inflames the ignorant, and guns are too easy to get.
Where a mentally ill person can get hold of a powerful weapon.
Post a picture on his website.
And nobody hears his cries for help. Or recognizes the danger.
"WOW! I’m glad i didn’t kill myself. I’ll see you on National T.v.! This is foreshadow .... why doesn’t anyone talk to me?.."
"I don’t feel good: I’m ready to kill a police officer! I can say it."
Because it's just too crazy EVERYWHERE.
And the Republicans, and the tea baggers, and the right-wing-radio hosts can't dodge the responsibility for creating an atmosphere of violence.
No matter how it tries, the right cannot divorce itself from the pustulence of its violent rhetoric no matter how many times its practitioners say "not me, not me" after people are murdered for taking these vile imprecations to heart. A few crocodile tears from Glenn Beck won't cut it.
They noted that Jesse Kelly, a tea-party candidate who narrowly lost to Giffords, held a fundraiser at a shooting range in which he invited supporters to "help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office" by shooting an M16 with him. They pointed to an online map, posted by Sarah Palin, in which gun sites marked each congressional Democrat that the former Republican vice-presidential nominee wanted to defeat, along with her frequent use of shooting metaphors.
Oh boy. What's happening in the United States both horrifies and scares me. But I love and admire the many good people in that country. I share their struggle against the hatemongers of the rabid right, and I want to cheer them on to victory.
So this is what I would tell them. Make those Republican teabaggers WEAR this massacre. Use it to attack them harder them ever.
Make Sarah Palin EAT this map. Over and over again.
Tell them they're not patriots they're TERRORISTS.
Tell them if the founding fathers got hold of them, they'd horsewhip them or hang them.
Organize, mobilize, drive those crazies from power.
And above all make it clear to them that they don't speak for America.
Because you need them like you need a hole in the head.
It's one of the biggest stories in the world. The most read story in the London Times Online. The most popular news video of the week on YouTube. The tabloids can't get enough of it.....the nightmarish killing of Tim McLean. I suppose it was inevitable. It's Halloween AND The Night of the Living Dead.... on a bus. But I still find the frenzied ghoulish coverage, and some of the reactions it is conjuring up from bottom of the human gene pool, absolutely nauseating.
The bloodthirsty calls for the killer AND his family to be punished. Even though we live in Canada, the man is obviously mentally ill, and his poor family must be devastated.
And then to make matters even worse, there's the screeching chorus of blowhards accusing the other passengers of being cowards. Like this commenter in the Globe.
I can't say that I agree with the police chief remark about how 'brave' the passengers were. In fact, if you noticed, the police chief had to pause a little before saying the word 'incredible' when he was describing how the rest of the passenger behaved. I think he was trying so hard not to say the word 'cowardice'
There are lots of ways to take a knife away. How about some MEN stepping up, you know, like more than one? How about throwing a blanket over him? How about a tire iron? Bussess do have them. Canadians=pussies. Which is ridiculous, further victimizes the passengers, and forces me to say this: I've been taking martial arts since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I've been in more fights with bigot bullies in Canada and Scotland than I can count. I'm pretty confident I could disarm just about ANYBODY coming at me with a knife or a broken bottle or whatever.
But in the dark confined space of a bus, faced with a man in a psychotic frenzy and armed with a big knife, and with the victim obviously mortally wounded, even if I wasn't shocked out of my sleep as they were, I would have done EXACTLY what they did. Trap the man in the bus and hold him there until the police arrived.
And anyone who suggests they would have done anything differently is both a wanker blowhard AND a bloody idiot.
When the news cycle moves on there may be some lessons to be learned. All of them to do with how to better identify and treat mental illness. One can only hope. But apart from that all I take away from this tragedy is that a decent, gentle, hardworking, Canadian kid died in a horrible act of random violence.
That there was nothing anyone could have done to save him. And that Tim McLean was loved by many.
"He was a little guy with a heart bigger than you can know. He made friends effortlessly, disliked no one and accepted everyone for who they were..."
And will be sadly missed by them for the rest of their lives.
Just like the passengers on that bus will be traumatized forever. Everything else is meaningless... just ugly noise.
