"NRA: Any Gun, Any One, Anywhere"

The National Rifle Association’s mission, in our Nation today, is just that:  “any firearm, in anyone’s hands (sane, violent criminal or not), to be taken anywhere” would equal Freedom in America.  The people who run the NRA are not insane; they are owned and guided by the dollars of munitions manufacturers.  The NRA functions just as our government does.  When the battle lines are drawn between the common good and large dollar interests, it is the power of money that always wins the day.  It isn’t just your elected representatives that are owned and ruled by large corporate dollars.  The appointed U.S. Supreme Court is also (example: Citizens United Decision).

“Two years ago last week, President Obama ordered the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to get back to studying the causes of gun violence.”  - The Washington Post.  This order was issued by Obama in response to the massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary.  Congress responded to the order by not funding the research, due in no small part to NRA influence.  I’m not sure that I would support such a study myself.  You can easily predict the study’s outcome.  It will show a bell curve of the American population.    A couple of standard deviations to the right of this violent population, will be the mass murderers, who would like to shoot up large numbers of innocent students and at their tip, the few who actually do so.  At the center, or top of the curve, is the simple majority (you and me).  We enjoy violent video games, violent TV series, violent films and read the stories in our newspapers of our Storm Troopers of The American Empire vanquishing “the others or the terrorists” in lands far, far away.  We each own one or more deadly weapons.  On the left of the curve, are a tiny number of pacifists (these are the people who think), they don’t belong here in America any more than the psychopathic killers on the far right side do.  The right and left indications mentioned are not political beliefs; they are positions represented on a bell chart.  The Political Right might tend to align with the NRA, but that is a topic for another day (you dumb-ass Ultra- Right-Wingers need not take offence).

In today’s paper, there is also an editorial written by Fareed Zakaria in which he quotes Andrew Bacevich, military historian, in pointing out that before Syria, Washington had already launched interventions in 13 countries in the Islamic World since 1980.  Zakaria wonders if one more intervention, into Syria, will really do the trick of stopping terrorism.  You do wonder if the U.S. interventions aren’t part of the cause rather than the cure.  There seems at least to be a positive correlation.  The munitions manufacturers and the NRA would certainly not like to see the killing stop.  Can’t make any money if that happens.  That concept is our Nation’s true moral guide.  God Bless America’s Corporations.

Comments are welcome, Old Buz

"Religion, The Mother of Satire"

The first woman, who liked to play around and told her gullible husband that his new born son was the child of The Sun God, was a pioneer in religious thought.  When Mr. Gullible told a friend, an early Satirist, of the blessed event, the Satirist said, “Why don’t you name him Sunny, after his Father?”  This joke wouldn’t have gotten the Satirist a writer’s job on late night TV, but it invented that form of Satire.  A modern day example would be the bumper sticker that says, “Honk, if you love Jesus.  Text, if you want to meet Him.”   You see, the form is the same.  Start with a stupid statement, like the use of a warning signal to show that you love a myth and then show how absurd it is by adding a thought that is even dumber, by advising texting while driving.

It has long been popular to murder folks for not believing in your mythology of choice.  The churches have supported it, from the stoning deaths depicted in The Old Testament to the Jihad of the Koran.  We people of the Bible, in the U.S., just murdered over one hundred thousand innocents in Iraq.  No creditable reason has been offered for the “mistake.”  Being a Satirist, I am still looking for the punch line for that one.   Do you have any suggestions?

The great Satirists of our time, like Lewis Black, George Carlin, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, are not listened to by the Ultra-Right.  The Ultra-Right simply doesn’t see the humor in the Satirist’s humor.  T-shirts and bumper stickers might be a better vehicle to reach them with, but the same problem in communication would exist.  I saw a t-shirt the other day that said, “When you stop saying stupid things, I will stop answering you with satire.”  This would be the view of a pompous ass, that is, your average Satirist.  God Bless the pompous asses.  If joy is the goal in life, a study of the lives of Satirists will show you that satire is not the path to take.  Being a religious gullible is a much better path to happiness.  That is, unless you are a radical Islamist martyr.  Their world has little room for humor in it, as was shown recently in Paris.  If you can’t laugh at religion, what besides government is there to laugh at?  … War?

This blog spot is really written to my fellow People of Satire.  If you Satirists are reading this, remember to respect and be kind to your Mother.

Comments are welcome, Old Buz The Satirist

(The term “Satire” is capitalized in the text, because I believe it becomes a religion to its frequent user.)