Fragile

When I got the email Saturday afternoon from Judith Gayle about Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Arizona, the news struck me with that same familiar feeling I learned first in the early Sixties when Jack Kennedy was shot. Then Martin Luther King. Then Bobby Kennedy. It’s a body and mind shock, but yes, we kill our leaders. This is part of us. It’s a blow against our nation, and unfortunately as time has gone on, we’ve become used to these blows, maybe even numb.

We like to imagine that we can be a progressive country. On the blue coasts, especially here in the San Francisco Bay area, our community is filled with opinion on what our country should be (progressive) versus what it is. These thoughts can also be dismissive of conservatives living other areas of the country, fiercely protective of their second amendment rights and their resentment of government interference. Their beliefs are as hard-wired into conservative consciousness as a woman’s ownership over her health decisions and equal rights for all is for me, a liberal San Francisco Democrat.

Yet, we all live together under this great roof called the United States, and when we are on our best behavior, we agree to disagree. Even in its birthplace of ancient Greece, democracy was never a quiet affair. It’s a messy cantankerous thing. I do not carry a gun, but I will fight to protect the rights of those who do believe they need to have one, because even though I don’t always agree with everything in the Constitution, I still believe in what it still and must represent. I also believe that its a living document that can evolve with the people who use it to govern themselves.

We live in a country where it can all turn on a dime. All it takes are words, spread like seeds on fertile ground. And for those of us on the ground, words are weapons as much as they are lights to guide us. Democracies, no matter how long they’ve been in existence, are as fragile and strong as the words we use to summon the people to action. How do we bridge the differences between us without the rhetoric that lays the groundwork for more attacks like what happened to Gabrielle Giffords? What can we say to counter the hatred and fear that stirs up emotions like rage and retribution against innocent people with whom we disagree? How can we do this and still protect for all our right to free speech, which is the baseline of our democracy?

I remember the English saying that they never required a Constitution. They had the Magna Carta and believed in civilization. We have a Constitution, and people in Congress who read it, or read it, maybe for the first time. But it remains the comprehension of it and its implementation by those who still believe we are a nation of laws, a culture and a civilization — that we need to insure. Given the interests that drive us to further isolate ourselves out of fear, there is much that we, with OUR words must fight against by teaching.

The horror and numbing we feel because of the events of the last 24 hours makes me look forward to the day we can rise up against people who use cross hairs as political logos with more than just more rhetoric, righteousness and divisiveness of our own. There has to be a meeting place. We are not the Weimar Republic. We are not the former Soviet Union. We are something else — the United States. And as violent a history we’ve had, we can still overcome and move forward. We can define ourselves with this event as something better than we appear to be right now.

This is a day for all of us to mourn the dead and pray for the survivors. It’s a time to hold together the delicate balancing act that is our society. If and when they try to pull this apart from within, to put firing range targets on people with whom they disagree to keep us apart, it is still up to all of us to keep this beautiful, complex and fragile thing, our democracy, together. Democracy is the body politic, and like our own individual bodies, mortal and tender and in need of constant diligence to insure it continues to thrive, healthy, alive, inquisitive, curious and courageous. That goes for being in the face of danger as well as in the fear of change.

Yours and truly,

Fe Bongolan
San Francisco

48 thoughts on “Fragile”

  1. Fe
    Thank you for doing the work of posting the “Generations” synopsis. Wish we all could have a cup of tea together. And Len is wonderful as usual.

  2. shebear:

    I really do need to get and read up on my BHC. Rick Tarnas and Dane Rudhyar are quarelling in my bookcase, and I need my set of inspirational words to guide me through these times.

    I salute you, fellow Chironic Aquarian traveler.

    I hope everyone is catching Len’s latest post. Quite apropos of everything going on here right now.

  3. Jan:

    I clicked on the link you posted. Stunning, and I think important to this discussion. Here’s the breakdown of the generational eras for our readers and commenters:

    Awakening. During an Awakening, rising adults are driven by inner zeal to become philosophers, religious pundits, and hippies, thereby alienating children (who see the adult world becoming more chaotic each day) and older generations alike. Civil order comes under attack from a new values regime. Examples of Awakening eras include the Protestant Reformation (1517-1542), the Puritan Awakening (1621-1649), the Great Awakening (1727-1746), the Second Great Awakening (1822-1844), the Third Great Awakening (1886-1908), and the Consciousness Revolution (1964-1984). Seen as a tumultuous time, somewhat echoing a “Crisis”.

    Unraveling. An Unraveling is an era of relative peace and prosperity between an Awakening and a Crisis. The most recent Unraveling was seen between The Consciousness Revolution and the time just before September 11 (1985-2001?), a time of paradigm shifting. Seen as a positive time, somewhat echoing a “High”.

    Crisis. A Crisis is a decisive era of secular upheaval. The values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one. Wars are waged with apocalyptic finality. Examples of Crisis eras include the Wars of the Roses (1459-1487), the Spanish Armada Crisis (1569-1594), the colonial Glorious Revolution (1675-1704), the American Revolution (1773-1794), the American Civil War (1860-1865), and the twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II (1929-1946).

    High. A High is an era between a Crisis and an Awakening. The most recent High was seen between World War II and the Consciousness Revolution.

    Our generation was born during a “High” period, making us Prophets/Idealists:

    Prophet/Idealist. A Prophet (or Idealist) generation is born during a High, spends its rising adult years during an Awakening, spends midlife during an Unraveling, and spends old age in a Crisis. Prophetic leaders have been cerebral and principled, summoners of human sacrifice, wagers of righteous wars. Early in life, few saw combat in uniform; late in life, most come to be revered as much for their words as for their deeds.

    Thank you for this link and the information. I will be getting this book and using it as reference for future work!

  4. I’m with you *all* the way Fe, shoulder to boulder and hoist the blockage out of the way. Like yourself, I feel that a very long, tortured initiation period has been completed and it is time to speak up, to act, to nurture, drawing all the while with knowledge gained from lessons learned during our apprenticeship. We went to bed as tots eating and breathing massive idealism that depressingly had to confront so many harsh, painful realities. “What’s love got to do with it?” we may have asked over and over in the face of gut wrenching assassinations and mindless war, but today we can end the questioning by beginning to point society toward a great leap forward.

    I’m thinking what connects quite a few of us here more than anything is that we have Chiron in Aquarius and that having learned over these many years how to ground our idealism, we get to apply Chiron’s teachings now and show others how to build what Barbara Hand Clow calls the “Rainbow Bridge.” A bridge that connects the inner and outer planets. The “Rainbow Bridge” (also the title of her book) is, in her words: “the connection between Saturn form and Uranian electrical integration.” It will be our ability to act dynamically, Uranus in Aries as we create a new system for living, Pluto in Capricorn. It is essential for us to have that Uranian energy grounded in Saturn/Capricorn, for those born with this particular placement of Chiron experience, again in the words of BHC, are “resonating with a galactic vibrational attunement.”

    Generation “Chrion in Aquarius” Jones at the ready to zap, pow, WOW the world out of its destructive complacency.

  5. Fe
    I woke up to gently-falling snow and your response which has me verklempt. Thank you for your take on “our time”. I think you are correct. Sixtieth S/R was just over two weeks ago. Have you ever seen the book “Generations” that came out in the 90’s? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_(book) like you I feel I now have plenty to offer and am trying to put it to use. You are now writing for PW and that is a wonderful service to this community. Peace.

  6. re weapons. ‘Lite’ perhaps, off to the side a bit (and Europe isn’t the States) but I took and ran with it – Albert Campion (Margery Allingham’s sleuth) never carried any kind of weapon because he was afraid he might be tempted to use it in a tight corner

    There is also buddha who thanked a murderer for his proposed gift (of murder), but no thank you. We need to somehow build character and strength ‘weight’ awareness like this too to turn events. I guess for the ‘other’ guy most of all to keep life? It’s like that appalling Wikileaks footage of the airborne soldiers killing the journalists and various other innocents – we need to change our armies – train each soldier as a real shaolin priest perhaps – powerfully towards the good. Stop killing by numbers. But you can choose any example: How do we seek out and not be the lost, innocent and all humanity/creature/place alike. And so much fear all round.

    Peace yes. But we desperately need light too (and love, because love casts out fear), because light touches and disperses darkness, and means the illusion of darkness cannot be/manifest. Light is healing too I guess.

    And another campion phrase (again off to the side) – from Averil, anger acts like alcohol on the body, it dulls the senses and then you risk to miss important details.

    And like Len says. kindness and humility.

    And if all our small light is put together maybe we can light up even the horizon!

    A prayer from the heart and knees (we have all suffered so long and so much, too long, too much) –

    bring us light and love, let our light and love shine out and, let the light and love shine gently everywhere

  7. Jan:

    I woke early this morning to find your beautiful story.

    If you are the same age as I am — 55, I wonder if you ever felt like your purpose was not to protest on campus or serve in the VN war like your brother did. I wonder if instead you found yourself wondering when your time would come to answer the call from the larger world.

    I think for me, that time is now. I think and feel like those of us who walked through those dangerous turnstiles of the draft and of all the various temptations and side roads that lay like traps through the late sixties, the 70s and beyond waited for their time – our time, which is now. I feel as though we are living out the Uranus-Pluto call – resolving, as it were, what was started over 40 years ago.

    I’m not saying we need to go out and wage war against the powers that be, or hear the call of history on the big stage. But maybe everything we’ve lived through has a purpose in our training–that we are evolved through the forge of our recent history to take on what’s next with powerful inner tensile strength. I’d like to imagine that we are fully prepared to help move the boulder over the precipice and out of our way.

  8. As a product of the fifties I recall Saturday mornings, waking up and turning on TV to see the Indian head test pattern. We’d stare at it til the programming came on. Shows like “The Big Picture” depicting military battles and close-ups of chiaroscuro payloads being dropped started off Saturday am — hey it was something to watch and we probably only got 1 or 2 channels. In the evening “Have Gun Will Travel” and “Gunsmoke” filled our small screens and fueled our imaginations as we rooted for the good guys. In the early 60’s I came home from parochial grade school one November day to eat lunch and watch cartoons. The TV, my mother said, was broken. When I returned to school, one of the boys in my class told me that Kennedy had been shot. That Friday night at my friend’s home, my two best pals and I obsessed over the coverage of the dead President. The plane was on the tarmac in Dallas and they were getting ready to swear in the new President when the phone rang. It was my mother calling for me to come home. My father was very ill. He would be dead within a week, too, along with Oswald and Jack Ruby. While Dad was in the hospital, I took my sister’s sandy black-finished Royal typewriter out of the black alligator embossed case and started typing about the events surrounding the assassination. Thankfully Dad didn’t die of a gunshot. The national unity in grief over the death of JFK is all at once a sacred-and-hurt-to-the-bones memory. The sorrow my family felt was all mixed up with national loss. Soon the TV screen was filled with war images. Sandwiched between the gut punches of two more political assassinations in April and June of 1968, my brother would be drafted. He was going to Vietnam Nam. Thank goodness he survived without physical injury and has aged to be a gentle man.

    It is nearly as difficult to review those memories 47 years later as it was to witness them. Yet people can flourish in the midst of suffering and there is so very much to be learned and accomplished. We can change. Though we are experiencing reminders of those dark days we can influence things for the better.

    “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

  9. Carrie and Fe,

    You both have added vital pieces to the kaleidoscope through which I see this situation. Thank you! Being reminded of the many facets is a good thing.

    Kyla, I agree: being more intentional about our speech and what we choose to express takes practice. I’m doing this with my thoughts, and it’s amazing how much of a rut I get into. It’s a very valuable practice, and it leads me to the beliefs that generate the thoughts. That’s where I’ve been focusing my energy, and it’s where I believe (!) I’ll make the most lasting changes.

    Listening also takes practice. That a lesson I meet time after time. Sheesh…

    I can’t change anyone else, but I can be the change I want to see in the world.

  10. Just for the sake of information, I was born in 1960 and I grew up in what I like to call the “assassination decade” like some others here. I belong to Generation Jones (not a Boomer) but I am a Rat in the Chinese zodiac. I have Pluto in Virgo, Uranus in Leo, Saturn in Cap and Jupiter in Sag.

  11. Carrie:

    Your posts are profound in that they nail on the hard-wiring of our brothers and sisters who need the guns. I’m going to try to respond to your points, if possible, in this response.

    I think you nailed it with the primary almost cellular and distinctly American impulse of overthrowing the omnipotent, ever-present monarch, wherever they may be–across the pond, the White House or Wall Street.

    I want to take your thoughts one notch further: I’ve always believed our initial impulse to find and settle a place is the legacy of the place and its descendants, so with the Puritans and early settlers–mostly from debtors prisons, we have freedom from economic hardship and freedom of religion. Add the freedom from tyranny in the late 18th century and we are heads upside down over barrel. To further exacerbate matters, we carry with us that puritanical zeal and Calvinist work ethic that slowly strips away a person’s bottom half, thus making perfect work-bots for the master if you don’t own property, and newer and better ways to make the buck if you do. Add to this mix the fear of the power and equality of women.

    We are prisoner to an old metaphor from the last time Pluto was in Capricorn.

    Yet as Carol Van Strum posted here a while back, these 18th century cats–the guys and gals–were wild and woolly–pirates, whores, sodomites and daughters of Sappho.

    Our history as well as our present day is rife with paradox. It appears we’re still on the same track.

  12. Hi everyone, wonderful, peaceful thoughts today, especially those on how we go forth from here. I like Kristal’s micro to macro argument for change. It’s a new take on the “think locally, act globally” meme.

    Everyone I’ve talked to today has been shocked and dismayed at what happened. Gabby was and is truly liked, and we’re all pulling for her, in whatever form that may take. Whether they be a rancher, a townie like me, this has truly shaken people here.

    Here in Arizona you can get a permit to carry a weapon, but you can also “open” carry (i.e. on your belt in the open), or as of late last year, concealed carry without a permit. There are restrictions as to where you can take your weapon, but they are not many. Unfortunately I have the feeling this shooting will not change the state laws in any shape or form.

    KO’s comments were spot on, and hopefully only the first of many. I saw on another blog a video snippet from Fox, showing a reporter giving a young man at a candlelight vigil in Tucson the chance to talk about it, and as soon as he mentioned Sarah Palin they cut to a commercial. {themudflats.net covers politics in Alaska}

    Oy, what days these are!

    Shebear – Yes, I’m a Chinese boar, coming up on my natal sun return in just over a month, making me one of those Aquarian types. Fe is actually the same age as one of my sisters, so there’s another great similarity.

  13. Regarding looking inward, that was one of the reasons I liked Keith Olbermann’s statement so very much. He took full and public responsibility for repudiating any way in which he had or might have contributed to this disease, while at the same time firmly insist that it cease in public discourse.

    I find myself being more intentional by the day about how I frame my speech and what I am willing to give expression to. It takes practice.

  14. “I’ve said all along and continue to say that we are a culture immersed in violence and far from civilized, and we seem to have too many expensive toys that kill – on an individual personal basis and a massive political scale. Is moving people away from a violence-prone cultural, sociological-psychological mindset the role of a government or of society? Is this a chicken or egg question?”

    Fe, I remember a study in which it was found that in cultures where babies were co-sleeping and being held a lot and teens were allowed sexual freedoms without shame, violence was minimal. Thinking about what you said above and the issue of our violence prone culture here in the US, I think that if we ever get around to valuing the positive aspects of children and sexuality, we may end this cycle of violence.

    Controlling guns or all that isn’t what will work; a sweeping change in who and what we value IS what will work but it will take time and it will be painful because religions are tied into these skewed values that are against holding (and valuing) our babies and against allowing our teens healthy sexual lives.

    So to answer your question, it is the role of both. Government can set the tone by making laws that protect families so they CAN invest their time and energy in their children instead of in chasing the next buck or consumable item. Society can change and allow teens healthy sexual lives by educating them early and without shame. We can do these things but the powerful religious and corporate lobbies will not want us to change because they benefit in things as they stand now.

  15. When I look at the context in which the Second Amendment was written, it tells me that people once feared that their governing body could get out of hand like the monarchies of old Europe and a free person, unarmed, could not defend themselves against that kind of disparity and complete control. Arming themselves meant having the ability to rise up and stop their government from doing them harm. These people remembered their European history and knew that serfdom was easily perpretrated on a helpess and unarmed population; so they armed themselves.

    Fast forward to today and the egregious and sneaky removal of personal freedoms (by our recent government under Cheney-Bush and others) for the sake of greedy corporate interests and you have a fearful population who feels they cannot relenquish their arms in case their government starts rounding them up and shipping them off to Cheney’s secret “illegal immigrant internment” camps (read “torture hush-up” camps) for speaking out.

    Every American, admitting it or not, has a deep seated fear that if we allow the government to take away our guns, we allow our government to take away our ability to fight against the tyranny of the rich and powerful interests that already control us far too much. Our rights have already been infringed upon with the Patriot act and other things; take away our right to arm ourselves leaves us feeling vulnerable in the extreme. I am just saying what I read, hear, and feel off of people of all walks of life; Right, Left and Center politically, educated as well as uneducated, open and progressive or closed and fearful….all have voiced this deep fear.

    Fear is alive and well and living in America.

  16. Baycyn and kyla:

    Thank you for moving the goalposts northward in our discussion.

    I think we need to set a new star in which to grow our nation and evolve our communities. I am heartened that this discussion and Planet Waves can help set new levels of thought and self-examination. We need to look inward right now. That is a responsibility to ourselves and our society. I pray we learn civilization begins from within.

  17. This event has reminded me of how violent my thoughts can be. And how much they can lash out, even if not expressed aloud. These thoughts & the energy they carry ripple out anyway, and I am responsible for them. Just because I don’t broadcast them on TV doesn’t absolve me of the responsibility or of the effects they have. By continuing these thought patterns I hypnotize and numb myself, all the while considering myself so “progressive” and peace-loving. That’s hitting me hard right now. I applaud Keith Olbermann for his stance.

    Someone in this comments thread mentioned the “American dream”. What is that, exactly? The superficial definition seems to be owning one’s own home, living (economically) better than one’s parents, with one’s kids doing even better. In my experience, it’s conceived as very outer-directed and thing/money oriented.

    Our economic and political structure have become about competition rather than cooperation. In competition, someone must lose. The motivation for many people is “not to lose”, with fear stoking the fire. Fear can motivate us to do and believe things we otherwise wouldn’t.

    I think Kristal is right in her assessment of just how fearful we Americans are. We’ve traded our much-vaunted “freedom” for the illusion of security. Seems to me we’ve always been a fairly xenophobic country, needing the be the biggest and baddest kid on the block. Now that we’re “threatened” with no longer being the biggest and baddest, we have to do something, right? Wouldn’t a gun on my hip protect me? Isn’t it my Constitutional right?? We’re like adolescents who are confused and angry, and who don’t yet understand that with rights and power come responsibilities.

    (No, I don’t own a gun and don’t want one. I think our gun culture is truly insane, and I’m not talking about people like my brother-in-law who goes hunting once a year and locks his shotgun away the rest of the time.)

    Take a really good listen to news, sports, and political commentary and rhetoric. You’ll start hearing how often war and other violent analogies are used. They’re so much a part of our cultural conversation that sometimes I don’t even hear them. Doesn’t take much to inflame when the fuel is so abundant.

    Blaming FOX, Tea Partiers, Republicans, or whomever, misses the point. Yes, they incited — and continue to do so — and will not admit it. But the rest of us have our own share of responsibility here. Pointing to the “other” is easy to do but does not bring us forward.

    Thanks all for your thoughts and to Eric and team for providing the space and writings to facilitate our evolution.

  18. Quoting Eric here:

    “Vis a vis free speech, anyone who has ever practiced it to some degree with public influence sooner or later gets to the point of seeing the degree to which personal responsibility, and corporate (or organizational) responsibility, are directly implied. The people who are inciting violence and hatred are acting with intent. They are not passively exercising their rights — they are aware that they are abusing the intent of the right.”

    I would love to see this fact given a lot more daylight in our world. When this incident first occurred I thought of the comments in the sidebar over to the right, about the responsibilities held by the astrologer. I want our political “leaders” and others with a public platform to be informed by that attitude and take much more responsibility for the effects of their words. I want it to be public knowledge, too, that they know what they are doing, when they incite us to hate each other like so many have been.

    Perhaps culturally we can ourselves give more voice to that attitude and integrity of responsible speech, instead of letting the prevailing misuse of the “free speech” right continue unchallenged in this particular way.

    Rights = Responsibilities. We need better stewards of our public consciousness, that’s for sure.

  19. shebear:

    I’m a wood sheep from 1955, so I am headed towards 56, though age to me is still and always a number. Just keep ingesting and applying natural anti-inflammatories and we’re fine. And my SR is 2-1-2011.

    Interesting about the paradox of the Sixties. We were culturally attuned to the message of love and peace yet surrounded by shocking physical and psychic violence.

    I repeat, and continue to repeat–we don’t have to re-live the Sixties in this Uranus-Pluto square. We should work to improve the 10s. Game on.

  20. Glad that gave you a laff there Fe!! This a great thread, discussion, btw — thanks for kicking it off with your article.

    I’ve just returned from dipping into the previous thread down below and I think yourself, Brendan and I are possibly of the same age group! I love to refer to myself as a ’59-er though I think I have it in the back of my noggin’ your birth date. Are a February baby, 1960?

    Also curious if your birth date makes you a Pig in the Chinese astrology…………oink oink 😉

    OK silliness aside. Those assassinations in the ’60’s of such powerfully charismatic leaders certainly left an indelible mark in my psyche too. I remember being confused while watching the funeral of JFK and I remember exactly where I was when Robert was gunned down; that one felt like a punch in the solar plexus all right. All this while hearing the Beatles sing “All you Need is Love.” day in and day out. That song was my mantra and always fueled my idealism but lately I have thought of how confusing it must have been as well, hearing it juxtaposed to horrific deaths.

    We could lament and sing where have all the flowers gone, but it’s time to roll up our sleeves and plant them anew in the hearts and minds of all who feel despairing today. What gives me hope right at this moment is that Gaby Giffords is alive and responsive. There is something *miraculous* that she is still alive and communicating with her husband. I dig too that he is an astronaut and seemingly their favourite thing to do is talk about the cosmos! Here’s to the heavens working their magic and helping all the survivors pull through and console the broken hearted.

  21. shebear:

    “what, me, Irish, with a temper?”

    hee hee hee

    Great comment and read. And you’re right — we need a new way to think and feel, because I am getting too f–ing tired of the same old for the last forty-more years.

    I replied to Brendan in the other thread Rick Tarnas wrote that what was instigated in the last era of a Uranus-Pluto aspect (the 1960s) is resolved in the next, and usually by those born in that era.

    Well, here we are, and players born from that era are now on the world stage.

  22. The “peace in all hearts” line was meant to be at the very end of my post, but thinking about it now as I write this, I could have inserted it after every paragraph.

    We can never have too much peace.

  23. I think it’s very challenging for us humans to think that perhaps not only are we are part of the solution, but that we are also part of the problem. We’re programmed to lash out when we see injustices and often only see the *other’s* destructive side. It is massively challenging to look inward instead and take stock of what we might have brought to the issue and how it can be worked differently.

    I think of the young girl who lost her life yesterday at age 9 — so tragic and futile; born on a day of violence and dying on a day of violence, directly as a result of it. I also think of the killer. Going by his age, figuring he was born in the latter stage of the 1980’s, a decade I had a very hard time personally getting through as I remember it as being driven by out of control greed and hedonistic ways. I think this 22 year old knew futility and despair all too well. On one hand to have the ideals of the “American Dream” constantly held up as the backdrop to how to be an American citizen, all the while knowing that actualizing that dream was never going to happen. Too many people live lives that are the nightmarish opposite and they are on both sides of the political divide.

    Pluto in Capricorn sees the return of an aspect that occurred when the United States was born, but its foundations were built on division and civil war and with a two party state perpetuating the us and them mentality, there surely has to be a new way of thinking created for its future. It will take right brained solutions that quell unruly, heated rhetoric and unregulated, destructive passions.

    I agree with W. yeti that one need look no further than music and tai chi to be part of that solution. I know if I calm my own propensity to lash out in anger (what, me, Irish, with a temper?) I know that when my buttons are pushed like they were just this very morning, I can take a deep, DEEP breath and own that part of me that chooses not to be angry in the face of my raging DNA. I feel the discomfort of confrontations very physically and psychically, but a part of me has thankfully evolved to a point where I am learning a new and powerful technique to employ reason over passion. Interestingly this morning, with some time and space, both parties in my own wee drama managed to find a much healthier terrain to communicate and negotiate from and born from that a much better interaction took place.

    Peace in all hearts today.

    I don’t think it serves the situation well right now to challenge people’s right to bear arms as it is so coded in the psychic of your culture but I applaud all here who are cultivating the grey area (I want a new colour for that piece of turf!) between the two poloarities. I mean I have knives in my drawer that can kill, but I use them only for cooking. Coming at this gun issue requires a more subtle approach where people’s choices can be both respected and also steered in new directions by virtue of setting an example around how one conducts themselves when pissed off and in an angry state.

  24. The AZ attack is perfect example of what I hope is a grave reminder of sound verbal advice given in the past:

    We seem to forget the saying ” the pen is mightier than the sword” when wielding our hate statements. Dad ALWAYS advised us NOT to even use the word Hate: to eliminate it completely from our vocabulary and thoughts. He taught that it tends to grow like a cancer inside the user and if allowed to grow, manifests. Many years ago, I recognized this happening in me and remembered my Dad’s profound words.

    from NYTimes this morning Jan 9.2011:

    “It is fair to say — in today’s political climate, and given today’s political rhetoric — that many have contributed to the building levels of vitriol in our political discourse that have surely contributed to the atmosphere in which this event transpired,” said a statement issued by the leaders of the National Jewish Democratic Council. Ms. Giffords is the first Jewish woman elected to the House from her state.

    This week-end, at a small meeting, I was witness to a very simple quite impressive demonstration of the energy surrounding positive and negative thoughts. I am doing this 2 minute or so experiment now , not to test it, because I am a firm believer in energies, but to show the reality and value of the statements about such things. It’s fun “game” to play with friends and family.

    have a nice week-end

  25. Kristal
    I will have to do some research as to “why” and get back to you. This is in Iowa (yeh, somebody will turn the famous Grant Wood couple into a pair of gun toters). Businesses and others can post if open weapons are disallowed on the premises. More later.

  26. Wow Jan………why? I am guessing there was reasoning behind that decision … or what was assumed to be reasonable rather. And please do tell me where that is because I am not sure I want to travel there 🙂
    xoxoxoxox

  27. Thank you, Fe, Kristal, Eric and Hazel for a good discussion. In my state folks can now wear their guns as if they were a fashion accessory. People were recently lining up for these permits to openly carry weapons. Friends in Europe have asked my husband and I if we own a gun. There is the stereotype that we shoot first and ask questions later. Gee, why would they think that?

  28. The micro and the macro…….nothing is ever built from the top down, we must all build from the bottom up and it is the responsibility as Olbermann said (and I am trying to get that video to go viral) of each individual to recognize the insanity and create sanity through their actions, not fight the insanity. This needs to start at the grass roots level, the macro naturally follows. When viewed collectively we know how this works, but we keep fighting government, trying ot rebuild from the top down, futile in my opinion.

    Each and every person has a responsibility to self (not living that way) and the collective (lovingly encouraging and inspiring others to see sanity). In my opinion that is the only way it will work. If we do not see how trying to bring something down is a waste of energy as opposed to creating something new and letting the old naturally fade away (as religion is slowly doing) then we are not understanding how things really work.

    This is not about destroying the existing, but rather building something new to replace the existing, ignoring the dysfunction of the existing as we create the new and the new can only be created if we are aware of the dysfunction of the old.
    xoxoxox

  29. I’m sure to many of our readers overseas, particularly in light of recent events, this discussion on how Americans can kick their gun habit may seem somewhat horrific. However, gun ownership is highly protected in the United States, and the political will to change laws that would provide oversight is slow to arrive.

    I’ve said all along and continue to say that we are a culture immersed in violence and far from civilized, and we seem to have too many expensive toys that kill – on an individual personal basis and a massive political scale. Is moving people away from a violence-prone cultural, sociological-psychological mindset the role of a government or of society? Is this a chicken or egg question?

  30. I spent the evening with Steve, taking a guitar lesson. Mainly what he explained is the way in which Second Amendment caselaw has drifted in the direction of an individual right when for most of the 20c. it was not considered that; the amendment was considered obsolete, like the Third Amendment (no quartering of soldiers in homes during peacetime).

    He is vehemently opposed to all these guns. He thinks it’s insane, and that you’re basically nuts of you tote a gun.

    He didn’t have much to say about the incident. We both know that loudmouths are provoking this kind of shit every day.

  31. @ Fe..agreed…..and i send my comments of taking responsibility to CNN as well, I am apparently on a mission 🙂 But to close our eyes to it is avoiding it, how can a light be shone onto it if we are not aware of its darkness. It is only when we fear that an outside factor can steal us of our own light that we stick our heads up our ass, avoiding what is pushed as news is in my opinion, another avoidance. Knowledge leads to choice of action, then action. Defining ourselves is a mental concept, we need once we define ourselves to bring awareness. Responsibility to self first then action to implement responsibility and accountability from those who weild the most influence, and that is government and media.

    @ Eric, yes, distortion is what has been occurring, free speech does not mean the freedom to abuse others. But when we look at a country who has decided they have the right to attack countries because they fear, the mindset is a given. Iraq was not attacked because of 9/11 or even for oil per se. Anyone who has done their homework would know it was because Saddam Hussein was starting to trade/sell oil in another currency and that would have been devastating because the only reason the US economy is still standing is because they are the international currency….if that changes..and I suspect it will…..the whole house of cards tumbles.

    With the current mindset of government, media and many citizens as it now is, it will not be pretty if (when) this happens. I say the time for action is now. Peaceful action that sweeps major change. Is it possible? Time will tell
    xoxoxoxox

  32. hey e.:

    “So why can someone go to a sporting shop in Arizona and purchase an assault handgun and walk around with it legally in an urban area?”

    AZ re-elected John McCain and Jan Brewer. AZ has evolved to become the proving ground for governance under the state of insanity, and I think is flaunting itself to tempt the Federal government to try and take away their “freedoms” — guns and all, and including the freedom to card, deport or incarcerate immigrants. Should the Feds get involved? This would lead to the afeared “government taking away my rights…” and the ensuing mayhem.

    “We could say that I have a natural right to free expression, to found a publishing company, etc., protected by the First Amendment. If I put a 100,000 watt antenna on my roof and broadcast my pirate radio station, I get shut down, and most would agree that makes sense. So I’m wondering what the thing about a gun, the effect of which is irrevocable — death — is some kind of sacred right exempt from much oversight.”

    Maybe once we get past the social and cultural identifiers that keep guns a norm–like cigarettes were, we can move past using them and protecting them from oversight. But we have alot of work to do on that score. State by state, county by county.

    BTW, though I live in Berkeley, the bluest area of the country, we still have the highest murder rate in our county — Oakland, CA has a high gun mortality rate. I’ll have to check whether its as high as NYC’s.

    What does Steve Bergstein think about all of this?

  33. Vis a vis free speech, anyone who has ever practiced it to some degree with public influence sooner or later gets to the point of seeing the degree to which personal responsibility, and corporate (or organizational) responsibility, are directly implied. The people who are inciting violence and hatred are acting with intent. They are not passively exercising their rights — they are aware that they are abusing the intent of the right.

  34. I get what you’re saying. I understand the emotional need to carry a weapon, particularly since I grew up around men ALL of whom possessed handguns to compensate for their emotional weaknesses, their powerlessness and so on.

    I’m just wondering here — according to Scalia’s logic, self-defense is considered a natural right. I consider walking across the street a natural right. I consider driving a car an extension of the natural right to walk across the street. But I have to get a driver’s license and prove my competency before I get to drive the car legally. In New York City, I cannot carry a handgun without a carry permit; nor can I do so in upstate New York. So why can someone go to a sporting shop in Arizona and purchase an assault handgun and walk around with it legally in an urban area?

    We could say that I have a natural right to free expression, to found a publishing company, etc., protected by the First Amendment. If I put a 100,000 watt antenna on my roof and broadcast my pirate radio station, I get shut down, and most would agree that makes sense. So I’m wondering what the thing about a gun, the effect of which is irrevocable — death — is some kind of sacred right exempt from much oversight.

    To the contrary; we have, until now, been tolerant of the violent rhetoric inciting people to hatred and violence spun by these same institutions protected by the First Amendment. That restraint has to be voluntary.

  35. Kristal:

    Agreed about another perspective. When our country has its head up its ass like it does over guns and violence today, another viewpoint is quite valuable.

    I would filter through CNN for the most part, because they are almost as sensationalist as Fox News, which is currently trying to shunt aside guilt for their part in the hate instigation in this country in the form of Mr. Glenn Beck. Ironically, I find myself checking local sites like our Pro Publica and the UK Guardian for news, though yesterday, I forced a tv news blackout on myself to keep me from getting my head unscrewed.

  36. “It seems to be that to read individual gun rights into this amendment, particularly handgun rights, is an hallucination. We have a standing peacetime Army — not the case at the time the Bill of Rights was drafted. We don’t need the Minutemen.”

    This is actually the best place to start the discussion.

    To the minds of the gun lobbies, guns are a product. “Needs” are created to sell products. Guns fill a need for power in a time we feel powerless, and the use of guns is part of our culture’s “language”. Thus form militias as a way to “protect the peace” and “secure our borders”. As horrible as this sounds, legislating guns away or limiting their use in this country may likely make things worse.

    In order to prevent something like this from happening again, its going to take more than gun control. Its going to take mouth control–over the mouths of demagogues and hate instigators who casually incite violence as a form of entertainment. Glenn. Rush. Sarah. We may not be able to censor them because we still have freedom of speech which belongs to all of us. But for now, we can certainly get sponsors to stop advertising to pay for their bile on the air.

    This is square one, but I’m afraid we have to go back in Civilization 101 nursery school for awhile.

  37. Here is a summary of DC vs Heller, 2008, which interprets the Second Amendment as an individual right. I am a little confused by the end. The government is always using “compelling interest” arguments to curtail free speech rights. The text below is from Wikipedia.

    The core holding in D.C. v. Heller is that the Second Amendment is an individual right intimately tied to the natural right of self-defense.

    The Scalia majority invokes much historical material to support its finding that the right to keep and bear arms belongs to individuals; more precisely, Scalia asserts in the Court’s opinion that the “people” to whom the Second Amendment right is accorded are the same “people” who enjoy First and Fourth Amendment protection: “‘The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.’ United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931); see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings….”

    With that finding as anchor, the Court ruled a total ban on operative handguns in the home is unconstitutional, as the ban runs afoul of both the self-defense purpose of the Second Amendment—a purpose not previously articulated by the Court—and the “in common use at the time” prong of the Miller decision: since handguns are in common use, their ownership is protected.

    The Court applies as remedy that “[a]ssuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.” The Court, additionally, hinted that other remedy might be available in the form of eliminating the license requirement for carry in the home, but that no such relief had been requested: “Respondent conceded at oral argument that he does not ‘have a problem with . . . licensing’ and that the District’s law is permissible so long as it is ‘not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner.’ Tr. of Oral Arg. 74–75. We therefore assume that petitioners’ issuance of a license will satisfy respondent’s prayer for relief and do not address the licensing requirement.”

    In regard to the scope of the right, the Court wrote, in a obiter dictum, “Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”[51]

    The Court also added dicta regarding the private ownership of machine guns. In doing so, it suggested the elevation of the “in common use at the time” prong of the Miller decision, which by itself protects handguns, over the first prong (protecting arms that “have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia”), which may not by itself protect machine guns: “It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home.”[52]

    The Court did not address which level of judicial review should be used by lower courts in deciding future cases claiming infringement of the right to keep and bear arms: “[S]ince this case represents this Court’s first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field.” The Court states, “If all that was required to overcome the right to keep and bear arms was a rational basis, the Second Amendment would be redundant with the separate constitutional prohibitions on irrational laws, and would have no effect.”[53] Also, regarding Justice Breyer’s proposal of a “judge-empowering ‘interest-balancing inquiry,'” the Court states, “We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach.”[54]

  38. Agreed Fe…..perhaps that is what this forum needs, a voice from another country. This is an opportunity that can affect huge shift and change but I suspect like everything else, it will be abandoned when the next popular news story comes along, you know, Assuange might release some more documents, or other such things.
    But this change is needed now (well years ago, we failed in the sixties)and I have found with my own network. americans truly (and I say this with love) cannot see themselves and their lives and their countries objectively. Most can’t, sometimes we need the outer perspective.
    xoxoxox

  39. Fe, I am not saying that the 2nd Amendment is not part of the Constitution. I am asking for a clarification, within the language, where it describes individual rights of any kind at all. Indeed, when the people get together and raise a militia, that is when the FBI cracks down. It seems to be that to read individual gun rights into this amendment, particularly handgun rights, is an hallucination. We have a standing peacetime Army — not the case at the time the Bill of Rights was drafted. We don’t need the Minutemen.

    Based on an individual rights interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, I should be able to possess a nuclear weapon, a tank, or a fighter jet (devices used by the standing army); after all, the right to bear arms is individual.

  40. Thanks Fe, for this blog and to everybody else for their insights. If two people agree on everything then one of them isn’t necessary, so I’ve heard.

  41. Eric:

    The 2nd Amendment is still part of the Constitution, and a law.

    The way the use of guns is marketed and protected by gun lobbies is a different matter altogether — no different than the tobacco industry. All kill.

    The NRA probably EXPECTS the backlash they are going to get from this incident. I’m not saying they shouldn’t take some heat. They are going to come up with an even better ad campaign to slow down the heat and try to make us forget.

    What to do? How do you stop a violence-prone gun-seeking sociopath from doing this again? What ways do we have to check the sanity of people who buy and use guns?

  42. Hey Kristal:

    Believe me, I would not have written this article if I didn’t believe that we should alter the course of our way of thinking about freedom and the use of violence in this country. As a matter of fact, its the very reason I wrote it.

    Key sentence:

    “We can define ourselves with this event as something better than we appear to be right now.”

    And those are directed towards my fellow Americans who have spent my lifetime dividing ourselves from each other, attempt to squash and demean and imprison one another, deny the rights of others to be here, and kill the very people who represent the change necessary to open the small and fearful minds that keep this country back. I don’t have the armchair of a different country’s perspective. I have my own.

  43. I am wondering why anyone needs to fight for the rights of anyone to have a gun. Until fairly recently, the 2nd Amendment was considered obsolete, like the 3rd — we’re not required to quarter soldiers in time of peace. The 2nd Amendment is militia based. There is no language even hinting of individual rights there. For 70 years this was considered the case. In the past 20 years, the law review articles have started to take the subject of how this bit of law is really intended to protect some kind of individual right. The intent is to protect the security of the “free state.”

    Read it a few times — here is the whole text:

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    Now, in a country and culture where violence is encouraged, nearly anyone can have a gun; and not only a gun, a very fancy paramilitary assault weapon.

  44. As long as it is accepted as “It is part of us” so it will be. Has anyone considered it is that very attitude that “is” the problem. Truly how ridiculous is it to say this? How foolish is it to say. shrugging shoulders, we have become numb to this? Solidifying that very attitude through the written word is simply adding more of the same.

    The funniest thing I find in reading about the rights and freedoms americans so staunchly protect and “fight” for, is the realization of just how imprisoned you really are to your misguided beliefs and true lack of freedom and liberty you truly have.

    The fact that for more than fifty years you believed you were granted all freedom as your government prohibited travel to Cuba……..is that freedom? Where was this child’s freedom and liberty? Guns to do afford freedom, that is nonsense. I am sitting here with CNN on and this idiot politician is brushing this off as some mentally deranged young man, not the norm, then read the norm say how normal it is to have guns????

    Free speech?? Your lovely (dripping with sarcasm) Ann Coulter came to my country and after a night of racist attack (what you call free speech LOL) against our university students she was visited by our RCMP and told she would be charged if she did it the next night and so she lied saying she stayed away because her safety was at risk…..Whatt bull!!

    Fredom ensures the freedoms and roghts of ALL…….ALL…..if your freedom to droll out caustic, demeaning and abusive words against another betrays their rights to dignity, then there is something wrong with your crazy laws you would die to protect.

    In “civilized” countries…..we respect “everyone’s” rights. Most americans are not aware just how uncivilized and abusive they really are and until that is recognized, this will continue and you will eventually implode. The enemy is within, not outside your borders and it starts is reinforced each time you shrug your shoulders and say this is the norm instead of taking action in changing this.

    xoxoxox

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