Memorial Day with Love and Anger!

On Memorial Day we take time to remember those who served and fought for We The People. Our service men and women who stand for us against tyranny. World War II veterans now a dwindling number fought against the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan. The Civil War was fought to end slavery and maintain the country as the United States of America. Take a moment to consider those brave service men and women who willingly fought in those and other conflicts for us. They fought for a representative government. A form of Democracy that attempts to honor the citizens by respecting the Constitution and individual rights.

Unfortunately we're now engaged in a different type of conflict. Nineteen grade school children slaughtered and two teachers in Uvalde,Texas bear witness with their bloody mutilated bodies to that ongoing violence. Ten black shoppers murdered just two days before that in Buffalo New York give testimony and witness with their blood. The list is long of those now sacrificed inside the country: School children at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Connecticut; Black Parishioners gathered to pray in Charlotte North Carolina; Jewish Parishioners ;  Parkland High School in Florida; Asian Americans viscously attacked, some killed; Muslims attacked some killed; mass shootings on a weekly basis. To think of these attacks and deaths as random or unrelated or only an aberration due to mental issues is a fatal error.  In truth this violence represents a terror campaign directed at the most vulnerable. A terror campaign aimed at destabilizing the government so that tyranny can take over.  A campaign aided and abetted by the gun lobby who own Republican Politicians lock stock and barrel.

 The Gift of Anger! 

Gandhi when asked by his grandson about why he never got angry responded, “Because I have learned to use my anger for good.”  Gandhi explained. “Anger to people is like gas to the automobile – it fuels you to move forward and get to a better place. Without it, we would not be motivated to rise to a challenge. It is an energy that compels us to define what is just and unjust.' 

Prayers Won’t Bring nineteen children and two teachers back. Prayer is salve to put on a bleeding wound.  Ask the Parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook how they still mourn. 

Prayers won’t stop the next mass shooting. Analyzing the head cases after the fact won’t stop the next mass shooting. 

Common sense gun control sure reduces the risk of more senseless murders of children and others in our society. 

Love and caring can generate anger. 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this about love. “All too many people have seen power and love as polar opposites… (But) the two fulfill each other. Power without love is reckless, and love without power is sentimental.” 

Prayer alone without action remains sentimental. 

Our children and citizens alike are at the mercy of a minority that’s gamed the system. A hypocritical minority that uses the law for the purposes of oppression. They’ve interpreted the Constitution in regards to the Second Amendment as if  the part about  “ ….a  well regulated militia” was never written. Conservative Justice Warren Burger called that interpretation a fraud. They’ve installed activist religious judges on the supreme court to take away a woman’s right to privacy and her right to choose. Most of these judges are members of the catholic church famous for pedophile priests and the enabling of pedophile priests to victimize more children. For any catholic to pretend to be ‘Holier than thou’, is the ultimate hypocrisy and arrogance. Catholic Justice Samuel Alito fits that description to a tee. 

 

Not that many years ago a frequently seen bumper sticker read: 

“If You’re Not Angry, You’re Not Paying Attention.” 

The only question remains how to use the anger and outrage to deal with a minority controlled government that ignores real democracy and the majority that want better gun control laws and that want Roe v. Wade to continue to protect a woman's right to privacy and the right to choose. 

For each individual it’s a matter of how to use the anger generated by the love for fairness, justice and the heartfelt desire for all citizens in the United States regardless of race, age, ethnicity or childhood to get the same protections as those that support the gun lobby and religious right who want to make all women succumb to their hypocritical religion. 

Did you know that the National Rifle Association the main gun lobby just held a convention this weekend. Guns were not allowed at their convention, but they insist that gun owners should be able to go to any public place fully locked and loaded with an AR15 military style weapon. Putin's boy, Donald Trump, was their key note speaker.

The gun lobby and right wing exist in direct violation of the Declaration of Independence's inalienable rights; "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." All of these rights have been taken away by the AR15 wielding murderers. Cars and trucks are recalled when a safety flaw is discovered. The AR15 should be recalled due to its proven danger.  

To follow Gandhi’s use of anger means to not let our anger eat us up or leave us in despair, but rather to understand that our anger is generated out of a sincere love. Our love can fuel a persistent activism that will relentlessly push for change.  Dr. King observed, that love  needs to develop power so that justice may be done. These two exist as living examples of how anger and love can empower those that feel disempowered to work toward change.

All of us are needed for this Good Work. All need to speak out.

A True Story: Once upon a time there was this transcendentalist American named Henry David Thoreau who not only spent quality time at Walden Pond but wrote an incredible essay titled On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. At that time slavery was legally codified in the Constitution. Henry David was against slavery and against any abuse by the government. He felt disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War. He believed that honest conscience required human beings to resist the machinations of the government.

Law is a tool. A tool has no moral value. It is how the tool is used by human beings that matters. Laws and the misinterpretation of the Constitution are now used for tyranny. The refusal of even minimal common sense "regulation" of guns and gun ownership per Article Two of the Constitution means that those who wish to create a state of terror in the United States can and have.

To do away with Roe v. Wade provides the religious right the ability to take away a women's right to control their own body, persecute them for family planning and make them criminals. Family planning is not possible for animals. Family planning and birth control distinguish humans from the amoral animal world, and is a unique ability of human beings to control and regulate the number of offspring. Any religion that attempts to deny a woman's right to control her reproductive capacity can only be considered an animalistic religion.

Others have observed that Republicans only care about fetuses. Once a child is born they couldn't care less what happens to them. Born into poverty and a life of misery do not expect any help from a Republican. This sadly demonstrates the Republican attitude toward mass shootings of children. They have sold their soul to the gun lobby for power and money and refuse to allow even others to take effective action to protect our children by blocking common sense gun laws.

Pray? Pray for what? That this legal abuse will change to reflect the true will of We The People. This is not a Dr. Seuss fairy tale called the "Grinch Who Stole Christmas." These are moral cowards who even after Trump instigated an attack upon them as keepers of a free and fair elections they didn't have the guts to do the obvious and impeach him.

It's good to honor those who gave their all to permit us the living the right to free speech and to change the government. We can and will honor those men and women by speaking out against these abuses of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Civil Disobedience to honor a greater conscience needs to be the order of the day.

I believe a proper protest would be to pour a bucket of blood on the heads of those refusing to enforce the constitution and an individual's right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." This type of protest would demonstrate their culpability for all of the innocent lives lost in this senseless wave of terrorism that has been going on now for years.

To make such a protest would entail actually getting close enough to them to pour the blood over their heads. But they have the Capital Police and Secret Service and the military to protect them from honest protest. Anyone performing such a righteous act no doubt would be arrested and thrown in jail and would probably get a more severe sentence than most of those who invaded the Capital on January 6th. The typical response of a corrupt government.

The most powerful form of protest would be to show the before and after pictures of these grade school children. The before: their school picture of them smiling for all to see their loving potential. The child their parents sent to school with a kiss expecting to see them in the evening. The pictures loving grandparents put on the refrigerator or walls. The after: A real horror story. The bloody mutilated unrecognizable remains the result of being repeatedly shot with an AR 15.

If Americans saw these before and after pictures I trust real gun reform would happen then. For the anger generated by love would be unstoppable.

Nothing stopped Gandhi or Dr. Martin Luther King. Out of Love they used their anger to empower themselves and others. The used nonviolent tactics to move the arc of history toward justice.

They created a Legacy of creative acts of Civil Disobedience which proved that love, anger and power can change the world for the better.

Let's remember with honor not only those who fought on the battle fields, but also those who fought in the trenches of Civil Disobedience. They too gave their all for the betterment of humanity.