We have been bombarded with pictures, news articles and opinions on social media sites of the recent shooting of innocent kids. No, I cannot imagine the horror those parents, that school or the town is experiencing. It must be absolutely horrible.
In 2006, Amish children in Pennsylvania were killed by a gunman who entered their school and also opened fire. I have to be honest here and say, I really didn't see a whole lot of debate then about gun control. Yet those Amish children are just as precious as any other.
Admittedly these are awful tragedies and many people in America think something should be done. Are we now, as my Dad used to say: "Closing the barn door after the horse got out?" Shouldn't something have been done much earlier to prevent such things? You have heard of prevention, haven't you?
There is much inhumanity going on in the world that breaks my heart as well. I also cannot imagine being blasted from by bed, in my home, in the middle of the night, in Iraq, by a country holding me accountable for something I never did. Don't we need impulse control as a country too?
It seems so very easy to hate a faceless enemy. Do we make war on innocent children, old people and innocent civilians and just sit by and say nothing? Why?
There are innocent children, every year, in America, who live with the chance of being killed, every time they step out in their neighborhood streets. Those kids who face the rain of bullets from drug running thugs who spray bullets in all directions in drive by shootings, killing anyone in their path. Children murdered, children whose only crime is being poor and having to live in those neighborhoods. I dare say if this was happening in affluent neighborhoods, there would be an outcry in America such as we have never heard before.
America has allowed huge corporations to take over our government, to run it, financially and otherwise. Nothing gets done except a hatred for 'Americans not on their side' and a division in America that hasn't been seen since our Civil War. Americans have allowed big businesses to go to other countries, make virtual slaves of workers, just so we can have cheap goods. Americans have allowed corporations to look like they represent us, as citizens. Making it look like all fat cat Americans use their people in foreign lands like so much trash. Then we wonder why other countries would like to see our demise. I don't know about you, but those companies do not represent me, not now, not ever. Yet Americans think we should also pick up the tab for corporations lax in paying taxes. We should pick up the tab for their health care, while we get none and mop up the messes those corporations leave behind, which I suspect is a lot of carnage for us to pay for.
Are we then also going to be willing to absorb the hatred they have instilled in other countries, making it look like we, innocent civilians, are backing the corporations? America needs to think long and hard on that last question.
