September 15, 2004- More Contradictions

One of the central themes of this year's election is the whole terrorism scene, and that should come as no surprise. Ever since America was made painfully aware of terrorism back in 2001, it has become a big issue in everyday life, let alone politics, so the fact that it is right up there this election season is hardly surprising. The main point that the candidates are peddling about this subject is the whole fear thing. Everyone is told that the terrorists are everywhere, and that they can strike at anytime in anyplace, why they made a royal mess out of New York City and Washington D.C., so they can wreak havoc everywhere. Even though nothing significant has happened on that front for over three years now, the politicians continue to peddle fear to the people. Plus, Mr. Businessman has gotten in on the act too, selling fear to the masses with all of his survival kits and other such things. They do this because they see a need for it, the American people are still freaked out big time after September 11th, 2001,and fear has become a part of everyday life for far too many of them. The Government and Mr. Businessman have seized the moment and made hay out of it, especially the Government. We now have things like the Patriot Act, with all of its increased powers for the Government, and we continually hear The Establishment say that they need more of these sweeping powers and that they need to curtail civil liberties in order to fight the scourge of terrorism effectively. All across America these last three years, we hear talk about how you have to give certain things up in order for the greater good, specifically, how Americans are going to have to give up some of their freedoms and liberties in order to combat terrorism. Even though this is utter nonsense, many Americans have come to believe it wholeheartedly. They are so scared that they honestly feel that it is better if the Government has all these sweeping powers over them and their lives now and that the loss of freedom is worth it all. They look at it as a case where it is not just their individual freedom that has been curtailed, it is the freedom of everyone, including the terrorists. Americans have been sold on the fact that if everyone is monitored more closely, then the "bad guys" cannot get away with their nefarious deeds so easily, and that is what makes the curtailment of freedom in America a good thing. People say that they feel safer in airports now that they have been turned into armed encampments by the Pigs, and they also say that they feel safer about all the new laws and Pig powers that have been enacted these last three years because they feel that it helps thwart the terrorists and stop their schemes. The politicians are playing to that this election season too, they are all trying to outdo one another in taking credit for all of this and all promising to make America an even safer place if they are elected come November. Yet, in the midst of all of this shit, came something very interesting the other day.

Back in 1994, President Clinton got a piece of legislation passed that he wanted to become law quite a bit. It was a bill that basically outlawed assault weapons in America. Assault weapons are a type of firearm, as you may have surmised by the name, but they are not any ordinary forearm. No, these things are seriously souped up guns, basically military rifles that are capable of inflicting awesome damage. These are not the kind of guns that anyone really has any use for outside of the military, but there they were in American society. The NRA and the other gun freaks vigorously defended these guns, but they had many opponents. Every argument that the NRA people used to justify guns and that sort of shit fell flat when it came to assault weapons too. Nobody used these guns for sporting purposes or and hunting type shit, there were no organized assault rifle competitions anywhere, and there was no one that used them for hunting either, there were all sorts of guns for those purposes in existence already, so no one used these assault rifles for the things that the NRA said that people use guns for in America. Seeing that these things were something that you would see in some kind of action movies that Governor Schwarzenegger or The Rock would be in, there was no one that had any use for these things except those fuckin' maniacs that saw themselves as characters from these types of movies and lived in the same fashion. Only out of control idiots had these things and they all used them to kill other people for some reason, whether it was a drug dealer killing someone that stole from him, or fucked up gangbangers killing rival gang members over some bullshit or another, there was no one with any legitimate uses for these weapons anywhere in American society. The carnage that these weapons wrought on America's streets told the story all too well. By 1994, people had seen enough and they wanted Clinton to do something about that, and he did. He got a law passed that de facto outlawed these weapons, you had to go thorough all sorts of rigorous shit to get them, and really no one but the military could get them, and that was the way that it should be. Yes, the gangbangers and dealers and other fuck-ups switched to other types of weapons and continued their carnage on America's streets, but at least something has been done about it, at least one type of insane weapon had been removed from America's streets. The thing was, that Clinton's ban was not a permanent deal. It had a lifespan of ten years, after which it had to be renewed. Clinton did not care about that clause in the thing, he knew that by 2004 he'd be living in retirement somewhere, and not a factor in anything anymore. He knew that some other President dude would have that expiration date on his agenda and that he'd have to deal with it. Clinton and Co. tried to get their man in the White House in 2000 so they'd have a sympathetic dude in there when the expiration date for the bill came, but as we all know, Al Gore lost out to George W. Bush, and that meant that it was W who had that expiration date on his agenda when it came due the other day. The whole thing was set up so that whoever was President at the time just had to sign an extension to the bill and it would have been good for another number of years, how many I do not know offhand. When that day finally came like two days ago,the bill sat in Bush's desk unsigned and really unread as well. Bush had said that he had no intention of signing an extension to the bill, that he felt that it should expire since it was not necessary in the first place, and come the expiration date, he made good on his word. He did not sign the bill, so for the first time in ten years, assault weapons are once again available to the average American over at your local forearms dealer, and those places wasted no time in gearing back up for this event, they were ready to sell you an assault weapon as soon as they opened up for business on the expiration date of the bill, and in these last couple of days, have surely sold thousands of those things and put them back into circulation on America's Streets.

When you look at the day and age that we live in now, this decision seems to be about as fucked up and insane as it could be. Washington tells us all that terrorists are lurking around every corner and behind every shadow and that they could be anyone anywhere, and then they go and bring back some crazy fuckin' firearm that no one except people like terrorists would have any use for. These assault weapons are perfect for these dudes too. They spray out bullets at a frightening speed, so toy can spray someplace with lots of gunfire in a real short time. If you give someone 30 seconds to shoot one of these things, they can blast countless bullets at a target with precision accuracy, causing mayhem and carnage like all hell. If the stupid gangbangers of the 1980's and 1990's were able to do shit like this, then these sophisticated terrorists can do it too, and probably do it even better than the gangbangers ever did. Giving them this advantage cancels out all those advantages that Washington says that Americans have now due to the increased Pigs and Government powers. If all a terrorist needs is 30 seconds to empty an assault weapon at a target, there is no way that any amount of Pigs with any amount of powers can stop that at all. Since most of these terrorists are normal looking dudes, they could go and buy one of these things from a firearms dealer, or if they feel that they could not do that, they can find someone that would go and do it for them easily. Lots of people in America make their money by buying guns and other firearms for those that might not be able to do so themselves, they care only about the money that they make, not the problems that they cause by doing so. This sort of situation makes it easy for any potential terrorist to get his hands on one of these weapons and use it for whatever. No one can say that America is not a far more dangerous place than it was even ten years ago, as these terrorists are far more sophisticated and organized than any street gang could ever hope to be, and also far more dangerous in what they wish to accomplish, as it is not all about making money from drug dealing for these terrorists as it is for the gangbangers, it is about killing as many Americans as they possibly can for their misguided cause. Surely, anyone can see that re-legalizing assault weapons just gives them another means to do that and another way to make it all easier too. However, President Bush never even brought any of this up on this issue, he was hell-bent on letting the ban expire. For a man that uses terrorism to create fear and uncertainty in practically everything that he does, the fact that he totally ignored it on this issue is nothing short of astounding. This dude uses terrorism to justify the Government spying on its own people, and he uses it to justify blasting into any country in the world to do whatever, but he does not even address it on this issue, and it is an issue that does have a lot of relevance in this case. If some dudes taking pictures of bridges and buildings are enough for Washington to cry terrorism and use that as the excuse to crack down on everyone's lives in so many ways, you would think that the possibility of some Al-Queda fuckers getting themselves some assault weapons and going somewhere in America and cutting loose with them would be more than enough for Bush to sign the extension of that bill without question. However, he did no such thing the other day, he even got mad at people asking him about it, he just wanted to sweep the whole thing under the rug, and that he did. The White House is not going to release any statement touting what Bush did that day, they are just going to ignore it and quietly let assault weapons once again become part of American society. No scare stories here, just silence and no real explanation of any type as to why this was allowed to happen. As always, Americans are not to question what the White House does, they are just supposed to accept it and say thank you sir.

Washington wants it that way because they don't want anyone questioning this decision because the reasons behind it are not exactly in keeping with the propaganda that flows so freely from Washington these days. Everyone can see the obvious reason, that President Bush is in the pocket of the NRA and the gun lobby people, and that he owed them for getting him to where he is. More than any other President in history, Bush is a product of Mr. Businessman's scene and is beholden to him more than anyone in history. Everyone knows that Bush was a pussy ass rich boy that lived a life of privilege and got to avoid anything that he did not want to deal with, like real military service and real studying in school and getting a real job and so forth, he got that all from his family's good friend and partner, Mr. Businessman. That was the dude that bailed young George out of all his problems that were related to his abuse of alcohol and other drugs and got him out of Vietnam and got him cushy jobs with oil companies and baseball teams and let him climb the corporate ladder when he had no business even being on the bottom rung of the thing. These were the same folks that got W into politics and got him elected Governor of Texas and then helped pull all this chicanery and sleight of hand in 2000 and got the dude into the White House, when he had about as much business being there as Ozzy Osbourne did. They did that not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they wanted things. They wanted to run America their way, and they put George W into the place he has in order to get that. If it makes Mr. Businessman money, he does not care if some insane motherfuckers buy his assault weapons and use them to kill and maim American citizens, that is of no concern to him. Apparently, there is money in these things, enough that Mr. Businessman said that he needs it, and George W saw that he would get it too so he let the bill expire. That is the obvious reason that he let that bill expire, but it is not the only one. In my last column , I wrote about the fact that America wants a foe that they can use to further their own means, in this case, that means a foe that actively attacks them, none of that Cold War shit like the CCCP did. America has done all that it can to provoke the terrorists, and letting this bill expire is in that vein too. It is just too tempting for the terrorists to see that they can now get these military style weapons freely and use them on Americans in everyday society. It will be just a matter of time before one or more of them go and do just that, and that's what Washington wants. You get some kind of wholesale slaughter of citizens on America's streets by assault weapon wielding terrorists and that gives Washington yet another excuse to crack down on everyone further and curtail even more civil rights and freedoms and nothing makes them happier than that as we all know. No one would blame assault weapons for any such slaughter, as they would all be too petrified with fear at another blatant act of terrorism to even think of that end of it, and that suits Washington perfectly. This sort of terrorist act does not result in the destruction of skyscrapers or government buildings, and it has more than enough death and fear in it for Washington to exploit for their own means, and that makes it real attractive for them. It was also ridiculously simple, all it took was not signing a bill, so Bush and Co. took the opportunity and ran with it. Never mind that it is a total contradiction of everything that they have been saying for three years, it is in reality a look into the true motives of America in this war scene, and it certainly is not pretty. Washington has gotten so smug about things that they feel that they can get away with this and have no one take notice, and the sad fact is that they are probably right about that.

Home Page