" And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A [person] should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning."
-- Isaac Asimov --
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-- Isaac Asimov --
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Field's topic Saturday involved renditions of the national anthem, and he touched on Marvin Gaye's and Whitney Houston's. He said, "Whitney wasn't bad, but Marvin's version was transcending."
Now, I dearly love me some Marvin, but I'd never heard him sing the anthem. I do remember hearing Whitney in real time, though. I didn't have the faintest idea who she was then, and I don't watch sports, so I caught it by accident, but I was blown away. I cried.
So I had to go listen to both versions. Yeah, Marvin was good. Marvin is always good. Do love me some Marvin. But once again, Whitney's killed me. I cried again.
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Someone on TV said recently that people who want to carry guns all the time feel threatened all the time.
I had to think about that for a while. Based on next to no information, no facts, no studies, I think I believe it. It's been my experience, anyway, limited as it is.
I've known a few people who had permits to carry concealed weapons, and they did strike me as people who always felt threatened. Even walking the same streets as I, shopping in the same stores, dealing with the same people, they saw threat everywhere. I didn't. I don't. I certainly didn't feel any safer with them. I wonder whether carrying a gun made them more conscious of the possibilities, or seeing possibilities everywhere made them want to carry the gun. Chicken or egg. I don't know.
Maybe it has to do with past experiences, their own or something that happened to someone they knew. A kind of civilian post-traumatic stress.
I know someone now who sees the threat of violence everywhere, resulting in a constant alertness, vigilance, and if you knew the stories, you'd understand why. In his case a side effect is not a desire to carry a gun, but to an intense hatred of guns and all those who carry them.
Or maybe it's the political climate. We are being taught by the media that we should fear. To fear "the other", anyone not like us, and that should the unthinkable happen, you're on your own. Nothing has happened to make people feel threatened as individuals - not yet anyway - but "it's right around the corner".
I consider this a political thing because one way to control people is to make them afraid, then convince them that only you can be depended on to protect them.
Theories, anyone?
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6 comments:
You know, I think privileged old white men have been afraid for a long time that the world is changing around them, and not to their benefit. It took Glenn Beck and his ilk to make it "okay" to be afraid. I don't think Rush Limbaugh et al caused the fear; I just think they use it to build their ratings.
That's my little theory, anyway.
It's not the old privileged white men who feel threatened enough to think they have to carry a gun. They're the ones who want to control the masses, and in doing so they will eventually lose control of them.
I feel that as an American citizen with an unstable government such as ours, who are always looking for more and more ways to legally subdue us, stop us from getting information, making new laws to find ways to spy on us, etc, that we need guns to protect us from the possible eventuality that the government will want to take them away. Once a government takes it's citizen's guns away, then the government can come and take the citizens away, and there's no way to stop them.
When the apocalypse does happen (should it happen in my lifetime), I don't want to be unprotected when the police are no longer effective, the government is trying to get it's head out of it's hindquarters and there are bandits on the loose who think i's their right to take the chickens and food I've grown on my own land to feed my family and immediate community.
See the movie "Collapse". Seriously. I've posted the link to it on both my LJ and Facebook page a couple of times.
-little red
I'll give up my gun when you pry a dead, cold Charlton Heston out of my - oh, wait.
Little Red - The links I'd seen in your LJ are just to the 2-minute trailer, which is not nearly enough for a value judgement. I did find the entire Collapse movie on the internet, where I was given the option to "play" or "download". I chose play, not download, but it proceeded to download a player anyway, without my permission, whereupon Firefox, AND McAfee, AND Microsoft Security Essentials all completely freaked out, shouting that I had suffered a security breach attempt. Firefox shut down, and McAfee and Microsoft both preformed a full system cleaning.
'Twas a mess for about an hour. I think I'll wait until it appears at the local theater or on DVD.
Ok. I hit Amazon and used a credit to buy "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil" [Paperback]
By: Michael C. Ruppert, Catherine Austin Fitts, "Collapse" [DVD] and "The Truth and Lies of 9-11" [DVD] By: Mike Ruppert.
Now, to mitigate the horror, you have to reciprocate by checking out one or more of The Yes Men DVDs. They're fun and funny, but leave you thinking.
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