“Rawk, Hello, Rawk, Rawk”

These sounds might be found in a transcript of a parrot presenting his views on the state of the world. Or, they might represent the squawking of a member of the species homo psittacines whose habitat is located within any region in which television network cameras reside. Following any shooting, these humanoid-parrots are instantly attracted to the television lights, where keepers await them with the attention they so desperately crave. Their call is well-recognized by bird-watchers: “rawk, rawk, more gun control, more gun control, rawk!” Following today’s shooting at a Washington school, one member of the species was heard announcing that insecure people reflexively turn to guns as a way of restoring order. I wondered if he might be referring to federal and state government officials who have been providing local police (if there is such a thing as “local” police anymore) with automatic weapons, tanks, personnel carriers, grenade-launchers, drones, bullet-proof vests, and other weaponry to be used against the emerging enemy: the American public! Who has spent trillions upon trillions of dollars arming itself against “threats,” be they imagined or concocted? Are the gun-controllers doing anything more than projecting their own appetites for violence onto scapegoats who happen to own rifles or pistols? Do they desire to punish innocent men and women for the more widespread slaughter engaged in by agencies they lack the courage to question?

Our culture is awash in the worship of conflict, violence, wars, destructiveness, and death. To attribute such behavior to the presence of guns in society is no more rational than treating the mania for killing to sun spots. The Defense Department openly admits that an average of twenty-two military veterans commit suicide every day – and without estimating the additional numbers who suffer much psychic pain from their participation in the state’s well-organized psychopathic war system. What is it about our culture – about the ways in which we think and live – that is destroying us? Is it not clear that our conscious minds, the “dark side” of our collective-unconscious, and the depletion of our spiritual sense of what it means to be human, are engaged in a struggle that may decide the fate of our species? The efforts of intelligent men and women would be better directed to these deeper inquiries than in continuing to listen to the garbled squawkings of the bird-brained.

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6:12 pm on October 24, 2014