I'm still trying to wrap my head around so many staunchly pro-gun folks on DU

[Toronto]

256. Hi fellow human being...

I was beginning to think we were few and far between. I've been reading so much histrionic hyperbole. People who who think guns are the ONLY reason for this dangerous society or conversely think owning more guns is the ONLY solution. Some reasonable arguments in between that are attacked like they are spouting blasphemy.

Sure, unimpeded access to weapons does exacerbate the problem of violence in society, but it is not by itself the only problem, but really more of a symptom. The condition of society is what we as people have let it become by sweeping all of the unpleasant truths under the carpet and assuming that because we may be OK, everyone should be equally satisfied with the status quo. Just so long as it doesn't affect our personal bottom line.

People aren't born aspiring to become criminals or the next spree shooter. Something is happening with increasing regularity that is twisting people in this world and you only have to open your eyes to see it. It may seem cliche, but follow the money. Everything that is wrong with society, whether it be the environment, health, crime or the economy can be traced back to greed and in particular corporate greed. People wonder why mental illness is not properly addressed - heck, a huge proportion of society has no health care of any kind. Mental health gets short shrift on the priority totem pole, when people are literally dying for lack of health care. There are no daily reports of those people in the news or how many former tax payers have become bankrupt due to a major illness in the family.

Nor does Eyewitness News show up at the doorsteps of all the people whose homes are being reposessed because they have lost their jobs and are contemplating how to house their family in a minivan. Nobody particularly cares about the people trying to decide between paying rent or feeding their family, when their jobs have be shipped to some other part of the world where people work for pennies.

Meanwhile advertising of consumer products on television is surplanting the television programs to the point where during an average program, at least half of the viewing time is devoted to commercials. People have responded to that advertising like well conditioned lemmings and continuously feel compelled to buy things that they don't need, even if it means they won't ever be able to pay off that debt - to the point that you no longer have a monetary system based on capital, but one based on debt.

Children in schools are bullied and marginalized for not wearing the most fashionable clothes or having the most recent gadgets. Is it any wonder that some children are lured by gangbangers who promise those things that their parents can't provide? All they want is to be accepted. Unfortunately they get drawn into a downward spiral of depraved behavior. The concept of delayed gratification is unknown in this society because people have been brainwashed to be excellent consumers.

People in general are becoming more selfish, less compassionate and less empathic and more willing to close their eyes to the obvious. This isn't happening as a natural evolution of the species, because it's really a devolution, it's happening because it's in the best interests of the corporate oligarchy who have no vested interest in any state or any country. If all of the dispossessed people in society turned into an angry starving mob and killed each other off, the corporate interests couldn't be happier, because that would leave more resources for them to acquire.

Unfortunately people seem to be blind to the fact that their elected government representatives do little to help society at large, but instead continually pander to corporate interests. (Any who try are completely shut out.) How else could people ignore the complete conflict of interest in having a President whose family represents vast oil interests and yet wants to take the country to war to look for the illusive WMD, in a country known for it's oil supply. No big surprise - no WMD, because it was a ruse from the very beginning.

Universal healthcare is vastly unpopular because the people are told that it will take money out of their pockets - because the HMO's have a very powerful lobby. No one wants to talk about the fact that there is an economy of scale in the centralized purchasing of medication and equipment - business 101. No one accounts for the cost to society for the absence of universal healthcare - how much it costs in other ways.

People close their eyes to the fact that the first world never involves itself in any civil strife or warfare in places where there are neither strategic or corporate interests (as these are often the same things) and yet trillions of dollars are dedicated to supporting a military whose primary purpose is to advance the interest of corporations. Of course you are told that the reason is to defend your freedom.

It's ironic that the Founding Fathers of America did their level best to create a society where amoral monarchies would have no place, but they never imagined that faceless corporate entities could so insidiously take their place and so threaten the freedoms that they tried so hard to preserve.