It is Not the Guns, Not the Flag and Not Even the 2nd Amendment
Time.com- PHILADELPHIA, PA – OCTOBER 16: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) makes remarks after receiving the the 2017 Liberty Medal (Photo by William Thomas Cain/Getty Images)
It does not seem to matter much which way the wind blows, many Americans of all stripes seem to get caught up in the breeze. Since 2006 when Obama announced his candidacy for President and the Internet went wild with literally millions of erroneous posts and email forwards, and the conspiracy theorists threw just about everything against the wall to see if it would stick…some of it has indeed stuck. We have had lines like: “Obama is going to get your guns”, “Obama was born in Kenya” and Bush not only knew about the twin towers coming down, he helped! “Granny is going to be killed when she gets too expensive under Obamacare”. Good grief.
Much of this was perpetuated in the name of winning politically and the rest for reasons known only to the ones who wrote them. Some of course more recently , as we are finding out now were thrown out there by Russian paid computer geeks. Who would ever have guessed that John McCain would be booed at a Trump campaign rally recently…yes, Trump is still filling his coffers at those rallies, and was compelled to throw McCain under the bus along with the NFL owners who donated millions to his campaign. McCain, a POW for five years and was a son to an admiral, when offered to be released early refused so that some of his fellow soldiers could go instead. The folks booing him are the very ones who profess God and Country in that order, but at the egging on of Trump the Nazi like response was anything but Christian or Patriotic.
John McCain was awarded the Liberty Medal recently because of his undying patriotism, heroics and thoughtful legislation that came to pass more often than not, with bi-partisan support. Most of America wants our legislators to get to work for us, the ones who elected them, and we want them to abandon the partisan politics, but the money machine will not allow for that. Lobbyists of corporations and special interest dole out billions to literally buy political loyalty to enhance their profits. The big play investors in these companies often have come in and out of government to further benefit their holdings by controlling decisions in primarily individual agencies rather than on the floors of Congress. This article really demonstrates just how things work https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/business/timken-bows-to-investors-and-splits-in-two.html and much of this was going on prior to the Supreme Court ruling where “corporations are people” came out of the Citizens United case. You kind of need to read in between the lines to fully grasp the implications of all of that article has to offer, but it does more to explain to us bumpkins just how things work. The opioid crisis is point blank evidence that no matter who we elect, by at least varying degrees, the big money controls our fate. Do we really think that electing a whole different set of people while leaving the money loophole in our politics is going to give us different results? Especially when they are practiced at finding money as people like Steve Bannon is.
Getting back to McCain…he is the epitome of a patriot and the only one of the GOP who pushed back on all of the lies about Obama when they were trying to set him up for failure and lamenting not having a President who would take orders. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/2/13/1064417/-Grover-Norquist-on-the-GOP-candidates-All-we-need-is-someone-who-can-handle-a-pen . I don’t always agree with McCain, nor do I anyone else in politics including Obama because their moves are controlled by so many forces you cannot possibly imagine, and sometimes they are flat out wrong. But, having said that, McCain has tried to do what is right I am guessing for most of his tenure as a Senator as did Obama, Bush, Carter and others. In fact, I believe most people running for office have good in mind, but leaving runaway money schemes in place is like giving a starving horse a barrel of grain. You only have to look at the elected “tea party” candidates who were going to stop it all, to understand as long as that barrel is there, they are going to founder on its’ contents.
The controlling force in this country at this time is the rhetoric being thrown out there by corporations and their lobby arms, special interest and a President who might have been great had he stuck with learning government instead of leveraging it as a stepping stone for his interests. None of the rhetoric is by accident. Everyone saw how well it worked to sway people when it came to Obama, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. They painted it up some for a Trump Presidency and grinned from ear to ear at how they thought it would work just as the Democrats believed Clinton would win hands down; it wasn’t meant to be in either case. The Republicans who trusted in a majority with a “Republican” President were thrown under the bus and the same practice is part of Trumps’ history in business. Our legislative members were never meant to work independent of each other and you can certainly see why.
Due to the rhetoric thrown out there both then and now, Americans believe that the “others” are after their guns and the 2nd amendment and not standing for the Anthem is somehow an attack on patriotism even as they do not stand themselves when they are watching the games on TV. I grew up with both guns and honoring the Anthem. There was a time in the ‘60’s however, that many took to flag burning because they felt left out of the process. Out of the process, sort of like now matter of fact. Unlike then, there is no flag burning in the NFL, and the people who first brought the protest as a result of police profiling and brutality came quickly to the determination that sitting on the benches was a little too disrespectful, so they are now giving the same reverence to abstaining as they would to an injured, fellow player; hardly flag burning. I neither condone nor pardon it, but do understand the reasons. Seizing on the moment, the efforts of the President to fuel a primarily black on white debate might better serve his country working toward fixing the disparities such as race, health care, wages and economic split. He could have been great for these causes.
This rhetoric is in part a learned thing for our President, and some of it comes naturally. In this case he saw the opportunity early on for a win for him by creating a them vs. us and always appearing to be the victim to create sympathy. When it became obvious that the Russians fingerprints were on our election process he went straight to defending the Russians and calling on the media for improper reporting later turned “fake news” after the discovery of very real fake news put out by Russian trolls. People got sucked into that so deep there are factions in the south that actually believe that Putin is great. Trump has never fully acknowledged the fact that we were robbed of one of the very tenets that sets us apart from much of this world; free elections and he has done much to cause mistrust of a free press. In fact, one of the countries without much of a free press is Russia. Sure, they call themselves a democracy, but every election is rigged and free press journalists are killed for their reporting.
So, to some basic questions…why is anyone defending Russia let alone our President who swore, on not one, but two Bibles to defend the Constitution? Why are we calling out one side or the other when tiny kids are gunned down and people rightfully get upset? Do we really think that was a right? Sure, it was the person, not the gun, so why are we not immediately demanding mental health money instead of coaxing Americans into scorching their neighbors? Do we really want to be left to the trolls on social media to give us all our news? Do we really want to pull our safe guards like that? Ben Franklin among others demanded a free press clause appear in the founding documents of this country for very good reason. Russia and North Korea are examples of not having a free press.
Back in the day when Trump was building hotels he stiffed contractors of their earnings. Those were people like your neighbors who had no recourse because he could out spend them in court. He demanded the licensed veteran vendors near his hotels be forced to stop selling their wares. Worse yet while he evokes boos toward John McCain from his misled audiences they seem not to know he dodged the draft, not once, but 5 times he got a referral for a sore foot.
While John McCain laid there for five years as a POW and other soldiers endured rats crawling on them in the soaking wet jungle for days on end, our President began his career with a million dollars his daddy gave him to get him off in business on that same foot. The gold star family he talked down for days during the campaign were, like McCain humiliated by this President and people chocked it up as simply another “tell it like it is” moment without “political correctness”. Lack of both common decency and any sense of patriotism was at play there, not a moment without political correctness.
The rhetoric marches on and frankly can almost be counted on with every new witness called in the Russia investigation or when someone faults the President in any way. I find it interesting that folks thought they were getting strength in him, when in reality he has done more than his share of whining.
The victims will continue to be blamed such as Puerto Rico citizens, the greatest show on earth will be visible at every opportunity and real patriots will continue to be the ones who will pick up the carnage when we are done. My Dad always said: “Watch what they do, not what they say”.
