I hope I am wrong about this...

Hi Steve,

All week long, I've been reading news stories (and I use that term "news" lightly because the original definition of that word really doesn't seem to exist anymore), about how all the pro-gun people out there absolutely loathe President Obama, and are so angry they are petitioning to have him impeached for taking away the 2nd Amendment, and ad nausea to the point of infinity.  Some stories even have people stating things like they'll ruin the Inauguration any way they can.

Seems to me, that the year I was born (1968), a guy named Abby Hoffman did the same thing when Nixon was inaugurated, with a pig.  History repeats itself.  Now, you tell me, is it JUST a coincidence that the "Gun Appreciation Day" is on January 19th, which is the same day Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed, AND the day BEFORE the Obama Inauguration?  Doesn't that seem to be VEILED RACISM, an actual veiled THREAT even, with an undertone of "somebody should shoot THIS black man too?"  Or am I reading too much into it?

I really don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that I'm seeing it for what it really is.  "Let's celebrate GUNS on the same exact date as Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, AND the day before a black man is TWICE inaugurated as our President."  Celebrate guns by carrying them around, showing them off, using them......etc.

Yeah, I don't think I'm reaching too far, do you?  I really hope I am, but....it just seems....so obvious.

I hope I am wrong about it, but my gut has been lurching all week long as I read these things, and I am feeling very afraid for President Obama.  I am afraid someone might try to shoot him at the Inauguration.  I mean, just today the NRA actually aired an advertisement stating that "Obama's daughters have the Secret Service men with GUNS protecting THEM, so why can't WE have armed guards at our schools to protect OUR kids?"

This argument is becoming more than just ridiculously beyond any logic, it's becoming dangerous.  I know that both sides have at least one thing in common, though-----each side has an equal passion for the same thing----to keep their kids safe from crazy people with guns.  So why can't a discussion start on the basis of what both sides have in common, and go from there?  Have people FORGOTTEN how to have civil discussions from differing points of view, without resorting to name calling, blame gaming, or stupidity?

I don't have the answers.  I just think people need to GROW UP and be ADULTS about it, rather than act like juvenile playground bullies, which, I might add, are actually succeeding in only setting terrible EXAMPLES for those SAME KIDS they want to "PROTECT" from CRAZY PEOPLE.  The irony of it all just kills me.

"Bullying is wrong," the adults tell the kids in the schools that are no longer "safe."  "So we're going to BULLY each other, both in the schools, and outside in the political world, we're gonna act all crazy and yell threats and make those kids we wish to protect and keep SAFE feel completely SCARED and UNSAFE, and we're gonna celebrate those UNSAFE GUNS that killed those other 20 little kids, and we're gonna fight amongst ourselves, and make up lies, and tattle tale on others for something they didn't do, and make up stories just to divert attention...."  ETC ETC ETC ETC......

......................and I also believe someone caught up in all this mayhem will actually try to assassinate the President on Sunday.  God above, I hope I'm wrong.

The kids of today are smarter than most people think they are, though.  They will see all the hypocrisy of the adults around them, and predictably, they will also rebel against it.  I don't think I have to say that THAT is history repeating itself again, and again, and again, do I???  Why the HELL then, can't anyone seem to LEARN FROM THAT HISTORY, and CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIORS?!!!

The thing that amazes me, and makes me shake my head in sadness, is that most of these same adults don't seem to understand how the government WORKS to get laws passed, and how things are processed politically between the House and Senate, and the President.  If they KNEW how things worked, they wouldn't be blaming every damned thing on the President all the time.  I think if kids are supposed to feel SAFE in their classrooms, then TEACH THEM HOW THE GOVERNMENT WORKS, TEACH THEM TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES, AND PAY ATTENTION TO ANY CORRUPTION THEY SEE GOING ON, AND TEACH THEM HOW AND WHEN TO PROTEST IT IF IT HAPPENS.

That, in the nutshell, would have made ME feel more safe as an adult, if someone had taught me those things in school.  But they don't teach that stuff much at all.

Now, having lived in DC for a decade, I know the security there is top-notch.  I know that anyone who even THINKS about doing such a thing to the President would NOT SUCCEED.  I've been to an inauguration (Clinton), and I've seen the metal detectors everywhere, and all the police, and plain-clothed police, and military presence, etc., so I know that when I was there, I felt VERY safe.  There is bullet proof glass all around the President, all around the podium and the area on the Capitol Building where all the politicians sit.  I realize these things, yet at the same time, I feel an urgency of fear, y'know?  I just hope we can all make it through the day----hell, the next 4 years----without anything like that happening.

The thing that gets me most, right in the gut, is that OTHER COUNTRIES are watching all of us self-destruct about it----they don't have to have weapons of mass destruction to terrorize us at all.  We're doing it to each other.  And yet, nobody seems to be able to SEE THIS and make it STOP.

But when you watch videos of Ted Nugent screaming his fool head off about guns, and when you see some other crazy gun-loving dude threatening to "kill some people" over it (which resulted in his guns being taken away from him), and other videos of racist skin heads who hate Obama because he is part African-American, and when you put all these dangerous things together, well, it just seems like it COULD be a possible event.....simply because history repeats itself.

I don't know how YOU feel about gun rights, the 2nd Amendment, and President Obama, Stephen, but anyone with half a brain who is paying attention to this stuff going on HAS TO BE WORRIED, at least a little.

This bickering and fighting amongst ourselves must make those grieving parents of Newtown Connecticut feel REAL happy.  What the hell kind of COMFORT are THEY receiving from it all? Everyone's so caught up in their selfish agenda's, on both sides, that they aren't thinking of the kids all around them who are seeing it, the other countries around the world who are loving it, and the parents of these dead kids who are dying inside, over and over every day, because of it.

I just wish, sometimes, that I could stop the world....I'd magically make problems like this go away, and give everybody a chance to be happy for awhile.

I watched a Holocaust movie yesterday, starring Haley Joel Osmont, and when it ended, I bawled my brains out and took a nap on the couch.  I don't remember the title of it, but I was flipping channels and just stumbled on it.  Seeing hundreds of people, men, women and children, crammed into cattle cars on a train, being taken away to concentration camps, should horrify people even now.  But it doesn't.  We are so numb to violence, most people don't even realize the horror of it, or if they do, they don't allow that horror to sink in.  It just skims over them, and they remain numb instead.  You can blame it on violent video games if you want to, or hey, even violent MUSIC----but I say the blame is on the parents, the schools, and the adults who act like childish bullies towards each other every day.

Twenty little babies, only alive for six short years, were BRUTALLY MURDERED by a very mentally ill 20-year old boy---he wasn't a man, he was a cowardly, angry young boy---and so during that month afterwards, we mourn them all with paparazzi violating their privacy, sensationalism of West Boro Church showing up at the funerals, mixed with all kinds of yelling, screaming, bickering, name-calling, threats, and lots of smoke and mirrors???

What the hell have we all BECOME in this country of ours???  I am disgusted.  I am disappointed.  I am sickened by it all.

STOP THE INSANITY.  I just want to spray paint that everywhere, all over the world.  Wouldn't do a damned bit of good, I know, but I want to do SOMETHING to make this bullshit STOP, ya know?  I want the photos of these murdered children to JOLT people back into SANITY.  Is that what it would take? To plaster images of little kids with their faces blown off???  Would anyone even blink an eye??

If more people SAW the end result of the massacre, I think perhaps the dialogue would change.  People who have seen documentaries and factual films about the Holocaust, who have studied it, researched it, and who have SEEN up close the end result of the concentration death camps, now seem to have a different, more productive, more civil dialogue than ever before.

Maybe someone should make the Newtown massacre of those dead kids into a MUSICAL, like they did with Anne Frank????  IS THAT WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO STOP THIS SHIT?????

'Cause if it is, I'll be the first one to write a goddamned song for it.

....I guess there's not much anyone can do except try to rise above it all.  I hope that we all will, and soon.  I don't know how much more of this I can take.

My mom always told me that I carry the world around on my shoulders too much.  And history repeats itself, doesn't it.  You'd think I'd learn not to give a shit, but unfortunately, I do.

Bye for now.

Love, Rebecca