Hate, shoot, mourn
By Kit-Bacon Gressitt
Perhaps you hate President Obama
Because he won re-election
Because he’s a Democrat
Because he’s Black
Because he supports same-sex marriage
Because he organized to fight prejudice
Because he lived in Chicago
Because he initiated heathcare reform
Because he sometimes compromises
Because he sometimes doesn’t
Because he hesitates when he speaks
Because he’s weak on some issues
Because he’s strong on others
Because he’s confident
Because he has a strong African-American wife
Because his mother was white
Because his middle name is Hussein
Because his father is from Kenya
Because his ears stick out, albeit just a little
Because hate is always that ridiculous.
Or perhaps you hate President Obama
Because he called for “meaningful action” on gun control
Because twenty children, six school staff, one young madman and his mother were killed
Because the young man entered an elementary school and started shooting
Because he had access to semi-automatic pistols and assault rifles
Because his mother was a collector of weapons of mass destruction
Because she could be
Because the gun lobby is powerful
Because the mental health lobby is not
Because her son’s mental illness is scary
Because we hate funding mental healthcare more
than the shooting deaths
of twenty children
six school staff
one young madman and his mother.
Love,
K-B
Click here to ask President Obama to start a meaningful discussion of common sense gun control.
Click here to ask the NRA and Congress to stop blocking common sense gun control.
From Salon: Tax the hell out of guns, I like it.
Crossposted at San Diego Free Press and San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.
“Because the gun lobby is powerful”
” Because the mental health lobby is not”
How true.
Like Phoenix rising from the ashes, perhaps disempowering the NRA and effecting universal mental healthcare coverage will rise from these ashes.
I thought that in my elderliness, I could sit back and let the youngsters assume the political activism. What a horrid kick in the butt to remind me that, to prostitute a phrase, the price of sanity is eternal vigilence. Guess I need to put on my marching shoes again.
Love,
Hunt
Eternal vigilance? Eternal compassion. Compassion for the families who lost loved ones. Compassion for the mentally ill. Compassion for all of us for so many reasons. Vigilance for us all, too, that our compassion never wavers.