{"id":85330,"date":"2017-10-03T16:44:47","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T20:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=85330"},"modified":"2017-10-03T16:45:15","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T20:45:15","slug":"this-says-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=85330","title":{"rendered":"This Says It All!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Santa Rosa, CA
\nOctober 3, 2017<\/p>\n

by Rich Scheck<\/p>\n

Another tragedy involving gun violence has struck America. The urge to confiscate
\nweapons and limit the availability of guns is understandable.<\/p>\n

But our country needs to come to grips with the deeper issues underlying our history
\nand relationship to violence.<\/p>\n

We used force to conquer the indigenous people and steal their land. We relied on
\nslavery to help build a mighty empire. We have been engaged in endless wars of
\nexpansion across the planet and succeeded in imposing Pax Americana on much
\nof the world. https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=76259<\/a><\/p>\n

Our culture is saturated with images of violence as John Whitehead describes in detail:
\nhttp:\/\/rutherford.org\/publications_resources\/john_whiteheads_commentary\/mass_shootings_the_military_entertainment_complexs_culture_of_violence<\/a><\/p>\n

Whether or not the tragedy in Las Vegas on Sunday was a false flag attack (I think it was),
\nour politicians and spiritual leaders need to step up boldly and define the problem clearly.<\/p>\n

We need to stop these endless wars, most of which are based on lies. We need to switch
\nour priorities from policing the world and manufacturing weapons to dealing with the long
\nlitany of problems here at home regarding the general welfare of the American people.<\/p>\n

Everyone knows this and yet nothing is done. We even elected a president who gave
\nvoice to the felt needs and frustrations of the disaffected millions who long for a better life.<\/p>\n

But Trump has opted for the Washington consensus expressed by the two-party tyranny
\nto rely on military force rather than truly putting America First as promised.<\/p>\n

So it really isn’t about the guns. As Whitehead articulates so precisely: if you truly want to
\nstop the gun violence we need to “stop the worship of violence that permeates our culture!”<\/p>\n

What is there to say after that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}