The last moderate forces in the Trump administration are nearly gone, and the war hawk John Bolton has arrived. No one person since the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Wolfowitz disaster under President George W. Bush has posed as grave a threat to the security of the country and the world. The roadblocks to unbridled use of military force may soon be essentially gone.
The adults in the room are either fired or fleeing. The real danger lies in never knowing what the president will say or do at any moment. He started out with some staff who could be seen as moderate; now it is all enablers. But the gang that is gutting government policies and democratic practices has potentially no restraints at this time from going to war with either Korea or Iran, or anything else they might cook up.
With Bolton the world is a much more dangerous place.
But then we have our kids, the greatest resource we have. The demonstrations across the country and world have showed great courage and given us great hope. The stranglehold by the National Rifle Association has been put on notice. We must show our love by giving our children and young adults every bit of our involvement and support.
The eloquent and anguished words that were conveyed by those who had lost a friend or sibling were a call to arms. Emma Gonzalez’ six minutes and 20 seconds of silence focused the reality of those minutes when bullets were flying before Nickolas Cruz was gunned down. Now they’ve been forced to take control of their own lives, their own safety.
Adults, particularly ones in power, have failed them. They have abrogated their responsibility for the safety of all kids. But the world has responded, and legislators and the NRA have been put on notice. It was a most eloquent outpouring of outrage and pain we must honor in all its manifestations. Our children must not continue to die as a result of gun violence.
Subjects of the violence suffer the same consequences. Justifications on Bolton’s part for simply bombing North Korea to smithereens has the same cruel internal logic as the shooter Cruz when viewed pro-actively. The moral? Weapons of death do the same damage no matter the target. One is not more cruel or unjustified than another. Automatic weapons and tyranny go hand in hand. Either use them to threaten or use them to kill. We know how guns work; we know the dangers of guns in the wrong hands. We know the folly of bombing countries into oblivion, or should by now.
Access to AR-15s is the bomb that is dropped into school zones. Bolton’s idiotic notion that mass destruction solves the problem is somehow related to the shooter’s notion that killing a lot of students at random will solve his internal conflicts
Forget about the differences in scale. Arbitrary death at the hands of killer mentality is the enemy of the people. Yes, bombing Korea is arbitrary when there are other means available. We bombed Iraq and Afghanistan, and the results were continued and worsened conditions throughout the Middle East. Guns, bombs, violence, retribution — these are the problems, never the cure.
This is a human rights issue not a gun ownership issue. Our kids understand this. Their speeches were so filled with the anguish over the dangers they feel are not addressed by the adults, adults who frankly refuse to be in the same room. How sad is that?
In the most powerful country in the world, there’s a lot of things we’ve done right, but now the things we’re really delinquent about have inevitably come back to haunt us. And they have to change if we’re to be the model we pretend to be. The chaos and confusion in Washington, D.C., only demonstrates how the moral compass of the country has fallen prey to sycophants and liars who now go to any extreme to mislead and divert the public’s attention to institute a form of government no longer accountable to the people. People feel they need guns to be safe.
False and specious claims run rampant; truth is attacked. Any semblance of congressional debate and order has evaporated. Ridiculous confabulations confuse actual responsibility for parsing the facts and following the law. This story is the evolution of a tyrant. There is no moral center to this presidency as there is no moral center to any shooter. There is only the longing for recognition and power.
But let’s return to the positive emanations of true democracy the demonstrators showed. They are crying out in anguish, and with tears that the adults in the room have failed them. It is heartbreaking, yet how inspiring to see. It is the flowering of a true movement, united in purpose, clear-eyed, and free of divisions. What a paradox that the kids are pushed by adult inaction rather than proactive stances on gun control for their protection.
What have we learned? How can we claim our humanity? Where did we put it? The March For Our Lives around the world was the most inspiring moment we’ve witnessed, and we need to connect all the issues to confront the powers of repression. We must give the “Never Again” movement our undying support for the changes in gun laws we know need to take place. These kids have shown us what democracy looks like.
They have shown us dignity. They have shown us what being an American and world citizen means. Bravo.
Now we adults need to act.