....rhe river runs deep

.....In America, the river of division, racial hatred, and violence runs deep.   Today, I wanted to weep (again) when the ex-governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford -- I think of him as Mr. Appalachian Fling -- said, in response to a question about whether Americans maybe ought to at least re-think the whole question of gun registration, "Oh I think that's premature...." and then he went on to say that he was sure liberals would SEIZE on the occasion of death, yet more death, to agitate yet again.

Well, when ARE people going to demand that lawmakers do something?  80% of the people in the United States, poll after poll, want gun registration laws revised and tightened.  A majority think it would be entirely proper to institute laws that would eliminate guns suitable only for warfare.  Will the citizenry really stand by like a bunch of  wooden soldiers and let lawmakers do NOTHING?  Year after year?   As if these demands are somehow radical.   It's time to stand up.  These bozos are elected to do the people's bidding.   Perhaps we don't know how to stand up and make demands.  We begin at the ballot box, maybe by running for office and standing for things that mean something.  In the meantime, we should be burying electing officials with petitions and written demands, with rallies and parades.  ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Does nobody realize that the pastor and state senator shot down, Clementa Pinckney, has a surname linked directly to one of the most prestigious slave-holding families in South Carolina?   His relatives probably were slaves in Charles Pinckney's household.  He embodied the triumph of good over evil, and now he's dead at the hand of a skinhead.

A few short decades ago, it was three little girls in a church in Birmingham, blown to bits in the basement of their church by Klansmen.  People in theaters should not have to worry about whether some deranged terrorist is going to blast them in their seats.  Children in schoolrooms ought to be safe without armed guards and metal detectors.   Guns ought to be used for hunting, self-defense, policing, and wars.  They ought NOT to be in the hands of people who have them in order to blast away at other people, people they don't like, people who are differently colored.  They should not be able to buy them in order to massacre children and old women in churches while they attend Bible study.  An 87-year-ld woman was gunned down by a 21-year-old racist.  He was in the church because its members refuse to close the doors to people who want to be there.  A few miles from where all of this happened, there are confederate flags flying on government buildings.  No matter what their apologists might say, confederate flags STAND for the evils of race slavery and racism.  To fly that flag over public institutions is to grant legitimacy to THE most destructive racism ever to have existed in America -- the enslavement of Africans for three centuries under color of law.

This is an outrage.   We know that. But we sit here like FOOLS, guns blasting all around us, black people being targeted simply because they're black - more guns and more massacres than in any other nation on earth except for places like Yemen -- and we just let gun manufacturers' lobbies rule the roost.  We say that white terrorists are "deranged," but we call black shooters "thugs," as if it's in their character or genes.  We should be able to walk the streets, go to church, attend school, buy movie tickets without wondering if we will get shot.  Pure and simple.  And the ex-governor, Mr. Appalachian Fling, ought to be kicked out of office.  He cannot be trusted to ensure the safety and happiness of the nation.