I almost didn’t write about this.
I mean, everyone else I typically read has already written and posted about the latest deadly shooting in Buffalo. Susan Campbell calls out the media and urges policy and change rather than thoughts and prayers. Heather Cox Richardson provided the historic background, as she does, on the unfounded “replacement theory” that conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson is spreading and Gina Barreca wants to de-romanticize the killers as being “lone wolves” and has other suggestions. All these women have covered and said nearly everything I have been thinking since the murders, so what could I add to the conversation?
My voice. That’s what.
It doesn’t matter that it’s all been said already. That’s the problem . . . we’re always saying the same things, but nothing is changing. By the time I read Susan Campbell’s piece, posted mere hours earlier, there had been another mass shooting. Within hours.
I think we need all the voices—theirs, mine, yours. These tragedies make us instinctively pull back and protect ourselves and our loved ones; at least that’s my instinct. Angelo and I were up in Maine for a short break after the end of my semester when we heard about the Buffalo murders. We were there doing normal stuff—heading into Wal-Mart, picking up a few things at the grocery store, stopping for a bite to eat. Isn’t that what those now-dead people were doing, too? Not just in Buffalo, but all over the US.
An 86-year-old grandmother went to the grocery store to get strawberries for shortcake. Wouldn’t you think that would be a safe activity? In El Paso, a 63-year-old grandpa died protecting his wife and 9-year-old granddaughter at a Wal-Mart—we were at a Wal-Mart. And what about a 6-year-old kid just sitting in his first-grade classroom? Shouldn’t that be a safe place? In our country, it’s safer for an 18-year-old to go to the gun store and buy a Bushmaster assault weapon than for a man to buy his 3-year-old son a birthday cake at the neighborhood market.
Am I supposed to rethink going to the grocery store? To a movie? To school? We don’t live in a third-world war torn country; we live in the United States of America where you’d think the “Life” part of “ . . . Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” would be the most important part.
I am really tired of people shooting everyone. I grow weary at having to imagine the suffering of another child finding out their mom is dead or worse, the other way around. The tragic unfairness of a long, well-lived life cut down by a murderer’s insane rampage is too common anymore. Someone tampers with Tylenol and the whole over-the-counter medical packaging process is changed. After September 11th, everything about the way we travel by air is different. More strict. Why is the US still the leader in mass shootings year after year after year and nothing is done to address it?
There are too many politicians letting all that tragedy and harm happen. Bolstered by the money of contributors with personal agendas, they succumb to the greed and deceit brought about by their lust for power. It’s mostly Republicans; they’re keeping guns available to killers, they’re pushing unfounded theories about education and false stories about voter fraud and now with the lying Justices Trump appointed, they’re taking away the rights of women. They’re murderers, racists and liars. If they don’t like being called that, then they shouldn’t act that way. But let’s not just blame Republicans (although you can check the congressional voting record anytime and see who’s voting for what) let’s call out all of them. All the politicians—Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, Green—if they’re not representing the people, then they’re not doing their jobs and need to go. Their powers are derived from the “consent of the governed” and I don’t consent anymore. (This is also covered in the Declaration of Independence, by the way—we get to abolish them.)
We all have a voice and we need to use it. Even when it gets repetitive.
(Please note: If you’re offended by my calling out Republicans as chief perpetuators of the murder, racism, lying problem, I’m okay with that. And if you don’t believe me, you can read this.)
Yes, call them all out. I feel your anger and I feel mine. I hear you. Vote like your life depends on it. Because it does.
Also, please please please try to avoid going to Walmart. They are lousy employers, engaging in pretty nasty union-busting activities and employee surveillance. Walmart works hard to keep the minimum wage at or below poverty level. So much so that our taxes subsidize their employees' entitlements. Also, they have huge gun departments and turn a tidy profit from the mass murder industry.
I know and understand: often they are the only game in town because often they are. They've stamped out all competition.
If change is ever going to happen, we need to show up at the ballot box. We need to vote with our dollars as well.
Me again, because I just read this poem by Wendell Berry called "Our Real Work" on another substack, and it seemed so unbelievably appropriate and synchronistic:
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.