America's had a gun problem since November 22, 1963.

[Octafish]

Of course, there was a problem before that terrible day and, in all probability, after this terrible day.



Specifically, the problem resides with the type of people willing to use arms.
Whether to take a human life or to make a political point, they are evil.

[Zyzafyx]

1. No

We caught our gun disease the day the NRA was formed a century-and-a-half ago.

[Octafish]

3. From my perspective, America hasn't been the same since President Kennedy.

For instance, presidents no longer think of peace as a priority.

"Money trumps peace." -- George W. Bush, Feb. 14, 2007

[MrMickeysMom]

7. I know that's right...

and I know that you know that's right, too.

[Octafish]

14. Assassination Nation

In going with the "Ends Justify the Means" mentality, the USA became NAZI-like.

Fifty Years of US Targeted ‘Kill Lists’: From the Phoenix Program to Predator Drones

Assassination Nation

by DOUG NOBLE
CounterPunch
July 19, 2012

“A broad-gauged program of targeted assassination has now displaced counterinsurgency as the prevailing expression of the American way of war.” –Andrew Bacevich (1)

This spring the US drone killing program has come out of the closet. Attorney General Eric Holder publicly defended the drone killing of an American citizen (2), while Obama’s counter terrorism czar John Brennan publicly explained and justified the target killing program (3). And a New York Times article by Jo Becker and Scott Shane chronicled Obama’s personal role in vetting a secret “Kill List.” (4)

SNIP...

Two key architects of the current Phoenix-style global counterinsurgency efforts by the US are David Kilcullen and Michael Vickers. David Kilcullen has been counterinsurgency advisor to two former Middle East commanders, General Stanley McChrystal (formerly head of Special Operations) and General David Petraeus, now CIA Director. Michael G. Vickers, made famous in the book and film Charlie Wilson’s War about the CIA’s anti-Soviet Afghan campaign of the 1980s, is currently Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, wielding such vast authority over the US war on terror that, according to a Washington Post profile, Pentagon colleagues refer to as his “take-over-the-world-plan.” (43)

Kilcullen wrote in a much-quoted 2004 paper entitled “Countering Global Insurgency” that “Counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have reawakened official and analytical interest in the Phoenix Program.” He proposed that “a global Phoenix program … would provide a useful start point” for “a new strategic approach to the Global War on Terrorism,” one which would focus on “interdicting links … between jihad theatres, denying sanctuary areas, … isolating Islamists from local populations and … disrupting inputs” from others. (44)

SNIP...

Pentagon colleagues have said of Vickers, “he tends to think like a gangster.” (48) Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell revealed that getting Bin Laden in Pakistan was Vicker’s “baby,” and “more than anyone else in the department, he drove the issue.” (49) 2011 New York Times Vickers summarizes his strategy this: “You make a deal with the devil to defeat another devil.”(50) “I just want to kill those guys.” (51) A 2011 Such is the megalomaniacal mission underlying the US global war on terror, its kill lists and worldwide program of targeted assassination.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/19/assassination-nation/

Which is, something else we both know, MrMickeysMom.

PS: Alexander Cockburn passed away today. While I disagreed with him regarding the Warren Commission, I will always give thanks for CounterPunch.

[HockeyMom]

2. America cannot get over it's Wild West Image

That is the problem.

[Octafish]

5. Absolutely so, HockeyMom.

The guy with the best gun wins. Now they are nuclear.

[gopiscrap]

4. and if you notice

it's almost always the conservatives, tea party types doing the shooting!!!

[Octafish]

6. That's always bothered me, too. It carries over to Wall Street.

Know your BFEE: War and Oil are just two longtime Main Lines of Business

[RebelOne]

9. But Holmes was not a tea party type,

which has been disproved in the press.

[demosincebirth]

8. the prominence of the NRA in the last forty years is the cause of the proliferation of guns and

weapons in this country. If, by some miracle, the evil NRA would suddenly disappear it would take, at least, one generation to get a semblance of control over weapons. Never in our history has one organization of 2.7 million members had so much control and power over politicians and a big segment of our society. Mind boggling.

[RC]

10. +1000 Right on!

The NRA is the propaganda arm of the arms manufactures and gun runners. They all profit from death and destruction.

[gopiscrap]

11. I totally agree with you!!!

[Octafish]

12. Thank you for putting it into words, demosincebirth.

That is exactly it. One of the principal tenets of propaganda and political branding is to be first to define the candidate or issue. Once that idea is in someone's head, it takes 40 to 100 times of information to drive out the old idea. For many, even that won't work. They're stuck believing a lie. Unfortunately for the United States of America, they've managed to convince a sizable block of Americans that their perspective is valid. Worse of all, they continue to peddle their lies:

For action makes propaganda's effect irreversible. He who acts in obedience to propaganda can never go back. He is now obliged to believe in that propaganda because of his past action. He is obliged to receive from it his justification and authority, without which his action will seem to him absurd or unjust, which would be intolerable. He is obliged to continue to advance in the direction indicated by propaganda, for action demands more action. He is what one calls committed -- which is certainly what the Communist party anticipates, for example, and what the Nazis accomplished. The man who has acted in accordance with the existing propaganda has taken his place in society. From then on he has enemies. Often he has broken with his milieu or his family; he may be compromised. He is forced to accept the new milieu and the new friends that propaganda makes for him. Often be has committed an act reprehensible by traditional moral standards and has disturbed a certain order; he needs a justification for this -- and he gets more deeply involved by repeating the act in order to prove that it was just. Thus he is caught up in a movement that develops until it totally occupies the breadth of his conscience. Propaganda now masters him completely -- and we must bear in mind that any propaganda that does not lead to this kind of participation is mere child's play.

CONTINUED...

http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/oss/propaganda.htm

PS: Your analysis is also why I don't care if I sound like a broken record. Most people today weren't born when JFK was alive. Those of us who remember want the future generations to know freedom, justice, peace and prosperity, let alone live in a nation that was capable of anything like going to the moon.

[demosincebirth]

13. Everyone knows that the Evil NRA has been the cause of the proliforation of weapons in this county

And if they don't know it, they are in denial of huge proportions, or just plain stupid. I am not anti-gun, I am for sensible gun laws which 80% of American are. also. It boggles my mind why this evil organization has so much control over so many so-called normal Americans. I believe if the NRA was a religion it surely would be classified as Cult.

[MrMickeysMom]

15. Agree...

Boy, do I agree.