Sustainability and Politics: Ezra Klein (video) and Colby on Gun Violence, and Need for Progress

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Ezra Klein (video) and Colby on Gun Violence, and Need for Progress

https://www.facebook.com/ezraklein/videos/10154000566913410/

Fantastic video. Ezra Klein has great perspective. If all Americans saw this, and could vote, we'd move forward and enact better laws. Even despite the below. The argument against it is that people don't trust our government. That's the only shred of defense that's at all plausible from those that are blocking improvement to our fucked up situation here with our gun problems. The most influential of these people want all people to be able to get a gun - even those who shouldn't be able to. So a mob could overtake the government, or an individual can protect their family and homestead against anyone or the government. It is primitive thinking, but that is where some people are at. (Yes, most of these people of course could qualify to get a permit and pass a background check and get a gun and still defend their family; it is the more primitive people to whom the enablers are appealing.) Shameful that those who know better and support the NRA and this primitivism are sticking the rest of us with the cost and carnage of a gun culture. The screenshot of the slide below is one of the best places to start improvement: let's start ticking off some of those boxes here in America. Thanks for your concern and posting on the issue Aaron, safe travels.

No comments:

Post a Comment

I've been thinking some about the Winter Solstice, the Mayan end of the 30,000-year-cycle on 12/21/12.

What if in fact the world did end? Even though this probably will not happen, to live consciously it is honest for us to take a bit of an inventory.

Am I happy with how I've lived my life? (Yesterday, I thought mostly yes, with some areas for improvement, as below.) Are there changes I would make?
Would I have tried to forgive those that were hostile or disappointing to me?
Would I spend more time with those I loved the most, telling them that, feeling that more?
Would I be happier, grateful for what I have, what I've experienced, the joy, the beauty in this world?

Maybe the answer is yes to all of the above.
So this time can serve as a point of rebirth for all of us. If we think about it.

Because somewhere along the line I realized I think maybe mankind deserves it. !
The way we are killing each other, killing the planet.
How selfish we are, and snotty to those around us. Petty, competitive. Why is this? Do we have to behave this way? (I say no, it greatly detracts and misdirects energy from the full-time celebration in which we could engage, the great multi-cultural, multi-rhythmic dance we can sustain here.)

Maybe God or the Great Universe is fed up, and will pull the rug out from under us.
Don't think I can say we could blame Him/Her/It.

But it probably won't happen. (Probably not! This time.)

Still we are finite on this ride.

It is a time to think, am I happy with how I've lived my life?
Hopefully most of us can say yes.

For the part of us that have a little worry, a little sadness....
This is the time to be present.
This is the time to be the person you want to be, that can die at peace, that can hope to every day be able to look yourself and the Universe in the eye and say, how beautiful, smiling, and thank you. Let's do that.