Unplug For a Day

“ Oh, he was just really quiet, I think…I didn’t really notice anything unusual…Oh, yeah, she had just quit her job, I think…needed to take care of her son…she was really into guns…really proud of her new assault rifle…Yeah, things must have been really hard for her, I guess…husband walked out…kid was like uber-weird and geeky in school…I think….I mean like he never like hung out or anything…I never imagined him doing such a thing.”

How many times do we have to hear variants on this same theme, as friends, relatives, neighbors, and townies attempt to make some sense of yet another senseless, horrific act of carnage that happened somewhere else as the rest of us sipped our Starbucks and posted our enchiladas? Officials, civic and religious, continue to talk a lot about God, but secularly vow “meaningful, concrete steps” to finally address the underlying issues. We already know that the end result will be the status quo because there has never been a concerted political or religious will to take those meaningful, concrete steps. Why not? What else? Money and power, fed by fear.

Some politicians are afraid of the NRA and so, are afraid to take even one “meaningful, concrete step” to prohibit the sale of assault weapons and/or large capacity ammunition clips. Endless talk, pro and con, about gun control is all we will get. Soul searching liberals will recite, ad nauseam, statistics from studies done in other developed nations which show marked decreases in gun violence with increases in gun control.

Then will come the inevitable, incessant, ranting, insane diatribes from the family values contingent, who do not live in Beirut or Miami but still profess that an arsenal in the basement, brazier, or belt buckle is the only way to keep the ubiquitous, alien/gummint, monsters in the closet at bay. The emptiest vessel makes the loudest noise and, in the end, noise will probably win the day...again.*

Moreover, many aspiring politicians quickly learn to cater to both the fears and selfish nature of donor/ constituents, most of whom are loathe to pay a dollar to keep a poor “not my” kid from becoming a criminal, but are more than willing to pay a thousand times that amount to lock the same “still not my” kid in a cage and throw away the key. That is why so many local politicians advocate spending millions to implement tougher sentencing laws, but get all “fiscally responsible” when it comes to funding early childhood education, healthcare, child care, welfare, food stamps, extended hours for recreation centers, and job training for single parents.  

Similarly, most organized religious leaders have no real interest in stemming the violence, because, quite simply, fear is what brings in the faithful. Can you imagine a serious, viable exercise of interfaith cooperation and collaboration to eradicate the root causes of gun violence?  No? Me neither. Not as long as Mega-churches, and Mike Huckabee and the Grahams and 700 Club and “pray the gay away” rackets are lifting money hand over fist out of the pockets of the terrified “who cling to their guns and their Bibles.”

There I go again. Picking only on the hypocritical Christian, charlatan racketeers and their sheep-like flocks. Alrightythen, feel free to substitute any or all paranoid American Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Scientologists, Zoroastrians, Mormons, and/or any other organized syndicated criminal enterprise calling itself a religion that offers to trade peace of mind for cold hard cash.  Fear is the fuel in a speeding truck with no brakes. Why stop it? It’s going places!

Think about it. Who is going to obey five hundred-year-old dogma or, more importantly, tithe, unless they are afraid? How else does one explain how a doddering old fool in a dress, a beanie, and ballet slippers can tell millions of men and women how to manage their private parts?

Okay so our leaders will probably do nothing substantive to address this soul-sucking situation but rather insist upon a private, market-driven solution. Can we Americans, as the nation foremost in rampant consumerism, eschew any further consumption of violence and only buy stock in a complex, plodding, nuts and bolts solution?

Yes, that was a rhetorical question. Americans are in love with violence. Violence permeates every facet of our lives from movies, to video games, to sports, to schools and hostile takeovers. Violence, especially under the insidious guise of warfare, has been the driving force behind almost every scientific breakthrough and technological advancement that we take for granted today. We have about as much chance of weaning American culture off of violence as weaning Ted Nugent off of the AR15 teat he has been suckling on stage for the last twenty years.

There will always be fear and violence as long as there is profit to be made. As children,  we are dosed with fear by advertisers. Fear titillates our young psyches and makes us consume, but we are then consumed by fear as adults. What is anger after all, but fear, turned inward?

But you, as just one individual human being on this planet, do have the ability and perhaps the singular courage to face down those fears and be a tiny bit less selfish, less spiteful and more giving and forgiving for just one day. For just one day, you can decide to commit a small act of kindness, just to see how it feels. For just one day, you can unplug yourself from the self-imposed sequestration of your iphonesdroidsmp3semailfacebooktwitterearphones and open your eyes and ears and heart to a friend, relative, or neighbor. Just to see how it feels. Not because of some holy mandate that has been bastardized, turned inside out, and stood on its ear by thieves in robes.

You can do it because it is the right thing to do on any given day. Since I have written the better part of this piece in my robe and slippers, I feel qualified to bestow my blessings unto you to do it of your own free will. You can do one act of kindness  for someone else on this planet exactly the same way you would want it done for you. Just to see how it feels.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

 *It is a fact that the U.S. contains at least one firearm for every man, woman, and child in America. It is another fact is that New York City has one of the toughest gun laws in the nation and, not incidentally, the lowest gun violence rate of any major American city. Yes, to my friends in Kansas, the bigevilconcretejungle has a lower violent crime rate than your own state capitol. FYI.