I was recently sent this photo by Bob in California. It is from the New York Times. His only comment was, “Yep, we’re still having fun across the pond!!!”
What else can one say. Who says American’s don’t do sarcasm and irony? As the photo was in black and white I pondered what the colours might be like. Trump would of course be the American flag, and I surmised that God might be embroidered in gold. I googled to see if there was a colour version on display, and to my astonishment, the following offers emerged.
I also found the colour version of the photo. It heads an opinion piece by David French published in the New York Times on 23rd April 2023, titled “Gun Idolatry is destroying the case for guns”. I have not read the article as I have not subscribed to the New York Times and have been informed that I have reached the limit of free articles.
As to whether the case of guns is being destroyed, I wonder. The very idea of equating God with Trump, as well as guns, is more than somewhat disturbing. Indeed looking at the people in the picture, apart from the T shirt, they are wearing what appears to be surplus military camouflage jackets. There are many people in the background. This must clearly be some sort of gathering in support of their hero, and they are not the least bit embarrassed by their sartorial display. On the contrary seem rather proud of it. I was wrong about ‘God’ being embossed in gold thread; indeed, God and Guns are both in cold gun metal silver, only Trump is clothed in the American flag.
As an extension of their corps belief they also seek to unify and control the education and thinking of their children, and so they have grouped together to ban books and oppose any teaching of liberal arts or free thinking of any kind in schools. They have invaded libraries and taken over the conduct and regulations of schools under the guise of seeking parental control and liberty. Certain state governors are equally committed to a big brother approach to learning. Florida and Texas are clear examples of this trend.
Whilst researching the t shirt slogan I also came across a quote from General James Mattis. “James Norman Mattis (born September 8, 1950) is a retired United States Marine Corps four star general who served as the 26th US secretary of defence from 2017 to 23019. During his 44 years in the Marine Corps, he commanded forces in the Persian Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War. He served under three presidents but his time as secretary of defence was under Donald Trump.” There is a telling quote from the general which is probably why he was in the job for only 2 years:
“They started by rounding up all
the teachers. They wanted to extinguish free thought, and the spark of
questioning and dissent.
To a totalitarian dictator, an open and inquisitive mind is more dangerous even than a Marine with a rifle."
Given that the United States is now hell bent on banning books and free thought in education, could one not compare the MAGA fundamentalists with the Khmer Rouge? Are they not about rounding up the teachers under the guise of “Moms for Liberty” and other such groups?
It is as if they have become robots or machines who seek to take over the world. Their uniformity of dress and demeanour is rather like the original Terminator on a quest to destroy John Connor, and in doing so will kill anything that gets in its way and has the appearance of free intellectual thought. They are the enforcers of judgement day. If only they were just science fiction, but they are unfortunately very much with us. I am not suggesting that the Maga force and leadership is, as yet, on a par with Pol Pot, but they are not far off. The American electorate has already let it happen once, to let it happen again would be catastrophic. To pretend otherwise would be extremely short-sighted. Could the killing fields come to America? Given the numbers of school and public mass shootings some would surmise it’s already there.
The current American Tragedy is
more than just a tragic love story. It is the twisting of the spirit of the
founding fathers of 1776 into a blind and fanatical adherence to a rigid
religious notion of fundamentalist dogma without reason or thought of any kind.
It is summed up as God Guns and Trump.
Really? I ask you?
There was more gun control in the America of the so-called Wild West than today. The gun fetish was perpetrated by the Westerns of popular TV shows - Gunsmoke, Wells Fargo etc - no doubt to the delight of the NRA and the gun industry. Just like talk shows were encouraged to smoke on air to please the tobacco industry advertisers. Tobacco became a medical issue. Guns became a political and thus a constitutional issue. Of the ten thousand Americans killed by guns each year, the NRA will point out that half of them are suicides. Missing the point that guns are not only a criminal problem, they’re a mental health issue.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that
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