Sunday, June 12, 2016

Update: Thoughts and prayers

Follow Igor Volsky of Center for American Progress on Twitter for constant updates on all the US congresspersons and senators who have taken campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association and voted against every kind of gun control legislation.

Every time some terrible thing like this happens they send out messages offering their "thoughts and prayers", but no apologies for the lack of action on their part that would help to put an end to it. Igor is there to call them out for it.

One religious leader who calls for thoughts and prayers and DOING SOMETHING:

Pope Francis has condemned “the terrible massacre that has taken place in Orlando, with its dreadfully high number of innocent victims”.
He released a statement through a spokesperson, who said the attack “has caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation, of pain and turmoil before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred.

Pope Francis joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and in compassion. Sharing in their indescribable suffering he entrusts them to the Lord so they may find comfort. We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence which so deeply upsets the desire for peace of the American people and of the whole of humanity.
"Contrast" is a bad translation for Italian contrastare, meaning "oppose" or "prevent".

Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.

6 comments:

Nick said...

Quick look-back at part of President Obama's response to a Q from a gun store owner during a town hall in Idiana last week.

"I just came from a meeting today in the Situation Room in which I got people who we know have been on ISIL Web sites, living here in the United States, U.S. citizens, and we're allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines, but because of the National Rifle Association, I cannot prohibit those people from buying a gun.

This is somebody who is a known ISIL sympathizer. And if he wants to walk in to a gun store or a gun show right now and buy as much - as many weapons and ammo as he can, nothing's prohibiting him from doing that, even though the FBI knows who that person is."

Yastreblyansky said...

@Nick, thanks so much for that, brilliant. I quoted it over at my place in response to the troll.

Never Ben Better said...

Once again, Jim Wright has to update and repost this:

http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/07/the-seven-stages-of-gun-violence.html

I love his rants, but I'm so terribly tired of having to reread this one.

Never Ben Better said...

Just read this comment from Ben in Oakland at Joe. My. God. and had to share it. Part 1 here because it's too long for Blogger to digest in one gulp, apparently.

Regarding the murder of 50 gay people in Orlando by a young Muslim man:

This is the result of the toxic religion that falls so easily from the lips of religionists. And please, spare me that this is just another facet of Islam, and has nothing to do with the toxic spew from so many so-called Christians, whether they are calling for our deaths, calling for our imprisonment, or calling us threats to everything good and holy, or claiming we are mocking God, or whatever other nonsense they are vomiting from their dark hearts.

And especially, when they claim to love me but hate my sin. You CANNOT love me and hate my sin. Because it is not a sin, despite what your holy book allegedly says. It is how I live and love and fulfill my life, the same as any heterosexual. And to hate this not-sin, and to wish it gone from my life and from the world to satisfy YOUR religious impulses, is all about you, and not about me. And it doesn't say anything nice about you OR your religion.

Love the sinner and hate the sin? How about this? We drop every word, every qualification, after the very first word, and leave it at LOVE. Because, personally, I find this so called love that you profess completely indistinguishable from hate.

The father of this mass murderer said that his son was angry because he saw two men kissing in Miami. Your son was angry because he saw two men kissing? There is more Bullscheiss in that statement than in every cow residing in the state of Texas.

Your son was angry because he had been taught to hate and fear, whether by his religion, by you, or by political religionists or religious politicians who see gay people as less than human, as disposable, as fodder for their never-ending quests for power, money, and dominion. And will these political maggots do anything about the easy access to weapons of mass destruction in our so-called civilized society? Most assuredly, no. If the murders of several dozen children a few years ago couldn't do it, the murder of 50 despised adults will not even merit a ho-hum. They might wring their hands once, or even twice, utter a few meaningless platitudes, and perhaps even deplore the tragedy, in a vague, general sort of a way. But do anything? Not a chance.




http://www.joemygod.com/2016/06/13/father-of-orlando-terrorist-he-should-have-left-punishing-those-homosexuals-to-god-himself-video/#comment-2727990710

Never Ben Better said...

Part 2:

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The fundelibangelist "leaders" will of course say something about it, for a while. But eventually, their guard will drop, and the truth of what they really feel will come through. Wages of sin, God will not be mocked, god's wrath at sinful America, and all the rest of that moralizing, moral rot. And then, they'll be back to "God says...the bible says..." And business as usual. Pass the collection plate, please. We have homos to fight.

This young vermin was angry for the obvious reason. I am increasingly convinced the the worst, the most vicious, and the most virulent of those opposed to our right to live our lives as free men and women and equal participants in society, whether religious or not, are homo-hating homos who cannot bear the thought that we are allowed to do just that, when they have confined themselves to the prisons of their small minds, shriveled hearts, minuscule souls, and over-mastering fears that someone will find out about them. Maybe even the God of love that they pretend to worship.

So violence, and the abuse and misuse of democracy and law are the result.

Look to yourselves, bible-believing, so-called Christians. You're not much better than these Islamist monsters. It wasn't so long ago that you were doing the same, under color of law, one gay person at a time, whether by prison, judicial murder, legalized discrimination, or presenting no alternative but suicide. Now, you can only attempt to murder our souls by doing everything you can to force us back into the closet, to enable discrimination under color of law, to tell the slandering, reviling lies you tell with the smug assurance that you, like your Islamist brethren, are simply doing god's work. Some god you worship there. He looks suspiciously, but not surprisingly, just like you.

Be assured. This will galvanize us and our loved ones, friends, families, neighbors and colleagues even more. This Islamist may have murdered 50 of us, but has infuriated and energized millions more.

Never Ben Better said...

Holy guacamole! If this story is true, the Orlando massacre takes a surprising -- yet, at the same time, oh so not surprising after all -- twist, eh?

http://gawker.com/orlando-shooter-was-reportedly-a-regular-at-pulse-and-h-1781920316