The American Taliban Part ll

This is a continuation of “The American Taliban, Part l.”  The first part is available online on my blog, (you can access it by googling the title and my name).  In Part ll, we will discuss a few topics which are doing great harm to our country and to the world from the inside.

As I made clear in Part 1, I am using the term “American Taliban” as a term referring to negative forces within the United States.  I am not trying to dehumanize in any way the people whose behaviors, in my opinion, threaten the well-being of the nation.  They are human beings, whose inner cores are no worse or better than mine.  I feel obliged—which is every citizen’s duty—to criticize what seems to me to be gross injustices and policies that are destructive to the country and to its citizens.  

The topics briefly discussed in this article are as follows: Gun Control; Climate Change; Inequality, and finally, the decline of civil discourse.  (The list is, of course, not a complete list of contemporary problems.)

1. Gun Control

Everyone knows that the statistics regarding death by firearms in the United States are beyond alarming, so I will only summarize here.  There were 33,636 deaths by firearms in the United States in 2015.  Consistently, over several years, over 2/3 of these deaths were caused by suicide, and 2015 was no exception.  Accidental deaths from firearms, largely due to access to unsecured weapons in the home by family members, especially children, totaled 505 in 2013.  The latter grim statistic is illustrated by the case of Tovanna Holton, 15, who, embarrassed by a photo of her placed onto social media without her permission, took a revolver from her mother’s purse and committed suicide.  

Gun deaths from 1968 through 2011 exceeded the number of deaths of Americans killed in battle for every war fought by the United Sates from 1776 to 2016 combined.  It is not simply a black/white or class issue.  True, black males are the victims of homicide to a much greater degree than whites.  It is also true, however, than whites die from suicide at a much higher rate than do blacks.  (These statistics to my knowledge, have never been corrected for class.)

What are we doing about this horrible American epidemic? ( It is indeed chiefly an American problem. Death by firearms occur at ten times the rate than they do in Germany, for instance.) 

What are we doing?  Nothing.

What if the Centers of Disease control, faced a rise of mosquito-borne illnesses, came up with a plan to increase the number of swamps.  Every American must exercise his/her unalienable right to keep a pool of stagnant water in every American yard.  This would hardly advance the career of a doctor who devised such a loony plan.  And yet Americans continue to elect representative swho not only refuse to pass any from of gun control, but imagine that the solution to mass shootings is arming the masses!  The way to prevent mass murder in an elementary school is to be sure that Miss Grundy packs heat in her desk drawer! Ridiculous!

70% of Americans want more gun control  You know who’s to blame here.  The National Rifle Association has bought off  many of our politicians.  A Republican who dared to do the right thing would most  likely not get reelected—The gun lobby would see to that.  And the primary goal of just about every politician is to stay in office.

The gun lobby and its supporters; all those who have transformed the Second Amendment into a fetish of fanaticism—these are among the members of the American Taliban, causing great harm to the United States.

Can something be done?  If the American Taliban is defeated via knowledge and via the polls, yes.  Australia provides a fine example of what legislation can achieve.   After a mass shooting in that country in 1996, Australia passed, with bipartisan cooperation, strict gun control measures.  There was a buyback program of weapons.  Private sales of firearms—all firearms—were banned.  All guns have to be registered to their owners.  One has to have a legitimate reason to own a firearm in the first place.  Firearms must always be kept secured.  The result has been a dramatic decrease in firearm deaths: a 74% reduction in suicides and a 69% reduction in homicides!!

From 2005-2015, there were 301, 797 deaths from firearms in the United States—and only 71 deaths from terrorism.  If America enacted similar gun control as in Australia, it is reasonable to assume that the number of deaths would decrease by a similar percentage. This means that firearms caused the unnecessary deaths of 211,000 Americans over that period!  Once again, home-grown demons have proved to be far more destructive than foreign ones.

2,  Climate Change

The great astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, when asked if he could explain the Trump phenomenon, replied, “I can’t.  He is a demagogue, who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.”  Agreed.  Hawking went on to say, “A more immediate danger is runaway climate change.  A rise in ocean temperature would melt the ice caps and cause a release of large amounts of carbon dioxide from the ocean floor.  Both effects could make our climate like that of Venus, with  (surface) temperature of 250 degrees.” (That’s in centigrade, by the way; the equivalent is 482 degrees Fahrenheit.)

The polar caps are melting.  More severe droughts; more severe storms. Mass extinctions. Miami's basements are already getting soggy.  Countries like Bangladesh are severely threatened, an indication of mass migrations to come.  Other countries, like Mauritius and the Maldives, will probably be wiped off the map.

What is the response of the American Taliban? An astounding 56% of Republican representatives deny that climate change exists!  Never mind that 98% of scientific papers on climate change acknowledge it as a serious problem.  Climate change denial is virtually unique to the United Sates.  Only in America could a powerful politician, James Inhofe, do something as stupid as to bring a snowball into the Senate as proof that climate change does not exist.  And he’s the chairman of the influential Senate Committee of Environment and Public Works!

President Obama is an ardent supporter of combating climate change, and has done much, but the problem remains very acute.  Political representatives of the American Taliban, paid off by the American sheikhs of the fossil fuel industry, do their best to contravene every environment-friendly effort.

Do not imagine that the Paris agreement of 2015 will work wonders,  Here’s what one official said of it, “There is no action, just promises.  As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest out there, they will continue to be burned.”  The ocean is dying.  It will be too late if we wait till it's dead.

The American Taliban is significantly contributing to a situation, which, according to Stephen Hawking, can turn out to be the equivalent of an unstoppable meteor, the size of the one that obliterated the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, hurtling towards Congress..  What terrorist group could hope to accomplish that?

3  3. Inequality 

The unexpected dramatic increase in the suicide rate among working-class whites is a good indication of the devastation that inequality is causing for everyone.  According to The Wall Street Journal, 95 % of the gains after the Great Recession of 2008 has gone exclusively to the top 1%,  The top 10% are receiving 50% of the salaries of all workers.  The Great Recession, which has made inequality much, much worse is a man-made phenomenon.  It was caused by the greed and criminal activity of Wall Street, the very center of American Taliban activity.  (An example of their criminal activity: Wall Streeters continued to sell securities that they knew were worthless, pretending that they were low-risk  investments.  After selling them, they sold the stock short.)  As a result of Wall Street concupiscence, trillions of dollars of savings were lost; millions and millions of jobs were lost; millions and millions of people lost their homes. 

Do you recall the murder of Eric Garner, who was strangled to death by cops on the streets of New York?  (His crime: selling untaxed cigarettes.)  In contrast, not only did Wall Street executives, who caused a much greater degree of economic destruction, escape prosecution, they received billions of dollars in bonuses—for wrecking the economy!  The result: Walt Street is doing just fine while the working class continues to decline.

Stephen Hawking was flummoxed by the Trump phenomenon, but I will venture to provide a partial cause. Inequality! Demagoguery feeds on it.  If members of the working-class were receiving a living wage, they would tend to live and let live The Trump phenomenon is certainly related to the discontent and plight of the white working-class.  Globalization and the greed of the rich have been destroying their way of life. (I must add that during the halcyon days of the white working class, the years after World War ll, few cared about  the vehement racism that denied prosperity and equality for the nation’s black citizens.)

The American Taliban is tearing apart the fabric of our society—a goal that foreign terrorists aim to achieve, yet, in comparison to the American Taliban, the former have failed miserably. No terrorist group in the world has been anywhere near as effective as the American Taliban in wounding the United States.

4. Lack of Civil Discourse

I will provide two examples of the widespread vicious hatred evinced by some members of the American Taliban.    

 Praying for the death of the President of the United States
   

Praying for the death of the President of the United States—where would you expect that to occur?   Baghdad?  Tehran?  How about Georgia?  Recently a Georgia senator quoted a verse from Psalm 109 which states, “May his days be few; let another take his office.”  The psalm continues, "May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow."  Some may mean this as a joke; in this violently polarized country, I have no doubt, however, that many would be delightted at our president's death.  This is shameful.

I think Jonathan Linkins of The Huffington Post got it right when he wrote, referring to the Psalm 109 desecration: "This was the latest thing in 'Debasing The Institution You Pretend To Hold Dear In Order To Suggest That President Obama Should Be Murdered Without Actually Coming Right Out And Saying So"'

Many people exhibit this blasphemous usage of the psalm on their licence plates. That the Georgia senator, and others, notably the Speaker of the House in Kansas, continue to quote the psalm in reference to our president is a national disgrace.

I was well aware of the disastrous policies of George W. Bush—I can't imagine, however, praying for his death. It is just one example of the terrible partisan divide in this country. 

Know Your Parasites

I found this on social media:

This isn’t funny.  This is sick.  It especially disgusts me, since I have studied twentieth century history.  I just read a memoir written by the granddaughter of a notorious Nazi commander of a concentration camp.  He referred to Jews as lice.  He referred to Jews as vermin.  Many of the Nazis directly involved with the Holocaust referred to Jews in this way. 

Who, besides members of the American Taliban, would use such derogatory language when referring to the President of the United Sates and to a candidate for the presidency?

Conclusion

Under serious threats from abroad, we continue to hollow ourselves out from within.  We’re all responsible, whether as active members or as passive members of the American Taliban.  Not doing anything good io diminish its influences is doing something bad.  We must become aware of the threat to our country posed by the American Taliban, and dedicate ourselves to an extensive non-violent reform of the United States.  Now.

Some of the most dangerous men in the world wear suits.