We all know that most of the media is owned by a handful of people or corporations (e.g., General Electric owns NBC and Rupert Murdoch, FOX), and that nearly all media are run by ideological right-wing Republicans; and we all know further that the last thing right-wing Republicans offer the public is impartiality of news and commentary. (Fox News is its own best witness to this shameful fact.) But Google-owned Yahoo—solidly in the right-wing camp as any perusal of its on-line news reporting and commentary can verify—shamelessly left out 50% of the recent Santa Barbara shooting story.
A father of one of the students who was murdered spoke to the press about the pain and grief of his son’s death, and of his anger at the politicians who refused to pass gun restriction laws after the killings at Sandy Hook, CT. Yahoo left out, conspicuously, the father’s loud and very emotional condemnation of the NRA for its role in facilitating gun violence .Because his “whole body and soul” anger at the NRA was so visceral, visibly shaking every fiber in his grief-torn body, it is all the more surprising that this was edited out of the story so that not one mention was made of the NRA! Yahoo’s reporter, Dana Feldman, is either completely incompetent as a journalist or else (more likely) was instructed by her superiors to edit the father’s speech so as not to blame the NRA.
Is there anywhere in the US where the NRA’s influence does NOT extend? The Right has complained about Big Government’s influence in our everyday life. But government’s influence is nothing compared to the NRA’s. Ironically, the Tea Party folk—NRA advocates one and all—support a movement that is profoundly un-democratic! It is their patrons—the wealthiest 1%–who now rule undemocratically. But they are too blind to see it—or they approve of it.
The anguish of Mr. Martinez, the dead boy’s father, could have turned even hearts of stone to wax—except of course those of the NRA, with its many psychopathological gun enthusiasts. These people suffer from a combination of several severe psychological disorders. They evidence an utter lack of emotional maturity and self-confident masculinity; they possess a grossly underdeveloped intellect, and with no ability to reason logically; they have no capability to empathize with others; and, additionally, they suffer from paranoia and grandiose narcissism.
As Jesus knew only too well, it is all too easy to bring violence and hate into the world; but the kingdom of heaven is reserved for peacemakers. It’s peopled only by those who bring love and mercy, goodness and truth, to our harsh and broken world. Of that unimaginably beautiful world, God’s kingdom, where reason and love rule high and low, the NRA and its proselytes can have no part, for they fundamentally oppose His message of a kingdom of Peace, Non-violence, and Love. Heaven is for those who have practiced God’s love in this life through endless trials: hell, for those who have rejected God’s love for lust of violence and hate.
The NRA, through its lobbying, exercises almost absolute power in Congress and across America. Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, just vetoed a modest gun proposal that would have limited the number of shells in a gun clip. Not even that (token) gun measure gets passed due to the power of the NRA. No doubt Gov. Christie heard the “clink, clink, clink” of campaign cash contributions as he signed his name, vetoing the bill. “You scratch my back, I scratch yours.” And if this further imperils our nation’s children—well, so much the worse for our children!
Len Sive Jr.