After the massacre of children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in December 2014, there seemed to be an unstoppable public demand for federal gun control legislation. After the massacre of high school students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Davis High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, the demand for gun control seemed unstoppable, led by students from the school.
Nothing happened. Now American students and teachers learn to protect themselves in “active shooter” drills. The opponents of gun control count on potential victims to protect themselves, instead of enacting restrictions on gun owners to protect children.
The same politicians who fight for the rights of gun owners are busily banning books, which they consider dangerous. Book banning is cancel culture at its worst.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Better yet…also man idiotic politicians.
I meant to say ‘ban’ idiotic politicians.
quite a few of them are men….an easy mistake 🙂
“man idiotic politicians”
Isn’t that what Putin did/does to the tRump?
Nothing can be done about school shootings says only country where this is a common occurrence.
But books with naked mice in them–we can eliminate that scourge.
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2022/03/02/ohio-house-vote-ending-requirements-concealed-carry/9330118002/
Hey, young people. Don’t under any circumstances read George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha or Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (all available for free in any public library or used online for a dollar or two). These contain lots of sex and violence that you should not under any circumstances be exposed to. And they are all short and have plots that will get you all stirred up. Start reading one of these, and you might not be able to put it down, so it will even cause you to lose sleep! So, please, please, go out and don’t read these today!
–The America First Bund for Purity of Thought and Action, aka, The Republican Party
Books are supposed to be protected by the 1st Amendment and the 2nd Amendment doesn’t say anyone has a right to own a firearm or tanks, or missiles, or machine guns, or …
If we translated the 2nd Amendment to match the time it was written, then the only firearms Americans could own would be muzzle loading muskets and even then, they’d have to belong to a “well organized militia” and back in the 18th century, militias were a defensive force to protect mainly rural areas that were remote from urban areas. The small cities had militias, too, just like they had volunteer fire departments. Back then, when a farmer built a new barn, all his neighbors came to help.
Militias in the 18th century were not made up of government hating white supremacists that refuse to accept the legally-elected government that also supports a serial lying, malignant narcist that wants to be a life-long dictator. Even the KKK didn’t exist back then.
As mentioned in a post some time ago, I put together a banned books unit ahead of teaching To Kill A Mockingbird. And I have seen TKAM under scrutiny around the country for CRT. I know the whole CRT drive is a BS manufactured crisis (that eventually gained support with Koch money) to get votes as well as to present a, literally, whitewashed brand of US history. But seeing and listening to Zelensky and the Ukrainians defy, resist and articulate what they are fighting for—I recognize CRT for it truly is: an extension of the Putin-backed Trumpysteria that now owns the right. Whereas before I was selfishly afraid for my job by “causing a stink” with TKAM in this conservative community, I am UNLOADING it in all its fury. F my job. Like a post yesterday said, it’s all connected. We know that part of the political divisions in this country (CRT a new battle line drawn within it) can be traced back to Russian psych-via-cyberwarfare operations. I’ll be g-damned if I cower in fear any longer. Ukranians have put more on the line than their jobs.
You, Yossarian, are a teacher. All honor to you!!!
Excellent Post. Absolutely Spot On. We draw courage and insight and action from Ukraine right this minute.
In a militaristic, martial society like the USA that adores and honors all the death and destruction of the US military, what does one expect?
Can’t be having any radical thinking that goes against that worshipping. Sky-Daddy Bless America!!!
Banning guns is not the answer. One, and if I may say so that one includes the vast majority of gun owners, can be an ethical gun owner and user. Sadly, though, our society embraces using violence as a solution to its problems.
I don’t remember any of the school shooters being influenced by CRT.
But I do recall quite a few of them being influenced by right wing ideas and their parents’ adoration of guns that can now down dozens of children per minute.
Just sayin’.
^^guns that can MOW down…
I saw a political cartoon recently that featured a school superintendent and a police chief stepping over the bodies of students outside a school. The police chief is saying to the superintendent, yeah, unfortunate, sending thoughts and prayers, but the good news is that we found no evidence of CRT.
pretty dark. Made darker by its truth.
All satire & Onionesque-type humor is no longer satire & humor but our everyday truth.
Banning CRT (which does not exist to be banned) is how politicians can doublespeak racism on tv and in state houses. They can’t stand up and say what they really want to say or use language they really want to use – so they use code: CRT
Banning books is how politicians can double speak homophobia, more racism, and that parents should be allowed to brainwash their kids.
And, it’s in their playbook.
Book banning, CRT, etc. plays out in local school boards meetings which means it gets books and crt in headlines daily in local newspapers.
They get free propaganda in every small town and suburb in the country.
The VERY Same People Are Behind All Of This. Funding it. Fueling it with “paid operatives”. Exporting it all over the globe, literally. Same M.O. everywhere we look. None of this is coincidence, accidental or grassroots. They map out locations which they identify as susceptible and vulnerable and then go at it with all the markings of a strategic, “military” campaign. They are waging a war and we must name it as such and respond accordingly. Obviously, way way bigger and more malevolent than banning Maus or screaming about CRT. Ukraine is showing us what the logical conclusion looks like.
Ukraine is showing us what the logical conclusion looks like.
Yes
“The new official contents of sex education in Mexico: laicism in the crosshairs,” 3-3-2021, at the Scielo site tells us who is behind the campaign. The article covers much more territory than the title indicates.
It is not a coincidence that Ryan Girdusky founded the 1776 PAC. The American beginnings of the overarching campaign Kathy describes is posted in an interview written by Girdusky which Pat Buchanan includes at his site.
Putin is reported to have never taken off the cross his mother gave him as a child. He is driven by power and he justifies it with religion. Worldwide, the right wing has been colonized by the Christian orthodox and other Christian nationalists who oppose democracy and who use the political plots of men like Bannon to create governance that denies rights to all but White, heterosexual, men.
Using Pat Buchanan’s “culture war” framing enables the religious to hide behind a veil that implies legitimacy and wider public support than the religious right has.
Today, Daily Beast posted a story “…Trump 43-0… (in decisions from the partisan/ideological FEC)”
In the article, Dan McGahn’s critics claim the FEC’s change which set the stage for Trump’s undefeated FEC record was the work of McGahn. (He’s a grad of Notre Dame and has a LLM from Georgetown). McGahn was on the FEC from 2008 to 2013. He is a Federalist Society member. WaPo’s article (5-21-2019) about the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo identifies McGahn’s role in political/policy change and it cites the Mercer family (Steve Bannon’s patron) as the leading Federalist Society benefactor. Leo is frequently described as being driven by his religion.
All satire & Onionesque-type humor is no longer satire & humor but our everyday truth.
The number of mass shootings in the United States has never been this high! It must be our priority to STOP this NOW!