A Law That Gives Birth to Crimes

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A man with a gun killed seven people and wounded at least three others at a university campus in Oakland CA. When police detained the killer, he babbled senseless statements continually. Later, they found out that the man was One Goh, 43-years-old, once a student at the same university. The Oakland tragedy happened only one month after a similar one in Ohio. There, a schoolboy shot dead three classmates in a school cafeteria. Similar incidents of shootings in schools or universities have nearly become a routine in the USA. Each year, they take up to 30 lives. In 1999, two schoolboys in Littleton CO shot dead 17 of their schoolmates. Then, they shot themselves in the school’s library. We know that these two boys belonged to a group of teenagers who called themselves “The Trench Coat Mafia”, who professed ideas close to Nazism. In 2007, a student in Virginia killed 30 people at a technical institute.

One might say that we should blame the administrators of these schools and universities for what happened. If they had watched their students closer, they would’ve probably noticed something strange in their behaviour and would have prevented the tragedies by calling the police or a brigade of psychiatrists. That might be true, but only to a certain extent. Probably, it’d be more logical to say that the main people bearing the blame here are US lawmakers, who haven’t yet abolished laws that allow practically everyone to possess weapons. You can hardly argue, after all, that even the most aggressive or inadequate person is less dangerous if they don’t have a gun than if they do. In fact, at present, practically everyone, even former criminals or mentally insane people, may buy a gun in the USA.

However, the reason why the law that makes this situation possible still exists is simple. Weapons producers, who seem to care more about their profits than about people’s lives, back the law. True, there are heated debates concerning this law in the USA, but as one can see, they still haven’t brought any results. The defenders of the law in question say that it is thanks to such laws that the USA gained independence from the UK more than 200 years ago and managed to preserve this independence through all these years. Well, historians may argue whether this is true. However, what’s true without doubt is that Colonial times or those of the Civil War are now long-bygone history.

Unfortunately, the law that allows nearly everyone to have a gun is not the only dubious law that still exists in the USA. There are some other laws that, in fact, allow people to lynch anyone under the pretext that the lyncher is helping the police. For example, recently, a certain George Zimmerman, a member of a volunteer neighbourhood watch group that helped the police to patrol streets in the city of Sanford FL, killed a 17-year old boy because he took him for a robber. This group consisted of volunteers, but existed quite legally and officially. The killer was white and the victim was black, but it’s still uncertain whether there were racial motives behind this killing. However, this incident was one step away from stirring a racial conflict all over the USA. Quite logically, many people say that the authorities should fight crime, not self-proclaimed “gropers after truth” like George Zimmermann. However, weapon producers hardly listen to any logic except the “logic” of their purses. Several years ago, weapon producers, with the help of the Republican Party, managed to urge lawmakers to abolish a ban on selling about 20 kinds of weapons to individuals introduced by the Clinton administration.

Even the fact that the free selling of weapons may aggravate US relations with Mexico doesn’t stop the defenders of this obviously outdated law. At present, without exaggeration, something that one may call a war of mafia clans grips Mexico. Mexican President Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa believes that the free trade of weapons in the US makes it easier for weapon smugglers to provide Mexican gangsters with weapons. Sr Calderon has several times addressed the USA with a request to abolish the free trade of weapons, but with no success. One can make only one conclusion in this situation… if Americans don’t want new tragedies, they have to abolish laws that give birth to crimes.

3 April 2012

Vladimir Gladkov

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_04_03/70564073/

Editor’s Note:

American independence was NOT won by a bunch of yahoos waving muskets. It was won because the American Radicals maintained a field army long enough to weary Britain, which had to fight an expensive unpopular war at the end of a long supply line. Then, again, the fact that most of Europe lined up against Britain also brought things to a head. The fact that yahoos owned their own hunting pieces was of no moment in the larger scheme of things. The sooner we regulate firearms more closely will be the day when we’ll be able to cut the murder rate. Unfortunately, the American South is full of macho creeps who think their virility’s threatened if they can’t own an AK or a machine gun (no lie). Therefore, lax gun laws will continue in this barbarous quarter, which will mean that murderers will continue to be able to procure firearms.

Sad, but true…

BMD 

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Leftist Fico Wins Massive Mandate as Slovak Prime Minister… First Non-Coalition Government in Slovakia’s History

Slovak PM Robert Fico (1964- )… a man of the Left… massive victor over the rightwing “privatisation” scummers. The image shows him at a ceremony honouring Victory Day.

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On Wednesday, Slovak President Ivan Gašparovič appointed centre-left leader Robert Fico as Prime Minister after his SMER Party won a landslide victory in an early election last month. The 47-year-old lawyer, who concluded Slovakia’s accession to the Eurozone during his previous term as prime minister in 2006-2010, replaces Iveta Radičová, whose centre-right government collapsed in October last year. Fico has said he would honour pledges to cut the fiscal gap below the EU’s official limit of 3 percent next year, flagging higher taxes for wealthy Slovaks and companies.

4 April 2012

Reuters

http://news.yahoo.com/slovak-president-appoints-leftist-fico-prime-minister-102141213.html

Editor’s Note:

Let’s keep this simple. The rightwing government (that lasted less than two years) was the darling of Western rightwingers in the media and blogosphere. Well… the Slovak people resisted the rightwingers’ attempts to destroy the Slovak safety net à la the US Republican Party… which led to the coalition partners of the rightwingers taking to their heels, bringing down the pro-American lickspittle government. The position of the USA’s been on the fritz since the Iraqi aggression in ’03, and it’s been critical since the defeat of the Bushies’ pals in Georgia in ’08 (the disastrous South Ossetia adventure, which started with a sneak rocket barrage on sleeping civilians… which was approved by GWB, McCain, and Palin).

Robert Fico’s a genuine man of the people… his father was a forklift operator and his mother worked as a shop assistant. The people love him, and he learned valuable lessons from his defeat in 2010. He’s a communist and man of the Left… nothing to be ashamed of! If the rightwing loonies want to call you a “Socialist” for being rational and decent, there’s only one rejoinder to that… “Thank you!” That’s the way it is…

This is turning out to be a “RED” year… don’t let the unhinged bellowings of the Right unnerve you… they’re not what they appear to be… they’re just a loud set, not a dominant one. The only poll that counts is the one in November… and you KNOW what to do. Either it’s the President or it’s The Handmaid’s Tale… not a hard one to decide, is it?

BMD

Lavrov Sez McFaul Statement on Missile Defence “Arrogant”

Czechs protesting US ABM radar sites on their territory in 2008… they still don’t want them. The pro-US rightwing slimers have lost ground due to this, the US will remove the sites to protect them, if nothing else (that’s why I smell a deal over Iskanders with Russia).

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On Wednesday, speaking in Baku, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described a recent statement by US Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul on missile defence as “arrogant”, saying, “Yesterday our colleague… the US ambassador… made a very arrogant statement that there’ll be no changes on the missile defence system, but as an ambassador he should understand that interests of the other state should also be taken into account”. In an interview with RIA-Novosti issued on Tuesday, McFaul said that the United States would accept “no limits” on its missile defence plans, but will work with Russia in the coming years to assuage Moscow’s concerns over the project, saying, “We’re going to accept no limitations on that whatsoever because the security of our people, of our allies, is the number-one top priority”.

McFaul downplayed an assurance from US President Barack Obama to his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, that Washington would be more “flexible” on the missile defence issue after the US presidential elections next November. Asked about the meaning of that assurance, overheard by reporters in what Obama apparently thought were private remarks to Medvedev as the two leaders met last month in South Korea, McFaul said, “It means we are going to build whatever missile defence system we need”. The US-led NATO alliance and Russia agreed in 2010 to cooperate on building missile defences in Europe. However, Russia demanded legally-binding written guarantees that the project wouldn’t undermine Russian security, something Washington declined to provide.

 4 April 2012

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20120404/172599979.html

Editor’s Note:

McFaul’s statement isn’t grounded in reality, but it’s a part of the President’s effort to keep losses amongst “angry white men” to a minimum. Let’s give some details so that it makes sense. The coming election’s going to be a repeat of 1996… “angry white men” will give any Republican a plurality (fuelled by a massive GOP blow-out in the Southeast Radical Born-Again set). That means that white men outside of the South will give the President a majority, but not enough to overcome the Religious Nutter vote in Dixie.

The Obama Landslide will come from a massive victory amongst women, blacks, and Hispanics. It was all preventable, but the Radical Right favoured notional ideology over objective reality. Rush Limbaugh’s the major albatross around the GOP’s neck (followed closely by Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity). I think that the Democratic Party should subsidise the Terrible Trio… they’re so comically rightwing that it stampedes rational decent people away from the GOP. The Republicans should’ve condemned Rush’s “slut” remarks and disowned the comment (if Rush needs Viagra, Obamacare covers THAT… Rush and the popish bishops aren’t against it… interesting, no?). That would’ve calmed the roiled waters… it’s too late, now. Secondly, the GOP should’ve resisted Rush’s unhinged attacks on Michael Steele… who was one of the architects of the 2010 GOP victory in the House election. Instead, they shitcanned a winner, and replaced him with an incompetent snot-nosed kid who had Rush’s imprimatur (King Rush was pissed off at Steele for not kissing his arse in public). Oh, yes… Michael Steele’s black… just what the Republican Party needs… a confirmation of the belief held amongst black folks that they’re irredeemably racist. Lastly, the overheated rhetoric over “deporting illegal migrants” spooked every Hispanic in the USA.

At present, President Obama has to appear “tough”… so, stupid statements like those made by McFaul are leaking out of Foggy Bottom. Let’s be blunt, the radars and intercept silos are a bargaining chip. In 1962, after the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis, the USSR removed its SRBMs from Cuba in exchange for the USA removing its SRBMs from the UK, Italy, Greece, and Turkey (the fact that Kennedy made propaganda hay by publicising the Sov withdrawal and downplaying the US quid pro quo is beside the point). Watch for a coming deal on SRBMs exchanging the US radar sites and silos for Russian SRBM bases in Kaliningrad Oblast. They do it all the time.

Oh, yes… despite their loud stridency in the blogosphere, the Hate Obama First Brigade is heading for its Balaklava… you do remember what happened to the Light Brigade, don’t you?

BMD