Watching Emma Gonzalez and the other speakers in Washington DC this weekend is inspiring and exciting. We are seeing a youth rebellion rising up from the drumbeat of school shootings, economic austerity, climate change and dystopian culture that have finally tilted the scale to a point where young students have organized, with some big money backing of course, and garnered widespread global media attention. In almost less than a month since the attacks at the Parkland school where 17 students were killed, this movement has grown very quickly. The NRA continue to demonize them and trot out tired arguments of self-protection and the right to bear arms. But all that we are asking for is a ban on automatic rifles used in these shootings.
This point in history feels like a work of fiction. Trump and his minions are gangster thugs straight from the film Goodfellas and the players behind the curtain like Robert Mercer and Stephen Miller look like Sith lords corrupted by the Dark Side. The way George Lucas makes his bad guys look so bad is kinda dumb, but now I am starting to understand that the world actually works that way. The Hunger Games are coming true, rather than a fight to the death, the lottery is the school shootings, you are chosen because your friends died. Every school contains angsty teen heart throbs and America eats it up. And that's okay, we need heroes and now we have some.
Emma Gonzalez is our own Katniss Everdeen. A media driven youth rebellion led by powerful teenagers is defying the State. Well almost, just demanding justice and sensible gun control. Another great speech at the march was from Naomi Wadler, a beautiful 11-year-old black girl who spoke about the way black people are disproportionately targets of gun violence and that their stories are almost never told in the media. The black community has seen senseless gun violence for decades and if it was reported and dealt with in a just manner, we would have passed sensible gun control years ago. The Second Amendment was passed to help southern states which feared slave rebellions, it still exists today to allow white gun owners to feel powerful and dominating over minority citizens. I'm not saying all guns should be banned, but sensible licensing and doing away with gun shows would be a good idea imho.
So the way a march for gun control raises issues of black lives matter and social justice proves that this issue of gun control is much larger than having a right to bear arms. Raising questions about why we allow AR-15s to be sold and why we allow so many loopholes around gun shows creates a firestorm of anger from the far right and the NRA. Because guns are a symbol of their white power. America is steeped in violent imagery, the film and television culture is ridiculous. Even Hunger Games is pretty wretched, ultraviolent spectacle with militaristic posturing by beautiful heartthrob teen idols. Its gross. Jennifer Lawrence makes disgusting films, but that's another issue. She's a pawn of a perverse Hollywood money machine. She should come to Steemit, it's so decentralized here. :)
