Our country is in deep, deep trouble.
Our president has been corrupted and captured by the National Rifle Association and the Zionist political and media machine. Worse, President Trump and his dangerous delusions, many of which are apparently shared by a majority of Republican leaders, and many of which have been ignored or condoned by equally corrupt Democrats, enjoy significant public support.
One might reasonably speculate that the Zionist political and media machine is exploiting the most recent school shooting massacre, a traumatic event that has once again seared the nation's psyche, in order to advance Israel's and its powerful lobby's narrow political agenda. On Friday, only days after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and with national news coverage still focused on the tragedy and a national discussion in response to this and so many other such massacres, the Trump administration announced that its controversial decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem may come to fruition as early as Israel’s Independence Day in mid-May. Is the Zionist political and media machine racing against time and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's on-going investigation of the 2016 general election to get the embassy relocated to Jerusalem before indictments can potentially derail the plan? Undoubtedly. Is President Trump desperately currying favor with the nation's two most powerful special interest groups in the hope of avoiding personal political catastrophe? Undoubtedly. Is the far-Right noise machine doing everything possible to politicize the investigation and keep a Republican president in office? Again, undoubtedly.
This is what happens when, for decades, a powerful gun manufacturers' lobby is allowed to buy and own politicians, and our elected leaders, our legislators, and our courts allow popular culture to be informed, shaped, and limited by powerful Jewish-owned and -operated broadcast media corporations that profit directly from lucrative, socially-destabilizing violent and hyperviolent entertainment product, a raging river of blood and gore heavily freighted with gun ads and political messaging that sluices through screens large and small into American popular culture 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Parkland, Florida shooter is but the latest example of a mentally-disturbed young man who was obsessed with violent video games, who had ready access to a semi-automatic weapon of war, and who ultimately acted out his deep, dark, deadly revenge fantasies in a public venue, in this latest incident, a public school. Was Nikolas Cruz's four-minute school shooting rampage merely incidental to his obsessive use of hyper-violent video games? Or was Cruz specifically targeted and manipulated by cyber warfare operatives? That is an open question and one that is unlikely ever to be either widely posed or satisfactorily answered.
From the Miami Herald, an article by Julie K. Brown dated Feb. 17: Neighbor and family friend Paul "Gold said that Cruz escaped his misery by playing video games for eight, 12, even 15 hours a day. Gold, who owns a film and video production company, sometimes would play a game or two with them. 'It was kill, kill, kill, blow up something, and kill some more, all day,' he said."
Who benefits economically and politically from the deadly combination of easy, virtually unlimited access to firearms and the unrestricted availability of violent and hyper-violent entertainment product? Gun manufacturers and their lobby, the NRA, and the entertainment industry and its various lobbying organizations. And, of course, the politicians who accept their campaign contributions and parrot their talking points. But don't take my word for it, follow the money.
The USA is in the grip of gun mania, a deadly and peculiarly American form of mass psychosis. This massive and intractable social problem did not develop accidentally. Gun makers and the entertainment industry have long had interests in common. The entertainment industry's most lucrative business model, violence as entertainment, typically features the latest and deadliest products on offer by arms makers. For decades, the two industries have colluded. Entertainment industry executives have been happy to insert paid advertisements for guns and gunmakers into their most violent products, products that are heavily freighted with socially divisive and often overtly racist themes. Here is but one example, from a 1983 film produced by, directed by, and starring Clint Eastwood. Sudden Impact, reported to have grossed $67,642,693, is ranked as the seventh most profitable film of that year of memorable motion pictures.
After high-profile gun massacre murders, Hollywood scrambles to protect its lucrative business model by controlling negative publicity while its well-heeled media gatekeepers work at preventing any substantive public discussion about the role of media violence in gun massacres . The video game industry spends millions on lobbyists to ensure that Congress passes no legislation that might restrict its ability to peddle socially-destabilizing violence freighted with pro-war, pro-gun, and often pro-Israel political messaging.
The NRA has often blamed the entertainment industry for mass shootings in a transparent effort to deflect public attention from its own role in these tragedies. That said, multimillionaire NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre's criticisms of the entertainment industry are all too accurate and to the point, and they indicate just how desperate he is to shift blame away from the industry he has so aggressively represented. This blame game has been going on for years without positive results. It's just part of the heavily scripted and strictly limited public discussion permitted in media venues owned by entertainment industry conglomerates. Most recently, LaPierre has also blamed the FBI for the Florida shooting, as if the FBI, which received 766,888 calls to its tip line in 2017, could conceivably prevent all or even most mass shootings in a nation of more than 326 million people awash in semiautomatic weapons and where violence is constantly and systematically glamorized and glorified in movies, in video games, and on television.
Our president, meanwhile, is pushing an absurd, unworkable, and dangerous NRA plan to arm school teachers. Who could imagine that expecting school teachers to engage armed intruders in classrooms would be a reasonable way to prevent school shootings? That, though, is characteristic of the kind of thinking that is a result of decades of Hollywood's lucrative business model based on socially-destabilizing violent and hyper-violent media product, and the NRA's pathological promotion of guns, gun rights, and gun sales at any cost. The Trump administration, the NRA, the Israel lobby, and the entertainment industry seem to be determined to turn our country into an armed camp, a huge garrison state with a wall on its southern border, everyone inside armed to the teeth and ready to shoot to kill, a giant American version of Israel replete, perhaps, with opportunities for terror tourism.
The Hollywood culture that protected accused sexual predators Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey, Charlie Rose and others for decades peddles violent entertainment product that contributes directly to a psychological, cultural, and political environment conducive to violence against women. Troubled young men who harbor resentments against women and who seek power and security in firearms are especially vulnerable to such incitement. Toxic masculinity is in large part a result of a toxic media culture that glamorizes and glorifies violence for profit and political advantage, provides male role models who routinely resort to gun violence to solve problems, and frequently features violence against women including the abuse and torture of women and girls.
Mentally and emotionally disturbed young male mass shooters need not have a history as domestic abusers. They need only be first-person-shooter video game addicts who feel that they have been unfairly rejected by girls and women. Young Nickolas Cruz apparently looked for inspiration to the Isla Vista/Santa Barbara mass murderer, Elliot Rodger, who was quite literally a child of the Hollywood culture and one who documented both his obsession with violent video games and his resentment of women, which was pathologically bitter and hateful.
Women are demanding change in a media culture, and by extension a popular culture, long saturated with violence as entertainment. In the aftermath of the most recent school shooting, young people are demanding that adults finally address the problem of mass shootings. American women and children deserve the active support and the assistance of every American man who hopes for a brighter future.
