Stop Shooting the Masses!

Part 1

We mourn the loss of life in Uvalde, Texas. We echo the grief in Buffalo. We reckon with every agony from Parkland to Sandy Hook to Columbine and remember how each time, flesh and blood people like us were slain, leaving others wracked by grief. We must remember the dead and feel the anguish of those who remain. We are those who remain, and we cannot bear to suffer anymore than we have suffered.  

 Our collective rage swells after each shooting, yet we feel helpless. We watch these heinous acts become part of the fabric of life - a new kind of “natural” disaster. The inscrutable motives of the killer; easy access to their weapon of choice; stifled attempts at change from below; feeble remedies from above; complicity throughout all structures of society: this is tragedy.  

We will not bend to that fate.

The present state of affairs cannot last. One way or another, the status quo will end, but as it does, people must decide whether to fall victim to the ills of their society, or to cure them. To the better end, we have the will. Our challenge is to find the way.

All who care for the common good seem to have solutions to gun violence, but many miss the problem. Say, for instance, legislators managed to pass sweeping gun control reforms. They would have succeeded in treating the symptoms, but not the causes. We would still live under the duress of an empire, rooted in slavery and genocide, whose crimes have yet to be reconciled. We would still suffer the heat of police forces designed not to protect the public welfare, but to preserve the interests of racial capitalism. We would still have to survive domestic abuse motivated by misogyny, and still have to endure attacks driven by xenophobia, homophobia and religious hatred. We would continue to witness the aggressions of our imperialist military. We would still harbor the despair behind every suicide. We would still face the bleak poverty beneath every social disease. We must first put these problems to rest.

The aims of a capitalist and white supremacist society take brutal force to achieve. Populations subjected to violent means of social control in turn use violence to control their private lives, and to lash out at their world. To escape this absurd and vicious cycle, we must end regimes based on ideologies of individualism, economies of exploitation, and politics of division. We cannot reform a failing state where poor, powerless and alienated masses are forced to struggle to exist. We must abolish that state.

If we turn the world the right way, we can bring the empire to its sunset. If we struggle as one body in the direction of progress, we can build a better world.  Let us do both.  Let us be people who care for each other, who think deeply, face reality and act accordingly. Starting close to home, let us form communities of wise and powerful people who share in their prosperity and use their collective strength to meet their challenges. A healthy community will value the uniqueness of individuals, knowing each fills an important niche in the complex web of social interactions, and none is forsaken. A mature society will embrace all forms of difference except those of wealth and status; it will grant equal respect and privilege to all who participate. Communities like this do exist.  We shall join them, or begin them, and make them all grow in solidarity across the globe. We have the knowledge and resources to make this all happen; we just need to raise the will to act. May this time come sooner than we thought possible.