Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Sunday, August 05, 2012

"Pray For The Families" = "Shut Up! Shut Up! Shut Up! Shut Up!"

When yet another act of spectacular gun violence erupts, there is in my opinion nothing actually pious, actually decorous, or actually helpful about the chorus of "moderate" handwringers and reactionary hardliners who immediately blanket the scene with calls for prayers and happy thoughts and restraint from "politicizing" what is always already an absolutely and inextricably political state of affairs in an effort to try to shut down any mention of the facts that America needs common sense gun regulations, that America needs to devote considerably more attention and provide considerably more support to those who suffer psychological distress and disorder, that America is a diverse and diversifying nation suffused with and stratified by far too much ignorance, intolerance and distress about its differences, and that there are right-wing hate radio outlets and online conspiracy mills and national organizations devoted to misinformation, divisiveness, and whomping up hate and fear that exacerbates these challenges into incomparably worse crises. Not to mention, as an atheist, thank you very much, thinking about problems IS how I cope with them, understanding IS what my "prayer" looks like, and I daresay active calls to problem-solving based on warranted facts are easily as or more helpful to victims and everybody else as pious calls to passive "prayer" at a time like this. If the time to face facts and recommend solutions is not now, when is that time? When else? When better? When ever? When?

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