Never, again

So many are expressing surprise, even awe, at the efforts by thousands of American high school (and younger) students in the struggle to end gun insanity.  So articulate!  So passionate!  So insulting.  Have we forgotten the children who stood up to police dogs and fire hoses to demand their civil rights?  The slightly older kids who were assaulted by construction workers and brutal cops when they opposed the Vietnam War?  College students murdered with impunity at Kent State and Jackson State?  Apart from actual survivors of Columbine, Stoneman Douglas and far too many others, the worst these kids have faced is sneering mendacity and anonymous threats from social media cowards, and organized bullies at Fox News, the NRA and the Republiklan cesspit.  And for a few, the horrific experience of being in the same room as Trump.   They're young; they'll recover.

The NeverAgains are getting a priceless lesson in the way their country works.  Money talks louder than blood.  Change the subject (it's not guns, it's mental illness/violent video games/pornography, for fuck's sake).  Laws don't work so don't even bother to pass them.  Scream "false flag" and "crisis actor" and something about a sinister cabal -- have these kids even heard of George Soros?  Dwell on the good job done by first responders, because who can argue with that?  Lie, lie, lie.  They didn't teach this stuff in my social studies class, and they should have, because we graduated into the years of Nixon totally unprepared for his bullshit.  (At least they made us study the Constitution; I'm not sure that happens anymore.)

These kids do not want your thoughts and prayers.  Fortunately, I know someone who does.  In 1972 he told his friend Nixon, "They're the ones putting out the pornographic stuff.  The Jewish stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain."  Yesterday he finally died, and now his rotting corpse will lie in the Capitol rotunda, where real heroes have rested.  Billy Graham took the legacy of Charles Coughlin and Billy Sunday and turned it into a billion-dollar industry.  Thoughts, prayers, and busy, busy maggots.