Do Gun Owners Vote?

We all know that the National Rifle Association (NRA) has a lot of clout with lawmakers. I'm just wondering why? Yes, there are almost four million members, but do they vote or are they really just one more big unregulated SuperPac?

Let us think about the logic here - four million is a lot of potential voters, if they all voted together that might be important. In reality, those members are spread across fifty states and numerous foreign countries. That, to my mind, makes their importance in the electoral process much smaller than many would suggest. What happens is that NRA members and the gun manufacturers who support the NRA lobby congress and propagandize the rest of us. If truth be told, quite a few of the actual NRA Membership falls into that demographic that  thinks congress is a bunch of do nothing slackers and don't vote regularly anyway.

In reality, the NRA is primarily the propaganda and marketing arm of the gun industry. A membership comes with magazines and web videos that aim to keep the member focused on "your right to own and use firearms. This group, that started as a laudable movement to keep the citizen militias that were the National Guard of the time trained, has become a tool of commerce. Since 1998 they have convinced 177 Million Americans to buy one or more guns. That's half the population of the United States. I would guess that that means the total number of guns out there pretty much equals or exceeds the population. If we got all those guns together that would be some firefight, wouldn't it?


Why then does congress listen to the NRA? Since it isn't about votes, it must be about something else. What does the National Rifle Association have that convinces congress to go along - it isn't the righteousness of 300 Million guns, I hope. If so we can expect further iterations of the UC Santa Barbara mass shootings. Even right wing congressmen don't want that. No, many of us believe that it's about money. The NRA Lobby does what all lobbies do - it throws money at congress in exchange for favors. They talk congress into seeing the world their way one dollar at a time.

Here is what one of the UC Santa Barbara parents think

"It's The End of The World as We Know It (And I don't feel fine)" With apologies to REM

Current Texas Drought

I'm thinking we should give a general heads up to stockholders of the worlds fossil fuel companies. It's possible they don't know that their money is being used to build the world's largest implement of mass destruction. I don't think we can call the giant greenhouse that fossil fuel has built anything else - it really is an implement of destruction that threatens us all.

The Fossil Fuel Industry denies culpability, of course. The have, like the Tobacco Industry before them, hired tame scientists to claim that they not only didn't cause the problem, but that the scientific community and the rest of us are wrong and there is no problem with the climate. My guess is that the management of these companies hopes to squeeze a few years of extra profit out before the real destruction hits home.

This is a pretty gutsy plan. If it works they will be able to pull out their profits and head for high ground before the shareholders and the general public notice that they have been left holding the bag. If they wait too long they, like the rest of us, will be up to their necks in rising seawater and degraded habitat. There will also be many that would like to "string the bastards up" or at least sue their pants off.

If it's not your neck the water's up to then what?

Don't you think that the shareholders should know about the giant mess the management of these companies is making? Fossil fuel companies have made billions in profit and have failed to look to the welfare of those shareholders. If I owned a share of Exxon or Shell, you can believe I'd be in their face yesterday. Managers and executives in major corporations are for the most part well educated and understand that they are on a path to destruction. What they haven't understood is that this is world wide destruction and they will have to leave the planet or share in "the end of the world as we know it" and no I don't feel fine.

I just received a post by Bill Moyers that agrees with our contention that climate change is an implement of mass destruction. Since Bill is a much better journalist you should read what he has to say:

The 95 Percent Doctrine: Climate Change as a Weapon of Mass Destruction

http://billmoyers.com/2014/05/23/the-95-doctrine-climate-change-as-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction/

Will The Oligarchs Win Again? ( AT&T to buy DirecTV)

In 1949 the Justice Department files an antitrust suit against AT&T (then the Bell system). That suit resulted in a consent decree. That decree limited the company to running the national network. 1974 brought another suit which, in 1984 caused the divestiture of the regional Bell companies. AT&T then bought computer maker NCR followed by McCaw Cellular and TCI Cable Co. By 1999 they were back in the local telephone business and in 2000 with the acquisition of MediaOne became the largest US Cable Company. Finally AT&T merges with SBC to become a premier communications company.

I'm telling you all this because AT&T wants to be bigger and better yet with the proposed acquisition of satellite tv company DirecTV, a move very similar to those earlier moves that caused the original breakup of the Bell System. I wonder if we still care whether one or two companies have control of the entire communication infrastructure? When I was young, we had compelling evidence that the giant corporations were out to make a buck no matter who it hurt. The US Government, as a method of protecting consumers, broke up large monopolies and forbade monopolistic mergers and acquisitions. Now days we let corporations buy each other no matter what it does for consumers. Heck, we even let them buy Senators and Congressmen by the bucket full.

Perhaps that's why current law allows these acquisitions? Generations of bought politicians have weakened the law and damped our resolve. Maybe we have lost our ability to give a dam?

Are You Taking Climate Change Personally?

Are you one of the many who wonder what it's all about. Maybe your congressman is one of the climate deniers or you have been hearing from from one of the three climate scientists that have yet to get the word about our changing climate.

First let me remind you that 97% of the science community is firmly convinced that the whole CO2-Methane-Particulates miasma that you and I put into the atmosphere is the cause of the temperature increases we have seen over the last 200 years and especially over the previous 50 years. Even the Federal Government has noticed the world is not as it was and has thinks we should do something about it.

National Climate Assessment Look at this report - it's an eye opener.

The photo below is my own neighborhood after a king tide and rain storm sent water over the road and into yards. Just a temporary blip, but one we will see repeated in many places over the next century as oceans rise with the temperature.

Please read the climate report National Climate Assessment and decide if you need to take it personally.