Out of our minds, with guns blazing

Once again, it's hard not to write about the gun mania that has overtaken our politics. What is this about, really? What is it about this culture that has made getting as many of us armed and dangerous as possible something so essential to the feeling of cultural and ego-identity satisfaction, proclaiming rights not articulated in the Constitution as constitutional.

Let's be more honest than we are usually allowed: There really is no right to concealed or open carry of individual weapons anywhere in the Constitution - this is a figment of the fantasies of an amazingly successful and aggressive gun lobby known as the National Rifle Association.

Oh, and it is also an incredible distraction from what truly ails us as a culture. It's a way to stir up that mythical thing called 'the base,' making that 'base' feel good about themselves while all the drivers that are making life increasingly stressful and eroding its quality go unaddressed because certain people are benefiting rather lavishly from the status quo - from the increasing stress and suffering.

We cannot even have a mandatory 4 hours of training to get a concealed carry license. We cannot have this minute percentage of the hours required to drive a car in order to carry around, hidden from view, a lethal weapon that in the emotion of a bad moment could be used in very, very bad ways. Police officials are not pleased.

State Sen. Lena Taylor was the lone Democrat to join the Repubs on this one. So, Ms. Taylor, what's with that?!?!  Explain, please, because I was with you when you left the state earlier this year (bless you and the WI 14), but you have lost me now. Last June, you referred to guns as 'works of art,' and now you believe these works of art should not require actual training in how to use them. Put a paintbrush in just anyone's hands and see how many works of art actually appear. Any 'art' requires training. But let's also quit this inane NRA-pleasing hyperbole - guns are not a work of art. They are at best a form of sport, and at worst, well, you know, Gabby Giffords, for example, and then a lot of things in between.

Some progressives speculate that Taylor wants to run for state office and thinks this may be a path in that direction. If so, my heart is heavy. I suppose next will come campaign donations from the powerful NRA.

And this is what happens to our poor democracy. From the Uppity Wisconsin link above:

"In the most recent poll, done in May by a national polling firm for the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE), voters statewide opposed concealed carry by a 60%-32% margin. By almost 3 to 1 (60%-21%) they said they would feel less safe if concealed weapons were allowed in public, and by a 2 to 1 margin (48%-23%) they said they were less likely to support a candidate who backs concealed carry."

But you see, the opinions of voters and majorities like these simply do not have the same representative power in public office as the clout of special interests like the NRA - and Americans for Prosperity, and Karl Rove's American Crossroads, and Club for Growth, and the consortium of right-wing billionaires who are preparing for 2012 elections. If you care about our democracy, please read this NY Times article from the other day:

Outside Groups Eclipsing GOP as Hub of Campaigns

I try never to exaggerate, but this comprises the biggest threat to our constitutional democracy in my lifetime, and it has been brought to you in large part by our corporate bought Supreme Court justices, especially this Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas era. You see, while everyone was focused on Roe vs Wade as these guys were being considered, the real agenda just passed us by - that what the right really wanted was a court that would give absolute rights to the power of money and large corporations.

Not unlike the way the gun rights issue has just been used and abused in our state. Manipulation of people's anxieties, fears, and prejudices is a very dangerous game, and it is right now being played masterfully by the extreme right wing.

If we want our democracy, we will have to struggle mighty hard to gain it back. I, for one, am getting tired of seeing my government in the hands of those who do not have the well-being of my state and its people at heart. It will be a long slog, but it starts with getting corporate money and unlimited funds from the richest 1% out of our politics.

Some see shocking destruction, others see 'jobs'

If you get the Journal Sentinel, you saw this photo that nearly filled yesterday's front page:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/133308968.html

If you didn't see it, please check out the link and then just let yourself feel your reaction to it. Then visit the photo gallery for some more stunning photos:

http://www.jsonline.com/multimedia/photos/133307493.html

This is what Gogebic Taconite and their supporters want to bring to the Hurley/Ashland area of our state.

They want to open an enormous wound that can never be repaired.

But this is the thing - where some see destruction on a vast scale from these giant iron ore mines, others see jobs in a bad economy.

What future do we want for this Packer fan?

As if this really is the only thing we can think of to provide some employment. When you consider the long term costs in ecological destruction, the threats to other parts of the economy (tourism being one), and the collateral damage that will come in terms of more development, higher housing costs (that almost always happens), demands for water, and such, seems to me to be a myopic trade-off, to say the least.

Again, it is crucial to note this: permitting this mine - just like permitting huge industrial dairy farms that pollute, make animals and us sick, and threaten the livelihoods of family farmers - is a political decision far more than an economic one. Because we could make other decisions to create employment opportunities in other kinds of industries that might also pay well - without sacrificing the ecological future of our state.

When it comes to our political parties, these days it sadly comes down to whose interests they represent. Whatever we think of the Walker/Fitzgerald regime, we know whose interests they represent - some of the dirtiest, most toxic industries around.

When I saw this photo of Michigan's Empire Mine, and after reading the article, I found myself wondering: If this photo alone does not shock us into action, what will? If we continue to say yes to this - and to industrial farming and to the shipping industry that is fighting efforts to keep invasive species out of our lakes and to the Koch brothers' Georgia-Pacific Co. which wants the right to put more industrial pollution into our waterways - then we are simply deciding to run faster along this course towards the ecological wreckage of our state.

Is this what we want? Do we allow these corporations and their politicians to manipulate our economic needs and stresses to open our state for dirty businesses, instead of businesses that promote the health of our natural resources and our people, and that are ecologically sustainable?

Are we lacking the creativity to build our state economy on something other than polluting industries and low-wage retail outlets (like Walmart in South and West Milwaukee)? I certainly don't believe so. I believe we are being manipulated into supporting a lot of really bad decisions. And I hope we can come up with a new sustainable, nature-loving, quality of life economy in time to pass on a healthy, beautiful, precious Wisconsin to the generations coming up after us.

So when these moments of decision arrive in terms of what businesses will be allowed to grow and thrive in our state, supported with our tax money, keep this photo in mind - and ask yourself, is this what we really want?

The castle doctrine - or how we regress to lower forms of life

So this is among the priorities being debated in Madison right now, championed by, well, who else? the NRA-loving Republicans!

'Assembly to Take Up Castle Doctrine'

I swear, there must be people out there chomping at the bit to shoot somebody. The new laws just keep making it easier and easier, almost begging for it.

So somebody comes into your house uninvited, you blow 'em away, and then ask them what they're doing there. Presumably it will then be safe for you to do so.

I remember back in my childhood when a lawyer in my Tosa neighborhood accidentally shot the boy delivering his newspaper.  Folks were pretty traumatized.

But I fear we are losing the ability to be traumatized by our own cruelty or stupidity. Something is really wrong with us, with this culture, when we value the use of guns and the right to do violence more than then right to have decent work, a roof over our heads, decent education for all our kids, to be free of discrimination, to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and have good healthy food to eat.

Interestingly, a lot of these gun rights extremists are also among those who oppose things like climate science, the E.P.A., civil rights, voting rights for the poor and non-white people, quality education for all, a concern for the common good and the good of the commons. Who has taken over my culture? Give me back the one I'm losing, the one where we care about each other, where we are outraged by vast inequities and cruel discrimination, where violence is not the first response to our often unwarranted fears. You are making this world ugly and harsh!

Evolution of the human species does not necessarily mean progress in human compassion, social conscience, or a commitment to the common good and the good of the commons. Right now it feels like this culture is regressing to lower forms of life, as if we learned nothing from generations of war and hatred and discrimination and injustice and indifference to human rights. Something that began to knit us - in the advances in respect for human and civil rights over the past several decades - is now coming undone in the face of fierce resistance from those who feel threatened by those advances in human dignity and integrity.

Friends, we need a new culture. The one that creates concealed carry and the castle doctrine takes us in a terrifying direction. It must be dismantled and a new one created, one more appropriate for the real world challenges of this generation.

Guns in Wisconsin

Guns - open carry and now concealed carry. I have started to wonder what the real agenda is of the National Rifle Association (NRA) as it has managed now to push more guns into the hands of millions and millions of us, nearly unlimited rights to arm ourselves everywhere.

Playing on fear of things that almost never happen (the guy who invades my house and shows up in a dark shadow hovering over my bed in the night, but then I reach under my pillow, pull out my Glock and blow him away), we are now actually having intense arguments about whether or not even houses of worship ought to have the right to prohibit guns on their premises.

What do they want? Armed protection from the changes that are coming? Armed protection from the hungry masses, from the dispossessed? Armed protection from government authorities protecting rights of 'minorities' and the common good - you know, like the Environmental Protection Authority or National Park Rangers?

What are we arming ourselves for? Because we all know that concealed carry is not making us safer, it is making the human community more frightening. We know that most gun violence occurs in the home. We know that most of our guns, except for the sport of hunting, either go unused or get turned on one another.

And I wonder about a culture so bent on arming itself, so bent on seeing threats everywhere, so afraid and insecure that it thinks purchasing a gun can keep a bad thing from happening.

What I know it has done (and the NRA has proved brilliant in spreading this darkness, this social mental illness) is create more chasms of suspicion and rage among us; it has further divided the human community; it has enhanced the very alienation that we must heal if this state, this culture, is going to find a way through multiple economic and ecological crises with our humanity intact.

New reflections from this Swedish in Milwaukee

You know, I put this blog to rest last summer, but of course, in cyberworld, it still exists. So here's the thing:

I have this project, my work on ecology and spirituality which is my current 'vocation,' if you will - addressing the dire ecological crises of our times and asking fundamental questions about how we will live through them - but I have many other things going on, issues that I'm thinking about that don't fall under that umbrella, new writing projects, other kinds of spiritual searches, communities with which I connect, and thoughts, like all of you, about our multiple challenges here in Wisconsin and my hometown of Milwaukee.

At times I have longed for a space to reflect on these other things and to invite people to join me in conversation.

Sooooooo, I'm thinking about reviving this blog for that purpose - for all those other things, new writing projects, thoughts on our Wisconsin political culture, the wonderful local 'spaces' from which new life is emerging, our deep-seated cultural baggage of racism, blind patriotism, individual self-interest that obscures the interrelatedness of all things and the impacts of our life choices and behaviors on our communities. Think of it as a free-wheeling exchange regarding all these things that Swedish in Milwaukee is thinking about, and so many others here in our precious state of Wisconsin.

So, over the weekend I'm going to kick this off. I hope you will participate, and I hope you will invite your friends and family to sign up, chime in, give this space a little resonance.

I mean, right now in Madison, decisions are being made that are going to impact nearly every aspect of our political, cultural, and economic life. From guns in the Capitol (and everywhere else), to easing of consumer protections, to tax policies favoring the wealthy, to proposals that will further shred the fabric holding the most vulnerable among us, to pleasing some of our worst corporate actors by easing pollution regulations and standards - we are in a time when our quality of life, our belief in fairness and justice, our faith in one another, our democratic system, and the natural beauty of our state are all in jeopardy.

What can we do? Well, of course, we can do many things, and engaging the political process is one of those crucial things. But part of this challenge for me is that we create a new culture in keeping with the scale of the crisis. We are facing new challenges all across the planet. Values of solidarity, unselfishness, compassion, justice and fairness, inclusiveness - ramping up these values to scale - and then embracing the necessity of vast changes in how we live our lives - all of this is necessary if we are to pass through the crisis time, the time of transition, with our humanity, and our life-bearing eco-communities, intact.

Milwaukee sunrise - Photo: Margaret Swedish

What does this mean for us here in Wisconsin? What kind of life do we imagine creating here? What is the best that we can bring to that creation, and what is the worst, the negative baggage, that we can and ought to leave behind? What harms that new creation? What can support and nurture it - from right here where we live? That's what I hope we might think about together here in this space.

So, I hope you will visit, reflect, and join in as we think out loud - or think with our fingertips on our keyboards - about these things.

Happy Halloween. Look for a first post by then.

Margaret
Proud Milwaukee Native