Sunny morning, Gloomy Thoughts*

I was sitting outside with my coffee this morning, watching the sun slip into the patio lighting the bamboo, Ozzie at my feet waiting to lick the remaining cappuccino foam from my cup, and decided that, although it is not a memorable picture, it was a memorable moment. I am grateful to find myself in such a beautiful place at this point in my life.  In spite of my own blessed life, or maybe because of it, I can't help thinking about the people who died last week in Charleston and the fact that it has happend again, because our politicians won't take a stand.  I am baffled and angry.

Initially, when I read that nine people were murdered by a young man whom they had welcomed into their bible study group, it didn't strike me as issue of race, although it was a black church and the young man was white. It was an issue of a deranged, hate filled person running amok with a gun.

Why after all the shootings in this country, did this man have a gun? Nine people died who shouldn't have. It didn't matter what color they were. Guns are indiscriminate and their only function is to kill. The man with the gun was mentally ill and had clearly slipped through the cracks of what passes for a mental health system in this country. It isn't clear how he got the gun, but the issue is that this country hasn't managed to pass even a system of background checks for gun ownership.

When the man posed with a confederate flag and a gun, he gave the politicians the out they needed. Suddenly the crime itself (the fact that nine people whose only "crime" was to pray together were dead) became "unspeakable", and the issue became the flag. Statehouses around the South began ordering the flag removed, Walmart and Amazon have announced that they will no longer sell confederate memorabilia. 

I agree that the flag belongs in a museum as a symbol of a devastating Civil War. It has historical connections to a South that no longer exists. But here's what I think has happened. The co-option of the flag by racist hate groups has allowed the politicians and the media to focus their attention on removing the flag while referring to the shooting as "unspeakable" How convenient. The flag didn't kill those people. A gun in the hands of a seriously disturbed person did.

I am really angry that even when "the American People" the politicians are so fond of referring to have made it clear they want gun control, the politicians will no longer even let those words pass their lips. Instead, the whole thing has become "unspeakable" and they can look like heroes by taking down a flag instead taking guns out of the hands of sick people



*Thanks to MobileMonet for letting me play with a mediocre picture