The Pathology of Seditionist Rage

Peaceful, no-gun protests against an illegal, unjust war got hardly any coverage.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG BY MARK KARLIN

The politically charged gun movement in America that began when right wing ideologues took over the NRA in the '70s (in what was called "The Revolt at Cincinnati") has been pathological from the beginning.  That certainly is the case with the twin pro-gun rallies that took place in Washington D.C. and across the Potomac in Virginia on Tuesday, April 19th, the date of Timothy McVeigh's deranged "killing of 168 people, including 19 children under the age of six."

Ironically, as pro-gun legislation is passing across the land and in Washington, the Virginia gun guy "protest" was held on National Park land that now allows handgun carrying because of a law signed by President Obama -- and most of the attendees were locked and loaded.

At both rallies, the talk was defiant and seditious, threatening -- in the thinnest veiled code words -- a shoot out with federal officials if psychotic objections to the "infringement of Constitutional rights" were not met.

There were only a few hundred gun nuts who showed up at each rally, but that was enough to get a scrum of media coverage, as compared to the barely covered 200,000 advocates who showed up in D.C. a couple weeks back to protest for a compassionate immigration policy.

The modern gun lobby -- after the political right wingers took over the NRA in a coup -- is more about white male entitlement, racism, and the false perception that a handgun would be of much value against the United States Military based on a paranoid view of the federal government.  It is not the gun that is the real issue.  It is a psychological state of mind about the perceived diminished status of the white male of limited economic means.  You don't see many wealthy elites showing up at the Washington rallies.  It's the "dispossessed" white males, who view their guns as their last vestige of power and leverage in a society that has become secular and in which women share more power.

It's difficult, if not impossible, to perceive how any of the Timothy McVeigh wannabee protesters have had their lives change in terms of their freedom or independence under the
Obama Administration. In fact, it is impossible to imagine, because nothing has changed.  They certainly didn't protest the invasion of privacy on multiple levels under the Bush Administration.

So what is going on beyond racism, white entitlement, and the perceived power of the gun?
In an April 19th article in the New York Times on the just-released interview tapes with Timothy McVeigh, the journalist notes:

"The McVeigh Tapes" is instructive, but it is a history lesson that blends real materials and fake ones to illustrate the danger posed by fringe lunatics who cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Such is the case with the dueling, press-fueled, gun guys insurrectionist rallies on April 19th in D.C. and adjacent Virginia federal land.

Such is, not so coincidentally, the content of FOX and the right wing media echo chamber.

Such is the pathology of a seditionist rage based on America's legacy of racism, white entitlement and corporate mainstream media demagoguery and fictional news repackaged to fit the oligarchical agenda of the ruling elites, who use the Tea Party and the gun guys as their diversionary shock troops.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG BY MARK KARLIN

Let The Sun Shine In......