America’s anthem was not written by Francis Scott Key, Buddy Holly, Ira Gershwin or Aaron Copland, rather, it has been composed over time by a number of contributors. America’s “song” is a symphony of violence.
Symphonies have four distinct movements and our nation has heard them all. The first movement is brash and lively with the pioneer and the cowboy at the forefront; the second movement is slow and lyrical and it played out on the killing fields of the civil war. Movement three is a dance that G-men and gangsters participated in and finally we enter the rollicking finale of mass shootings. At very stage of the music we find a common thread in all of our heroes from Hawkeye and Billy The Kid to the soldier, the majestic criminal (Billy the Kid, Dillinger etc.) to the insanity of the serial killer. At every stage the central figures in the composition are packing heat.
Our love of guns – and what they do – is central to everything in our history.
On the world stage, we ascribe to the formula put forth by historian Samuel Huntington… “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion…but rather in its superiority in applying organized violence.” Violence is certainly our history and our theme song. In fact violence has become so central to who we are and what we have become that it is easy to feel that we can’t sing a different song. As Richard Pryor quipped, ” you can’t talk about fucking in America. People say you’re dirty. But if you talk about killing somebody, that’s cool.” Yes, violence is the new eroticism.
Different takes on the violence issue abound. We are faced with every form of chop logic from a “good guy with a gun” to “guns don’t kill people… people kill people.” Insanity. We seem to forget the simple fact that guns are designed to blow holes in things…from targets, to game, to your loved ones. Now we support psychotic positions like open carry in spite of the fact that writer Greg Vaughn states so well: “when a man carries an instrument of violence he’ll always find the justification to use it.”
We need to sing a new tune.
If we don’t dance to a better tune, thousands more will die. We can no longer live in a place where mass violence has been domesticated. Currently we live in a place where comedian Craig Ferguson reminds us…
” you better watch out
you better not cry
you better not pout
I’m telling you why
Cause Santa Claus might put a cap in your ass.”
In this country- in these times- that is a real possibility.
Olio Folio 