Mr. Campion,
I believe your flippant response to these, as you put it so flippantly, “weekly shootings” is disturbing. (NEW TWIST ON WEEKLY SHOOTING—Issue: 9/2/15) And not because as a reader of your weekly rants I think you put too much emphasis on the greater social and economic issues prevalent in these random gun murders, or even the political ramifications of such horrific events, but because of this obsession you have with blaming everything on human nature. But isn’t all laws, no matter how detailed or broad, deal with human nature? And has humans, do we not have a natural yearn to be safe and live and should our laws reflect that?
But beyond all that—no matter where you fall on guns or laws dealing with guns or human behavior or mental illness or the violent nature of Americans in general, you would have to see each of these incidents as not isolated but something adding up to a whole. This is all of our problems, and I ask; how do we deal with it? Some say everyone should be armed, others that there should be stricter laws; but nothing ever gets done—ever! Should we not put pressure on our supposed leaders or our local and federal governments to bring these issues up and face them and debate the more rigorously and make us face out human nature?
I guess there are a lot of questions there, but they are serious ones, and I think, for your minor part in all this—like all those who write opinion professionally and have influence over more than a friend in a bar or a small gathering at dinner bouncing this around—that you have a responsibility to at least understand the seriousness and horror of this.
Maybe it’s unfair, but sometimes I don’t think you do.
—Angela Rizzardi
You are so right! It is the glorification of the killer in these shootings that causes so many copycat ones. It is the coverage and the printing of their manifestos and their faces getting on TV. They are nobodies and we make them somebodies. Our responsibility, beyond gun control and mental health is to stop giving lunatics a forum for madness. Why do they do it? Because their empty lives is no alternative to being infamous, to being noticed, to have a voice where otherwise they are pathetic.
—beyick78
Columbine, VA Tech, Newtown, Aurora, S. Carolina—when will we stop crying and wringing our hands and start calling it what it is—Domestic Terrorism?
—Dan Bern
This is an interesting perspective you provide that is mostly ignored among the mainstream media. (JOE COOL DOMINATING—Issue: 9/16/15) Barrack Obama’s second term has been one victory after the other, not to mention the lowest gas prices in 10 years, five percent unemployment (Romney promised six percent at the end of his first term), a record amount of months of private sector job growth, booming, record high stock market numbers, an historic Iranian deal that has already positively affected the fight against ISIS and put the onus on Iran to act as a true nation, the opening of relations with Cuba, the TPP deal, which will force China to stop manipulating the foreign markets, and on and on.
Yet, all you hear is mediocre approval ratings and bitching about Washington gridlock. Soon they will barter a deal to keep the government going, because this president’s winning streak has broken the stupid and petty TEA Party kabal.
Dominating?
Hell yeah!
—Aaron P.
I think Obama’s achievement may have been in the first term when he helped stopped the bleeding on the absolute worst economic disaster in 80 years. And also the auto industry bailout that no one ever mentions anymore, which saved five states and was a national security issue. Trump goes on and on about American businesses leaving and manufacturing being dismantled in this age of technology, but what if there were no more or most of the American auto industry gone?
—itisjune
Wow dude, do you always wear your “I Heart Barry” t-shirt? So now we give credit to a guy for shit he had nothing to do with? I love gas prices rise, it is oil company greed. Gas prices drop…all hail his Barry-Ness!!! Stock market moves downward and it is all the fault of the greedy fucks on Wall Street. Stock indexes rise, WOW isn’t Barry awesome?!?! Is there nothing he can’t do???
The Iran Deal is a joke. Only the most loyal of the Unicorn/Rainbow crowd will think this will deny Iran a nuclear weapon. Those of us who actually study this sort of stuff realize Israel is a nuclear target in less than 18 months. You see, we don’t just read the pro-Democrat New York Times for news. Some of us read material from around the world and it is there you get truth. The truth is, Iran has already said there will be no inspectors, Russia is already sending parts for centrifuges and Syria is buying Iranian weaponry that will pay for those Russian centrifuges…but that’s ok, we can all hold hands and sing songs of peace.
Joe Cool is dominating because he is ignoring law and the GOP doesn’t have the balls to hold him to task. It’s not so much a victory by Obama as much as it is a forfeit by the other side.
Peace,
—Bill Roberts
So Obama hasn’t been impeached or made illegal arms deals, but what about the pile of illegal (and they are illegal) executive orders?! Maybe this will not register in the short term, but like Bush’s asinine Iraq War, these may be judged far more harshly in the light of historical perspective. This is a president that has mostly ignored Congress and put a glaring light on the unbelievably dangerous amount of power granted to the executive branch that was not always the case, especially in how this republic was founded.
But like you say, beyond all that, he still has a year to go to fuck something up and I dare say with the way this planet is headed it is inevitable.
—G. Bernard
Reagan said something like, “Are you better off now than eight years ago?” And the answer for Barack Obama is yes! Obviously. We were embroiled in two useless wars and the economy was about to tank BIG TIME.
Is Obama a better president than Bush? Well…yeah! But then again that is like saying you’re smarter than a dog. Not much competition there.
However, it is an interesting proposition to compare other second terms with all the Watergate and Iran/Contra and Monica Lewinsky and Viet Nam and all that. You may have to go back to Eisenhower’s second term when the American economy (thanks to federal government intervention) was booming and creating the first real and turns out greatest middle class in the history of civilization to find a better second term.
—Kayode
Do yourself no favors and “like” this idiot at www.facebook.com/jc.author
James Campion is the Managing Editor of The Reality Check News & Information Desk and the author of “Deep Tank Jersey”, “Fear No Art”, “Trailing Jesus”, “Midnight For Cinderella” and “Y”.
