01.20.13
Butt hurt in WhiteManistan
Image permanently damaged.
“Austin’s pro-gun rally crowd included a wide spectrum of people — veterans, people of color, women, children, college students, senior citizens and families,” reads the recap of the Saturday gun rally in the Texas state capitol.
The statement belies the photo gallery accompanying the piece. What that shows is a crowd of mostly older and predominantly white people, resembling nothing more than a dust-off of your standard Tea Party crew.
All the banners and T-shirts are present — the grievances against the president, assertions that he’s an impeachable traitor, the Gadsden flag, along with the cheap merchandising belligerence of “molon labe.”
Yes, there’s nothing that says one believes in all the principles of American democracy more than a huge banner with the phrase “Come and Take It” and an artistic rendering of a heavy assault weapon that shoots armor-piercing bullets.
While it’s Texas, noticeable here in SoCal are pictures of a crowd that didn’t quite rival what one might expect for a high school football game.
And that’s a bit of good news because it underlines that America’s gun nut demographic is a minority. The number of people actually ready to march on the White House or find some local Ft. Sumter to attack rather than play-act at being insurrectionists is difficult to discern. This part of WhiteManistan may not believe in the legitimacy of the democratically elected government but they’re not really in shape to do anything about it except push the same old slogans.
The Austin-American Statesman’s photo gallery is a good one.
The Statesman coverage shows, too, how WhiteManistan is losing the national debate. If there’s a more ludicrous image to push than being paranoid and possessed by a group delusion that believes the Second Amendment is being repealed by an American dictatorship, I don’t know what is.
It does not, however, answer the question, “How to divest from WhiteManistan?” And what should be saved from its crabbed and authoritarian world view. Anything?
