End the Gun Epidemic in America

New York Times front page editorial, By THE EDITORIAL BOARD DEC. 4, 2015 . The first front page editorial in 95 years.

It is a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.

All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.

But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

Opponents of gun control are saying, as they do after every killing, that no law can unfailingly forestall a specific criminal. That is true. They are talking, many with sincerity, about the constitutional challenges to effective gun regulation. Those challenges exist. They point out that determined killers obtained weapons illegally in places like France, England and Norway that have strict gun laws. Yes, they did.

But at least those countries are trying. The United States is not. Worse, politicians abet would-be killers by creating gun markets for them, and voters allow those politicians to keep their jobs. It is past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large categories of weapons and ammunition.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?

You Are Not a White Christian? Don’t Plan on Coming to Our Country

Hatred has found its home and it’s right here in the U.S.A. America has a history of discrimination against minorities. Black Africans, Jews, Irish, Italians, Mexicans and it goes on and on. Those people reading this blog in other countries must be wondering what is going on in the country that boasts everyone is welcome.

Now you know truth. If you don’t believe what you are reading here, just consider American behavior as told in the news media. Better yet read a few history books that tell you about our behavior.

As reported in http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/American_Indian_Genocide. This event was enacted in the television history mini-series Centennial.
On November 29, 1864, 700 militia from Colorado and the surrounding territories surrounded a peaceful encampment of so-called “Peace Chiefs,” predominantly from the Cheyenne and Arapahoe, who had been invited to end the “Indian Wars.” Without warning or cause, they opened fire and slaughtered approximately 150 Indians from various “western” tribes. Colonel Chivington and his men cut fetuses out of the women, slaughtered infants by stepping on their heads with their boots, cut the genitals off men and women, and decorated their horses and wagons with scalps, genitalia, and other body parts, before parading through Denver.

The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States was the forced relocation and incarceration during World War II of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast in camps in the interior of the country. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens.

Today you are arrested and detained for being Black in America.

Is it any wonder that G.O. P. candidates talk about admitting Syrian refugees only if they are Christians. The others talk about developing data bases listing all Muslims and requiring them to wear identification.

They deny that their ideas are the same as Hitler’s Fascist controlled society that believed in a superior race and penalized, imprisoned, and murdered all who do not match their idea of who met the qualifications to be a citizen.

Does this all seem like a replay of Hitler’s Germany? It will be if one of those mad men become president of the United States.

The World Cannot Boycott this Invention

Jews and particularly the Jews of Israel are continuously under attack. Can the world ignore their creativity and inventiveness?

Hillary Clinton calls for U.S. to ‘intensify and broaden’ efforts to fight ISIS

You may not like Hillary Clinton for a variety of reasons. She is offering her take on how she would address ISIS if she became president.

American Publishing in Decline

This situation makes me cry. I have been a subscriber of Newsweek, BusinessWeek, and Los Angeles Times for decades.

A few years ago, in 2008, there was a columnist in BusinessWeek magazine who wrote about the decline in the print media and how it would affect even some of the largest news outlets. That was when BusinessWeek was owned by McGraw-Hill. The magazine was sold to Bloomberg LP in October 2009. Bloomberg has made the magazine flourish if size of the weekly is an indicator. Perhaps that is one of the exceptions. Since Bloomberg is privately held there are no pubic reports on its performance.

Meanwhile newspapers have not done too well. The Graham family had owned both Newsweek and the Washington Post. Newsweek stopped publication and the Washington Post was bought by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. That makes the paper privately owned too.

My home town newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, owned by Tribune Publishing in Chicago, is reducing its staff by 50 or more persons this month. The reductions include significant editors and station managers. Among those being given buyout are the main politics editors for City Hall and California, the bureau chiefs in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas and London, all of the obituary writers, most of the “backfield” editors who handle national and foreign stories, the top editors of features and Sunday Calendar, the editor in charge of Column One stories, the wine columnist, the editor in charge of editing standards, as many as a half dozen photographers, at least that many copy editors, and many more in various positions. Sports columnist Bill Dwyer and general things about Los Angeles columnist Sandy Banks are among the leading writers that will be gone. The Tribune Company has put their printing plant near the downtown area up for sale. Will there be a newspaper after all this is done?

I love the internet but the damage it has brought to news publications has been devastating.

Is the United States Becoming a Nazi Replica?

-Doctor Ben Carson: ‘We should have a database on everybody’

-Donald Trump told NBC News there should be a database of all Muslims.

-Senator Ted Cruz agrees with Donald Trump. He would winnow the field of acceptable refugees down to only Christian Syrians, similar to what Jeb Bush proposes.

-Kasich on Syrian Refugees: ‘We Don’t Know Who They Are, Where They Come From’

-There’s nothing outrageous about barring Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. unless they pass background checks, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said on “The Kelly File.”

As reported on CNN
Shockingly, Trump told Yahoo News that he would consider requiring Muslim-Americans to register with a government database, or worse, mandating that they carry special identification cards that note their faith.

The reaction to this idea, fairly or unfairly, by many on social media, was to accuse Trump of wanting to mimic laws that Nazis had imposed on Jews, including requiring them to wear a gold Star of David on their clothes.

After Trump confirmed that he would set up a database for Muslim-Americans, an NBC reporter asked him point blank: “Is there a difference between requiring Muslims to register and Jews in Nazi Germany?” A clearly annoyed Trump at first refused to respond, but then told the reporter, “You tell me,” and walked away.

The likelihood is that a Republican will be the next president of the United States.

Trump is now reported to have “backed away” from tracking people. Still, the fear factor has taken over this nation.

With the rise of radical Islam and the non-stop reports on television we are all observing a frightening rise in those wanting the government to monitor every person’s movement. It is a form of fascism.

I wonder if any of these politicians have read George Orwell’s 1984. In that story the government spies on everyone’s personal life. Televisions are everywhere an each has a camera that watches what you are doing.

The data base idea is the most worrisome idea I have heard. Perhaps we could have the Muslims wear arm bands so they can be easily identified. Does this idea remind you of a past event? Yes! It reminds me of Hitler and the arm bands worn by Jews in Germany and all the places invaded by the Nazis.

The reaction of governors and the Speaker of the House to the situation in Europe is reminiscent of American reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

My reaction is what about other minorities in the United States? Will all of us be subject to data bases?

The only official definition of Fascism comes from Benito Mussolini, the founder of fascism, in which he outlines three principles of a fascist philosophy. 1.”Everything in the state”. The Government is supreme and the country is all-encompasing, and all within it must conform to the ruling body, often a dictator. 2.”Nothing outside the state”. The country must grow and the implied goal of any fascist nation is to rule the world, and have every human submit to the government. 3.”Nothing against the state”. Any type of questioning the government is not to be tolerated. If you do not see things our way, you are wrong. If you do not agree with the government, you cannot be allowed to live and taint the minds of the rest of the good citizens.

The use of militarism was implied only as a means to accomplish one of the three above principles, mainly to keep the people and rest of the world in line. Fascist countries are known for their harmony and lack of internal strife. There are no conflicting parties or elections in fascist countries.

Nazi Germany was extreme Fascism, better examples of fascist countries were Mussolini’s Italy, Iraq, Iran, and many middle eastern countries.

America Has Not Been and is Not Now Friendly to Immigrants

The reality is that the United States has not been the welcoming nation that is portrayed by many of America’s leaders. The verse on the Statue of Liberty was more likely a wish than a fact.

The reality is immigrants have been welcomed in the United States when there has been a labor need. The outstanding situations were building the railroads that brought thousands of Chinese in the 1800s, the flourishing factories of the early 20^th century, and today the need for farm workers, gardeners, hotel workers, and restaurant workers-the jobs Americans don’t want to do.

Look at America’s history starting with the second administration of the United States. John Adams, our second president signed four bills into law referred to as The Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien Friends Act allowed the president to imprison or deport aliens considered “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States” at any time, while the Alien Enemies Act authorized the president to do the same to any male citizen of a hostile nation, above the age of 14, during times of war. Clearly, the Federalists saw foreigners as a deep threat to American security. As one Federalist in Congress declared, there was no need to “invite hordes of Wild Irishmen, nor the turbulent and disorderly of all the world, to come here with a basic view to distract our tranquillity.” Not coincidentally, non-English ethnic groups had been among the core supporters of the Democratic-Republicans in 1796. Those Democratic-Republicans were the party opposing the Federalists.

Then in 1875 came the Page Act. The law was named after its sponsor, Representative Horace F. Page, a Republican who introduced it to “end the danger of cheap Chinese labor and immoral Chinese women.” It was the first federal immigration law and prohibited the entry of immigrants considered as “undesirable.” The law classified as “undesirable” any individual from Asia who was coming to America to be a contract laborer.

In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act restricted immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years and prohibited Chinese naturalization.

Then in 1891 the First comprehensive immigration laws for the US. The Immigration Bureau, created by the law, was directed to deport unlawful aliens.

The 1898 the Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the decision resulted in the recognition of the 14^th amendment as taking priority and the ruling that all Chinese children born in the United States are citizens of the United States.

The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 limited the number of immigrants from any country to 3% of those already in the US from that country as per the 1910 census.

The 1924 Immigration Act imposed first permanent numerical limit on immigration and thus began a national-origin quota system.

In 1954 under the direction of President Eisenhower, Operation Wet Back sent about 1 million Mexicans back to Mexico. Many of the deportations probably included many legal residents of the United States.

I have not covered all of the history of immigration into the United States but you certainly get the message that this country has not been friendly to immigrants. They have been used when there was a labor shortage of people willing to do the work that most Americans won’t do.

So why would the United States be willing to grant entry to Syrians, Iraqis, and other Middle Easterners? It’s not likely. There is no current need for more people in the United States. There is little evidence of sympathy. Read this article in the Washington Post on American opinion about permitting the migration of Jews in the late 1930s. The article shows a Gallup poll that indicated 61% of Americans at that time opposed allowing 10,000 Jewish refugee children into the United States.

Unless you bring a technical skill or money that will create jobs we really don’t want you to immigrate to our country. Those people from the Middle East don’t follow our religion, don’t understand our culture, and don’t speak our language. We really don’t want you!

David Bancroft

What Makes America Great?

First read this.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

That is the inscription on the Statue of Liberty written by Emma Lazarus.

It’s been there since 1903. The statue itself was erected in 1886. It was a prefect poem (sonnet) to place on Lady Liberty.

We all take it seriously in America until we are confronted with people trying to obtain entry into this country. Some GOP candidates for president need to read that poem and remember their roots. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are the outstanding leaders of the group that do not want to devise a path to citizenship for the people who prepare their meals, wash their dishes, make their beds, and cut their lawns.

By late Monday, states refusing Syrian refugees included Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

Have we lost our collective mind? America was built on refugees. They are the people who made this country great. Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase is the grandson of a Greek immigrant. Similarly millions of Americans are the children or grandchildren of immigrants.

So your next door neighbors and the people you see on the streets don’t look like you and maybe they have different religious beliefs but they all – we all – have one thing in common – our families all agree the United States is a country where everyone can work and live at our full potential. Somehow we seem to have forgotten that idea.

It’s time we all started acting like Americans.