If it looks like a fetish....
Sure seems like some guys feel inadequate, impotent, paranoid... and the fearmongers keep pushing their buttons.
The Republican Party/international arms industry have long wooed potential gun buyers with the implicit promise of making them ‘manly’ —and they have hit paydirt in the last few decades, as the cohort of paranoid, deranged rightwing incels keeps growing larger and more violent.
Fed by a steady diet of fear/hatred of immigrants, black and brown and non-straight men, independent women, science, education, mythical ‘socialism’, and anyone who doesn’t seem quite “right”, they have responded with a siege on innocent americans, a reign of domestic terrorism inconceivable in any other developed country.
Far from trying to rein it in, Republicans have responded with more and more of the same— cartoonishly sexualized [women with huge guns] to Steven-King-surreal imagery [pix of their small children armed with assault weapons around the xmas tree]. And just last week, the bloated, pasty-faced loser governor of Mississipi released an unintentionally hilarious vid of his face super’d on Clint Eastwood, in a wish-fullfillment fantasy of himself blasting latinos, actually more reminiscent of a dumber Elmer Fudd.
They have elevated cold-blooded killers to celebrity cult status and rewarded them with cash and job offers. Recently, incel-murderer-mama’s boy, Kyle Rittenhouse was featured in an ad for a Florida gun dealer, with the slogan: “BE A MAN AMONG MEN.”
Not concidentaly, and underlining the increasing role of Tucker Carlson-style white nationalism in american media, “Be a Man Among Men” was a recruiting slogan used by the colonialist army of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and has gained popularity among white nationalist groups worldwide in recent years. The murderer in the Allen, TX massacre this weekend— found lying on the ground after being shot, clutching an AR-15, clad in black body armor with extra magazines strapped to his chest and on his arm, the popular american terrorist tattoo RWDS [rightwing death squad], referring to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who murdered thousands.
Now YOU can be man enough to shoot the face off a five-tear old girl, like the TX monster did. Is this the new American exceptionalism?
"A bank, a college campus, a parking lot, a nightclub, a restaurant, a grocery store, a Christian school, an ice cream shop, a gas station, a funeral home, a hospital, a dance studio. a concert, & now…an outlet mall."
This could happen to YOU—or anyone in your family—anytime, anywhere. We are living in a combat zone. Or rather a barrel, and we are the fish.
In the wake of yet another mass shooting (the 199th of the year), some sobering statistics:
But Republicans, while talking earnestly about “finding answers” to why these terrible things keep happening, promptly pass legislation to keep them happening, and incite violence in every possible way. You might almost think they wanted it this way, so they could talk about a “democrat crime wave”—then take over, and turn this country into the authoritarian hellhole they aspire to, current-day Hungary under the authoritarian regime of Viktor Orban.
"Last week, on May 4 and 5, the Conservative Political Action Conference met in Budapest for the second time, and once again, Orbán delivered the keynote address. The theme was the uniting of the radical right across national boundaries.
Remember? Just like WW2, kids — the evil enemy patriotic Americans fought—that white nationalist radical right.
“Come back, Mr President,” Orbán said of Trump’s 2024 presidential bid. “Make America great again and bring us peace.” Orbán claimed his suppression of LGBTQ+ rights, academic freedom, and the media is a model for the world.
Plenty of the Republicans there from the U.S. Congress, seemed to agree. “Hungary,” Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) said, “is a beacon.”
This ideology is behind the attacks on immigrants, LGBTQ Americans, the media, reproductive rights, and education. Florida, led by lizard-like governor Ron DeSantis, has been out front on these issues, but other Republican-dominated states are following suit. Convicted serial sexual assaulter/ GOP presidential favorite, Donald ‘Grab Em’ Trump, recently claimed that universities are “dominated by marxist maniacs & lunatics” and vowed to bring them under control of the right. “He will impose real ‘standards’ on American colleges and universities,” his website says, “to include defending Western civilization.” Just like Putin and Orban say they are doing.
And you KNOW that means whitewashing, revisionism, banned books and censorship/criminalization of teachers and other professionals… much like Mao., or Mussolini. Dictators of every stripe behave pretty much the same, everywhere.
Meanwhile, over the past three years, weapons manufacturers are racking up record windfalls. The largest gunmaker in the US, Sturm, Ruger & Company, topped $280 million in profits and set a new company record. Similarly, profits for Smith & Wesson Brands, the second largest gunmaker, reached nearly $450 million and hit a new company high. Billions are being made off sales of assault rifles, the most common massacre weapon. More profit=more death. It’s a simple equation, but we are powerless to stop it, aren’t we? And you know why.
"Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Republican, told Fox News Sunday that authorities need to find “answers" on what exactly led up to the deadly mass shooting at an Allen, Texas, outlet mall yesterday.
“Texas has loosened restrictions on gun ownership in recent years amid several high-profile mass shootings that have devastated its communities. In 2021, legislation went into effect allowing most Texans who legally own a firearm to carry it openly in public without obtaining a permit or training.”
To nobody’s surprise, a 2022 study found that states with weaker gun laws have higher rates of gun deaths, including homicides and suicides. And TX now leads all other states in gun carnage.
"Gov. Greg Abbott will visit Allen later on Sunday, he told Fox News. “There are questions that are lingering that the families want answers to,” Abbott said, such as “‘Why did this happen? Why did the gunman do this? How did this happen?’ And I know that those families need an answer as quickly as possible.”
The families already know the answers — we all do. Abbott and Cuellar and the entire Party might as well as be pulling the trigger themselves … and the propaganda keeps getting more obscene and inflammatory.
Remember, “I told them to build me an assassin” in the Manchurian Candidate”?
The NRA Party has been building assassins for decades… and now those groomed and programmed killers are running amok in America. And still, they keep creating more monsters. Because their lust for power is unquenchable.
Brilliant writing. I don't get to see advertising for firearms and ammo often, and this stuff is... chilling.