Michael Shannon

Writers are obsessed with words. The meaning of a word may seem obvious and it usually is but when two or more are strung together each shades the absolute meaning of all others in the sentence. It’s akin to designing something like the quadratic equation. Something we learned as freshman in high school and long forgotten. I don’t recall a single math teacher taking the time to explain its roots in history which might have pleased me at the time. One thing; math has variables, symbols with unknown values which when, strung together and interpreted using various rules can be solved for meaning. Sentences are like that too.

Take the Adverb, please! Apologies to Henny Youngman there. Anyway an adverb simply adds extra meaning to another word. For example, works hard, work is the verb and hard is the adverb. How about the adjective? An adjective spices up a noun. Beautiful house. The adjective is the word beautiful and the noun, person, place or thing, is the house. All these are modifiers. They subtly change the meaning of another part of speech.

Here is the way we work words. For example, say I’m a politician. I’m not encouraging you to do that mind you, I’d rather muck out cess pits myself but, just imagine I was. My team, read employees, hired from the best ivy league schools, superb wordsmiths all, and pollsters, they that have no opinions themselves but rely on cleverly crafted questions to get the answers they need to promote their boss. I need image consultants, a few hucksters to collect the campaign money, someone to drive my government supplied luxury car, my special ticket to the exclusive Senatorial dining room and last but not least a couple magna cum laude grads from Harvard with very nice legs and spritely smiles to carry my latte down the hallway when I’m trolling for media. “Hey, Ranu bring the mic and camera, I have nothing to say but I’ll say it anyway.”

My speeches are finely crafted and polished by the best. What I say doesn’t have any relevance to the question at hand and in fact says more to the listener by what is left out or thoughts intentionally misdirected. All this of course has one and only one purpose and that is to stay in office as long as I can. I can shift gears faster than Steve McQueen.

I’d like to illustrate this with some fine examples of the art.

“He raped a young woman.” A well known politician has said this. What he didn’t say was, “He forcibly had sex with a child, a little girl, held her down and brutally raped her.” Big difference right? Which one do you hear the most?

A sitting politician today was quoted as saying, “If she’s unconscious there is no crime.”

“He shot 17 school kids.” I’m sure what he meant to say was, “He used an assault rifle designed for only one purpose and that to maim and kill soldiers on the battlefield to heartlessly slaughter screaming and terror stricken little kids in their classroom where they should be safe.” Oops, killed both their teachers too, and the janitor. “He threatened me with a broom.”

“Democrats and the main stream media did this.” Texas Senator Ted Cruz. You see, it had nothing to do with guns whose manufacturers and the NRA gives me stacks of money so I can continue to stay in office so I willoppose any kind of sensible legislation on firearms.

Statement made, Cruz immediately turns to his I-Phone to check on the number of likes on his official Senatorial Twitter account. Very, very good, thousands of Republicans agree with him.

“These shootings are not predictable.” Texas governor Greg Abbott. What does that mean, really. It means he has no plan to do anything about it, in fact he blames the City of Chicago where he claims more people are killed every weekend. His political bus just turned to the right there and drove away from any change in policy. Abbott stated that, “Changes in gun laws are not the solution.” Full stop. No solution other than thoughts and prayers or not enough study are ever offered. PS: If you don’t know, there are almost no gun laws in Texas, period.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, “It is literally sickening to think of the innocent young lives stolen” and that he was praying for everyone involved. How do you read that? McConnell offered no solution or call to congress to act other than to characterize the shooter as a “Maniac.”

US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweets ‘we don’t need more gun control’ in response to the latest school massacre. Isn’t she sweet? No mincing words there. At least thats honest of her.

In the aftermath of Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, some members of Congress are calling for a return to God as opposed to tighter gun control laws, saying the tragedy was a result of “decades of rejecting good moral values.” Oh, spare me.

Lets analyze the statement above. Texas school shooting, (slaughter of 19 little children with a rifle whose projectile travels over 3,000 feet per second and tumbles when entering human flesh.) some members (Conservative good Republicans all.) calling for a return to God, (Has God left Texas?) as opposed to tighter gun control laws, (Practically zero in Texas.) Tragedy was a result of decades of rejecting good moral values. An insane 18 year old boy walks into a school and in cold blooded murders 19 children and two teachers has nothing to do with general societies moral values.

I believe the answers to these events are stark, direct and should not be spun to satisfy the aspirations and ego of those who have been elected by us to deal with problems just like this.

“I was just following orders” was not a valid defense at the Nuremberg War Trials. For once, in history, morality in the face of evil was expected. Nazi leaders were hanged.

Good God, stop treating the people of this country like idiots. Earn your salaries or get out.

This just shatters my heart.

Michael Shannon is a writer. He lives in the state of outrage. This article was written right after the killings in Uvalde, Texas.