Philip A. FarruggioPhilip A. Farruggio -- World News Trust
March 25, 2018
If anyone channel-surfed TV yesterday, well into the evening, ALL the channels covered the massive demonstrations by our youth for gun control.
For my activist eyes, this was impressive, with tens of thousands of good and decent young folks, in many cities throughout America, taking to the streets. Oh, how I wish their parents and grandparents were out there with us after this empire illegally and immorally invaded and occupied Iraq.
For years we anti-empire and anti-war advocates stood on the street corners of many cities and towns, almost in a vacuum! At least this new generation is getting back to the basics of our First Amendment right of free speech. One recalls how the Bush/Cheney cabal made many of us actually stand in "caged-in areas" relabeled Free Speech Zones, always far away from the target of our protests.
This writer has never even fired a gun in my baby boomer years of existence. Although I do agree with most of the demands of these gun control advocates, a part of me doesn't want eligible fellow citizens to be totally forbidden from owning any such weapon. Background checks, both for criminal and mental problems, are a necessity, as is not allowing many of the crazy sort of "Overkill" weapons to be sold.
So, all in all, seeing those caring young folks out there did bring some level of joy to me. However, we need them out there for a far greater demand: The pullback of this Military Empire before it bankrupts us all economically, morally and spiritually! We have military personnel, many of them but a year or two older than many of yesterday's marchers, who are occupying areas of the world we have NO business being in! Some of them have been or will be killed over there, while many more innocent civilians of those countries have been or will be killed by them. Enough already!
Do yesterday's young marchers realize (along with their teachers, parents and relatives) that more than half of their federal taxes go down the rabbit hole of military spending? Do they realize that the cost of keeping one soldier in the Arab desert for one year (more than $1 million ) could pay for 20 teachers or school psychologists for one year at $50,000 each?
Imagine if Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz had gotten the care he needed years ago when he was screaming out to the system for mental help? Proper gun control may have hindered his search for a weapon, and may have not. Food for thought.
Do yesterday's caring and dedicated young folks understand that we have 800+ military bases in close to 100 different countries, and enough nukes to destroy the world a thousand times over? Have these young kids gotten the proper teaching about 9/11 alternative theories (with a myriad of facts) to question the story that our government's commission gave out? Ditto for our pre-emptive illegal invasion of Iraq?
The mainstream, and even many alternative media, feels safe to over cover events like yesterday's. Why? It is of NO concern to this empire, so long as the focus of the protests is NOT directed at taking away the lethal weaponry that our empire possesses and uses. Gun control will do nothing regarding the hundreds of billions (more like a trillion ) of dollars that are being spent by the Pentagon... and, of course, delegated to them by a compliant "bought and paid for" Two-Party political con job.
Meanwhile, many of yesterday's kids will have problems paying for their higher education in a year of two or three. Many of those same kids will, as adults, realize that they cannot get the proper health care coverage, or other parts of the once cherished safety net , because their localities just don't have the financial funding that Uncle Sam used to send along to them... NO MONEY!!!
This writer for one would love to be able to reach out to those young demonstrators and offer them the facts they will need to grasp what is happening. Perhaps others of my mindset will do the same. Just imagine if we had those numbers out there to show the empire's handlers and the "embedded media" how our young patriots feel about what is needed to save our great nation from the greedy warmongerers.
PA Farruggio
Palm Sunday 2018
Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, New York, longshoremen. He has been a freelance columnist since 2001, with more than 300 of his essays posted on sites like Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op-Ed News, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust., where he writes a great deal about the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has an internet interview show, "It's the Empire... Stupid" with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
