Paranoia Strikes Deep

    I think it is wrong that the NRA's leadership has cornered the market on paranoia. In the interest of fairness I would like to indulge in a little paranoia of my own. Rahm Emanuel popularized the axiom about never letting a good crisis go to waste, and the NRA capos are true believers in that axiom. In the wake of the Newtown shootings, the NRA's mouthpiece, Wayne LaPierre, declared their conviction that something had to be done about violence in the media, violent computer games, and the mentally ill.

   
    But guns are not a problem.

    Granted, crazy people who are pumped up on Mortal Kombat and slasher flicks would be far less effective at mass murder if they had to use a chainsaw, or knife, or even a decent bolt-action Mosin-Nagant rifle. But the point is that they are crazy. Crazy!

   
    So let's get paranoid, shall we?

    The NRA--as I have previously suggested--is less about training and educating people in safe gun use and responsible ownership than it is about shilling for gun manufacturers. Because guns are what you call a durable good (they last for years and years) the only way to increase sales is to create an increased perception of need in peoples' minds. They do that by creating a climate of fear and imminent conflict between armed citizens and an intrusive government determined to take away peoples' guns. They also harp on the idea that society is is in peril from people that aren't like us; people who want to steal our stuff, who hate our values, dark people, bad guys, and crazy people.

    All this to get us to buy more guns and more expensive guns.

    But the NRA isn't just about selling guns. It is also a flank in a vast conspiracy on the right that is committed to preserving the privileges and profits of a few oligarchs at the expense of our liberties, health, safety and lives. The various divisions in this conspiracy move in lockstep. Their talking points are coordinated, uniform and their objectives are identical; feed the sheep and then feed the oligarchs. This, by the way, is proving a successful formula in Vladimir Putin's Russia.

    A key element in the conspiracy is the America Legislative Exchange Council (aka ALEC). ALEC is a group that purports to bring legislators and businessmen together to craft legislation, usually at the state level. Some of their prouder achievements are "stand your ground" laws and the Arizona and Alabama "show me your papers" statutes. These latter statutes, which included provisions to lock up illegal aliens in detention centers until they could be deported were largely written at the behest of the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison operator in the country. CCA likes "three strikes and you're out" laws that send people found guilty of three felonies to prison for life.  And, they like mandatory (long) sentences  for certain drug offenses. As a general rule they like (and promote) laws that put as many people as possible behind bars (preferably CCA's bars) for as long as possible.

    I don't think I am alone in being uncomfortable with the prospect of a for-profit enterprise spending a lot of money on legislation and legislators to make it easier to fill said for-profit enterprise's prisons and detention facilities.

    When I hear Wayne LaPierre rail against the mentally ill and demand we do something (other than a decent background check which might prevent them from buying a gun) I find myself wondering when ALEC and Wayne's fellow travelers in CCA will introduce legislation to mandate confining mentally ill persons in newly built asylums funded by taxpayers and operated by private corporations.

    Never let a good crisis go to waste. Is that paranoid enough?