FTM

I awoke at 4 in the morning with a headache and stumbled to the bathroom to take some Ibuprofen. In my sleep-dazed state, I was having trouble opening the cap and thought: 

“Look at all the thought and trouble we’ve gone through to make child-proof caps to protect children from possible harm. And yet after hundreds of innocent kids are mindlessly slain each year in school shootings, we can’t manage to ban assault rifles and create some sensible gun-control laws?”

And why? Three simple words:

“Follow the money.”

How else to understand why Columbus chose to enslave the Arawak Indians he met when he first landed in the “New World?” People he described in his journals as “well built with good bodies and handsome features. They willing traded everything they owned …” and then concluded, “They would make fine servants… with fifty men we could subjugate them and make them do whatever we want.” And when he did come back with 1200 men, cross-bows, cannons, attack dogs and guns, he ordered every Arawak over 14 years old to find gold for him. If they failed to meet their quota, he cut off their hands and they bled to death. (And yes, this is the same Columbus we’ve celebrated on a national holiday.) All heartily approved by his culture and religion that had treated God and Gold as synonyms— after all, only one-letter difference.  Why the genocide of the native peoples? Follow the money.

Want to understand the birth of systemic racism and white supremacy? An economic system of free labor gets put into place and then the priests, ministers, scientists concoct the theory of racial superiority and inferiority so that benefactors of the system could sleep easily at night knowing the people they bought as property "were in their proper place as pre-ordained and better off than in their native lands in Africa." Follow the money.

Ever read up on the atrocities of bosses exploiting workers in the factories, the coal mines, the Amazon warehouses? Backed by government and protected by police? Follow the money. 

Ever wonder why a black man caught with a stick of marijuana could be jailed for a long time and lose voting rights for his felony conviction while the Wall Street scammers get a slap on the wrist, if that? Follow the money. 

Did you ever think about why we went to war in Iraq and Kuwait but not in Rwanda? Follow the money (ie, oil).

How have corporations gotten away with polluting the rivers and poisoning the earth in places where people live but the CEO’s don’t? Follow the money. 

And why does the NRA wield so much power when every person with a functioning brain cell can understand how the response in New Zealand to ban assault weapons after the Christchurch massacre in 2011 has reduced such shootings to zero in the last TWELVE YEARS while we in the U.S. have had 25 in the past FOUR MONTHS alone!? Follow the money.

Not every atrocity and aberration in human beings can be so simply explained, but if you really follow that thread— including things like the rampant takeover of computers and their ilk in schools while arts programs get cut— this little FTM mantra explains a helluva lot.

And yet I still believe that if we’re thoughtful and good-hearted enough to make child-proof Ibuprofen caps, we can agree to ban assault weapons. God and Gold are two different things and if there’s a decent bone in our body, we can have the good sense, courage and compassion to make better choices. Yes?