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Greg Palast's Column

'The Con' Is Leaving a Trail of Blood Across the Planet

Governments tell us that it will all be fine if we're well-behaved – and that's bullshit.

Photo by Joe Stramowski

Greg Palast is an investigative reporter and author of several New York Times bestselling books including his latest, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits.

A lot of smug British pricks and US liberals really hate America’s love-your-gun laws. They tell us to outlaw these kill machines. Unless you’re an Aleut moose-hunting in Alaska for food, then you don’t need no fucking weapon under your pillow because robbers and insane baby-kidnappers and the fascist fairy guv-mint isn’t really coming to get you. The theory goes that if we outlaw guns, or at least require freaks, madmen and mass-murderers to register their names with the federal government, we can stop all that crazy-ass shit like the nutcase who killed those school kids in Connecticut and the other guy with the automatic pistols who shot up that theatre in Colorado that was showing Batman. "Outlaw unregistered guns." That seems reasonable. But it isn’t reasonable. The idea of outlawing gun ownership to stop killing will be as effective as the laws outlawing smoking weed and the laws that for centuries stopped people of the same gender licking each others’ private parts. Hell, our President said he, “did a little blow” – a felony crime. Hey, I did a little blow too (well, actually, a lot of blow), so committing felony crimes is kind of, like, who gives a shit. But somehow, the Better People, usually those who’ve “done a little blow” or licked genitals proscribed by law or at least thought about it, are telling us that there should be laws requiring Lower Orders to give up their guns. It’s all bullshit, of course. More laws outlawing, restricting, registering guns would be about as effective as laws outlawing, restricting and registering guys who cheat on their wives. It’s a con. And I hate The Con. “The Con” is the game politicians, priests, bigmouths at parties, TV hosts, failing celebrities and Al Gore use to get us to believe that if we just change our ugly, selfish and unsocial behaviours and reduce our carbon footprint, life will be just fine, and no innocents will die. And now, the Con includes all slogans pushing Austerity. We have to cut government payments to pensioners and food stamps to the hungry because we have been bad, bad children; we spent too much money and took out loans from banks we can’t pay back, and we’ve made the bankers cry. Ever seen a banker cry? It will break your fucking little heart, you greedy little pension-taking, breakfast-eating, Greek-ish shitbug. Fact: Most of the maniacs who’ve gone on mass killing sprees in the US, UK and Eurozone have something in common. It’s not guns. It’s anti-depressants. Prescribed medicine. “A little blow” for the psyche. Mother’s little helpers that are now mother’s little boy’s helpers. I’m not saying we should eliminate chemical relief for the deeply depressed. But maybe we’d all be safer from berserker killers if we could outlaw men over 30 living at home with their mums. Or maybe outlaw the Western fear of loneliness that makes homicide preferable to solitude. Or maybe outlaw the awkwardness of intimacy that afflicts those coming of age who have tweeted and texted and messaged and don’t have any fucking idea what happens when two humans meet in the flesh. Let’s outlaw a President who gets a stiffy on “Terror Tuesdays” when he goes over the drone kill list and outlaw prime ministers who cream-dream of privatisations the way lonely men dream of harems. I’m often on radio shows from what’s called, “The American Heartland,” the middle stuff that fills the gap between Los Angeles and New York. And I listen to hysterical men certain that the federal “guv-mint” and the United Nations and Big Banks are coming to take away their freedom and their guns. They’re nuts, of course, but not in the way you smug shits on the Coast and in London think they’re nuts. They’re wrong because the guv-mint has already taken their freedoms, the banks have already taken their tiny bits of wealth. But their guns are safe. Because the banks and the guv-mint owned by the banks know the tough guys with guns are really just a bunch of pussies, a bunch of weaklings, who will never, in fact, use those guns. It’s all bluster, no bullets. All bullshit, no bollocks. Hell, you get a couple of guys like Pvt. Manning and Ed Snowden to stand up to the Powers, and they get locked up with not a shot fired from the anti-guv-mint gun-strokers. I remember the radio screeds from the Heartland, from the macho populists of the Plaines States, when George Bush lied us into an invasion of Iraq. All these Don’t-you-take-my-gun radio hosts ranted and raved about “the Wall Street war by an unelected President”.  But their listeners – the ones waiting for the helicopters to come with their blue helmet crews to take their guns – hell, they didn’t fire one shot against the Bush junta. In fact, they dutifully packed off their sons to Iraq and if they came back in a box they called them “heroes”. So, what’s a poor journalist to do in the face of The Con and the deadly madness leaving a trail of blood across the planet, from Connecticut classrooms to mortar-mangled Syrian schoolhouses? I type. When the alcohol just doesn’t do it no more and the anti-depressants seem like a useless chemical blindfold and television and tweeting don’t cure the blues and despite a trillion dollars in advertised happiness, I just don’t know what to do but… type. So I typed this.

Follow Greg on Twitter: @Greg_Palast

Previously – Why Doesn't Britain Join the African Union?