NRA Assassinates American Representative Democracy

Oligarchy: (noun)—a government in which a small group exercises control, often for selfish and/or corrupt purposes.

Welcome to the United States of Oligarchy. While most of the nation was focused on the Boston Marathon tragedy and the horrific explosion in Waco, Texas, that body of cowards otherwise known as the U.S. Senate dealt another body blow to American democracy. Our “principled” Democratic and Republican senators—despite the picture at left, do we really still believe there are two parties?­--sandbagged a pathetically weak bill that would have expanded existing legislation requiring background checks for gun buyers by requiring the same standards for those purchasing weapons on the Internet or at gun shows. To complete their April 17 night of shame, the U.S. Senate failed even to get enough votes for a bill designed to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people. (Perhaps the Senate feared for its own members!) By doing so, the U.S. Senate acted as agents of an oligarchy, not the American people. That oligarchy is called the N.R.A.  

Let’s be clear about a few things. First, the Senate’s actions show utter contempt for American democracy. The term “democracy” is often misunderstood. The United States has never been a “democracy” in absolute sense; it is a representative democracy in which the mass electorate chooses politicians that, in theory, advance the public’s desires in Congress. It’s often hard to discern the public will within the politically polarized United States, but that was not the case of the gun bill. Polls indicate that up to 90% of the electorate favored the bill the Senate axed. Some polls show lower numbers, but even the deeply conservative Rasmussen Poll showed 75% approval for the bill. Name me another thing—short of vengeance for the Boston Marathon murders—upon which more than three-quarters of all Americans agree! The idea that the U.S. Senate was preserving anybody’s “freedom” is a sick joke and those that maintain it are sicker still. The U.S. Senate sure as hell wasn’t dancing to any tune called by the American public.

So let’s name the dance master. Forget Congress (please!) and spare me appeals to that Empty Suit in the Oval Office. The President of the United States is not the master here, Wayne Lapierre is. Let’s call him Il Duce, his brainwashed followers Brownshirts, and his organization the new ruling oligarchy. The Nazi (National) Rifle Association is a modern fascist organization with all the earmarks of its predecessors: mobilization by fear, the dissemination of propaganda, bully tactics, Nuremberg-like rallies, contempt for democracy, and the complicity of governmental and social bodies that reputedly represent the masses. It even tries to off its critics. (Gabby Giffords, anyone?) That the NRA would even trifle with such a weak bill as the one before the Senate should be seen as an exercise in pure political power. Why bother? As Robert Michels explained in 1911, once a huge bureaucracy such as the Nazi Rifle Association is formed, it tends to pursue power, use that power, and lapse into corruption. This Iron Law of Oligarchy was precisely what was on display on April 17.

The bill slain by the NRA would likely have made very little difference in curbing gun violence. It’s a toothless proposal even less substantive than the health reform act signed by President Empty Suit. The background check bill was, in fact, a smokescreen from the start, designed to give the NRA time to whip up fear so that truly significant gun control measures never got to the kitchen, let alone the table. But the NRA has its Brownshirts so thoroughly brainwashed that they’re too numb to ask the simplest of questions: Who, precisely, would have lost gun rights under the Senate bill? By sabotaging background checks, is the NRA saying that it’s fine to place firearms into the hands of criminals and the insane? It looks as if the NRA’s ultimate task is dismantling the American political process. One must make the nation safe for self interest, after all, and we can’t allow representative democracy to get in the way. No fear of that with the current Congress.

Let’s hear it: “Duce! Duce! Duce!” Shout it loud—the Brownshirts can’t hear you.