Here's the thing: I loathe Donald Trump. I do not even want to give him a token of respect by referring to him as President Trump. I think he is a terrible human being who came to power via a combination of appealing to the lowest emotions of desperate people and through dirty dealings with Russian agents. I have no doubt in my mind that he will not finish his term of office because he will be run out of D.C. on a rail. I even bet my daughter-in-law $50 that that is what would happen . . . and I am not a betting man. However. Vero Nihil Verius, Mr. Shake-speare. The truth is the truth is the truth, and it's got to be told.
I've been in and out of listening to the news all day, and I've heard so many different news anchors say something along the lines of, "In the White House meeting with the Parkland students and parents, Trump suggested that we arm teachers," that I can't even tell you how many there have been. At least a dozen, though.
And the first time I heard it, I thought, "Um . . . that's not exactly what happened." But I let it pass. But as the refrain was repeated throughout the day, and began to harden into The Official Story, I finally had to go Googling to see if my mind really was beginning to collapse under the weight of sixty years of life on this bitch of an earth.
And in The Washington Post, under the column title "Word for Word: What Everyone Said When Trump Met With Students and Parents to Talk About Guns" (by Valerie Strauss, February 22 at 12:25 AM), I found (after much searching) this little exchange:
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. It’s incredible. Very sad. Thank you very much.
Does anybody have an idea for a solution to the school shooting, and the school shootings that we’ve gone through over the years? And we’ve seen too much of it, and we’re going to stop it. We got a lot of different ideas. I could name 10 of them right now. Does anybody have an idea as to how to stop it? What is your recommendation to stop it?
Yes.
MR. ABT: I don’t know if I’m going to say something you haven’t already heard. You know, I could tell you that, in addition to all of the sorrow that we are feeling in our community right now, there’s also a lot of anger. Anger that the police can visit a person dozens of times and not take action. Anger that the FBI could get at least two credible tips and not take action.
And one possible solution, which we’ve discussed with Secretary DeVos over lunch, was, if a tragedy strikes, can we wait for the first responders to get to the campus four, or five, or six, or seven minutes later?
And one possible solution, which may not be very popular, would be to have people in the school — teachers, administrators — who have volunteered to have a firearm safely locked in the classroom, who are given training throughout the year.
There are plenty of teachers that are already licensed to carry firearms. Have them raise their hands to volunteer for the training. And when something like this starts, the first responders are already on campus. And if it’s not the teachers, you could have people that work on the campus. A custodian could be an undercover policeman. Someone who works in the library or the lunchroom could be an undercover policeman. He serves lunch every day, but he also has a firearm at the ready. A guidance counselor.
If you can’t stop it from happening, and with hundreds of millions of guns out there, I don’t know if it will ever be fully stopped. But the challenge becomes, once it starts, to end it as quickly as possible.
Mr. Frederick Abt, is the father of a Parkland student (who was there by his side, as was Mrs. Abt.)
And that's what I remembered hearing. A parent . . . a parent who was furious and frightened and who I don't think should be blamed for proposing such a bad idea . . . is the one who brought up arming teachers. Not that this is the first time this idea has floated to the surface, of course. And, also of course, Trump jumped on this immediately.
But that's not how the news folks have been reporting it. And they have been very open about calling it a stupid idea. Which it is, of course, but . . . I haven't heard anyone say, "A parent of a Parkland student brought up the stupid idea of arming teachers, and Trump agreed that that would be worth looking at." But that's exactly what did happen.
It's there in the papers, man.
So let's just keep it real, news folks. As I've noted previously, I hate the term fake news, deplore the people who use it to dismiss ideas that they don't like, all of that. But when you distort what happened in order to sharpen the point you want to stick into the voodoo doll of your target . . . well, it's not exactly what I'd call real news, you know?
No comments:
Post a Comment