Obama in 2012 and within a year there is suddenly great strife between feminists and others on the DU. I smell GOP sockpuppets. Who is with me? I mean I've been here for almost 10 years and never seen such consistant anger directed at each other on one topic like the last 4 months.

involved in gun control than me out here on the DU who might like to know where the research is going. We have less of a gun love culture in Canada and we have way less in the way of shootings, though we have had some. I think gun "culture" is the difference. Guns are at the ready in the usa: mentally as a 'solution' and physically available. We in Canada watch the same movies as you and get the same video games. So that is not what I mean as culture. It is the way the NRA and the GOP have placed guns in the minds of suburban and urban americans. That taking things into your own hands and shooting is a much bigger fantasy in American men's culture. You have a much more emotional culture than Canada too. Things are solved with outward emotion in the USA. In Canada things are solved by empathy. IMHO

they screamed bloody murder when Paul Wellstone's funeral had a democratic air to it. Look how they said nice things about Kennedy when his 50th anniversary was about: so as not to alienate their older base who were all deeply affected by Kennedy's assassination when they were young. And now this doing in of the idea of background checks. Blatant co-option of the thing that will stick in people's minds about 2012: Sandy Hook. These memories, which have a when and where you were when you heard component, make up the cornerstones in our lives and give us new direction, with an emotional engine to back it up. Manipulators need to control these if they want to control our narratives...which they do by interrupting the flow of passion. Hasn't worked. The victims and families of are organizing. Still, shame on you NRA. Shame on you.

families, & other victims, are going to change the world. I heard on Anderson Cooper's show on the families today that some people on the right didn't want research into bad apples in the past, afraid that it will give criminals an excuse when they do wrong they say. Well Sandy Hook families are going straight to the heart of the matter. They will fund research into mental illness. And look below. Look how many ways they are making the world such a better place.

Newtown charities raise $27 million in wake of tragedy

By Daniella Silva, NBC News

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/14/21875236-newtown-charities-raise-27-million-in-wake-of-tragedy?lite

it used to be you got a job with your level of education and stayed there for a career. And you did not go out and get a better job that suited your improving talents. And corporations benefitted from that over-qualification of many employees. It made for more productivity.

Now with the unemployment rate high, and the GOP is no hurry to fix it, people are forced to take jobs that don't pay as well, that don't use all their skills. More productivity for CEOs. Just a thought.

It really is class warfare.

The whole GOP political strategy is based on the base hating african americans. What would happen if the base heard stories of one of the greatest leaders in the world who 1) chose love over hate 2) is black? It might grow the hearts of the base. Thus the stirring of the terrorist and communist memes in places where base voters of the GOP congregate. This is about the cornerstone memories the base has. And how the right wants to control what becomes the pinnacle in their bases' minds. The base might be moved by Mandela's humanity. Mandela's death is one of those events that make it into people's episodic memories (where were you when Mandela died?), which then become part of a person's personal narrative. This is about controlling the minds/hearts/narrative of the base. Teaching hate of Mandela is about politics in the USA and the 2014 elections. The base is a cult. They must 1)hate 2) hate African Americans. The GOP will fight to the death to keep it so.

My point is the GOP is very aware of tending the episodic memories/cornerstones of their base. That's how cults work. The GOP always goes all out when great Liberal leaders die or have anniversaries: Paul Wellstone, JFK, Mandela - the GOP was all over these events so no new liberals would be created.