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October 11, 2017 Page 13 Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com. O PINION America’s Calling Card of Violence Gun control laws are not enough r oberT c. K oehler In the wake of the Las Vegas massacre, as in the wake of all the high-profile mass shootings that preced- ed it, the big question looms: Why? John Whitehead puts the ques- tion this way: “What is it about America that makes violence our nation’s calling card?” This is the enormous question — you might call it the $700 billion question, which is the size of the 2018 military budget recently ap- proved by the Senate — that most media and law enforcement per- sonnel do not ask or acknowledge, as they search for clues about the motive behind Stephen Paddock’s rampage on the night of Oct. 1 amid the scattered wreckage of the kill- er’s life. He was a “lone wolf.” He was a “psychopath.” He was an American. And he was in possession, in his various dwelling places, of 47 firearms, some of which were used to kill at least 59 people and injure more than 500 others as they attend- ed a country music concert. And by some of these firearms were mod- ified by “bump stocks,” a cheap, legal device that allows a semiauto- matic rifle to fire like an automatic. Why? Whitehead puts the answer out there with terrifying clarity: “Per- haps there’s no single one factor to blame for this gun violence. How- ever, there is a common denominator, and that is a war-drenched, violence-imbued, profit-driven military industrial complex that has invaded almost every aspect of our lives.” This is America, a global empire engaged in endless war, with an entertainment and news media that sells violence as a spectator sport and a consequence-free solution to pretty much every problem you can think of. We believe in having enemies — not in a personal sense but in the abstract: people who are different in some defining way and symbolize, in their differentness, the cause of our troubles. In oth- er words, we dehumanize. We call people gooks or ragheads or . . . we all know the list of obscenities, past and present. Sociologist Peter Turchin, in the wake of the Sandy Hook killings nearly five years ago, wrote: “On the battlefield, you are supposed to try to kill a person whom you’ve never met before. You are not trying to kill this particular person, you are shooting because he is wearing the enemy uniform. . . . Enemy soldiers are socially substitutable.” And mass murderers behave the same way as soldiers, except the “orders” they are obeying are their own or those of some marginal hate-community. The defining char- acteristic of mass murder is not that it’s senseless or random, but that, to the murderer, the victims sym- bolize evil. This sort of behavior, in other circumstances, is publicly celebrated. Suddenly, for instance, I’m thinking about the outpouring of praise Donald Trump generated from much of the media when the U.S. dropped a MOAB bomb — the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the American arsenal — on Afghan- istan. Some commentators declared that he became “presidential” after this action. The poor slobs who died because of it couldn’t have mattered less to the cheering spectators. And a serious segment of the national economy depends on the continual flow of enemies and their elimination. It depends on selling weapons. For instance, William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for Interna- tional Policy, pointed out in a recent Democracy Now! interview that the Trump administration has elim- inated human-rights restrictions on small-arms exports, putting them under the control of the Commerce Department rather than the State Department, as well as “restrictions on fighter planes and bombs and the large weapons, the kind that are being used by Saudi Arabia to kill civilians in Yemen.” Remarkably, domestic gun sales had slumped after Trump’s election — gun owners apparently became less fearful that the government would take their weapons away — so “gun manufacturers are desper- ate for more foreign sales. And they don’t care who the guns go to,” Har- tung said. “And I think that’s really the problem.” He concluded by quoting Martin Luther King’s speech against the Vietnam War: “I can’t in good con- science fight violence at home if I don’t stand up to my own govern- ment, which is the greatest purveyor of violence around the world.” Only in this context does it be- come relevant to talk about gun control legislation. By themselves, such basic regulations as universal background checks, a reinstating of the assault-weapons ban and re- quired permits for gun ownership feel like a frail wall against Amer- ican violence and the ease with which the next “lone wolf” can plan his assault. Indeed, gun control laws are basi- cally just stopgap measures perpetu- ally debated by a violence-addicted society. They swell in significance because they’re so viciously op- posed by the NRA. I’m not against them, but they’re not enough. “And I awoke Monday hoping that maybe this shooting is the one that will persuade America to re- claim the mantle of global leader- ship that has been at our core since our origin,” Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy wrote in the Washington Post the day after the Las Vegas massacre, calling for sane gun con- trol legislation. Yes, this is crucial. But I can’t help but note that Murphy was one of the 89 senators, including, of course, most Democrats, who vot- ed last month for the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, bestow- ing $700 billion on the U.S. military next year, an increase of $80 billion, which is even more than the Penta- gon or Trump requested. “Mass shootings,” Murphy ac- knowledged, “happen almost no- where else but the United States.” This is not because of tepid gun laws. It’s because the country funds — and benefits from — endless war and violence of all sorts. Occa- sionally the violence comes back to haunt us. Robert Koehler, syndicat- ed by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. Congress Holding CHIP and Children Hostage Vital insurance program in crisis mode m arian W righT e delman Dr. Lanre Falusi knows firsthand the anxiety fam- ilies face when the future of their child’s health in- surance is in jeopardy. A pediatrician at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Dr. Falusi recently had a routine visit from a seven-year-old patient with asthma. For the last few months this little girl has been fairly stable thanks to her daily controller and rescue medication covered through D.C.’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). But she often has tough winters and her mother was trying to plan ahead having heard CHIP’s future funding was uncer- tain. States and families across the country are in this crisis mode because Congress let the deadline by to extend funding for CHIP pass at midnight on Sept. 30h leaving nine million children like Dr. Falu- si’s young patient uncertain about their health coverage. For months Congress has been busy debating whether or not to repeal the Afford- able Care Act (ACA) and destroy Medicaid as we know it. While the death of the Gra- ham-Cassidy health re- peal bill in late Septem- ber was a major win for 37 million children who rely on Medicaid for their health coverage, in the midst of that major fight, funding for CHIP was left by the wayside. There is bipartisan support for CHIP. If Senate and House mem- bers, Republicans and Democrats alike, agree on what we need to do for children’s health, let’s do it now and for the children’s sake forget the need for political wrangling. Although the deadline has come and gone, most states still have some carryover funds to continue to operate their CHIP programs in the short term, leading many in Congress to erroneously believe the Sept. 30 deadline was arbitrary when in fact it has immediate im- plications for real children and families. Some other states have taken steps to put families on no- tice and are even prepared to mod- ify or end their CHIP programs because of continuing uncertainty. Every day Congress delays ac- tion makes a difference. Dr. Falusi added: “We haven’t fallen off a cliff yet, but the uncer- tainty that there is a cliff looming ahead makes it harder to help par- ents think proactively about their child’s health. For me as an indi- vidual provider, it can affect the positivity -- the certainty of say- ing ‘See you back in six months for the two-year well-child visit,’ when I don’t know if they’ll still be insured and able to afford it, or if they’ll be trying to decide between whether they can afford transporta- tion to the pediatrician’s office or transportation to work.” The Minnesota State Health Department was the first to send a letter to Congress warning that despite predictions that said other- wise, its CHIP funding would run out Sept. 30 and it would have to take “extraordinary measures” to continue coverage in October in- cluding the possibility that preg- nant women could “be at risk of losing coverage all together.” Utah officials have said they will end their CHIP program if Con- gress doesn’t provide new funding, and officials in a growing number of states have said they may need to follow suit. Parents are getting the message and now that fear is showing up in places like Dr. Falusi’s exam room. “The urgency is palpable from the family perspective . . . We know kids have colds, flu and asth- ma attacks that cluster in the win- ter. Right now is really the worst time for families to either fear or know for sure their child is about to lose their insurance coverage,” says Dr. Falusi. “Even if there’s a shortfall of a couple of months, in a couple of months a child’s asth- ma can go from controlled to the intensive care unit, which I’ve seen when kids go off of their medica- tions…In the life of a child, even a couple of months can have some long-term lasting effects.” Congress must not leave chil- dren, families and their doctors in this dangerous political limbo a minute longer. CHIP has been be- loved for 20 years and the CHIP extension has bipartisan support. Why are we letting it get caught up in political posturing and de- bates? Tell Congress to pass CHIP now and not hold it hostage to par- tisan disagreements over how to pay for it or any other policy issues. Both the House and Senate will be back at work the week of Oct. 23 and passage of the CHIP exten- sion must be first on their agenda. Please let your members of Con- gress hear from you why CHIP must be passed now – children need their health care! Congress must stop playing politics with children’s health. Marian Wright Edelman is President of the Children’s Defense Fund.
