[The following article was written by Synthesis Weekly columnist Julia Murphy. She can be reached at ninjatreehugger@gmail.com. She likes it when you ride a bike.]

Land Of The Gun

A gun is a tool, a tool of extraction. It is made to extract life from the body. Whether or not you use it for this purpose, this is what it has been engineered for. There are other tools of similar purpose, simpler and less remote, with a reliance on the inherent physical strength of the tool’s user. However, none of these other tools inspire the same cult or cultural worship that the gun does.
The ability to kill something, a very specific something, from a great distance is a manifestation of power. It also allows the luxury of ignorance. If you choose, you can cap something from 500 yards (theoretically, if you’re an ace shooter) and ignore it completely. “That’s good enough for me,” you might say. “I don’t need to walk up on that shit and see the whole Faces of Death routine.”
I sort of like guns, but it’s not an amicable friendship; it’s unwholesome. I don’t want to kill shit, I surely don’t. But I have to say, I’d love to be able to stop something that was about to eat or otherwise harm me.
However, this is sort of where it falls apart. I’ve made it through 38 years without packin’. Shit happens. If you have guns — if you carry and use and love the shit out of guns — how does that change how you act? Does it make you just a little more cocky knowing you get to play, in the words of PC Danny Butterman, “Judge Judy and executioner”? Does it make you a little less willing to negotiate?

Recently an article on Yahoo Green featured interviews with some folks who are lucky enough to have homes to homestead about their preparations for what they see as the societal effects of peak oil. The article cites stockpiling weapons as one of the actions these folks are taking “to defend their supplies against desperate crowds of people who didn’t prepare.”
We’re used to thinking in scarcity and fear. It’s what our society requires in order for us to keep our heads down and keep working. The option, as presented by the Man: “Anarchy, which would mean chaos and mob rules,” when the anarchists I know are some of the most responsible and respectful people I’ve ever met. Interestingly, Ammon Hennacy, anarchist homeboy of the late great Utah Phillips, had a jailhouse conversion with the Jeebus and, follow the logic: True Christianity means pacifism, and governments constantly make war, so to be a real Christian you have to be an anarchist. Interesting.

More leftist rhetoric after the jump. (more…)

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I will never be able to masturbate again. THANKS INTERNET!

In order to help paint her opponent Barack Obama as the “elitist” candidate, on the heels of his recent remarks in San Francisco that small town Midwesterners “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” Hillary Clinton took shots of Crown Royal and ate a slice of pizza with Indiana supporters on Saturday. Hopefully this marks a new turn in the contest for the Democratic nomination, in which Clinton and Obama see who can party hardest. Maybe Obama will start doing cocaine again. But that might be a little too “elitist.” He should probably switch to Meth, and really get after that small town vote!

Proving there’s no such thing as bad press and that face and neck tattoos make for a killer mug shot, rapper Lil’ Wayne (born Dwayne Michael Carter) was arrested by border patrol at a US Border checkpoint on Interstate 8 in Dateland, AZ, on Tuesday night around 11:30 PM. Drug-sniffing dogs alerted officers that something might be afoot and Wayne’s bus, which was transporting 11 other people, was pulled aside for a consensual search.

Officers found:

Carter faces local possession charges (the feds passed on this one), and two other passengers are looking at narcotics charges. Wayne was released on bail, but has a court date set for Friday morning. In other news, his new album, The Carter III is due out in February.

T.I. who was arrested this weekend on gun charges apparently had quite a collection and now is facing federal gun charges. His week got that much today when U.S. Magistrate Alan Baverman ordered T.I. to remain in jail at least until Friday, when the judge will hold hearings to determine whether he’s eligible for a bond and whether or not there was probable cause to arrest him. Federal prosecutors want to keep him in until trial which will probably be a while and if he’s convicted he’ll face probably five or more years in federal prison.

T.I. attorney Steve Sadow requested the bond hearing be postponed until Friday to give the defense team more time to get ready. Odds are it’ll be pretty tough for T.I.’s defense team convince the judge to allow a bond for a guy who has a prior crack dealing felony conviction and who (at least allegedly) had an small arsenal of weaponry at his College Park home.

His bodyguard flipped on him and said that in September he “delivered a 9-mm pistol to Harris, who invited the bodyguard into his bedroom, the affidavit said. Inside, there was a walk-in closet with a safe tall enough for a person to enter with a fingerprint-reading scanner as a lock, the affidavit said. The safe contained multiple short rifles, including an assault rifle inside a black bag, according to the affidavit.”

Yeah - that’s probably not good…

T.I.; Atlanta rapper and Synthesis favorite was arrested Saturday afternoon in Atlanta by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on charges of buying illegal machine guns.
According to Reuters Clifford Harris aka T.I. was arrested and in possession of three firearms that were found in the vehicle T.I. was driving and six other firearms were found a bedroom closet of the rapper’s home - all apparently loaded and ready to go…
U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia David E. Nahmias said “This convicted felon allegedly was trying to add several machine guns to an already large and entirely illegal arsenal of guns.”