And now with the chest-thumping and sour-pussing...

So it appears, at least via Claire and Codrea, that the Gottlieb-endorsed Manchin-Toomey preemptive sellout has failed in the gameplay stage.  (Be still, my heart.)

I'm sure this means we'll get to hear about how steely-eyed and brilliant the ultimate showdown was--on both sides.  Our noble "protectors" will crow of their chess victory, which of course they intended all along (send more money!), and the foisted "underdogs" will whine, shed a tear for continuing to fight the good fight, and get their next hate on (send more money!).  And the Tyranny Threat Alert indicator can go back down from "Vaporization White" to the more subdued "Incandescent Orange" (that's "normal", for the credulous, who may not know their terms).

I've already seen "Shame on you, US Senators." in my Facebook feed, and oh gawd, I know there's going to be a lot more of that to come.  A big part of any well-organized propaganda campaign, after all, is a professional-quality mourning strategy in the event of a setback, both to keep visible crocodile tears flowing, and (probably more importantly) to lay a fresh new claim on the "moral high ground" for the next sortie.*

I've been thinking about the proper response to this "shame on you" sentiment, and I think I've at least got an image that works, if perhaps not the ideal wording.  (Suggestions are of course welcome.)

How's this?

A failure to consummate gun control at the point of voting, is like a failure to penetrate during a sexual assault.  To bemoan or applaud the "technical failure" is to legitimize the attack in the first place, ignoring the fundamental nature of a crime of dominance;  just as rape is not "about the sex", so gun control has never been about "the public safety".  

I might forgive someone for feeling momentarily relieved--the outrage fatigue is strong--but I'm not in much of a mood to tolerate "happy".


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* And of course there will be a "next sortie", as sure as the sun will rise in the east in the morning.  Political systems don't just enable that, they make it absolutely inevitable.

As to that:  anyone want to bet against something else happening right about now?  After all, Friday will mark twenty years of "not an assault", which worked so very well then;  why not a little extra push now from one of those ambiguous entries in the SPLC's "who to hate" catalog?