Killings Hit Close to Home

(August 12) - The National Rifle Association should be declared a terrorist organization. All its members should be rounded up and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay. Ordinarily, I couldn’t care less what the American government does about American organizations. Times are changing. The idiots recently struck close to home, hitting right inside my comfort zone.

A couple of weeks ago, a shotgun wielding whacko went into a Unitarian Church in Knoxville Tennessee and killed two people and injured seven others. It was right in the middle of a children’s musical performance. The gunman carried his shotgun in a guitar case, and people thought he was part of the event. Until he started blasting into the pews.

His reason for doing it? The Unitarian Church approves of same sex marriages, while he doesn’t. My sister-in-law Nancy lives in Knoxville and attends the Unitarian Church with her partner Dawn and their two children. In 2003 they were married in Guelph. Thirty-something years ago Nancy was a vice-president of the Central Students’ Association at the University.

They weren’t at that performance a couple of Sundays ago. She and Dawn had scored tickets to take their kids to something at Dollywood. Otherwise, they would have been. They were close friends with one of the two people who was killed. She happened to be sitting in one of the pews he pointed the gun at. A man was killed when he stood up to shield some others.

Both dead people were heterosexuals. They were killed in an open assault on the rights of gays and lesbians. If that’s not terrorism, I don’t know what is. Any politician who continues to oppose stricter gun controls should not be elected. Anywhere. Ever.

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The Make Poverty History coalition has set up shop in Guelph for the by-election. They were a bit slow getting here, with their first local organizing meeting coming on the Tuesday after the writ was dropped. Better late than never, though. They want to raise issues of poverty and urge you to vote for the party that pledges to end it. Who wouldn’t sign this pledge in the heat of an election campaign? What candidate will say publicly that poverty should continue?

Don’t worry about what they say. Worry about what they do. Or don’t do. Between the two of them, the Liberals and Conservatives have been governing Canada for the past 140 years. If they wanted to end poverty, they could have done it by now. If we keep rotating the two of them in and out of power for another 140 years they still won’t get it done.

You would think the federal Liberals could coordinate things a bit better with their provincial cousins. The federals say they will shift taxes and increase the National Child Tax Benefit by $350 per child. Yet the provincials continue to claw back half this benefit from single mothers on welfare. On top of that, they just cancelled the back to school clothing allowances for poor families.

Ironically, the Make Poverty History organizing meetings keep conflicting with the campaign commitments of the very people most likely to support its goals. The first one was at the same time as Jack Layton was in town to kick off the Tom King campaign. The second was last night, when Elizabeth May was here to boost Mike Nagy’s chances.