Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday's shooting in Boulder was where I lived for seven years, and I still have friends there who might have been in King Sooper's but we not so unlucky. I am ashamed to be a part of a country that is so violent and adamant about not protectin its citizens from guns by enacting gun control legislation. I have been supporting Gabby Giffords' efforts for many years. Why is the right of a lone individual to kill whom he pleases set above the rights of ordinary citizens who don't want to be victims? It's insane. There is no safe place to be in our country. Not in your home if you are one of one in four victims of domestic abuse. Not in places where we buy our food, or listen to music or gather to celebrate. You need to be underground in a fallout shelter to keep the crazies at bay. When I was young and teaching in Fiji, the Marist Brothers from New Zealand, who were my bosses in the high school where I taught literature, confronted me about the Vietnam War, MLK's assasination, and RFK's murder. I told them we have always been a violent country, and had this John Wayne myth about not needing anybody's help. We've always exported arms. When Europeans landed here, they violently wiped out most of the native population, herded them into barren landscapes and then used slaves to do their work. We could decide that is not who we want to be. We could make reparations and attempt reconciliation. But since students are not taught our true history they feel there is nothing to be rectified. We need to commit to caring and concern for others: our neighbbors, friends, families we don't know just like our own and people different from us but trying to live a life in pursuit of happiness. But happiness that doesn't harm others. We are all interconnected and interdependent, but we carry the myth that we don't need anyone else, and if we're unhappy it's someone else's fault. We need our educational system transformed and made relevant, so we can see not just who we have been and who we are but who we could be if we are determined.