[lit-ideas] Re: Nigerian gun control as an example for us

I read somewhere that American men tend to have the most violent dreams of any 
people in the world.  It's a mystery why.  That study was before Iraq, so I 
don't know if the violence that Iraq has unleashed changed anything as to our 
standing in that department.
   
  I definitely agree that the gun industry is just another industry wanting 
increased market share.  They're no different than the medical industry, the 
food industry, the tobacco industry (which moved to the developing world), the 
automobile industry, the cosmetics industry or any other industry.  Like the 
progenitor of Sears said, without that sale, there is no business.  
   
  I saw the first installment of the series on al Qaeda.  What an object lesson 
in the ineffectiveness of prisons.  Not just ineffective but counterproductive. 
 All it does is harden people in their positions.  Talking, of course, about 
Zawahiri when he was imprisoned and tortured in Egypt.  He came out more 
determined than ever.  A lot of that installment was a recap of what we've 
talked about on this list:  Al Qaeda loves war and looks for it, and we gave 
OBL a gift beyond his wildest dreams by invading Iraq.  Al Qaeda bled the SU 
through their war in Afghanistan and now he's bleeding us in Iraq.  Saddam had 
absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 (also the subject of the Bill Moyers 
program).  Al Qaeda is just a brand name for an ideology, inspiring all the 
home grown terrorists of the world.  The 1967 preemptive strike by Israel was a 
decided long term loss (okay, we never talked about that).  We need peace and 
we need it desperately if we're going to defeat al Qaeda,
 because peace  to al Qaeda is like garlic to a vampire.  It's exactly what 
would shrivel them up.  For some reason we just don't get it.
   
  I heard that in about 4 or 5 years  Standard & Poors will reduce the rating 
of the U.S. Treasury Bonds to the same status as those of Greece or Estonia.  
The reason:  we're nearly insolvent.  Our bonds are backed by the full faith of 
the U.S. government, and the U.S. government is racking up debts to the tune of 
$95,000 a second.  Our debt is  so high that if we sold all the assets of the 
U.S., all our factories, all our cars, all our dishwashers and our cats and 
dogs, we'd still be something like 80 trillion dollars in debt.  We are really 
teetering on the edge.  The irony is that when Clinton left office we had the 
biggest surplus since the 1920's.  Times they do change.
   
  

Andreas Ramos <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
     
  Americans are violent and the gunmakers take 
advantage of that to sell more guns and make money.

This isn't only a problem for the USA. Guns gotta be sold. US gunmakers are 
flooding the 
market around the world with handguns.

yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com



       
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