Choices Poem

Published by Dissident Voice

 

They all said ‘no’ to gun control
‘It’s our right’ they say, to have guns
It’s no one’s right to end a life
No right to rain bullets in a space
Of people having fun
Or learning, or shopping
Sleeping or at the cinema
No right to kill little children

There’s no right in putting guns
Where children can fire them
By mistake, killing a parent
Or where, in the heat of passion
A man or woman can shoot their spouse
Or even execute them, then suicide
Nor where the unbalanced mind
Can reach, take and kill and maim

This isn’t what was intended to be
By the Founding Fathers, an army
For defense they had in mind
But the Right are funded by gun lobby
They won’t give women choice
Yet give choice to those who kill
It’s a really sick nation that lives
In fear of dying at any moment by guns

America Is Broken Essay

Published by Novel Masters

Everyone can agree that the last week has been full of grief and sadness, as well as horror, compassion, reaching out, and some heroism. If one can’t agree to that, one is a bigot, hating certain minority groups, loving the ‘right’ to bear arms and asserting that right.

There is a danger now, more than ever, that some legislators, the NRA and other groups such as the KKK, far right ‘Christians’, etc will grow numb to deaths, bloodshed by assault weapons, mass murder and terror, mangled limbs and life changing injuries. Just two Republicans voted to have a vote on gun control. They are brave and should be applauded. I’m assuming that there will be a debate over some legislation to prohibit the ease of obtaining guns, which presently are as easy to buy as a tin of beans, and easier to get than some decongestants.

Now, why does a society prohibit the number of simple medications one can buy, ban certain toys as being a danger to children but allows assault weapons, rifles and all kinds of hand-guns to be purchased without any checks or screening, or rules about where they should be kept. Surely in a cupboard with a solid wood or metal door, locked, with the key hidden?
Or at a gun club, to be used for sport, target practice etc?

People say society has become conditioned to accept the status quo. I disagree. There’s a lot of people who want gun control, including President Obama. The blockage is the Republican who hold elected office but are funded by the NRA. That is a complete conflict of interest and very undemocratic. An elected representative’s first duty of care is to is to his/her constituency, not to lobby groups. It would be fascinating to know just how much dirty money flows from the NRA to the GOP.

When someone like Donald Trump becomes normalised in politics, enough so that he is the Republican presidential candidate, there is something seriously wrong. Trump has expressed his hatred of Muslims, and apparently would gladly deport eleven million of them. But they are the second or third generation, where would they go? He has said he will build a wall along the Mexican border. There are migrants who risk their lives to get a better life, they want to earn a good living, pay taxes and become citizens. Trump displays a short-sighted view which will gain the U.S. many enemies. Indeed, Trump himself has gained many enemies during his campaign, countries who hate him, Non-Government Agencies that deplore his ideas, and individual politicians that he has insulted, such as the Mayor of London. He has not been invited to 10 Downing Street, though he claims he has. Trump has never even held any elected office, not even in the boy scouts as far as I know. What system allows someone with no political history to run for President?

A self-proclaimed White Supremacist, Trump is a very dangerous man. And yet he is popular. That is scary to people who value democracy, diversity and acceptance and tolerance. Trump used the tragedy at Orlando, the brutal murder in cold blood, to score political points. There was no compassion or grief in his tone. Yet he has been normalised, idolised. It’s almost like Hitler all over again. NEVER AGAIN we declared.

The Founding Fathers would be appalled at the society America has become. Assault weapons used to murder groups of people. The GOP being in the pocket of the NRA. The existence of the NRA!

It seems to me, that societies with written constitutions get into hot water in court cases, the passage of time and inventions, and the equal society that we now expect. The Constitution of the United States was written entirely by men. White men. There were no women involved, no First Nation (well they were conquered, had their land stolen, and were dealt with), no black people, no poor people. All the Founding Fathers came from rich, titled families in England. They had slaves and lived very comfortably.

Now the Second Amendment was designed to allow men to form an army to protect the country from invaders, or to end a tyrannical government. With muskets. Rifles, semi-automatics, and assault weapons were never imagined. It is being misinterpreted and misused to appease the masses. Assault weapons were never intended for civilian use.

Isn’t it time that the Constitution was re-examined? With women, people of colour, gay people, every sort of people, in mind? And maybe the Right to Life should be considered in revising or abolishing the Second Amendment. It is no longer of use. It is defunct. It is as dead as a dodo. The U.S. has an army, an airforce, a navy, police forces, national guard, coast guard and more.

Now some people are saying that ‘toxic masculinity’ is responsible for the gun culture. I cannot agree. This phrase has been invented by feminist groups to state that women are not understood by men, are dominated by men and to say men are sexually aggressive. It also suggests that men cannot talk about their feelings or articulate love and affection toward women.

Now, I agree that some men are sexually aggressive. This is usually due to a sense of inadequacy in other areas of their life, some unconscious issue with their mother, or a testosterone imbalance. But it is the nature of men, biologically, to desire sex in a different way to women. A lot of women don’t ‘need’ sex. But that a whole other ball game.

There are a huge number of women who own guns too or have access to them. How many times has a young child accidentally shot their mother dead? By putting their hand in the mother’s purse or fiddling with the object beside them? The first school shooter was a sixteen-year-old named Brenda, who in 1979 took a gun to her school in San Diego and shot eight people. Why? Because she didn’t like Mondays. Colombine and the other school and college shootings came later. A girl led the way.

So in view of this, ‘toxic masculinity’, an invention of women, is not the cause. Most shooters are suicidal, bigots, sociopaths, dreamers of a utopian world, cowards, and other damaged characters. Some of them are criminally insane.
It is harder to get mental health care than to buy a gun in the States.

So, you’ll see as many women at shooting ranges, gun clubs, or with a cupboard with guns in it as you will see men. It’s just that men tend toward violence much more, including in suicide.

Today there was a vote to get some legislation on guns. Let’s hope President Obama gets his wish to limit access to guns. Let’s hope he doesn’t have to visit more bereaved families in another city, and doesn’t have t console injured, maimed survivors. Can today be a beginning in curbing the use and availability of guns? As someone who has twice had a gun pointed at her, I realy hope that change is coming.

……………………………………………

 

For Brendan Constantine Poem

Published by Mad Swirl

For Brendan Constantine

Tattoos on your skin.
Isn’t there enough
pain in the world
already?

Children draw bombs
falling from the heavens.
No human rights, no homes left,
no comfort for them.
The sky has fallen down.
Parents weep.

I too have cried
for the loss
in my life.
No anonymity,
too much trauma.
I am dying.
You are a
serendipity.

Children draw bombs.
You tattoo.
I have many piercings.

 

 

Purveyors of Death – Poem

 

http://deadsnakes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/chrissie-morris-brady-poem.html

They arrive each year, by first class

Or in their private jets

Sometimes, hundreds of the family

Come to shop in Kensington

Staying in their otherwise empty

Apartments. Londoners are priced

Out of their own home city

Dictators and despotic sheikhs

Kings of absolute monarchies

Descend upon the annual arms fair

The weapons and armory that

Control nations and crush dissent

The tools of war, which fuel more conflict

Are here to be bought, adored objects of lust

The Grim Reaper attends too, many of him

Gate crashing their sumptuous banquets

As guests of Her Majesty’s Government

Civil disobedience at it’s best, they spread

Information about child deaths, orphans of war

The maimed, the displaced, the refugees

In cloak and hoods, with scythes of truth

During the day, these folk with conscience

Will have laid in the street to block limousines

Or to stop the arrival of an armored tank for sale

They chain themselves together, and then

To a railing or lamp post. The police must

Remove them and this takes some time

Meanwhile, the public look on and learn

Some of these civil protestors are seen in court

Though none yet have been thrown in jail

As some of the weapons on sale for death

Are illegal, banned, or used for torture

Despite this being a fact, no one of the British

Government has been held to account

Strange injustice so great, blood on their hands

 

This Odyssey – blog entry 5

So, I have told you how this illness crept upon me, at first almost invisibly and then faster until it was aggressive and I was in extremis with muscle tremors and spasms. My left side was uncontrollable, and I has lost too much weight.

I was very scared. In the beginning, when I had to write with my right hand far more often than with my left, I did not know who to tell. My GP said it was in my head as I was still running and winning. I began to believe him. I thought I was so screwed up that my hand had become the scapegoat for ‘what’ was in my head. I actually had no idea what he meant. Was I imagining things I was not aware of? Attention seeking? No, I hated the attention my hand brought me. I much preferred the hugs after a race or a run, the discussion of the wind, when someone was spotted coming up from behind on my right. Who actually was the fastest? Surely it was the number of wins, rather than a single triumph.

The summer that it first began to affect my left foot, I spent some weeks with my cousins ‘up north’ near Sunderland. Their cousin on the other side of their family was the county champion. There was much talk of a race between us by my cousins and their friends. I wasn’t that interested really. I ran for pleasure. My Uncle had given me a hard time over my symptoms. Finally, the day came when we agreed to race. There was a straight alley behind the gardens where my cousins lived. We lined up. The champion, her brother, his friend, my cousins, and me. Someone started us and I ran. The sun was warm on my face and arms, my ponytail flew around behind me. It felt good. I slowed down after what seemed to be 200 yards and looked back. The champion was a good three lengths behind me and the others had either dropped out or were straggling. I stopped and turned to greet the champ with a hug. We all congratulated each other and sat in the sun. When I went into the house, my Uncle (married to my blood Auntie), said ‘I do don’t know  why you walk like you do when you can run like that’ with an unkind tone.

Comments like this, and the doctor’s verdict, caused me to withdraw into myself. I became very quiet. My parents were very worried. My mother at times seemed more worried about the effect of worry on herself, and verbalised this, causing me to emotionally detach from her. She continued in this manner until long after my surgeries and my detachment from her became a void. My mother was also a very controlling, angry woman, and became a controlling grandmother. This really made me sad, as my daughter began to dislike her company by the age of four.

The more ill I became, the more passive and confused I was. I knew this was beyond my control and yet it took doctors two years to find a diagnosis. Only four cases of hemispherical Dystonia had been known in the UK. I was sent from hospital to hospital, as they tried to treat me with drug combinations. Then the idea of surgery was discussed and I was taken to what is now the Royal London Hospital, in Whitechapel for an out-patient appointment but was immediately admitted and book for my first surgery the following morning. I accepted all this, I had no fight in me, no questions, nothing to say at all. I would die without urgent surgery, and would possibly die during one of them. I wasn’t scared, I was calm, unalarmed, not wishing things were different. With hindsight, I know that if my Dad had been able to stay that night, it would have meant everything to me to hold his hand, smell his skin and be strengthened by his voice.

Consider The Ant You Sluggard

Published June 12 2016

Please click the link below to read this essay

.http://www.novelmasters.org/chrissie-morris-brady-go-to-the-ant-you-sluggard-consider-its-ways-and-be-wise/

It’s The Lies June 5 2016

Published by Dissident Voice. Please click the link to read my poem.

It’s The Lies

 

 

More on this Odyssey

After the surgeries on my brain, told in my last blog, I was left with akinetic mutism. This is the inability to move or speak. It is not the same as being paralysed – it is as if all energy or life is drained from those faculties, and when they are regained, the ‘oomph’ or ‘spring’ is no longer there.

Initially, I was in a coma for some weeks. I have never established whether that was medically induced because of any swelling on my brain, or whether it was the result of the surgery itself. The first surgery was to drill through my skull in two parallel places on the top of my skull and metal plates were put in to prevent the bored sites from knitting together. I was allowed general anaesthetic for this first operation. The next, on the left hemisphere of my brain, was done with local anaesthetic only. I don’t recall much of it even though it was over five hours long. I think I have blocked the memory, memories, as the trauma and extreme fear I experienced have left me with post traumatic shock disorder. I spent the next three weeks or so, it may have been much longer, in the Intensive Care Unit. A nurse was with me at all times. if my temperature rose the room would be cooled by the same number of degrees and I had a heart monitor.

It was rather nice that staff would gather in my room as they left their shifts, chatting to me, telling me jokes, or just bringing a card or some flowers. I still had all my symptoms at this stage, as the Dystonia affected my left side and, therefore, the right hemisphere of my brain. I was strongly left-footed, I still am, left- eyed – still am, but I had become ambi-dexterous with my handwriting by the age of six, and this stood me in good stead for later, although I still switch sewing from hand to hand, not knowing which side is best, and screw drivers presented me with a conumdrum for a long time. I always take a photo with my left eye.

After the third surgery I was in a coma and had akinetic mutism. I ‘woke up’ on a geriatric ward, though I still could not speak or move. A lot of the staff thought I was in a persistent vegetative state, and would talk about me at my bedside, wondering if I could read, or if I were able to understand what they were saying. I was fed through a nasal-gastric tube, as I was unable to swallow properly. After some times I was fed fluids from a sippy cup and food was a type of custard consistency, fed to me by spoon.