“480 Minutes” - Turning Point?
Sometimes one can have a partial positive week but it’s rare that MAGA lets one get through an entire week w/o doing something so dumb, so destructive, that it at least temporarily ruins everything.
I’ve been waiting for a manufactured spark Trump would use an his excuse to federalize law enforcement & complete the transition from democracy to an authoritarian police state, a transition that began under Dubyah in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when Americans signed away our moral standing (disappearing people to “black sites” w/o due process, imprisoning them, torturing them, etc.) b/c we were afraid & craved the illusion of security.
I didn’t think the Reichstag fire moment would happen quite this soon — the administration is still growing their massive secret police force under the guise of ICE — but a distraction from the Trumpstein files was needed & boy is the administration & its enablers making hay from the gun murder of far-right activist Charlie “Turning Point America” Kirk. This murder & subsequent fanning of the civil war flames might double as the ticket to suspend civil liberties & criminalize political dissent.
Kirk promoted the increased spread of already ubiquitous firearms in the U.S. & claimed that placing the 2nd Amendment-above-all (b/c it protected the citizenry from a tyrannical gov’t) was worth the cost (gun deaths in general, mass shootings in particular). Somehow Kirk & his fellow 2AAA didn’t seem remotely concerned about the military suddenly & repeatedly being deployed on U.S. soil for no goddamned reason at all, nor that a federal police force larger than most national militaries answerable to only one man is being assembled in plain sight. Someone square that circle for me, please.
Kirk considered owning weapons to be a “God-given right.” I’’m no bible expert, but wasn’t it Jesus who taught his followers to “turn the other cheek?”
Shortly after the shooting Trump took to Truth Social to annouce that Kirk had died (curious…aren’t doctors usuall the ones to break such news?) in what seemed to be a prepared statement. The divider in chief took the opportunity not to calm an already simmering nation but instead to outright blame “the left” for the assassination. He said Kirk was killed b/c his political opponents called him names. Imagine, people saying negative things a beyond regressive climate-science-denying racist, homophobe, islamophobe, anti-semite, “replacement” conspiracy theory pusher…how dare they! Also, if Trump knows who the assailant is that means he was in on it b/c the rest of us still don’t know who the shooter was or why s/he targeted Kirk. Sadly that fact has not stopped Fox News & congressional Republicans from following President Bonespurs’s lead in baselessly affixing blame & dangerously calling for revenge.
A turning point for America? We’ll see.
Today’s show will feature tons of new 🎵 including songs by (The) Chameleons (Middleton, Greater Manchester, England, @ChameleonsBandOfficial), The Cords (Greenock, UK, @ the.cords_band), Gruff Rhys (Cardiff, Wales, @GruffingtonPost), Guerilla Toss (New York, NY, @guerilla_toss), The Irrational Library (Haarlem, The Netherlands, @TheIrrationalLibraryBand), Shame (London, England, @ShameBandUK), & Will Paquin (Boston, MA, @Will.Paquin).
As usual today’s 480 Minutes program begins at 9 a.m. Eastern U.S. Time & is live-hosted until 5 p.m. The show is rebroadcast in its entirety on Friday evenings beginning at 7 p.m., Saturdays at 5 a.m. and 3 p.m., & Sundays at 1 a.m. ET.
To find out which BAGeL Radio artists are touring near you check out bagelconcertfinder.com. Seeing live performances (music, theater, sports) can be most positive. I should probably take my own inferred advice here…
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Videos
480 Minutes / Episode 935
