Call the NRA What They Are

In defense of the National Rifle Association, if the 5-year olds in Newtown, CT, had been armed, they could have defended themselves.

No, I’m not being funny. I’m using sarcasm to express bitter anger. If the NRA leadership doesn’t take the opportunity to speak out against the loose gun control laws that they have championed, they should be considered a terrorist organization.

In the same way that Jews who don’t speak out against settlement expansion on the West Bank are complicit with it and Muslims who don’t speak out against Islamic terrorism are complicit with it, NRA rank-and-file members who don’t speak out against the gun violence promoted by their leadership’s actions are complicit with it. Yes, NRA sponsors many valuable education programs for its members. Every terrorist organization does.

Thanks to Chip Berlet for this link.

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Lansing Progressives Honor Only Local Independent Bookstore: Everybody Reads

Last night I participated in a grand celebration to recognize the unique gift that Everybody Reads Books and Stuff is to the Lansing, Michigan, community. In addition to being the city’s only independent bookstore, it is a valuable source of progressive books and magazines and an important progressive gathering place. In these tough economic times, friends and supporters gathered to let owner Scott Harris know his work is appreciated.

I was honored to be the featured author. After my talk, about volume 4 of my Voices from the Underground Series (Joe Grant’s Stop the Presses! I Want to Get Off: A Brief History of the Prisoners’ Digest International), I had the further honor of introducing Scott.

The venue was Avenue Café, next door to the bookstore. Café owner Colleen graciously donated refreshments for the reception that preceded my talk. The event was sponsored by the Peace Education Center, an amazing activist group that has been on the forefront of progressive political issues for over forty years.

Following are my introductory words after my author talk:

Now I want to talk about the bookstore next door. Everybody Reads is becoming unique. This isn’t a good thing. Independent bookstores are facing competition unlike any they’ve ever faced, from electronic bookstores, and they’re fighting for their lives. They’ve always competed against the chains, but now the chains are facing the same competition, and they’re losing. Remember B. Dalton? Ever hear of that little bookstore down the road in Ann Arbor: Borders?

So we’re here tonight to call attention to the most important—is it the only?—independent bookstore in Lansing: Everybody Reads.

It’s a library where you can browse through books, read a few chapters, and find the ones that fit your style and interest level.

• It’s a treasure map where you can discover authors you never heard of because their books happen to be shelved next to the ones you came looking for.
• It’s a community gathering place where you can meet with friends and group members to talk politics and literature in a stimulating environment, with food brought in from next door—from Avenue Café.

You can’t bring food to an electronic bookstore.

To me as an author, Everybody Reads is unique in the way they treat their visiting authors. I mean absolutely unique, not almost unique. Did you know that when authors speak here, and then they sell books, all of the proceeds from sales of their books go straight to them? The bookstore keeps nothing—just because Scott Harris wants to support authors.

This is unheard of. I’ve spoken at bookstores all over the country in the past quarter of a century. None had such an author-friendly policy.

So I’m here tonight to show my gratitude to Everybody Reads and to Scott Harris, because of his vision and his hard work and dedication to the store and this community.

And I’m here to tell you to buy lots of my books tonight because all of the proceeds are going to Everybody Reads. Buy them for yourselves or for holiday gifts. As the end of the year approaches, it’s time to get your taxes in order. Buy a complete set of the series and donate it to your favorite library. If we run out, place your order and we’ll deliver it to you.

I want Everybody Reads to make it because I love books, I love community gathering places, and, although I’m no longer a resident, I love Lansing. Those are some of my reasons for being here tonight. What are yours?

Several attendees followed me with words of their own and then I introduced Scott.

Scott expressed his appreciation for our show of appreciation and then told the story—which he said he has told many times before but which many of us in attendance had never heard—about his own past experiences that solidified his value system and led him to open Everybody Reads. Most touching was his explanation of how he came to understand the difference between “charity” and “community,” a distinction that was learned as he and his two young children coped with the early death of his beloved wife, their mother. I’ll post the video when it becomes available. I gave a good talk about volume 4, but Scott’s talk was the highpoint.