Word: nra
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Your enemies are as important as your friends. Clinton's enemies: Joe Camel, the NRA, despoilers of the Grand Canyon. Dole's enemies: teachers, the N.A.A.C.P., Katie Couric, minimum-wage workers. And with friends like Newt, Dole couldn't really afford enemies. All those double-date press conferences during the budget negotiations looked like a buddy movie with Newt the star and Dole the sidekick. If Newt were really Dole's friend, he wouldn't be running around the country swinging a plastic bucket to symbolize all the money the revolution saved on congressional ice deliveries while his standard-bearer...
...racked up the awards, it began to occur to me that it might be cool to actually belong to the organization that supplied all those patches. Fortunately, my parents talked me out of it. I'm older and wiser now, and I know that the NRA is effectively a massive special interest group that lobbies to keep access to guns free and easy. I know that one of their officials referred to government agents last year as "jack-booted thugs." I know that they have millions of members and strong influence in Congress. But I still don't understand...
...being a student in the information age, I decided to learn about the world in the most modern way possible; over the World Wide Web. The NRA homepage (www.nra.org) is very unassuming. It shows simply the organization's logo and a list of links, some with very progressive-sounding names such as "Women's Issues and Personal Safety," and "Refuse to be a Victim." At the top of the page is a slightly ominous link; larger than the rest and prominently displayed, it reads "1996 Preferred Candidates...
...read through the various topics, it becomes clear that the NRA is stressing two main themes; good citizenship and the importance of our second-amendment rights. On the surface, this is hardly a disturbing agenda. But when one asks oneself why these people are so single-mindedly dedicated to the right to bear arms that they'll select their representatives based solely on their stance on this issue, something slightly darker emerges...
Perhaps the Web is not a better teacher than experience; after skimming the NRA's web site I know more about the organization, but ironically I understand less. This is the way of the world, I guess. There are some things we can never comprehend, no matter how hard we try. I wonder if the Michigan Militia has a home page...