Another Ultimate Warrior
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The July 4th holiday already felt a little squirrely this year, what with the SCOTUS on the rampage, stripping away more rights than King George ever dreamed of. The flag-dressed incels seem even more prevalent now, more fired up on light beer and Fox News than ever. What for years seemed to be harmless, dumb fun now has a sort of sinister air to it. Our nation is teetering on the edge, and everybody is about to fall one way or the other. So as all the Northern rednecks of NEPA dropped next month's rent payment and gas money on legal and illegal ordinance, determined to assert their Jesus-given rights to mentally destroy your dog, and as half the population quietly fumes over hard-earned rights that were taken away by 5 religions zealots, nobody was truly shocked when the word came down that some white dude opened up on a July 4th parade in Illinois from a sniper's nest on a roof, killing seven and sending more than 2 dozen more to hospitals. Because of course he had.
This wasn't the mean streets of Chicago's south side either. This was Highland Park, the hometown of Michael Jordan and Ferris Bueller. One of the most exclusive suburbs in the nation. We've been told over and over that mass shootings can happen anywhere, but nobody believes that until it happens in places like Highland Park. And then the news cycle cycles, and nobody believes it yet again.
Oh sure there was the usual instant pearl clutching and hand-wringing and "we must DO something about this" but nobody plans on doing anything other than ensuring that it becomes even easier for everybody to arm themselves, thus ensuring that it's gonna happen again. And then some. The kid had a perfectly legal rifle, and despite years of posting violent content all over social media, had no problem getting his hands on it. The parade route was surrounded by scores of "good guys with guns", but these cops could do little other than try to cut through an instant fog of war. They did all they could, and it didn't change a thing.
Uvalde? I think I remember that….but I’m not sure….wasn’t that a Disney movie?
The shooter is just another in a long line of insignificant, narcissistic little shits filled with grievances drilled into him by professional haters. In other words, he's just another American male filled to the brim with his American male-ness. A forever victim.
He was later captured by police "without incident", which is one of the answers to the "tell me the shooter was white without saying he was white" game. Coming barely a week after a black motorist fleeing from a routine traffic stop was shot 60 times by police in Akron, Ohio, the juxtaposition could be startling if your mind works that way.
So yea, forgive a lot of us if we didn't exactly go all Lee Greenwood and Toby Keith in the backyard this year. And forgive our rage at politicians like the Trump backed gubernatorial candidate in Illinois, who post-shooting immediately live-streamed himself leading his followers in thoughts and prayers for the fallen, before blurting out "now let’s move on and let’s celebrate the independence of this nation!", as if the bodies still lying on the parade route were nothing more than an election year inconvenience. He was later forced to apologize for being such a tactless dick, but if he wasn't a tactless dick he would have never gotten the MAGA endorsement in the first place. So, you know.....decisions decisions. ‘Murica.
As the shots rang out, a desperate father placed one of his children inside a garbage dumpster for protection, while he frantically searched for the rest of his family. Another child, after getting home safe, asked his parents if he could expect gunmen to be at all parades from now on. A doctor on the scene described the injuries as what you might see in wartime. Subsequent parades all over Illinois were cancelled. And in other parts of the country too. Suddenly, in America on July 4th in the year 2023, a parade route had been added to the list of places, like schools and grocery stores and movie theaters, that are no longer safe for Americans.
The same way battlefields aren’t safe for soldiers.
Our nation was founded by monumentally flawed human beings who mostly meant well other than the part where they owned other human beings, but it’s way past time to stop taking some of the gibberish they spouted nearly 250 years ago as inflexible dogma, and start fixing some of their most egregious fuck-ups, starting with the absolutely cataclysmic 2nd amendment. Never in the history of mankind has lazy, vague language created such dystopian nightmares. The ease in which this kid, who looked like Post Malone’s kid brother, turned himself into an Lee Harvey Oswald (he had Oswald’s picture on his bedroom wall) was terrifying. Or at least it should be. To Clarence Thomas et al, it’s the price of freedom, and the dead are collateral damage. Independence day martyrs. Ghosts of Crispus Attucks.
So yea, as the rockets red glare set off by my hopefully-by-today-four-fingered-neighbors landed on my roof and all over my yard until close to midnight, I wasn't feeling especially patriotic or hopeful. I later learned that at a nearby local state park, one guy became an instant WNEP Talkback 16 legend by getting bathtub-cranked out of his mind and dressing up like the Ultimate Warrior, terrifying the locals. If that’s not patriotism I don’t know what is.
This provided the ultimate coda to this weekend and I'm having a hard time articulating why so I won’t even try. Sometimes something perfect just falls into your lap.
Hope you enjoyed the 4th. Not sure how many of them you have left.
In a bit....
--tf