Reality show on the streets of Portland
Who won't they gas and beat?
I'm talking about the camo-suited soldiers of Pres. Donald Trump's palace guard.
They've shattered the hand of a Navy veteran, turning every bone into several smaller souvenirs of the event.
A line of moms looking to protect their protesting sons and daughters? Fire the gas canisters! A line of ironic dads with leaf blowers? Let ‘em have it!
Meanwhile, the guys who own 57 guns, the guys who swear to fight tyranny, are home, out in some suburb where there hasn't been a murder in five years, and the cops spend all their time keeping high school kids from buying cigarettes. Yeah. The tough guys are home, keeping their guns nice and shiny. The “snowflakes” are out in the streets, fighting the unbadged soldiers of our Creamsicle-colored president.
Still, no matter how tragic is the end of our democracy, I see a great entertainment opportunity in the American government's gleeful gassing and beating of its own people.
As long as Trump's secret police are still suited up and ready to act anonymously against the American people, let's see who else they're willing to assault.
Put a line of Girl Scouts out there on the street. Stand ‘em between the federal forces and the protesters. Cute little Girl Scouts holding boxes of cookies. Will the forces of “law and order” fire rubber bullets at the darling little Girl Scouts?
Welcome to this week's episode of “Survivor: In Your Hometown.”
If the triple secret security forces fire rubber bullets at the Girl Scouts, they move one week closer to retirement and the government pension. If not, they lose their jobs and they gotta go work loss prevention at the Walmart.
If they get past the Girl Scouts, how about a line of grannies with Alzheimer's in wheelchairs?
C'mon, boys! Granny didn't clear the area when you told her to, so fire the rubber bullets! If those wheelchairs don't move fast enough, then you crack her with your club.
Those brave federal troops who make it past the grannies will be confronted by a line of veterans with no arms and no legs, guys who were too close to a mortar strike in some war we fought to a draw, maybe a youngish guy who found an IED in Afghanistan. His original plan was to do a couple years in the military, and then come back and get a job as a cop. Whack him. That'll knock the communism right out of him.
Pregnant women! Strike hard for capitalism!
A long time ago, after a boxing match I covered for a newspaper, a weary trainer turned to me after his fighter had been beaten bloody and knocked unconscious, and he said, “If they let these boys stab each other to death, they could get a lot more for the tickets.”
This is 2020 America. Everything is a sport, and we're cheering for death in packed arenas, gloating over it on television.
I don't know how much more democracy we're going to have, but I see a big future in savagery.