Terror, again, starts at home
On Earth Day 1970, comic strip character Pogo famously paraphrased Admiral Perry. “We have met the enemy and he is us,” read the little possum’s word balloon as he stood sickened, shamed and bewildered, holding a trash bag amid the incomprehensible human garbage in the once-happy forest.
On Friday, we all watched sickened, shamed and bewildered — again — holding nothing but useless prayers amid the incomprehensible human carnage that was the once-happy vacation airport in Fort Lauderdale.
We have met the terrorist and he is us.
Yes, we are our own terrorists, killing each other in record numbers that keep climbing.
We don’t need foreigners sneaking over the borders because we are doing the work for them.
Americans now commit, on average, more than one mass shooting every day (4 or more people shot). Just one week into the new year, we have so far committed six mass shootings. In all, 224 Americans died from gun violence and 494 were injured in 931 gun incidents, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Of these shootings, 44 teenagers have been injured or killed, along with 11 children including little Victoria Whitehurst, a 6-year-old accidentally shot dead by her 11-year-old cousin. The gun had been his Christmas present because, well, we all know how much Christ loved violence.
We hear from conservatives every day how we’re all going to be killed by terrorists — brown-skinned foreigners sneaking over our borders with a Koran in one hand and an assault rifle in the other.
But it’s our own red-blooded, xenophobic Americans, those who fear foreigners who don’t look like us or pray like us, who are the real enemy. These Americans walk among us and shoot AT us.
The Fort Lauderdale shooter, Esteban Santiago, was one of us too — a New Jersey-born Iraq veteran. Santiago, like many other mishandled veterans, came back damaged from war. He heard voices, he was unstable. He joined the Alaska National Guard and the Army Reserves after returning home, but received a less-thanhonorable discharge. He was arrested for domestic violence. Two months ago he walked into an FBI office and said voices told him to join ISIS. He spit out a barrage of crazy conspiracy theories. No one took his gun(s) away.
Federal law prohibits the sale of firearms to people with a history of mental illness, but Santiago (photo) already had his gun. And he simply retrieved one at the baggage claim, loaded up and started firing.
No, the answer isn’t stricter enforcement of guns, according to Florida state senator Greg Steube. He wants everyone to be allowed to open carry at airports.
“It’s sad that incidents like this have to happen at gun-free zones,” he told New Times.
What a great free-for-all firefight that would have been! Damn the innocent.
So, really, save your meaningless thoughts and prayers, you cowardly politicians who live in the pocket of the American terrorist organization, the NRA. And please, stuff your idiotic “solutions.”
We have met the terrorist and he is us.