O P I N I O N
NOT THAT PROFOUND
By Nathan Graziano
I arrived at my local watering hole on Saturday around noon, looking to have a few beers before the winter storm. Little did I know, a storm was already in full force.
However, the television at the bar was tuned to Fox News, so according to the “fair and balanced” reporting by Trump’s mouthpiece, protesters in Minneapolis—a.k.a., the rabble-rousers1—were throwing rocks and ice at local ICE agents.
Someone needed to do something about these insurgent sons of bitches. Right?
What wasn’t being reported, or focused on, was the fact that a 37-year-old U.S. citizen had been beaten down, pistol-whipped, then shot dead, more than 10 times, on the street by said ICE agents.2
So now the MAGA faithful are going to start spewing their talking points: He was armed and dangerous; he shouldn’t have been out there protesting to begin with; if he followed the orders of these wanna-be cops, there wouldn’t have been a problem.
And my question in response to them is fairly simple: Are you serious?
Less than three weeks ago, Renee Good, a mother who had just dropped off her kid at elementary school, was shot dead at close range by Jonathan Ross, another ICE vigilante, while trying to drive away from the scene.
Oh, but MAGA supporters will say that she was clearly trying to run him over, right? Use your eyes.
I’m 50 years old and never thought I’d see the day where these totalitarian, Orwellian acts of violence would occur on the curbs of our country. But what I find most disheartening is the fact that many of my fellow Americans—many of whom tout their freedom, especially their Second Amendment right to bear arms3—seem to be walking in lock-step with fascism.
I can’t, for the life of me, understand how anyone watching these despicable acts of cruelty resolves this within themselves, assuming there is a moral core somewhere.
Many of these same people purport to be Christians. I was raised a Catholic and have read much of the New Testament. How can you possibly align any of this hatred and violence with the teachings of Christ? How can you support a narcissistic, abjectly evil man and resolve this with your scripture?
And for those who purport to be patriots, the defenders of freedom and America, how can you watch these things on the news and justify it as patriotic? Do you really believe that immigration in Minnesota is so out of control that we need to send a paramilitary into the streets to shoot civilians dead?
I’m not being rhetorical here. I genuinely want to understand how you settle these things in your own heads, in your own consciences. There must be a complete lack of critical thought. How do you explain everything that you see happening in the country right now and believe that this is democratic and will serve your own best interests?
Of course, there will be multiple spins on the new murder in Minneapolis but, again, just use your eyes. The slaughter of this man, Alex Pretti (he had a name), was entirely unjust, and I know that you know it. Maybe you’re just so deeply seeped into the propaganda perpetuated by FOX News and other GOP media outlets that you blindly believe all of this to be just.
But why? How?
There was a time, in my life, where we could politically disagree on policies and still shake hands at the end of the day. But this isn’t policy. This is state-sanctioned murder, and if you’re not standing up against it, then you’re complicit.
And if you’re trying to justify this, I can’t understand how you sleep.
- Who, by the way, are exercising their First Amendment rights. ↩︎
- His name is Alex Pretti. He was an American citizen and a nurse with a few parking tickets. Definitely needed to be killed to prevent future acts of terrorism. ↩︎
- And since Minnesota is an open-carry state, why are you objecting to this man exercising his Second Amendment rights? ↩︎