Fear And Loathing In The Land Of Entrapment

As I lay here, 3,000 plus miles away, my home town is being torn apart by fear, ignorance, and a lust for revenge. I’m watching newscasts that look more like Tel Aviv than The Land Of Enchantment. There is hate being spewed at both ends. Those that are supposed to protect us are running loose, an antithesis of “To Serve And Protect.” There are people being tear gassed in the street. There are casualties on both sides. And for what?

I understand that policemen need to protect themselves in the process of protecting us. That being said, I don’t believe that quasi-military police officers should be able to shoot a homeless man in the back because he is an “eminent threat.” I’m not absolutely sure about this, but last time I checked, homeless campers don’t tend to wield firearms at police officers. They tend to pack up and leave. What was different here? What went so tragically wrong that now we’re warring on the streets of Albuquerque, like packs of wild dogs being chased by ranchers with blood lust and tear gas?

I remember the first protest I participated in when we first began “The War On Terror.” I remember the policemen lining the streets in riot gear and standing in stoic silence, so perfectly still you’d think it was card board cutout, placed there as a scarecrow of sorts to keep the masses in fear. And for that first day, that’s all there was. We stood eye to eye, chanted slogans, held signs, and, in a semi-organized fashion, made our voices heard. I was proud of both sides that day. It was the closest thing to civil discourse between the two sides I’ve seen, and I fear will never see again. And not a week later, the dynamic had changed on both sides. You could see the foam on the edges of the mouths of everyone. And then the tear gas and rubber bullets came into play, and that brief few days of relative peace were gone forever. I don’t know who through the first punch, but as in all fights, your sense of restraint becomes a distant second to the natural instinct to fight like a crazed animal after you've been hit, and then our reptilian brains kick in and the only objective is to win at all costs. And then we all lose.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say with this rambling diatribe. Maybe this is just my way of processing injustice met with disorganized hooliganism. The only thing I know for sure is that, from a distance, this bit of social disruption is becoming so commonplace throughout the world, I fear we won’t survive long enough for the dust to settle, for the wounds to heal, and have what little humanity we have left take its course bring us back to some kind of common ground, where we won’t have to live in fear of our fellow inhabitants on this organic spaceship, hurling through the cosmos on its trip toward oblivion.