I fell asleep in front of the TV at 8 last night, much to my wife’s chagrin. It happens almost every night, and she’s used to it. I went to bed and now I’m awake and it’s 1 a.m. I was awake not because of too much sleep but because I felt weird. At first, I didn’t know why I felt weird but I did. I felt deeply sad, as though I’d lost a friend. Two images woke me up besides a strong desire to visit a long-time friend, one of shattered glass in the front door, and the other of a smug male arrogant miscreant (a.k.a., asshole) sitting in Nancy Pelosi’s office chair with his feet propped on her desk.
Years ago, after we were just married and I didn’t believe in insurance and I thought I was king of my domain in those days, which may have lasted a few hours. We had our house on the Arizona desert broken into twice in two weeks and we lost personal treasures, many of which were wedding gifts. And in the darkness last night, I felt exactly like I did then. Deeply violated. By strangers. People with muddy feet had walked on our floor and with greasy hands, pawed through our drawers. Nothing was quite the same after that and we had loved that little place.
Buffalo Man probably wasn’t screaming in pain, but hopefully he was. Maybe one of his compadres with an AK-47 mistook him for a buffalo and shot him in the ass. I feel for him.
I doubt that Buffalo Man thinks he is a true Native America on the Trail of Tears. Actually, his name is Italiano. Yet, for whatever reason he feels he needs to portray a Native American. Could be because most Americans don’t see Native Americans as having their own Mafia. Maybe he’s just showing us his perfect dentition? Maybe he just accidentally stabbed himself with his lance. I think he is yelling the cry of victory, but a victory for who? For democracy? For successfully violated sacred ground, the Capitol of the United States? For himself personally? Certainly, that’s part of it. Regardless his motivation, my guess is that authentic Native Americans would not claim him as one of their own. As a huge generalization, I’ve always gotten the impression that Native Americans respect sacred ground. In all the pictures I saw of the insurrection yesterday, I didn’t see many, if any, people of color. But, then again, I wasn’t making a detailed study of each of the thousands of participants’ physical features. Why so many whites, men and women? Are we the predominant spoilers of a country that has withstood our disrespect and ingratitude for far too long?
These wannabe humans are bullies. Our country is being raped by these ignorant creatures, and, as a badly fractured nation, they have taken away the virginity of most of us, at least those of us who are law-abiding citizens and believe in the ways of a true democracy. Their folly was a purpose-manufactured version of a horribly misguided insurrection, which is what it was.
As they stormed the Capitol and grossly violated it, they made us aware that they had already lost their virginity, if for no other reason than their misguided beliefs in what it takes to be a successful democracy. We permanently lost a piece of our all of us yesterday. Even though they don’t know it, the insurrectionists were losers, too. We all have lost a piece of our democracy, and we aren’t going to get it back in the foreseeable future. Unless we take on a new identity as a country that works TOGETHER from D.C. to you and me, we aren’t going to get it back. Period. Like so many other, more mature countries who have already discovered that “Me over Common Good” ain’t gonna get us any further than we are at this pathetic juncture in history. And that will lead only to more insurrections and more Donald Trumps. What a goal.