A Few Things Regarding the Aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing:
The Rude Pundit didn't really think he'd be so glad to be away from the United States for a week. In Germany, he watched and read about, in bits and pieces, the enormous freak-out in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, seeing it from a distance, above it, staring down, like some Wings of Desire angel, except instead of gazing mournfully from the Berlin Victory Tower at how touchingly tragic humanity is, he'd have been slapping his head while watching everyone shit themselves while the media ran around like slapstick clowns, slamming into each other and hitting each other with fish.
(Note: The Boston PD and other authorities in the manhunt are left out of the parade of morons because, you know, they got the fucking job done with admirably little other damage, except to the alleged bombers. Note to the note: Yeah, the lockdown was a bit heavy-handed.)
You're gonna hear conspiracy heaped upon conspiracy, from the evil Moooslim connection to the wacky Chechen/Russian/Kyrgyz cover-ups of something or other to, inevitably, the Lizard People, but here's what we all know happened: A couple of brothers, one with a wife and kid, who were ball cap-wearing bros watched too much jihadi shit on the internet, perhaps met a person or two in a visit to the homeland, and decided to act stupidly, which is what stupid young men do. And, oh, hey, an older brother got his younger brother to go along with a plan because it's cool to blow shit up. We won't find out anything useful from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It was an isolated incident, no different than Newtown, Columbine, or any other crime where assholes got a shit-ton of guns and bullets, something that makes them awfully American at this point. Hell, if their last name had been Smith, we wouldn't even be talking about it as anything more than one more tragedy in our carousel of carnage, another time we won't learn or do a goddamn thing.
The Rude Pundit doesn't say this to diminish the pain and suffering of those who were attacked. He does this to diminish the pain and suffering about to be inflicted on the rest of us because two dicks made bombs that work. Once again, we’re going to act like a couple of worthless fucks are a threat to the freedoms of the United States, thus turning them into a threat to the freedoms of the United States. We did it with 9/11, when we elevated Osama bin Laden from the sick boss of a few dozen goat-fuckers to Hitler-level evil genius. We did it with the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the nonstop excuses to whittle away and whittle away at true freedom until it's nothing more than the shadow of liberty.
We have been on edge in this nation since 9/11, almost fetishistically tearing at ourselves, knowing, just knowing, that Something Bad would happen again. And finally, thank fucking god, it did. But here's the thing: Something Bad always happens, whether you're anticipating it or not. You are judged by how you react to it. And from the reaction to this, we are fucked beyond fucked.
The Rude Pundit will talk this week about a few of the ways we fucked it all up, but let's start with this: Get Tsarnaev a lawyer. He's an American citizen. Treat him like he's supposed to be. Enough with this bullshit "public safety exception" to reading him his Miranda rights. We found the stash of weapons and bombs almost immediately. Obama campaigned against this very kind of approach to "terrorism," but now he embraces it with the force of Dick Cheney's mechanical heart-type machine.
It's goddamn embarrassing to see the Senate's prettiest debutante, Lindsey Graham, more or less standing at Tsarnaev's bedside, cock out, ready to fuck the bullet hole in the guy's neck while Kelly Ayotte and John McCain fondle each other and watch as Peter King jacks off in the corner, all sweaty in anticipation of a declaration that Tsarnaev's an "enemy combatant" so he can be Gitmo'd or some such shit.
It's depressing beyond words to hear people say, as Graham did, that "The homeland is the battlefield" and call for surveillance, more surveillance, on the ground, in the sky, surveillance of every space, every orifice, give up more freedom, always be a suspect, always make sure the authorities are watching. Who gives a fat monkey fuck about your Fifth Amendment rights when there might be a single terrorist out there?
Oh, except for one thing. Guns. We can't keep a national database of those purchases. Nope, no surveillance of legal gun buys. Too bad the Tsarnaevs didn't make fertilizer bombs. Yeah, purchases of certain kinds of farm products - infused shit, if you will- could be reported and tracked. But not guns or gunpowder.
Now, we're gonna have another freak-out over Who Knew What When, with the FBI's questioning of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 becoming the new Benghazi.
Our repellent ride of self-inflicted wounds will just continue.
