Aquarian Weekly 10/30/02
REALITY CHECK

"Your children are not safe anywhere, at any time…"

"I am God." - Maryland Sniper

These are the words of a madman, a killer, a stalking beast; something out of Darwin's best laid plans. These are also the words of an astute philosopher, poetic, striking, fierce and true; the truest words that ever ran from the lips of the most respected thinkers of this, or any time.

They appear in a crude note, made out to authorities carrying the underlying theme that murdering people as if on an early morning mountain hunting spree means more than mere killing. It is diplomatic, has the mark of social commentary, a strong message for the 21st century sensibility.

Inhuman? Monstrous? Hardly.

Human. Very human. Evil comes from us in many ways, shapes and forms. It becomes reality in the tools of aggression, in words and deeds, guns and laws. This sniper or snipers are creatures born of our fears and are the perfect model for a violent age, a violent race. It is not new. It is prevalent in our hearts and minds. Read the words, so raw, so frighteningly spot on.

"I am God."

Of course, he is or they are, because that is what we all are, deep down, parts of us God, parts of us Devil. Evil and good. Truth and lies. Choosing to take life, preserve life, make safe, cause danger. Kind of scary to think about, but it certainly nails it right on the head in a wild-eyed twisted sort of way.

Sometimes it takes the beast to define the ultra-refined faux thinking of the modern psyche. But never mind the theology of a crazy man with a semi-automatic rifle. There are plenty of lunatics running around the planet killing for God and love and race and country and flags and land and self-loathing half-assed macho ego bullshit.

But here's where this latest nut or nuts have given us a cherished reality check:

"Your children are not safe, anywhere, at anytime."

Let's face the gruesome facts: It's been a banner year for kids. Coaches and teachers and priests and nuns and rabbis and uncles and parents have been coming out of the woodwork to prey on our children with daily doses of sexual assault and mental anguish to fill twenty World Trade Centers. Abuse, both physical and mental, heaped upon the innocent has become a gory epidemic, and now we have this mess down in Virginia and Maryland, a hop, skip and jump from the nation's capital.

Actually, as was stated in this space a year ago when everyone was busy panicking over Anthrax, there is a better chance you can be bumped off by someone you're currently living with, dating or sitting beside at lunch than any insidious outside force.

This applies now.

Your children are not safe anywhere. If we have learned nothing from the past fourteen months since we were yanked into the world's problems, safety is illusion. Diligence is needed for self-preservation. Trust is folly. Praying, hoping, negotiating, even idle threats from government officials or braying pundits mean nothing.

Wake up!

You're on your own. And everyday your kids open their eyes they are at risk, and it is your problem. Not the military's, or police's or the media's or Hollywood or the Catholic Church or Oprah. It is time we pull our heads out of the collective ass and get with the program, a program that feeds on this planet like a virus since our ancestors crawled from the slime.

Those words read like a mantra, a creed, the new gospel.

"Your children are not safe, anywhere, at anytime."

This sniper or snipers we'd read about every morning and run home to watch footage of his/their handy work every night on the evening news are a product of our insatiable need to conquer and destroy. Why? How? What the fuck is wrong with us?

It's a wonder he/they are the only ones.

Let me take this moment to step back and point out that this guy, and his alleged teenage sidekick are not stupid or completely insane. He/they were very controlled and extremely well trained in his/their predatory ways. It was/is (if they caught only one part of the symptom in this) cerebral slaughter, contrived, instigated and brilliant, a brutally concise framework that was almost eerily scientific.

We like our serial killers frothing at the mouth, shut-ins taking orders from dogs and living in oblivion.

Lately we like our enemies to be brown-skinned foreigners with thick accents and very different cultural idiosyncrasies.

This is different, more sinister and calculated, cold and efficient, as random and cruel as nature or God or anything mysterious under the sun.

Now he/they have a prescient philosophy attached to the psychosis. Scholars enacting out their visions of madness with a stunning type of perfection.

We've heard that the truth hurts.

Now suddenly we wake up from the slumber of ignorance and see how it can kill.

Random.

Brutal.

Perfect.

"Your children are not safe, anywhere, at anytime."

Indeed.

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