by
Cat Stoothoff
They
like to say “he
acted alone”
this
mantra more repetitive than these horrific acts themselves,
as
if this was a singular occurrence coming out of nowhere,
as
if using that phrase somehow absolves them of their guilt, their
glaring personal co-responsibility, their obvious co-conspirator
status.
he
may have been the only one physically walking into that space
carrying death machines that
day with the intent to kill, but the multitude walking with him
closer than his shadow were there, too.
he
did
NOT
act
ALONE
he
was acting with the full support of our ineffectual corrupt
government officials
who are profiting
off these fears and these machines and these deaths,
he
was acting with the full support of every negligent “legislator”
and politician and “leader” who only wants access to diverse
books and truthful education and women’s choices and voting to be
“well regulated” and conveniently ignores that phrase in that
most horrid of amendments,
and
every cowardly “legislator” and politician and “leader” who
refuses to work to ensure passage of life-saving
gun laws,
and
every greedy “legislator” and politician and “leader” who
lines their pockets with blood money and then passes laws to weaken
the flimsy gun laws already present,
and
every violent “legislator” and politician and “leader” who
promotes the proliferation of the military industrial complex at home
and abroad and pretends it doesn’t affect and isn’t connected to
the mass murders happening at such an astounding rate in this country
alone,
and
every ignorant “legislator” and politician and “leader” who
pretends nothing can be done, that laws and preventative measures
won’t work, as if they’ve never worked anywhere else,
and
every inhumane “legislator” and politician and “leader” who
utters the meaningless “thoughts and prayers” phrase or any
variation thereof and refuses meaningful action,
and
every hypocritical “legislator” and politician and “leader”
who denounces these acts but keeps the money rolling in, as if they
aren’t becoming those very same terrorists themselves.
he
did
NOT
act
ALONE
he
acted with the full support of every private person who did the same
as the “legislators,”
politicians, “leaders”,
who
refused to stop the bloodshed and stand up to the lie of the safety
of a gun,
who
refuse to use their voice to vote with their wallets and with their
ballots and with their words and their actions, against merchants of
death wherever they are to be found,
who
refuse to value the lives of their own children over their falsely
perceived “right” to own a murder weapon,
who
aren’t actually pro-LIFE in any regard but especially not when it
looks like humans of any age and a different skin color being fed
unceasingly, lifeless, in to their insatiable and bottomless appetite
for guns and hate and ignorance and greed.
he
did
NOT
act
ALONE
he
acted with the deafeningly silent support of every single one of us
who stood by and did nothing in our homes, our communities, our
churches, our schools, our capitals, our world; not a word, nor a
phone call, nor an email, nor a meeting, nothing;
and
every single one of us who profess faith in the God who is love and
can’t find it in our hearts, our minds, our bodies to act according
to that example and mandate;
and
every single one of us who blindly, ignorantly uses that name in vain
every single time we connect it to “self-defence”
and violence
and hate and greed and death and think that we are blessed and right
and correct for doing that;
and
every single one of us who doesn’t have those hard conversations or
make those hard decisions to value life over death, children over
guns;
who
refuse to speak up and demand change until it becomes our new
reality.
he
did
NOT
act
ALONE
he
acted with the full support and encouragement of every person, dead
or alive, who carried out terror attacks before him on these lands or
lands in other places in this century or ones past, on
larger or smaller scales,
and
every person inspired by him who will be next in line to do the same,
he
did
NOT
act
ALONE
he
acted with the full and eager support of every media source that
promotes the unrestricted acquisition of death machines, and that
praises these
acquisitions through
their constant coverage of those who carry out these attacks,
and
every media source that condemns this violence in one breath and in
the very next glamorizes the use of death machines abroad and the
songs sung about those death machines and their effectiveness,
as
if death abroad by any means is somehow less horrible than death at
home by the same means,
as
if a machine designed for the singular
purpose and intent of killing is less repulsive in an overseas
community serving as a battlefield than in a local grocery store or
grade school classroom,
as
if the deaths are somehow different.
he
did
NOT
act
ALONE
he
acted with the full support of the all-pervasive and always deadly
terror network of white supremacy
and
all their lies and manipulations and distortions and fears
and
all their vile racist ignorant venom that inspires many of these
terrorist attacks.
he
did
NOT
act
ALONE
he
joined the terror network that is the weapons industry that promotes
unfettered access to as many death machines as you can want for any
reason you want with
as little oversight and common sense as you want.
he
acted with the full and open support of every gun manufacturer and
lobbyist and member and seller and buyer who fights for guns for all
and death for all, and freedom and life and liberty for none.
he
acted in complete blindness and ignorance to the fraud they all
committed against him, with him.
he
was
NOT
ALONE
in
his perversely distorted views, his deadly goals, his uninhibited
destruction, his deluded idea of “freedom”, his violent death,
in
his selfish belief of the worth of his life over theirs,
in
thinking, foolishly, that a murder weapon can ensure one’s freedom,
one’s safety, one’s power and control, one’s immortality,
in
choosing bondage and slavery to death and their machines over actual
freedom from and
life.
he
was
NOT
ALONE
when
he walked into that grocery store, that place of worship, that
school, that workplace, that crowd,
an
agent of death and evil
ushered
in by apathy and complacence
armed
with ignorance and fear
surrounded
by a cloud of witnesses
urging
him on
feeding
him lies and hate.
he
was
NOT
ALONE
in
his delusions and distortions,
in
his anger and fear,
in
his thoughts and prayers and actual actions,
in
his brokenness and pain,
in
his death.
he
is
NOT
ALONE
in
the shame that is his
it
is not his alone;
in
the responsibility that is his
it
is not his alone;
in
the ignorance that drove him there,
it
is not his alone;
in
the lives he took
their
blood is not on his hands alone.
he
was
NOT
ALONE
and
the next time,
he
and
his
shadow
will
NOT
be
ALONE
either
and
the next time,
and
the next time,
and
the next time . . .
