I can't help but think about the Florida man, Zimmerman, what must be going through his head. Not so much the content of his thought, but the never-ending obsession with one moment in his life he would happily erase, undo, be done with, hit reset. Finally charged with second-degree, a charge that has a pretty good chance to stick considering no visual witnesses, no "beyond a shadow of a doubt" pre-meditation. The whole thing is a shame all the way around. I've an idea nobody knows this better than Zimmerman since the moment he pulled the trigger. I see it as one of those moments we regret that can never be taken back, apologized for, forgiven; just have to carry it around the neck like a dead chicken, the dead chicken of fear and uncertainty. Oh God, what have I done? Some people then shoot themselves, unable to live with what they've done. Some try to cover it up and get out of it. Trayvon couldn't be covered up, buried with lime, nothing. There it was, before he could think about it, Zimmerman looking at a corpse and it was his doing, no undoing.
I see him with that law in his mind, wanting to kill somebody and justify it with a law claiming self-defense. Please don't think I'm attempting to read his mind, rather am looking at possibilities my mind comes up with as if it were me or various men I know. It's like when you pay monthly for insurance for years and years, there comes a time you start wanting a return on that investment. Some people become hypochondriacs, wanting something back for all that money they're using to build skyscrapers with and putting swimming pools in the back yards of executives. Won't it be interesting when all the swimming pools in the country are full of rainwater and have become living eco systems, watering holes for the dog packs and herds of roaming cattle in the time of Mad Max and the Road Warriors. We've come into such a hair-raising time for all of us, when the heat is turned up that high for everybody, the weakest links in the chain will break, and they do, over and over.
Gore Vidal came to mind, his book of essays about Tim McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. Couldn't remember the title. Went to amazon to run through Vidal titles, couldn't find it. Don't know if it's just not there--after 10 pages of Vidal books I got a good education in the obvious fact that he writes every minute of every day. Looking for the title I couldn't remember, I came upon his essays on the American Empire, the United States of Amnesia. Ordered a copy. He says it so well, is direct, lives in the ruling class and has a heart for the peasantry. That's cool with me. There's nobody in the peasantry with Vidal's knowledge and quick-minded intelligence. Like during the Bush Junta, Michael Moore was the only public dissident we had; like him or don't, he's all we had. Gore Vidal has been our Michael Moore of the essay form and his close readings of American history with the blinders of American denial stripped away.
His book of essays on Tim McVeigh show different views from what corporate.gov allows us access to via media. He got it articulately from McVeigh that he was intending to start the revolution. His bombing act was revenge for the ordeal of the FBI killing a small village of white people outside Waco, Texas, a little too close to the Bush ranch, the white people crazies, of course. Ruby Ridge in Idaho or Montana where FBI killed a man's wife with a sniper shot through the kitchen screen door. At home. Vidal tells McVeigh's beliefs and reasons. Evidently, McVeigh misread the timing in the sequence of events. The revolution was not ready to be sparked by a lone dog act. He had help, but it was his baby. All I'm attempting to get at is he misread the times. He thought he was starting the revolution that he perceived to be more pervasive among white men than it turned out to be. No telling what heroic role he saw for himself. Does loser apply here? Seems to me it's the natural next word. Another weak link in the chain that's been popping all over the country in surprise places for a large number of years. It's a curious kind of Surrealist rage. In the time of the French Surrealists, one of them maintained that the ultimate Surrealist act is to stand in a crowd of people with a revolver and shoot anyone at random. The idea was never embraced by the other Surrealists. Whichever one it was who thought it up, he forgot that love was the only theme of Surrealism.
I didn't mean to digress away from Zimmerman as much as to give him context. I doubt the trial will allow the defense to ask some of the men he worked with if he listened to Limbaugh and how he talked about Limbaugh subjects. There, again, all that's popping is a weak link. I'd venture half the white men in US of Amnesia listen to Limbaugh, and they're not all doing these things, only the weak links. Maybe turning down the heat will help, but that's not going to happen before the whole chain shatters to smithereens. Let's hope the armed white male population doesn't go collectively berzerk in the wake of some incendiary news event, as McVeigh believed he foresaw happening. After half a century and more of throwing off decency generally, throwing off regard for others but as targets to influence; narcissis self cut loose to fall into the mirror and drown in self-indulgence. It's going to be hell to pay when a huge part of the population is urban and everybody has guns and everything goes to shit one day as a result of something on the news. I prefer to think God loves us and wants to give us the easy way through this torrent of the time called the Tribulation. It's a hang on with all your might kind of time. Like centrifugal force that makes things fly off of something that's spinning.
One thing I'm having a hard time with in this Trayvon issue is that it is making Al Sharpton look good, even sound like he has something to say worth hearing. Even though Zimmerman wasn't pure "white," he did a white man thing, a profile killing. Looks like one, walks like one, dresses like one, talks on a cell phone like one, must be one. Pit bull watch dog. Down boy. Down boy. Zimmerman will surely do some time, now that he's been charged. This trial may or may not be an examination of the self-defense law unto its withdrawal, but I really wouldn't put my money on withdrawal. It's a republican law and republican laws never get repealed. Maybe the trial could set a precedent for taking the thrill out of the "stand yer ground" law. The publicity around Zimmerman and his necessary isolation, for self-defense, surely makes him want to be in jail, prison, whatever, for protection. At least in prison, he'll have the Latin gangs at his back, which he won't have outside prison. I am glad I don't have his head right now. Peace of mind he does not have and will not have for a very long time, no matter which way the trial goes.
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