Much has been said about the Trayvon Martin case. To me, it represents the normal, average, decent person going about his business and is hunted down with the help of the law and lawmakers. While certainly a racial issue -- an issue about which the national discussions following are important for our country to have and keep having. This story goes deeper and is truly global in its significance.
This young man going home minding his own business and ends up dead. Trayvon represents the powerless of the world in a very powerful and mighty way. A truly great percentage of the world is and was his age. Jobless and just being themselves and trying to get along. Listening to music all over the world and walking and hoping and praying for most of them.
The gun of Zimmerman is the drone of today. The gun that shot this young man thru the heart as he walked home speaking with his pal and digging the vibes of some loved band is what happens to many innocent young people in Yemen and Pakistan. They are just walking along and get vaporized. Yes, vaporized. Not through the heart but just as sad and painful as it is for the Martins, these innocent folks at the wrong place and wrong time are not different. They too are young, walking along innocently and hoping for a better day. They are heading home too to see their beloved parents, their crazy brothers and sisters and the pets they love.
Camus wrote that there is a difference between those receiving the lash and those counting the lash. No one is counting the lash of drones on the innocents dying in the tens of hundreds. There are no TV channels with 24 hour coverage to sing their song, their vaporized plea for justice. We never know their parents. We never know their brothers and sisters, but they are there at the grave site hoping to find bits and pieces of their lost child. Funerals without the body is not a funeral.
This is nothing new. When the powerful meet the powerless, it is usually at the end of a gun aimed at their heart. Sometimes that gun is the removal of food stamps. Sometimes it is loss of will to feed the starving and parents die of embarrassment because they cannot protect their children. Our poor are abused by the endless spending on war and their toys and then turning to the powerless and saying 'well, we may not have the money for what is needed but we love you.' Take the death penalty use in the USA and you will find it is a weapon against the poor. The state becomes an executioner for the poor.
The gun of Zimmerman must go. The drones of the American administration must go. Innocents with music in their ears and fun in their hearts must be protected. You may think I am exaggerating going from Florida to Pakistan. I am not. Just ask our government for the names of the innocents who have died. Ask for them. Ask the powerful for the powerless who are killed. There is no answer. Kill one of the mighty and you will find and get an answer. Giving the gun back to Zimmerman is the same as giving back the drone to the operator in Las Vegas and the decision maker in the White House who decides who lives and who dies.
If the powerful may feel this article is out of line. Ask them about the 16-year-old American citizen executed and vaporized in Yemen. Did his mother get an apology? Did she go on CNN? Did his friends listening to music stop in memory of him long enough to know that he is just as innocent as Trayvon and all the Trayvons?