Bacon greased bullets? Really, America?

As I write these lines, I’m in the middle of mourning the loss of my friend, Jim – a fine gentleman, who, as a young man, fled Robert Mugabe’s brutal Zimbabwe and took refuge in the United States. Like millions of others, Jim regarded America his home, the same America that despite all its fallacies and futilities remains, with malice toward none, the greatest country on earth.

You must be wondering why I am bringing up a friend’s passing away in a political conversation. You see, in order to connect the dots of the anomalies that surround us, one must have the courage to recognise and relate to the different events and episodes of insanity, delusion, and chaos that characterise a certain environment.

Yes, I’m referring to the current wave of nastiness, negativity, and hatred that’s going around here. This is a time like no other in history. We’ve entered an unchartered, gruesomely intense and ungraciously unbridled era of politics.

The transformation from a somewhat politically imperfect but a respectful and civil society to an unfettered and lewd environment has been nothing but ironical, one that has disregarded all sensitivities and pummelled the great American values that we’ve become so used to live by.

Just like Jim who found solace in raising his family in suburban Washington, refugees, Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, and everybody else, including the women who Trump groped and assaulted – who consider this country the last frontier, the final bastion of humanity and the ultimate resting place (metaphorically speaking) are under attack from a disaster called Donald Trump and his followers, also ‘fondly’ known as Trumpsters.

Trump and the Trumpsters are like termites that went into hiding in the post-Civil Rights Movement era. With the help of the KKKs and the Jerry Falwells of the world, Trump has masterminded the resurgence of groups that, for instance, represent white supremacist or extreme right-wing religious crazies.

A blatant sexist, one who doesn’t know even the first, basic lesson of Civics has literally turned the richly diverse US landscape so much that people in small-town America who neither (thankfully) represent mainstream, aware electorate nor have the capacity to think beyond certain settled mental limits are now chastising sections of people who either don’t look like them or share their religious beliefs.

This frenzy and the idiocy can be gauged by a rather moronic act in a 900-odd people town of Gurley, AL, whereby the town sheriff has collected hundreds of bacon-grease covered bullets (remember Enfield rifle?) for use against Muslims. Ironically, Gurley has not even one, single resident belonging to Muslim faith!

Upon inquiring about this obnoxious act by the sheriff, it appears that he bought the bullets in question purely to hurt the feelings of Muslims and to prove that Muslims are an unwanted commodity in present-day US.

That intention is clear from the fact that Sheriff Barry Pendergraft posted photos of his prized purchase on social media and was able to catch attention of certain media outlets and few others including the Alabama Council on Islamic-American Relations. That’s all he wanted from his sick adventure.



Regardless of Pendergraft’s stupidity, it’s not the ignorant imbeciles like him who are directly responsible for this kind of victimisation and causing havoc. It is, in fact, Donald Trump who has given a new meaning to “politics as usual” and turned political discourse into petty locker-room banter.

It is Trump who has managed to ignite the Islamophobia fire, one that he purposely failed to put out even when he was literally handed over the opportunity to do so on October 9^th. He represents the evil rhetoric ever witnessed in US politics and wants it to continue because he is the inciter-in-chief.

Trump wants Muslims to report, say something when they see something. Guess what? As an ordinary observer, I see Trump as the greatest public offender of our time. His statements right from the word go, his preying on public sentiments, his scare tactics and sex assaults make him the most contaminated presidential candidate ever in US history.

I want Trump to turn himself in because he doesn’t have a leg to stand on as a civilised citizen of a country that cherishes the concepts of rights and responsibilities. It is him, not Hillary who should be in jail, for it is not his opponent but he himself who has insulted and raped the American consciousness.

While I find myself somewhat dead spirited today on account of Jim’s untimely death, there are many who feel the same way about the on-going political process – let down and dejected by the Trump tirade. The good news, however, is that tyrant Trump’s chances of winning the presidential elections are getting slimmer by the day.

Hillary is no saint but she is human enough to let people breathe easily, be it refugees who fled the Mugabes, the Assads and the Kim Jong-Uns of the world or be it the Christians, the Muslims and the Jews. One is confident that despite all her ‘crookedness’ she won’t demean and degrade minorities, work as a peacemaker and bring this country together. However, before anything else, come November 8^th, we must defeat the rapist on the loose and show the dumpsters to the Trumpsters!