The king killed kids for a headline, and the media ran the headline for the king, and all the people nodded at the headline with gratitude because now they were safe again. Because the headline said nothing about kids. Because the headline told us of righteous retribution against our enemies who deserved to die for what they had done.
Enemies of our nation, enemies that the king faced down fearlessly and blew into pieces, death rewarded with death. Enemies won’t run free on our watch.
But the truth is that no enemies were killed. Just a family of ten. Just kids who were vaporized in an instant by an enemy they did not know was their enemy, for a crime they didn’t commit, for a reason that will never be acknowledged, by a bomb they could not see, by a king who stood at a podium on the other side of the world petting the heads of newspaper writers and headnodders who appear on television each night to say what they are supposed to say, that this was a righteous killing, that justice is served, justice is served, this was a righteous killing, justice is served, the army of repeaters who repeat as they’re told.
The night comes and goes and the televisions turn off and no one remembers because now they’re repeating something else that is righteous, some other cause where justice is served, but far away the kids are gone, the family erased for what sin committed? What did they do but exist?
And it was the old fool who pressed a button for his own benefit, for a bump in a poll that will change again tomorrow, dead faceless kids who no one will remember because they mean nothing to him, they are pawns on the world stage just as you and I are pawns on the world stage, moved about, sacrificed, put into harm’s way, vaporized if necessary, used as bait in a trap for the benefit of devils in suits and ties, devils who type what they are supposed to type and say what they’re supposed to say, serving the master whose name they don’t know.
The headline runs and all breathe a sigh of relief. The true killers remain free because the goal was never justice but the headline, and so the goal was achieved.
How long? How long can this go on until the pawn cuts off the hand that is trying to move it?
God speaks of a different a kind of righteousness. A different kind of justice. And it will come like a thief in the night, without a headline.