Name: Shell Shock
Age: 2
Occupation: rock music festival
Last Seen: Orlando, Florida
Bee-otched For: inviting a conservative
crybaby to their event
The
dictionary defines shell shock as "a condition
with psychological and psychosomatic symptoms
resulting from exposure to active warfare,
first identified in soldiers undergoing
bombardment in the trenches in World War I.
Shell shock would now be regarded as a form of
post-traumatic stress disorder."
Over the
years, awareness of PTSD has been raised,
including through a music festival in Orlando
aptly named Shell Shock. However, the event
organizers made a poor decision by hiring
someone who actually caused PTSD in some
people to speak at the festival.
That person
is none other than murderer Kyle
Rittenhouse.
During the
protests regarding police brutality in the
wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020,
Rittenhouse decided to march on the wrong side
of history. At 17, the native of Antioch,
Illinois drove across state lines to Kenosha,
Wisconsin, and stayed with a friend who gave
him an AR-15 rifle. Rittenhouse was a Drumpf
supporter and an ardent supporter of the
police. Rittenhouse learned about a potential
riot in Kenosha, 20 miles away, so he went up
to "protect" some buildings from
protesters.
The Kenosha
riots were in response to the police shooting
of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black male who
is now paralyzed from the waist down.
According to the officer who shot him seven
times, he claimed that Blake was about to stab
him after he tried to enter the SUV that
belonged to the mother of his children. The
officer, Rusten Sheskey was not charged and
has returned to the police force. Needless to
say, Sheskey's actions led to rioting in
Kenosha, and Rittenhouse thought that he and
his trusty murder machine would benefit the
police force.
Rittenhouse
and his friend, Dominick Black went to protect
a used auto dealership called Car Source.
During the Kenosha riots, Rittenhouse was
confronted by several people, in which he shot
three and killed two. The two men Rittenhouse
murdered were unarmed, though the man whom he
injured was.
Rittenhouse
was charged multiple times for the murders,
though two of the charges - possession of a
dangerous weapon by someone under 18 years of
age and not obeying a curfew - were both
dropped by the judge in his trial, Bruce
Schroeder. He was sentenced to a juvenile
detention center on $2 million bail, which was
posted by outspoken ultra-conservative
Christian MyPillow inventor Mike Lindell.
During the trial, Schroeder, a Democrat in
name only ruled that the people Rittenhouse
murdered were not "victims", but "arsonists"
and "looters". It was no secret that Schroeder
pressured the court to not convict
Rittenhouse, even by admonishing prosecutor
Thomas Binger. During the trial, Rittenhouse
cried crocodile tears, claiming that the two
men he killed were attacking him. Ultimately,
Rittenhouse was acquitted and became a spirit
animal for the right.
Since his
acquittal, Rittenhouse has worked on multiple
projects and has even written a book called
"Acquitted". However, many feel like
Rittenhouse is using the fact that he was
innocent of killing two people to boost his
celebrity status.
And because
of that, Shell Shock is facing major backlash.
Since they
booked Rittenhouse, several bands pulled out
of the festival, including metalcore band
Evergreen Terrace (named for the street The
Simpsons live on). The group posted on their
socials that they don't want to be associated
with Rittenhouse or any events aligning with
them. Other bands that have pulled out include
Southpaw, Let Me Bleed, and American
Hollow.
Now, Shell
Shock II's headliner is (SiC), a Slipknot
cover band from Texas. No word if Corey Taylor
and his ilk will lawyer up to stop them. The
concert is scheduled for Saturday, October 19
in Orlando.
Shell Shock
II is hosted by The
Antihero Podcast, which claims to help
those battling PTSD and other disorders
related to it. They also claim to help first
responders and military personnel.
Now, as
someone whose grandfathers were both Navy men
during World War II, I feel that fighting PTSD
is a good cause. My maternal grandfather lost
his dad when he was only nine and his mother
kept marrying and divorcing throughout his
young life. He lacked a good father figure. He
was humble and enrolled in the Navy, fighting
in WWII and the Korean War. However, his
military experience left him with what was
then called shell shock. Because there wasn't
much science behind it back then, the only
cure for his PTSD - and with other people as
well - as being told, "Go home, grow up, and
be a man". Because of this, my grandfather
became an alcoholic. Together, he and my
grandmother had a daughter, my aunt,
ironically born on July 4th, 1945. They should
have divorced not long afterward, but ten
years later, my mother was born. Because of
her, my grandparents' marriage lasted another
12 years.
When she was
a little girl, my mother would have
nightmares. She would come into my
grandparents' room and tug on my grandfather
to wake up. However, my grandfather had many
nightmares himself of being attacked by the
Japs and his Navy ship being torpedoed. As he
was being awakened by my mother, he ended up
slapping her until she cried. Because of this,
my grandmother told my mother to simply be
gentle with him if she needed him to help her
fight the evil monsters along with those Japs
at the same time.
Yes, my
grandfather was a drunk, but he was a super
nice guy. I was told that his drinking was so
bad that he should have died around the same
time I was born, but he beat the odds. Hell,
he outlived my paternal grandfather by seven
years. Now, my paternal grandfather did drink,
albeit more moderately. He did smoke heavily
up until about 20 years before he died of lung
cancer in 2001.
As someone
whose family had a military past, I'm very
disappointed that the organizers of Shell
Shock II decided to politicize the event with
Rittenhouse's presence. What's even more
disgusting is that the festival is supposed to
be loaded with artists from the metal
genre.
To me, mixing
metal with conservative politics is like
mixing oil and water. Let's remember that back
in the 1950s, the right tried their damndest
to kill rock 'n roll, but failed. In the
1980s, they condemned everyone from Ozzy
Osbourne to Judas Priest and wanted to
"protect our children" from this type of
music. Today, I see more people wearing
T-shirts displaying those acts, plus
Metallica, Slayer, Guns 'N Roses, and other
acts that the right condemned back then than
people wearing anything advertising Amy Grant
or Sandi Patty.
So, if you
call yourself a metalhead and you want to cry
that the bands pulled out of Shell Shock II
were being too woke, guess what? CONSERVATIVE
CHRISTIANS HAVE DONE IT FOR DECADES! "oH! bUt
GeOrGE FLoYd WAs a JunkIE wHo ROBBeD a LiqUOR
StORe!" "thE pEOPlE kYlE RiTTenhouSE KillED
weRE aTTACKing hIm!"
Yes, I
understand. Rock has its fair share of
conservatives like Kid Rock, Sully Erna from
Godsmack, Staind's Aaron Lewis, and (ugh) Ted
Nugent to name a few. However, what these
people stand for - destroying women's rights,
gun rights even for felons, making sure that
Americans don't get single-payer universal
healthcare, and so on - is a poor
representation of what rock 'n roll is really
about. Granted, there are plenty of lefty
rockers out there: Rage Against the Machine,
Green Day, Pearl Jam, and others who lift the
genre and unify rock fans from all
backgrounds.
To me, PTSD
organizations need to unify people instead of
breaking them apart and making sure that they
have no place at the table. These assholes
getting a lunatic like Kyle Rittenhouse to
speak at this event is just as bad - or maybe
worse - than someone with PTSD living in a
place where the Blue Angels fly overhead all
the time, like my birthplace of Traverse City.
Kyle Rittenhouse is no hero, folks. He's a
murderer and deserves to rot in prison for
what he did. He protected a building and not
people. If that car lot he was guarding burned
down, the owners would have simply rebuilt
bigger and better. People, however, cannot be
replaced. Granted, the two men Rittenhouse
murdered had mental issues, but unlike
Rittenhouse, they would have never murdered a
soul.
Inviting Kyle
Rittenhouse to a concert is like inviting
Hitler to a synagogue.
---
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