The Angels Have Been Taken From Us

by Rich Miles

I have wanted, since last Friday night, to say something about the tragedy in Newtown CT, but I have not been able to because I have been deeply in mourning - as we all have, or at least all of us who hold any humanity in our hearts.

But en fin, I must say something: As is often the case, it may not be original, someone else may have gotten to these thoughts before me, but they are my thoughts. I hope they will speak to you somehow.

Never mind how the sick bastard who did this came to such action. He is dead, he deserves to be dead, and if there is a Heaven and Hell, I sincerely hope he is already roasting in Hell, for eternity if there is any divine justice. But I don't really believe in Heaven or Hell, so the shit bag is just - dead, I guess.

I keep being confronted with the pictures of those beautiful little children on TV. Of course I can avoid them by simply turning off the set. But something makes me keep looking, despite the pain it causes me. And of course, my pain is nothing compared to the parents and siblings and friends and families of those lovely babies. They had not truly lived at all yet. Who can even reasonably speculate on what any of those children would have become in future years?

See, that is what always occurs to me when I hear of death among young people: what would they have become? How might the planet have become a better place, or at least an altogether different place, if they had been allowed to live to as much of their full potential as any of us ever do? How much will NOT happen now, what children of theirs will now never be born? No one can say of course, but it always makes me wonder. As perhaps it does you.

The worthless piece of shit who committed this heinous act deserves none of our sympathy - perhaps one could speculate that he too was a beautiful child once, but circumstances conspired to create of him a monster killer, and he took all those lovely babies from their parents and friends - from their lives. I will not even mention his name once, because I want him to be forgotten forever, I do not want him to garner any fame or immortality from these acts.

I am unable to be as profound on this topic as I might have been, because the tears keep getting in the way - I am not exaggerating, every time I think of the pain and fear those sweet children must have suffered just before the end, I can't keep it together any longer. Tears fill my eyes, and my heart hurts almost to stopping.

I cannot say "god bless them", because I cannot believe in a god who would allow this to happen to these innocents. I certainly do not believe in the god of Mike Huckabee - if that is the god who rules this universe, I wish he'd go away and leave us - including the sweet innocents - alone to manage it ourselves. As Garry Trudeau once said, he sure is stinking the place out. If there is a god, I certainly hope he skewers Huckabee and leaves him dangling there for all eternity, perhaps with a copy of his inhuman words dangling right in front of him so he will know why he is there. Forever.

I have lots more to say, but the rest would just be some sort of repetition of what I've said above.

The real sadness of this, aside from the killing sadness of the deaths of these babies, is that there will never be justice done for this. If you think about it, what justice could there be? What justice would make it better? Nothing I can think of.

Merry Christmas. Not for its religious significance, but for its importance as a time for us to love one another and be together in peace.

"Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky." - John Lennon, another beautiful victim of gun violence by a mentally ill asshole.

I think he wanted us to be responsible for ourselves, and not expect god to fix everything for us. That's just my opinion, of course. If I'm wrong, boy am I in trouble after I'm gone. Especially if Huckabee's bloodthirsty god is in charge.

But do me a favor - don't even THINK about telling me so. It won't change anything. And one last thing: Huckabee tried to back off of his remarks several days after the massacre. Apology most definitely NOT accepted. You moron. And that's putting it nicely.