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Avengers, Bad Guys, Hypocrites and Oscar Wilde

I got to the office and opened the Facebook page. "I'll just check out the news and move on to my reading. "Just a few minutes won't hurt!" That's what I told myself! An hour later, here I am dealing with the effects of it, pouring them into words so I'll be able to breathe a little better. "Who was I fooling?  Why do I tell myself such lies?"

 I read the news and made the repetitive mistake of reading the comments, the same obnoxious comments, many of them the acritical repetition of  the midia discourse, many ignorant, paranoid and delusional interpretations of history. "Man, life is hard!" One picture of a guy, in black, wearing a skeleton mask, on top of a motorcycle, a dead dark body, no shirt on,  covered in blood and the headlines explaining: "Skeleton masked man kills bandits in Teresina and gets popular support" "What a world!" The shock just grew bigger when I read the post that followed it: "I wish this guy would come to my hometown and get rid of the bad guys here!" Here was the place I live too. I thought of my kids walking down the street and witnessing the "justicing" of "bad guys" by the masked man.  I shivered. My stomach turned. "Horrible times!"

The bad guys... Who are the bad guys? How old is this person who talks about the bad guys? Four? Who does she think are the bad guys? The bad guys, for her, are the poor robbers, the petty drug dealers, the ones that stand on her way to her upscale fun parties. The ones with no education, no rights, cast aside since children and coopted by the gangs and their school of crimes. Interestingly, the bad guys do not include the Politician this person, who dreams of  cleaning her hometown of the bad guys, worked to elect for an important position in our Congress. A politician that with her aid has been trumping the democratic institutions, using questionable mechanisms to bend the country's constitution and putting our young democracy constantly at risk. A politician that has forgiven millions in taxes owed by fraudulent religious leaders, leaders belonging to the same religion as his.

"Well, money in the pocket, who gives a shit about democracy anyway? Right? Difficult times!" I wonder what is the scope of bad people of the man with the Skeleton mask, I wonder why she thinks it coincides with hers. I wonder how someone gets to be the kind of person that allies herself with a psychopath and is proud of it. I wonder if given information, he, the masked man, would still be aiming his weapons to the petty thieves and drug dealers.

I don't believe in shooting around people. "You may say I'm a dreamer", but it is against my nature. I'm no saint, of course, and my writer's mind takes my kind of revenge  on thinking of the surprise avengers and hypocrites will have when they walk down their basements, open their secret rooms and uncover their portraits. I imagine their shock when they finally see their souls, the deep marks on their faces, their evil gaze, their sordid expressions, the indelible records of their acts, their feelings. Will they scream when they find out who the real bad guys are?

Comments

  1. Gostei muito do texto. Tremo todas as vezes em que leio: "Fulano deveria estar morto!" Que energia é essa? E adorei o parágrafo final: o Retrato de Dorian Gray é um dos meus livros prediletos!

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