Kyle Rittenhouse Is Not the Enemy. He’s the Latest Product of the Outrage Industry

Rittenhouse is a mirage, a manufactured repository for our outrage, our self-righteousness, our fear and our guilt. He is a phantasm conjured up by the corporate media to feed its bottom line and feed our egos.

The Kyle Rittenhouse furor is a fascinating illustration of how US politics has become mired in self-consuming tribalism. It shows how non-conversations, non-thinking now posture as serious political and social engagement. And it demonstrates once again the success of a practice beloved of elites the world over: offer bread and circuses to keep the masses from seeing the big picture and rising up.

[mintpressnews.com]

{Let me preface this post by pointing out that I have very little interest in what is being treated as the substance of the Rittenhouse story. It seems glaringly obvious that 17-year-olds – or anyone else, for that matter – should not be wandering around with big guns, or small ones, whether in moments of calm or during highly charged confrontations. That is simply insanity.}

How many people here would want a 17 year old running around your neighborhood with an AR as security? I wonder how the judge and defending lawyers would like to have Rittenhouse as security in their neighborhoods? According to the witness, he didn't ask him for his help or knew him. He just showed up. If Rittenhouse just showed up and started patrolling, what's your reaction going to be?

{The descendants of the new “Americans” who rebelled against their mother country, shaking off the yoke of British imperialism through force of arms, cherish their weapons in case they are needed once more to face down the tyranny of an elected government or their fellow citizens}

Rather ironic isn't it? Considering that the American government almost, if not, immediately became collaborate in imperialistic agendas after declaring freedom. Maybe not immediately collaborate, however that's my conspiratorial theory, but abroad south of us and in Asia. Within that even you have to neglect to consider mass killings of Native Americans and taking nearly half of what is the United States today from Mexico as not being imperialistic. We became what we fought against and today collaborate with nations born well before ours who do the same.

Does anyone other than myself not recognize our government as tyrannical? Seriously consider how our ruling class elite basically own and control our media, politicians, election and judicial systems. We're virtually a corporate--state run communist country. You can find any aspect of negative judgment place on another country, communist or totalitarian, within our own structure. Republic or democratic be damned. Those we colonized having become worse in many cases, especially in socialist Latin American countries.

We have these far right elements who claim to be against government while at the same time often defends the most radical, fascist, aspects of it. The most tyrannical parts of it, if I may. Again, I claim collaboration between both establishment parties. Who are usually the best part of that tyrannical government within protest when they wish to take away free speech rights from fellow citizens. So much for don't tread on me? While I tread on you. Often coming into those protest to create the chaos, usually under the mask of darkness of night, in which they hypocritically denounce their rights. The majority of daytime protest go without major incidents when planned and permitted. Why does the nightfall seem to absorb those who are willing to divide our issues as though we're not all facing the same tyrannical structure that creates the illusion? Why don't they recognize how their preferred media is collaborate with that agenda?

{For each tribe, Rittenhouse is guilty or not, irrespective of the evidence. The legal matter the jury needed to resolve was whether he genuinely feared for his life each time he pulled the trigger. And the video evidence suggests he did. He was repeatedly chased. By a man with mental health problems shouting out that he would cut out Rittenhouse’s heart, backed by the sound of gunfire, who lunged at him to take his rifle. As Rittenhouse fled that shooting, he was knocked down and hit across the shoulder by a man with a skateboard who also tried to seize his rifle. And finally, he was leapt on by someone pointing a handgun at him. However we look at it, the jury had more than enough reasonable doubt to work with.}

I have to admit, from the video of the Dore show, Rittenhouse has a pretty sound argument despite the negative characteristics surrounding him. He may have been there under very questionable terms, and made horrible statements among bad players, but he seemingly had good reason to fear for his safety.

{Even in writing this piece, because it does not simply denounce Rittenhouse, I find myself trapped inside this manufactured tribal divide, forced to take a side when each side is spouting empty slogans meant only to further alienate and antagonise the other side.}

I'm right there with him. Every bone in my body hates what this kid stands for as I also have to redevelop my view on the situation. 1 person is dead for attempting to end more killing from a youth that should have never been there.

{If we call for vengeance against Rittenhouse – of the physical or verbal variety – then the truth is we are no better than the person we presume Rittenhouse to be. He is not the problem. And to think he is is to make ourselves the problem.}

{The intensifying tribalism that has beset the US – that the polarised reactions to the Rittenhouse case exemplify – is not accidental. It is deeply tied to the turbo-charged system of capitalism that seeks to extract profit from every last seam of our internal and external worlds. Just like an oil industry desperate to squeeze tar out of sand or frack oil out of rocks, the corporate media needs to suck our attention ever more keenly into conflict, into hatred, into blaming and shaming.}

{The pro-Trump media and the anti-Trump media were not on our side. They were both on the side of milking profit from our rage.

But the power-elite does more than simply make money from our hate. It gains in important, ideological ways. Because the more we hate, the less able we are to discriminate, to think clearly, to strategise, to see who are our real enemies.

And this is where the Rittenhouses prove useful.}

{Enemies within – supposedly working hand in glove with those external enemies – are a much more plausible bogeyman. You don’t need evidence that Russia is planning to invade the US mainland when it is running the president, or infiltrating social media and poisoning our children’s minds, or rigging the elections, or destabilising democracy. And China doesn’t need to invade either, when it owns the US economy and seeks to control its communications systems.}

{The maintenance of that heightened paranoia by the corporate media is good both for business and for fomenting division. It is not Russia and China destabilising the US. It is the fabulously wealthy US power-elites – and their media – destabilising the US public to keep everyone feuding over the latest domestic outrage, the latest Rittenhouse.}

{Time to let the phantasmal Rittenhouse go. Think of the real 17-year-old, remember that he too is as much a product of a corrupt and corrupting system of power as you and me. We cannot defeat it without him. And time is not on our side.}