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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