„I, THE JOKER, DEFEATED BATMAN!“ Frei Betto, Brasiliens wichtigster Befreiungstheologe.

Klaus Hart — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 01:17:40 +0000

My name is James Holmes, but you can call me The Joker. I am 24 years old. I am the Dark Knight who rose from the gloom. When they least expected it, the audience watching Batman’s adventures saw a real scene of blood and hatred erupt in the dark. I, The Joker, do make a difference.

My grandfather died in the Vietnam war. He specialised in burying mines in the rice paddies where farmers worked. My uncle says that, thanks to my grandfather’s ability, more than 500 Vietnamese had their bodies dismembered by mines. There is a photograph in my father’s arsenal which shows body pieces of a Vietnamese flying through the air.

My grandfather was unlucky. As he squatted on a road digging a hole to bury a mine, he fell into a bamboo spike trap. It was a hole two metres deep. His body was rescued by our helicopters. My uncle counted 18 wounds. My grandfather was buried with military honours at his funeral in Denver.

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2012/07/18/mrseurope-and-her-daughters-brasiliens-wichtigster-befreiungstheologe-frei-betto/

http://www.hart-brasilientexte.de/2012/07/24/brasiliens-militars-und-das-ausspionieren-von-anderenbefreiungstheologe-frei-betto-in-einem-aufsehenerregenden-interview/

My father fought in Iraq against Saddam Hussein’s and Bin Laden’s terrorists. He was lucky to return alive. He brought home a real war arsenal which was the start of a shocking collection of weapons. All legal, like the other 242 million which circulate in the USA.

Since childhood I learned that a true Yankee is not afraid to kill. And he can shoot straight. When I was a child I enjoyed video games and war games. I won the championship for the decisive elimination of virtual dolls. I knocked down 42 in less than a minute.

My brother is in Afghanistan with our troops. I was very frustrated when I was not selected to go. I tried to negotiate with the Navy to go in his place. It would be fun to kill terrorists and their Taliban accomplices.

When I told my professor that I belonged to a family of warriors and that killing someone would certainly be more pleasurable than sex, he suggested I go for therapy. I did better: I started to study neuroscience in order to understand the human mind. Seeking answers to questions which even today interest me. Why some people feel guilty when they kill someone, while politicians, like President Truman who dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, die with a clear conscience?

My name is James, just like James Bond. I gave myself license to kill. I am accused of being timid, reserved, reclusive and even repulsive. The truth is that I wanted to feel, on that night of July 20, the same desire as Charles Whitman felt when in 1966 he shot 16 people at the University of Texas, as James Hubert who in 1984 killed 21 at a California snack bar, as Pat Sherrill who in 1986 exterminated 14 at a post office in Oklahoma, as James Pough who took the lives of nine General Motors employees in Florida in June 1990, as George Hennard who eliminated 23 people in a coffee shop in Texas in October 1991, as John Muhammad and Lee Malvo who with their rifles shot down 10 in October 2002 in Washington DC and as Cho Seung-Hui who in April 2007 exterminated 33 Virginia Tech. University students and professors.

I am not a murderer. A murderer is someone who kills one, or two at most. Butchering is half a dozen. Extermination is a dozen. Massacre is hundreds. War is thousands.

I am a present day exterminator. War is what I aspire. It is great, it makes heroes of killers, it moves industry. War is one more genuine Made in USA export product. Protected by the most solemn conventions.

I live in a free country where arms can be bought as easily as bread at the corner store. I had no difficulty obtaining two Glock calibre 40 revolvers, a Remington 870 rifle, a Smith & Wesson A15 rifle and even 16,000 bullets, all on the internet.

The 12 people I exterminated in the Aurora cinema were not enough to satiate my hunger for pleasure. However, I am sure of one thing: I challenged and defeated Batman that night.

*Frei Betto is a writer, author of “A obra do Artista – uma visão holística do Universo” (The Work of the Artist – a holistic vision of the Universe) (José Olympio). www.freibetto.org <http://www.freibetto.org/> twitter: @freibetto.

Klaus Hart Brasilientexte » Frei Betto – Batman

„I, THE JOKER, DEFEATED BATMAN!“ Frei Betto, Brasiliens wichtigster Befreiungstheologe.