Punching the flashing red button with a nicotine-stained forefinger, local news radio talk show host JayJay Bone prepared for another grueling verbal battle.

Let’s go to line one, he said. Darryl, you’re on the air.

It’s true, said the caller.

What’s true?

The government is using fireworks as a form of psychological warfare, with the light and noise meant to desensitize people to potentially escalating levels of force, Darryl said.

Sounds like you’re reading scripted lines, JayJay Bone said.

I am.

Off what?

Twitter.

You sound like a birdbrain, JayJay Bone said.

My neighbors and I believe that this is part of a coordinated attack on Black and Brown communities by government forces; an attack meant to disorient and destabilize the Black Lives Matter movement.

Is that Joe Biden’s Twitter account?

Sleep deprivation is a means to create confusion and stoke tensions between Black and Brown peoples.

What color are you?

Black.

Figures, JayJay Bone said.

Mockery didn’t stop Darryl.

Desensitization is used as a means to get us so used to the sounds of firecrackers and other fireworks that when they start using their real artillery on us we won’t know the difference. It’s meant to sound like a war zone because a war zone is what it’s about to become.

JayJay Bone scoffed.

So racist leaders are behind the increased use of fireworks across America?

We think this is psychological warfare, the first wave before whatever the next stage of the attack is.

The government and the cops are ramping up to control you?

They already control us. The government told residents to call 311 or 911 in New York when the fireworks happen, but when you call 311 or 911, no one shows up. And why would they, if they’re the ones behind it?

You sound like a black walnut, mister, as in nut.

This could also be the police attempting to retaliate against our calls to defund and or abolish the police by creating the circumstances for a continuous public nuisance and then purposely failing to respond to it.

Are you smoking crack?

How many different ways do I have to say that this is NOT like previous holiday celebrations; that this is planned, coordinated, ongoing effort that began WAY before any such related holiday. This ain’t just some July 4th shit. This is something else.

You are something else, JayJay Bone said.

When my friend William was in the Army, he was in a special operations unit called Psychological Operations (PsyOp). This was ABSOLUTELY one of the tactics they used for destabilizing the populace. This has been a tactic used by Spec Ops and the CIA in just about every conflict the US has been involved in since Vietnam. And it’s extremely effective.”

JayJay Bone chanted.

USAUSAUSA.

And when they explode in the sky they look like the coronavirus, the caller said.

They look like freedom.

Another comment, in line with the military operations theory, says that the next stage is a rolling blackout and water rationing, Darryl said.

Jay Jay Bone’s patience was wearing thin.

So how do you explain the fact that fireworks proliferation is also happening in non-black and brown communities?

The masters are trying to deceive us with their real motive. They did similar tactics at Standing Rocks to Lakota and Dakota Oyate Indians and protestors by accounts I read on social media. Used noise to deprive sleep. And they were spraying a mysterious substance at night by piloting drones over the camps and emitting this weird stuff over them. They believe that whatever they sprayed was to get folks sick. They did it at night when people were sleeping

OK, that’s it, JayJay Bone said. Get off my phone, you freak. Your country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of Hillary. Let’s go to line three. Go ahead caller, you’re on the air.

Trump! Trump! Trump!

In response, JayJay Bone shrieked in his tiny high-pitched voice. Quoting the president at Mt. Rushmore he orated with the all the zeal of Hitler at a Nuremberg Rally.

They want to silence us. But we will not be silenced. We will not be intimidated by bad, evil people. It will not happen! We will never surrender the spirit and the courage and the cause of July 4, 1776.

Lighting a filtered Parliament, undoing his polyester retro necktie and blowing smoke into the microphone, he screeched.

Have a happy Make-America-Great-Again day.