Editorial,
The Week in Review – Analysis, Commentary, Opinion
05.12.2018
Yoda had this to say to Anikan
Skywalker; “Fear leads to anger, anger leads
to hate, and hate leads to the darkside…much fear in you I sense.”
There is a great deal of
fear in America, and there is very little reason for any of it.
Fear is a normal and
natural emotion. We are instinctively wary of other apex predators; lions and tigers
and bears, other people. If we have experienced trauma; physical, emotional
abuse, then we may have even deeper reservoirs of fear.
That too would be normal.
Fear may also be exacerbated
unnaturally, pushed beyond norms by manipulative people and agencies who seek
to divide us from one another.
In America, white,
evangelical protestant Christians, the largest group of Christians in the
country, a country that is overwhelmingly Christian, they have been convinced
that their way of life is under attack.
They are afraid.
In America, tens of
millions of private citizens own hundreds of millions of guns. They have been
convinced that their right to gun ownership is under threat.
They are afraid.
In America, people of European
descent, the pink and white-skinned-ones, the majority of all people living
here, they are afraid of everyone who does not look like them, they are afraid
because they cannot see themselves in those “others.” They are afraid of the
difference, just because it is different.
The pink and
white-skinned Americans are angry, angry that their majority is quietly
shrinking. They feel that their way of life is threatened. They shoot and kill
people who are different from them. They call the police to intervene on their
behalf, against those darker-skinned Americans and immigrants, and the police
shoot and kill, and incarcerate them, because they are afraid.
America is the most
powerful country in the world, the most powerful country the world has ever
known. We are a colossus, a juggernaut of wealth and power.
The wealthy are afraid of
losing even a little bit of their privilege, and they squeeze they labor force
for every dime they are able too, deny benefits to their workers; lie, cheat,
and steal from at every opportunity.
The wealthy and the powerful,
not only will they deny the work of our best and brightest scientists who issue
warnings that might affect their bottom line, now they refuse to let the work
of scientists continue, because they do not even want to have to bother with a
denial.
The force that seek to
divide Americans from one another are great, they spin stories that are not
rooted in reality.
We are duty bound to
confront them, to bear witness, to speak, but not with anger, or hatred or
violence. We cannot afford to return that coin, measure for measure.
I watched a story today
about a group of people who had they police called on them by a fearful
neighbor. She called the police because they were exiting a home that was not
their own, but which they had rented through Air B n’ B. She called the police
because they were different from her, she told the police they were burglars,
and the police aggressively intervened.
The group of innocent
people said that they were lucky they were not killed, and the sad truth is
that they were right.
