Burning The Flag Of Hatred

Burning the Flag of Hatred  9/20/12

            Think about the violent Arab-world response blamed on that anti-Muslim hate film.  One source posits, credibly, that a strong religion shakes off insults of this kind.  So we wonder what is really behind the violence.  Wonder if people are not striking out in anger and frustration over other issues, like lack of dignity, lack of hope, and inability to hurt back for all the death and suffering readily available in their world.  This violent response seems like the angry over-reaction encountered when a school-yard bully’s victim has finally had enough.

            But it is more than that.  It is carefully incited by radicals who profit from hatred.  They try to foment violence; promise that it will assuage the problem.  It never does.  The inciters then argue that we need more violence, or that it’s our destiny.  The only sure result is perpetuation of the hatred-violence-hatred continuum.  It is neither warm, nor fuzzy, nor useful to human progress.

            Beware!  Inciters are everywhere, looking for scapegoats.  Whether it is a bully in a film studio in La La Land, or a bigoted back-woods pulpiteer, or an “AK” wielding third-world manipulator with angry mobs to feed, they all traffic in hate.

            Around here, we’ve had enough hate-speech.  We’ve sharpened our hate recognition skills, filtering what we hear.  We don’t need hate-speech from America and we don’t need it from the Middle East.  We don’t require warm, or fuzzy.  But we are fans of things that engender human progress.