Tuesday, August 07, 2018                                       2:11 AM

Symptoms of Hate   (2018Aug07)

It’s so weird that hatred is having a ‘comeback’ around the world—and in the United States, which has historically moved forward on this front—slowly enough, surely—but never before backward. I hope this ‘blue wave’ thing materializes—not because I’m a Democrat, but because it will show that most of us are not on board with this new ‘fad’.

I think the gleeful braggadocio of their chanting and rallying for Trump shows that they are as shocked as we were—when ignorance and attitude won out over substance. These neighbors of ours knew that their day had past—that no one in America was going to play the racism game in public anymore, because the fight was over. Obama’s two terms proved that.

They couldn’t believe their luck—no one ever expected the White Nationalists, the Republicans, and Russia to pull a popular criminal out of their collective ass and make him POTUS. He announced his candidacy with hate speech—if you remember (I think the news showed it a few times). And then he won the Electoral College—suddenly, someone as supposedly disgraceful in his ideas as they were—had gotten the biggest validation a person can get. And ‘Leader of the Free World’, no less.

So of course the hate clubs are not only revived—they see a lot of press attention—and there’s no such thing as bad press, when you have a bad president. (If it’s bad, it’s fake.) Now young people are reportedly being indoctrinated into hate online—hate in many flavors, fear in countless conspiracy theories—it’s an explosion of self-loathing.

Everyone knows that bullies are acting out because they are themselves being mistreated at home or elsewhere—that’s what makes all bullies cowards. It has also been pointed out that many of the most hysterically anti-gay Republicans, Conservatives, and Evangelists are often found, in time, to be confused gay people—taught to hate what they are—and driven slightly loony thereby.

Well, Hate is no different. It’s as obvious as if they had it written on their faces. People who insist on division and prejudice (of any kind) can only be so extremely exercised over this viewpoint—because they are full of self-loathing and need to insure that at-least-someone is beneath them. They have so many people in their lives that make them feel inadequate (or at least it seems so to them) they suspect that they may be just the least-worthwhile person, ever.

And, while it is nice and convenient to hate the Haters—just as it is to hate criminals—there is more to it than the end-result: a racist, an anti-Semite, a misogynist, an elitist, a criminal—or some horrific combo of all the above. If someone taught these people to hate from a very young age, then they also taught them that people can be hated without being met—they taught them that everybody is supposed to judge everybody else. You can’t teach children to ‘hate a group’ or ‘disrespect women’—and expect their minds to stop there. And those other, unintended lessons will mess with a kid’s head, I’d be willing to bet.

In closing, I would point out: People who are taught to love their neighbor without condition or exclusion—virtually never switch to a life of hate and bigotry. Conversely, many people who are raised in a culture of prejudice have grown to reject that tradition and embrace love. Trump or no Trump, racism has had its heyday—and will continue to fade away, occasional road-bumps notwithstanding.

Not for nothing: ‘Zero Tolerance’ is just a ‘spin’-onym for Intolerance.

Improv – Story Told (2018Jul25)

Improv – Virgin Press (2018Jul31)

Improv – Story Story Night (2018Aug03)

ttfn.