Violence

The Washington Post asks in their headline today, "Trump has Lit a Fire.  Can it be Contained?"  Although I have no reason, per se, to believe what I am about to say except a gut-wrenching concern, that our "original sin" of slavery and race hatred will be the fall of America.  Trump, with very thinly coded language, is baiting our race hatred.  The news organizations have done enough in reporting this, with the possible exception of Fox News, so I won't belabor it here.  The Post reports that "GOP political consultant Stuart Stevens, who was a top strategist for 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, said Trump’s rhetoric is 'almost verbatim' what segregationist George Wallace was saying in his third-party 1968 presidential campaign."  I am old enough to remember George Wallace, his axe handle, and the odd sense of bewildered shame that I felt toward during the civil rights movement.   One can write off King's non-violence as exceptional gamesmanship for the TV cameras, and it was of course, but I couldn't help but feel shame at watching  AMERICAN police with dogs and weapons beat helpless black protestors.  Gamesmanship, perhaps, but it was nevertheless non-violence with intellectual roots in Thoreau, from Ghandi, and from the example of the christ who said "turn the other cheek."  I also remember Huey Newton and the black panthers, and the odd sense of dread that I felt during their emergence and their acceptance of violence as a means of political change.

The post may be over-stating the case, and if it hasn't quite erupted to the same level, I nevertheless would want to say, "not-yet, keep going."  In our small store, I was asked once how I felt about black people.  I was a bit puzzled.  Black people are a distinct, and I mean distinct, minority in Mountain Home, and most, if not all, are associated with the military base.  I tried very hard not to alienate a potential customer, so I did what Lora calls the Dr. Picard thing, I responded with a Socratic question, "as a whole or individually?"  He had to think about it for a moment, but he then responded, "as a whole."  My response was, "well, they're people.  I'm not sure I can say anything about them 'as a whole' any more than I can say anything 'as a whole' about white people, or brown people."  The subject took a slight divergence at that point.  He showed me, with evident pride, a 'monkey's fist' that he had fabricated himself.  A monkey's fist is essentially a medieval weapon, a mace, that is constructed of a striking ball with a flexible handle.  He had made one for himself, and his wife, for "the coming days."  I admired it with the enthusiasm I could muster,  and I didn't press the matter on "the coming days."  Clearly enough, it was an apocalyptic vision, fueled in part by video games and the walking dead.   But he wasn't kidding.  It wasn't a video game fantasy.  He was "prepared" and continuing to prepare.  "The coming days" were going to involve bloodshed, and it was, clearly enough, something he looked forward to engaging.

I don't know his church, but "the coming days" is the sort of language that comes, not from silicon valley or hollywood, but from a pastor steeped in biblical locution.   I mentioned the Assembly of Yahweh in my last post, a core figure of which is helping fund Ted Cruz's run, and they "affirm," for example, that

"our Savior, Yahshua the Messiah, will establish the Kingdom of Yahweh, the Kingdom of the Heavens, on this earth, Psalm 115:16, Proverbs 11:31; Matthew 5:5; Revelation 5:10.  This Millennial Kingdom will prevail for 1,000 years and will be set up by Yahshua the Messiah at His Second Coming.  At that time, righteousness will be established as the order of the day, and this earth will be rebuilt into an Edenic paradise which man lost originally through sin, Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 6:10.  After the Millennium, a new heaven and earth will be brought forth, Isaiah 66)22, Revelation 21:1."

I'm not sure why an omnipotent creator god would need to go through all these machinations, but it represents a mindset, one that I'm sure is sincere among those who can preserve the proper level of ignorance to believe it.   I say this, "proper level of ignorance" because the "explanations" of the machinations (e.g. that we are being "tested") always involve an anthropomorphic centrism that simply isn't merited when we know that "the Kingdom of the Heavens," the night sky, is filled with the stars of our own rather insignificant milky way galaxy, itself just one among the billions of galaxies "out there."   Why would a god who created our universe, bother with the likes of us?   This vision of "the coming days" belongs to an earlier, earth centric version of the universe, but still it represents a mindset.  The fellow who came into my store was preparing himself for the battle needed to "establish the Kingdom of Yahweh," or something like it, and it was clear that it would be populated, not with righteous people, per se, but with righteous white people.   In his mind, if not the official doctrine of his church, the apocalypse would be largely a race war of the righteous whites against all the "others" who worship strange gods, to include of course gays, communists, socialists, abortionists, and all the other bugaboos of the right.

Perhaps I'm being unfair, extrapolating a bit far, but the wrenching dread I feel watching the GOP, the party of Lincoln, twist in their own poorly concealed race baiting and xenophobias, their own complete disregard of environmental concerns, doesn't allow me to dismiss the sort of implicit claims that such apocalyptic thinking entails.  Never mind that the environmental policies espoused by the GOD would enrich the rich, they are unnecessary regardless because "the coming days," the Kingdom of the Heavens, is just around the corner.  All will be well then, and if they are doing anything, they are simply hastening the day of judgment.  I had thought, hoped, that the election of Obama, which I saw as a proud day for America, gave some hope  of moving past racial politics, but if anything, his election intensified the divide, gave the pendulum a push in the direction of the donald, David Duke, and the like.   The coming apocalypse, at least for America, will not come from the outside, per se, but will come from the ignited spark of an internal terrorist attack against the secular, welfare state.

Again, perhaps I am being unfair, but Trump, and those like him, and those who like him -- those who applauded the old red-neck who punched the protestor and then suggested that next time the protester may need to be killed -- are fanning the flames of the next Timothy McVeigh, whose destruction of a federal government facility seems dreadfully prescient.   We fear the terrorist without, but not the terrorist within.   It is hard NOT to see the old punch throwing, gun toting, red-neck morphing into our own version of the Sturmabteilung.  It is hard NOT to see Corey Lewandowski emerging as the next Emil Maurice.   It is hard NOT to feel a sense of historical deja vu.   If extreme anger leads to violence, and who can suggest that it doesn't? It is hard NOT to feel a justification and encouragement of violence while Lewandowski fans the flames of anger, xenophobia, blame, a shift from ideological and policy debates to a (self-proclaimed) messianic leader who will, through the force of his personality alone, restore a nationalistic pride: "The American people are angry.  They’re upset at the way this country has been run. They’re upset that this country is being taken advantage of by every other country in the world. And they’re tired of not being proud to be Americans.”  It is hard NOT to wonder who will be the first to populate the American concentration camps.  Oh wait.  I already know the answer to that question.