On the Difference between Protest and Hatred

That's the first step---you demonize people and pretty soon they're not people anymore, they're meant to be despised. It's exactly what happened in Nazi Germany.                Peter Mathiessen

The Romans had to work up hatred to kill Jesus

Blood. Blood spilled by crazed individuals, then by obsessed people in power. Wars always start this way. Whether it's the Nazis against the Jews or the Bosnian against the Muslims or the Hutus against the Tootsies it always starts with a campaign of hatred and fear. It goes like this: first demonize the human beings and urge others to treat them as less than a human beings, then call them names and bully them. The next step follows: it's OK to kill them because you feel no respect or any empathy for them, they are less than animals and certainly not "our" kind. This insane rationalization is how people justify their inhumanity to their fellow man.

Yesterday three extremists took the lives of twelve people in an office of a satirical magazine in France. Earlier in January an Australian Muslim man held an entire cafe hostage for hours, killing two. In our country a misguided and suicidal man recently killed two patrol officers in Brooklyn. The commonality here is that these people are operating on the delusion that their hatred is justified and their suicidal behavior is righteous and holy. In the case of the religious fundamentalist they believe their hatred and the right to murder are sanctioned by God. Weird. 

What happened to the God of love, to the "do unto others as you would have done unto you", to the "love thy neighbor as thyself"? All religions [or I guess I will have to qualify that with 'most', I only a have a minor in theology] have as one of their tenants the power of love. There is a disturbing trend to pervert that tenant into the "ours is the only way" philosophy, which is prejudicial, intolerant and certainly not loving.  This is certainly true of some of the more Orthodox of the Catholics, Jews and Muslims of the world just to name a few. 

The history of the world, like the history of its hills, is written in blood, the blood of barbaric warriors and bold partisans, of old women and beardless boys, of the guilty and the innocent.   Thomas Cahill

In the secular world humans have suffered at the hands of those who believe that "might makes right". Sadly, this goes back to the dawn of human interaction, from before the barbarians. Isn't the latest of the human suicides/murders a form of devolution? These poor deluded young men all believe that they are saintly for their murders. At best this is a form of mental illness, at worst these men are mere pawns at the hands of tyrants who only are looking out to justify their meglomania. This is a good definition of evil in my book.

The people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. How can I?                                            Bob Marley 

In a couple of my posts: http://susansmagicfeather.blogspot.com/2014/12/theyve-got-poochy-and-theyre-gonna-hurt.html and http://susansmagicfeather.blogspot.com/2014/10/please-no-more-dick-cheneys.html
I challenged the notion that torture and screaming at immigrant children is not Christian or loving. One of my readers took great exception to that statement and said I was propagating lies. 

In response to another post a woman I know sent around a message by the Tea Party suggesting we drug test all people on welfare. Honestly, I thought, let's start with the poorest of the poor. And then what? Surely these suggestors would want to help them and then deign to give them a job or send them to treatment? I doubt that. I propose that we start at the top! How about we start by testing people on the upper end of the feeding troth--- those on corporate welfare? Test those corporate farmers driving around in fancy cars collecting money not to grow crops. The bankers taking egregious salaries after being bailed out by the Federal government.Then why stop there? How about testing all of the people on Wall Street? Sounds like a fine idea to me. You probably have your own favorite idea about the people on corporate welfare. Insert here______________________, should be drug tested.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate is not driven out by hate, only love can do that.      Martin Luther King

 I am going to state unequivocally that hatred is not protest it is violence. Violent protests always backfire. Effective protests are strong, emphatic, clear, insistent but never violent. Violence is back to the might makes right and has no effectiveness in protest. Hatred costs humanity everything and only adds to devolution, not enhancing mankind.

If you smell a rat, call it out and protest, that is why 'Je suis Charlie'. If  you hear a racial slur, protest the hatred. The only way we are going to make this world a better place is with firmness against oppressors and protecting the innocent. Another way of saying that is love in the bravest truest sense of the world. Don't bow to hatred, stand up to it and spread love.

susansmagicfeather copyright 2015 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved