A Beast in Our Midst
Beast
I always believed the US was different from the rest of the world, that our physical isolation would protect our domestic life. But, after two years, random shootings and bombings are a chronic condition of our lives in churches, streets, shopping and community centers. White extremists in the US are now part of violent global extremism, thanks to the internet.
Our “outlier” domestic violence is morphing into international terrorism and we are ill equipped to address it. Our First Amendment protects hate speech, no matter who says it, how disturbing it is, and how it is distributed. We don’t even have laws on domestic terrorism. We never thought it existed (at least not since the Civil War).
Young, white, angry and disenfranchised men armed with military assault rifles spray crowds, killing and wounding with such increasing regularity that we’ve normalized it. We’ve a president who, at his rallies, spews full-throated hateful rhetoric at his loyalists, inciting them to action through innuendo and jokes. Then, in robotic monotone, in a national address yesterday, he says that there were good people on both sides. His boot licking army of Republican Congressional Representatives and Senators are mute, watching the destruction of their party, fearing their own demise at the polls. I’m waiting for Nazi salutes and loyalty oaths to Herr Trump.
From an organizational perspective, it’s a classic case of building a team by creating an “enemy” against whom everyone on the team can focus. This kind of team becomes a beast because its goal is the destruction of others, its enemies, in order to survive itself. The beast creates an upside-down world (aka Stranger Things). It can’t solve problems so it attacks the others to reinforce its own beliefs and grow stronger.
We need to exorcise this evil through many actions -- a ban on assault rifles, internet hate speech regulation, laws to strike at domestic terrorism, education and skill training and transition support for those who have been isolated from America’s economic success, and early mental health detection and support programs. We need to rebalance our political urban and rural divides and institutions. But these corrections take time. They take discussion, creativity and experimentation to implement. We need people who are willing to put aside their own self-interest.
A critical first step is to change the environment -- the air that breeds hate that feeds the beast. If we cut off the fomenting rhetoric commanding the beast, then beast will be headless and will lose its life force. The beast will become disorganized, it's members disconnected and free floating, easy to trap and expel. The beast will be powerless. Its threat controlled.
Vote to remove the beast!