Like most I watched
the murder on TV of the young journalists of WDBJ7, Alison Parker and
Adam Ward, as they were gunned down by a former employee of the station
in the middle of filming a benign Chamber of Commerce interview. I was, like most everyone else, incredulous that one human being could commit such a heinous act to two innocents and ones who were at one time his co-workers. The
fact that Bryce Williams (the shooter) also seriously wounded a third
person who was the person being interviewed should not be lost.
We can strum and
drang all we like as we do after so many other bestial killings
testament to man’s inhumanity to man to which our nation has borne
witness or we can go deeper and try to figure out why our nation is
stuck on channel haywire or is it?
The science of theoretical physics entertains the notion of living in a parallel universe.
The dual natures within the universe of our nation has been evident to me for quite some time. I
grew up in the “Father Knows Best” and “Leave it to Beaver” nation,
gained maturity in “The Other America” and “The Autobiography of Malcom X
one. I further aged in “The
Arrogance of Power” and “Why We Are in Vietnam” one and even further
encountering Rachel Maddow’s book “Drift—The Unmooring of American
Military Power” an indictment of the inaction of the electorate and the
eventual thrust into permanent war fought technologically by just those
few who volunteer. Essentially the electorate has given war power over to few and the many who will never fight it acquiesce to its violence.
There are two national universes in my sight. One
kindly occupied by those who help elderly ladies across the street; the
kind and benevolent one whose tears flow easily at tragedy and whose
first impulse is to help. The one whose president John F. Kennedy said so eloquently “to whom much is given much is required.”
I come, though, to
the never ending violence in our land, violence in our films, violence
on our televisions, and violence in the plethora of war we see from the
comfort of our living rooms but most never have to fight. We
see the violence of a malevolent NRA which even in the face of the
murder of 26 CHILDREN fights hard for its almighty buck against even federal background checks as a prerequisite to owning a gun to stop at least some of the gun mayhem in our land of 310 million guns.
Finally, I see a Donald Trump whose mouth invites the forces of hate to align with him. He
insults continuously the most powerless among us and our news media
finds his spewing so much fun they cover him nearly 24/7 while the
violence in our land increases still. American
Nationalists of the most extreme right wing stripe including some hate
notables as former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke and others gladly give
him their support Trump says he does not want but I have no doubt he
will take their vote. It shows one just who loves Donald Trump and finds a home in the Republican Party.
Something violent is wrong in our nation but not everyone is at fault. Let
us harness what is kind, right and good in our nation, help those who
cannot help themselves and defeat the powerful forces of violence and
hate that has occupied so much of our history while we still have a
remnant of democracy left. We should do it before the hour is too late.
