POISONING OUR TREE OF LIFE
Hate doesn’t distinguish victims. A quick list of those it has targeted for violence in America over the last few years is evidence.
Jews, blacks, gays, police, rich, whites, Republicans, Muslims, immigrants, military personnel, Democrats and Christians are among those who have been singled out.
As hard as it is for some organizations to understand it, blaming the other side only generates more hate.
But that’s what we’ve seen in recent days as an unstable man mailed pipe bombs — none of which exploded, thankfully — to prominent Democrats, and another man killed 11 and injured others during a shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue.
Since the man who sent the bombs had a Trump sticker on his car, the violence must be the president’s fault. Since a man who opened fire last year on a baseball practice of Republican congressmen was a fan of Social Democrat Sen. Bernie Sanders, that act must be the Democrats’ fault.
Are calls for confrontations of Republicans by Democratic politicians the responsibility of those who call for them or of the person who happens to be president? Are assaults on Republican politicians in restaurants the responsibility of those who commit them or the president in office? Is a former Democratic attorney general’s suggestion that “when they go low, we kick them” his responsibility or that of the party in control of Congress? Does the fault for a near stabbing of a California Republican congressman by a man shouting anti-Republican remarks the attacker’s fault or the party the attacker dislikes? Are other violent incidents committed against Republicans this fall, from assaults to vandalism to arson, the fault of the individuals and party which suffered them or those who committed them?
In general, are random acts of violence that occur while Trump is president his fault? Were the many mass shootings that occurred under the eight years of President Barack Obama his fault?
Could both presidents — neither of which were reserved in their inflammatory expressions — have been less strident? You bet, but automatically blaming the other side is self-serving and nonsensical.
A call to national unity after the events of the past week is in order, but such a call today is as cliche as other tragedy ridden slogans repeated in recent years such as “tone down the rhetoric,” “thoughts and prayers,” “restore civility” and “common-sense gun regulations.”
If someone calls for unity, after all, they must concomitantly blame someone for why the unity must be called for. If we don’t have unity, it must be because of this person or that political party or this group.
In truth, it’s just more feeding the beast. Now, if the perpetrator of an act of violence can be connected in some way to a politician, be it by vague social media post, bumper sticker or 30-year-old term paper, the politician in question must somehow take responsibility for it or refute it as if the politician advocated it, suggested it or helped it occur.
This is unhelpful to national mourning and an anathema to national consensus.
Unfortunately lost in the rhetoric and the blame game is the fact that on Saturday 11 people lost their lives doing something so precious, so protected and so inherent in this country as expressing their faith in the manner they chose to express it.
The two people implicated in the recent incidents have been variously described as “loner,” “confused,” ”lunatic,” “a little off,” “out of whack,” and “anti-Semitic.”
One, Cesar Sayoc, accused in the mail bombing scheme, had an extensive criminal record and lived in his van. The other, Robert Bowers, accused in the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue, had no evident criminal record and, to a neighbor, was remarkable “how normal he seemed.” The guns the latter man used all were licensed, and he was authorized to carry them in public.
For those who look to the mental health aspect of those who perpetrate mass shootings or other mass crimes, should one or the other, both or neither of these two have been considered unstable, been in a mental facility or had their weapons confiscated?
It’s not an absolute science, this fixing of blame. It never will be. That’s why it has no place in a nation already so riven in hyper-partisanship.
If it’s possible to view the name of the Pittsburgh synagogue as a metaphor, let us agree we all have contributed to poisoning with hate — even in small, innocuous ways — the water that feeds the American tree of life. That has led to several diseased branches, the type who kill and maim and perpetrate violence. Fortunately, our tree is strong and can withstand poison, diseased branches and this current winter of our discontent.
It is our hope, though, even without a current antidote in the offing but one we must collectively work toward, that our American tree can continue to ward off the slow-acting poison and can come back stronger in yet another spring and that its branches and its leaves and its sturdy trunk can show the resiliency that has always marked our history.