My heart is so filled with sadness. There is violence all around us. There are justifications flying about. People are dying and, in the end, they're dead. They're gone. Dead is dead.
A Muslim's child wants to play, just like a Christian's child wants to play. Just like a lion's cub wants to play. They have no say in the circumstances of their deaths. When they're dead, they're dead. Those of us who remain living, however, will justify or demonize the fact of death.
This is a rant; follow me if you wish.
As I said above, my heart is filled with sadness.
Hate has become a principal means of association and violence a first resort to combat perceived enemies.
My sadness comes with an acknowledgement that my country has been the instigator. For years and years and years, republicans have sung the rallying cry of hate and divisiveness. That hate begets violence is of no concern to them. They won't suffer the consequences.
They said to hate abortion, and clinic bombings and assasinations ensued. They said to hate gays, and violence ensued. They challenged the fact of our racist heritage and that poor man in Texas was dragged to his intolerably gruesome death.
They waged war on Iraq. Now the Middle East has erupted in violence. Not violence, war. And children are dying. Children who have no concept of hate or prejudice. Children who don't know that, after their deaths, their pictures may be used to symbolize this or that worthwhile endeavor.
Yes, I'm having a Rodney King moment. How can I not? Here I am, a nobody, grieving about the state of things around me, yet still tending to the daily tasks of life that are, remarkably, removed from the world's bigger events.
And what I can't get past is this: Dead is dead. Whether it's a dead Isreali or a dead Iraqi or a dead American.
The dead part just seems so trivial now, but at the same time so important in the justification.
The violence, the war, the hate, it's all got to stop. (And so does this rant because I honestly don't know where to go from here.)