Cornell student arrested in connection with antisemitic threats on New York campus (NPR);
Muslim boy killed and woman wounde...otivated by Israel-Hamas war, police say (AP);
Nazis protest a Wisconsin Pride event, shouting homophobic slurs (NBC);
Marjorie Taylor Greene puts heat on Republicans to vote for Rashida Tlaib censure (Fox);
Trump attacks judge for ordering Ivanka to testify in his fraud trial (Axios - and any of a number of news outlets and news stories, RE: Trump attacks...)
Hate is everywhere. Not dislike, not just prejudice, but downright unadulterated
hate. The kind that leads to violence and death. The kind that kills compromise. The kind that views any criticism as an attack, and justifies any level of "defense" - especially aggression. The kind that sees everything as "black and white", where the other is "black" and they are "white". In such an environment, there's not room for compromise.
The problem is, this is not just in the back streets and alleys, not in the downtrodden neighborhoods, but in our halls of power, in the corporate world, in the economy in general. And the targets of that hate are everywhere, too: Israel/Israelis, Palestinians, Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Native Americans, Immigrants, LGBTQ+++++, non-Christians of all kinds, women, political opponents. The new Speaker of the House embodies many of those prejudices and has not been shy or measured in voicing them. The same House that refuses to censure the hate-mongers Marjory Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar?
How can one navigate an environment where one cannot voice even mild criticism without the threat of an attack, of being "doxxed" and made a target of random violence, like Paul Pelosi? Or a judge's clerk? Or an election worker? Or a fellow Member of Congress?
Does America Need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission? (Politico). It doesn't help that we're each ensconced in separate "information silos" both the courts and news media are the subject of constant demeaning and criticism; and "facts" are relative and subordinate to "desires" - the "wished-for", rather than "reasonably reached", outcomes.
Wherever such a pattern of hatemongering appears, grotesque outcomes obtain - senseless violence, mayhem, and tyranny. It needs to be fought wherever it appears.
