Reaping the Whirlwind

By John Cory, Reader Supported News

09 January 11

"For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind ..."
- The Book of Hosea

iolence erupted Saturday resulting in the death of a 9-year-old child, a federal judge and at least four more of our fellow citizens. 20 human beings shot - 6 human beings killed.

These are the wages of hate and paranoia produced by the factory of fear that is modern America.

Keith Olbermann gave a Special Comment on the evening MSNBC broadcast. And a short while later I found this Howard Kurtz piece: "Don't Blame Sarah Palin" at the Daily Beast.

Where Olbermann spoke to the impact of violent rhetoric, Howard Kurtz chose to whitewash the use of unfortunate rhetoric spewed by Palin and O'Reilly and Beck and Limbaugh. According to Kurtz, liberals were not respectful of Saturday's dead and wounded because they rushed to assign blame. "I find it all depressing beyond belief," he wrote.

Of course what Kurtz does not find "depressing beyond belief" is his admission: "Let's be honest: Journalists often use military terminology in describing campaigns. We talk about the air war, the bombshells, targeting politicians, knocking them off, candidates returning fire or being out of ammunition."

And there you have it. Sticks and bombs may break our bones but the words of war are meant to entertain. Don't take it all so seriously.

Howard Kurtz wants us to believe that rhetoric and words are simple metaphors without meaning or import. It's not words that inspire killing, "... it's about a lone nutjob who doesn't value human life."

Mr. Kurtz is wrong.

The killer is not "a lone nutjob." He is one of us, clothed and fed on perpetual war and the dialog of destruction.

We have become a nation of, by and for perpetual war. Perpetual war is our addiction and our language, and as Kurtz so chillingly admits - war is the metaphor of politics and business and daily discourse.

But I tell you that a nation of perpetual war and constant fear eventually succumbs to self-hatred and self-loathing. It becomes consumed by the value of extremism in the maintenance of empty empire through the deceit of language. A nation of perpetual war numbs itself to violence by constant repetition of the rhetoric of death and mayhem and the slogans of militarism. A nation of perpetual war does not value human life - but rather the hollow rhetoric about human life.

Mr. Kurtz and others would have us avert our eyes and avoid looking into the mirror and facing the reflection of our words and deeds.

I can only imagine what Mr. Kurtz and others would have written had the shooter been named Mohammed Abdullah.

Christina Taylor Green was 9 years old. She was born on a day of death and madness, September 11, 2001, and she died on a day of death and madness. She is, in the flippant jargon of perpetual war - collateral damage.

Words have power.

Yesterday, 20 human beings were shot and 6 human beings were killed.

May God, forgive us all.

-PEACE-

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