Teabaggers, Hutalee, Guns And Hate Speech

By James Donahue

What has happened to the America we all once knew and loved? Where is that feeling of security we all shared knowing that we lived in the United States, the very best place in the world to have been born? Where is the pride we once felt for the flag and all that it stood for?

It appears that we were all living in a bubble for a very long time. The moment we broke the unwritten rules and elected a black president everything changed. The racists emerged, the Republican legislators who belonged to the losing and minority party vowed to bring down the country rather than let President Barack Obama succeed in anything, and popular right wing talking radio and television hosts began uttering hate messages unlike anything Americans have heard since the days of the Civil Rights movement.

Mr. Obama and the Democratic legislators struggled against this barrage for more than a year after he took office to draft and miraculously pass a health care bill. What they got in the end was far from perfect, mostly because of constant interference and a futile attempt by Mr. Obama to draw reluctant Republicans into the business of writing and designing the bill. He might as well have ignored them and accomplished the job more quickly and probably gotten a more effective bill without input from the GOP. What we now have will take years of amendments and fixes.

What is significant is that this American president has accomplished what no president has been successful in doing since the concept of health reform was first proposed by Theodore Roosevelt over a century ago. And that seems to have infuriated not only the Republicans but a lot of other people in our nation as well.

Who would have thought that a nation of people struggling against the crisis of rising medical costs, rising health insurance costs, and the inability to pay for regular doctor visits would get so riled up against federal legislation designed to ease this burden?

Who would have dreamed that social movements like the Teabaggers and the rising number of local militia groups would be the result of a benevolent act by this president and his administration? Americans were recently shocked at the arrest of nine members of the Hutalee Christian militia group in Michigan for allegedly plotting to attack our government. What is going on here?

It appears that the verbal hate mongers like Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity plus a raft of lip-flapping Republican smear-mongers has had a lot to do with stirring the emotions of the illiterate, poor and now downtrodden masses. They are communicating with a lot of people in America who are out of work, suffering from their poverty, and are mad. But they do not know just who to blame.

We suspect this also boils down to a racial unrest that has continued to simmer just under the surface ever since the late President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill into law, thus giving black Americans equality with everyone else. That we ever had to pass such legislation was deplorable, but it had to be done. Now with the influx of Mexican migrants, Moslems and Far Eastern people into our culture, will similar legislation be necessary to award them equality as well?

We find it hard to understand the unwillingness of Caucasian races to cohabitate and share equal footing with people of all other races and creeds in the world. No one is either superior or inferior to anyone else. There is a belief among the occultists that we are all one . . . that we all share the flame of the same god within. If this is true, why do we waste so much energy hating one another?

The simple solution to this incredible debacle is something promoted in every church, tabernacle, temple and religious gathering in the world. It is the four letter word: LOVE.

Jesus taught it. Mohammad taught it. The Buddha taught it. Krishna taught it. Each of these great teachers tried in vain to change the downward plunge of humanity into a world of hatred and despair. Nobody listened. The prophets were murdered. All of them later were falsely worshipped as gods. But their messages, while still spoken of, have seemingly been ignored.

We all know or at least have met people who radiate with love for their fellow humans. There is something about these people that draws us to them. We feel comfortable in their presence. We enjoy their company. Our concern is that too few of these kinds of people exist in our society.

When you see militias forming and collecting guns and ammunition in our neighborhoods, and hear media commentators promoting hate and revenge, we see the extreme opposite of love. When people are so filled with hatred they can strap bombs on their bodies and blow themselves up in crowded places, killing everyone around them, we know something evil has happened to the human mindset.

Are these people incapable of loving? Have we polarized between those who truly love and those who are incapable of loving? Indeed, something significant appears to be happening in this world. There is a dividing going on between those with open hearts and light, and those impaled with hatred and darkness.

The time of divine judgment may be closer than most people think.