A Beautiful Hatred

[Guest guest]

" DrMagginkatPLB " <magginkat

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 13:11:35 -0500

[GranniesAgainstGeorge] A Beautiful Hatred

 

 

 

 

 

A Beautiful Hatred

by Alan Bisbort

 

 

" That woman really knows how to hate. "

-Richard Nixon, about Barbara Bush

 

" Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day

it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I

mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on

something like that? "

-Barbara Bush

 

September 11, 2005 -- HARTFORD (apj.us) -- A former coworker of mine at

one of the many papers for which I've freelanced over the years recently

got in touch with me after a long lull. She'd seen one of my articles on

the Internet and tracked it back to the Hartford Advocate

(http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/Cover/index.html), through which she

was able to contact me. We caught up with each other's lives, and she

admitted that her politics had been radicalized in the intervening years

due entirely to George W. Bush and everything for which he stands -- or

doesn't stand, as the case may more accurately be. This opened the usual

can of worms that allowed us to mutually vent about ignorant and

brainwashed coworkers, neighbors, family members, in-laws, bosses, etc.,

etc.

 

I suggested to her that my disgust with the whole charade had blossomed

-- or devolved, as some might have it -- into a sincere and all-powerful

hatred for the Republican Party. Though I had at first felt bad, and a

little sad, about this hatred, I now felt sincere and justified. I told

her I hated George W. Bush more than I've ever hated anyone in American

politics and, really, at least in my lifetime, anyone in any foreign

government as well.

 

Sadly, this had also, by association, transformed what used to be simple

frustration with Republicans into hatred for them collectively.

Individually, I suppose, I could still tolerate them -- if I had to --

but collectively I hated their blind attachment to a corrupt political

party and their willingness to be bamboozled by its chronic and blatant

lies. The Republican Party, in my eyes, has become indelibly linked to

racism, bloodshed, greed, corruption, hypocrisy, and general all-around

shittiness. Its moral compass has a screw loose. In the last four years,

it has also destroyed my nation's good name around the world, which I

believe is its most unforgivable offense. I no longer saw any reason to

hide my disgust with, and from, any Republican I might come across.

 

I also reminded her -- as I must remind all those Republicans out there

in Bubbleland -- that I love my country; it's the present government I

hate.

 

Yes, I agreed that this stood in opposition to everything I'd been

taught about loving one's neighbor by my mother, a loving, loyal and

long-suffering wife of a Republican (my father, the colonel). My friend,

however, wondered out loud if it might not be this hatred, which she

claims to share, that is holding us back from making gains against the

Republican stranglehold on power. I guess it was her way of saying that

we should tamp down our emotions and focus on issues if we are to

attract more people to our way of thinking.

 

But that's just the point. I don't care if I attract any more people to

our way of thinking. If they aren't there already, I don't want to know,

or face, what it would take to get them there. Further, I don't want to

associate with people who've willingly supported what the Republican

Party has done. Besides, to follow the Bush wagon, you don't have to

think. You have fallen off the thinking wagon. Thinking is fatal to a

Republican. To think, to see, to empathize, to feel would send the whole

house of cards crumbling.

 

I gave what my erstwhile friend said some serious reflection because I

felt there was a grain of truth in it. But then, after reflecting, I

rejected her suggestion. I decided I wanted to hold on to this hatred

because I believe it is well-earned and fully-warranted. Like Barbara

Bush's mind, it is a beautiful sort of hatred. It is aimed at those

who've nearly destroyed my country, who laugh at innocent victims of our

misguided military machine, who self-righteously blame poor and black

victims of Hurricane Katrina for their own fate rather than put the

blame where it belongs, who joke about their drinking days, strum

guitars and eat cake while tens of thousands of dead bodies rot in

putrid puddles throughout New Orleans.

 

Unlike past hatreds, this one doesn't make me feel sick in my gut, has

not poisoned my soul. That's because I believe it is a worthy hatred. It

has a rich and glorious legacy in our nation's history. It is the kind

of hatred Thomas Paine, Nathan Hale, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams

possessed. The kind that Thomas Jefferson meant when he said, in a

letter to Benjamin Rush, " I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal

hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. " The kind

of hatred that motivated Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass and John Brown.

The kind that empowered W.E.B Du Bois, Richard Wright and Malcolm X, Joe

Hill, Eugene V. Debs, Mother Jones and Emma Goldman. It is the kind of

beautiful hatred embodied in the state motto of Virginia: Sic Semper

Tyrannis. Thus Always to Tyrants.

 

It is also a therapeutic hatred, the sort held on to by victims of

sexual and physical abuse for the day when they can confront their

abusers. It is the sort of hatred that had we not latched on to it we

would have drowned in despair and powerlessness. It is, yes, a powerful

hatred; that is, one which empowers.

 

I want to hold on to this hatred for a good while. I want to nurse it

and stroke it and call it into action when the dogs of impeachment are

baying at the White House door. I want to be there, along Pennsylvania

Avenue when the limo comes to take George and Laura away, when the

hearse comes for Dick Cheney's rigor mortis-frozen body, when the men in

white suits come to take Rummy to a loony bin and Rove to the electric

chair. I want to release this hatred at the proper time, let it dissolve

into the ether when the threat has passed and we can set our national

course for nobler things, we can earn back the trust we've lost with the

rest of the world.

 

Does anyone know what I'm saying?

 

-------=======<+++++>=======-------

 

Alan Bisbort is a columnist for the Hartford Advocate. His book, The Way

to Hell: The Death and Life of Caryl Chessman will be published next

fall by Carroll & Graf.

 

 

http://BuzzardsRoost.aimoo.com

http://www.GranniesAgainstGeorge.us