For the Fearful Many: Something to Consider

Something occurred to me a few minutes ago as I was sitting outside in a tree-covered glade, wondering why “Watch Out!” seems to be the catch phrase that describes almost everything that so-called conservative talking heads say in public, over and over again…

 

• “Watch out for the Muslims!”
• “Watch out for Black Lives Matter!
• “Watch out for the poor!”
• “Watch for for the LGBT agenda!”
• “Watch out for the War Against Christmas!”
• “Watch out for those deluded progressives and liberals!”
• “Watch out for immigrants!”
• “Watch out for the people trying to investigate Trump and his administration!”
• “Watch out for anyone who isn’t a member of the Fox News tribe!”
• “Watch out for ________ (fill in the blank)!” (There are just too many to choose from)
• “We need guns in schools in case of grizzly bears!” (Secretary of Education Betty DeVos made that claim. Seriously! She apparently needs some public schooling education herself.)

 

BREAKING NEWS!!!!

 

And here I sit, unconcerned, at 66 years old, fearing none of the above!

 

So I ask you, who is living the more relaxed life–chronically catastrophic worriers like the far-right talking heads on cable news (who get rated and paid according to how well they instill  fear in their audiences while feeding the fears that already exist in them) and other so-called conservative radio hosts–or me and the folks like me.

 

I can already imagine the responses: “If it weren’t for our armed/police forces, you wouldn’t be able to sit in your glade unconcerned about all of these things.”

 

Really?!  If it weren’t for our armed forces (and here in the U.S., racist police personnel), a lot of people of color wouldn’t have to be JUSTIFIABLY (not just THEORETICALLY) concerned about havoc being wrought on their towns, cities and families day and night–people who are JUSTIFIABLY upset and obsessed with the easy way that we get to decide which natural resources and people are worth protecting and which can receive our so-called “benign neglect.” If it comes as a surprise to anyone that beleaguered folks are finding ways to retaliate against the injustices done to them, I’m surprised.

 

I mean, really! What would you do and feel if suddenly a foreign nation decided that your natural resources were worth bombing you for (strategically or indiscriminately) or that the police department that was created ostensibly “to protect and serve” you started shooting first, falsified their police reports, and received nothing more than a slap on the hands for killing innocent, unarmed citizens who just happen to be loved ones of yours?

 

You know how you’d react: the same way everyone else reacts when their family or neighborhood is attacked. In any way they can, with whatever they find at hand, whether it’s a rock, a grenade launcher, a missile or a nuclear warhead. And you’d feel justified, wouldn’t you? So don’t be surprised when it happens to the USA, since we struck first in the Mideast and since we’ve been abusing and killing people of color indiscriminately since day one.

 

So I just go blithely on, not fearing Muslims, immigrants, refugees, Mexicans, blacks, and poor people. They haven’t harmed me. They’ve had every opportunity, lots of times, and yet, here I am, alive, well and unworried for myself. I’m more worried for them!

 

And I don’t want to start fearing my fellow Americans who are in positions of power over our fates but, boy howdy, if I were going to decide to start somewhere, here is where I’d focus first.

 

Because there are too many people in power who don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone other than themselves and the people whose back pockets they’re in.

 

These are the folks who are most capable of wreaking havoc (and already have) upon our nation. Everything they warn us about “the others” doing to us, they’re doing to us! They’re projecting their rapacity and greed on other people. They know they’ll stop at nothing to have it all, no matter how well off they already are, and they just assume that everyone else is exactly the same way.

 

I have news.  The vast majority of people I know aren’t that way. If most of the people you know are that way, you need to start getting out more.

 

Ayn Rand is dead. Her zealots live on in places of power, but greed is NOT an American value.

 

• Most people just want a shot at life without being held back at every turn by people who already have it made and then pulled the ladder up behind them so they can feel “elite” and “special” and somehow “better/more gifted” than the other hardworking Joe’s and Josephine’s who share the planet.
• Most families just want a decent  job (ONE decent job, not two or three part-time jobs) that pays adequately, a roof over their heads, sufficient food in their pots, health care, an education, and to worship (or not) as they choose.
• Most people aren’t greedy bastards.

 

Because I know this to be true, I don’t live in fear. I’m a citizen of the planet, I have no dog in the fight. The good news is that my reliance on humanity is no less “unsafe” than the far right’s reliance on fear.

 

The far right can (and I’m sure will) continue to justify their fears with endless speculation, lies and slanders, but all it takes to end the mindless cycle of ever-present f.e.a.r. (False Evidence Appearing Real) is to stop listening to the talking heads for a month and realize that you’re just plain safer (and far more relaxed and relieved)  believing in the benevolent nature of the vast majority of humankind rather than hammering the bejeezus out of Kobayashi Maru scenarios (see Star Trek III if this reference escapes you).

 

As Captain Kirk said, “I don’t believe in the no-win scenario.”

 

Human beings are remarkable.

 

Human beings got us into this mess. Human beings will get us out of it.

 

But not with warheads. With humility, compassion, and grace.

 

Or we’re simply flattering ourselves calling human beings a sentient, thinking species.