The Hate That Is Among Us

https://www.commondreams.org/further/2020/05/04/hate-among-us






Monday, May 04, 2020

by
Abby Zimet, Further columnist
15 Comments




Idiots on parade in Michigan. Photo by AFP via Getty.

The apparent decision by "a stunningly dysfunctional White House" hellbent on re-electing a sociopath to heedlessly pursue re-opening the country - thus committing "large-scale negligent homicide" and needlessly sacrificing up to 240,000 American lives, or 3,000 a day - seems to have opened the floodgates of stupid and hateful. Both are on full sorrowful display in the Trump-enabled, increasingly rabid lockdown protests sprouting across the country, even as the numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths begin sharply rising outside urban epicenters. Still, shout these brave yahoos and patriots intent on "liberating" their states from the tyranny of wearing a mask to protect one's neighbors, damn the body bags and full speed ahead: Cue the surreal, sordid pageantry of bellicose crowds boasting swastikas, nooses, Confederate flags and the still-beguiling claims of "hoax." Last week, some of the most virulent scenes took place in Michigan, where the country's third highest number of cases is disproportionately killing black residents - hence the warning, “GOD SAYS STAY IN YOUR ARK" - where an idiot GOP congressman is suing Gov. Whitmer for trying to save her constituents, and where beefy, hyped-up, assault-rifle-toting thugs strong-armed their way into the Capitol, menaced lawmakers and pointlessly stared down police, because freedom.




In Illinois, hundreds gathered in Springfield to claim, "We stand here today as slaves." To heighten the cognitive dissonance, among them was a woman waving in the demented air a sign reading, “ARBEIT MACHT FREI" - "Work Will Set You Free" - the infamous slogan looming above Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps, and "one of the icons of human hatred....a symptom of moral & intellectual degeneration." Her photo was posted by nurse Dennis Kosuth, who stressed it wasn't photoshopped and argued, "If this photo bothers you, join efforts to better our world." At his daily coronavirus briefing, Gov. JB Pritzker, whose Jewish family fled pogroms to come to this country and who helped build the state's Holocaust museum, decried the image as "a demonstration of the hate that is among us." The hate stretched clear to California, where frenzied crowds screamed in the faces of placid cops about Murica - white privilege at its best - and a wise-ass racist in San Diego wore a KKK hood while buying groceries to meet the state's face-covering mandate. A county official called the act "abhorrent," adding, "This is not who we are." But at this point, we're not sure. As to those floodgates: For a reminder all this hate is in the name of pure stupid, read a devastating account of a New York ICU nurse about the daily, deadly, heartrending reality - "This is our grief" - these morons cannot see. Then read the thread by the daughter of a California ICU doctor about the unprecedented horrors he's seeing. "Send this thread to any idiot fucker who posts an Instagram at the beach or a crowded park," she urges. "Tell them my dad says see you later."



Illinois. Photo by Dennis Kosuth



California



She had "Re-Open Illinois" on the other side "because some people are touchy about swastikas."



Michigan



Tennessee