The Prophets (And Profits) of Hate

The newscaster looks into the camera. The viewer can read the emotions on his face as he warns that “it is no inexplicable phenomena that there are prophets of hatred in our country.” The date is November 22nd, 1963, and President John Kennedy has been slain by an assassin’s bullet. The newscaster is Chet Huntley, co-anchor of NBC’s Huntley/Brinkley Report. Huntley has already claimed that it is a “logical assumption that hatred: far left, far right, political, religious, economic, or paranoid, moved the person or persons today who committed this combined act of murder and national sabotage. There is in this country, and there has been for to long, an ominous and sickening popularity of hatred. The body of the president lying at this moment in Washington is the thundering testimonial of what hatred costs.” The motives Huntley warned about are just as prominent today as they where in 1963, if anything, the technological age has only empowered the prophets of hatred. I turn on the cable news and am confronted with vehement, virulent vitriol and cannot help but think; Huntley, thou shouldst be living at this hour.
The Associate Press has reported that another twelve individuals armed with firearms have shown up to an event at which President Obama spoke. Another twelve people. Not counting the man who was videoed carrying the now infamous “tree of liberty” sign at a recent event in New Hampshire. Not including the numerous reports of death threats against senators and congressional representatives. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported an alarming growth in anti-government militia groups, and, as Larry Keller of the SPLC has pointed out, these groups are taking on an increasingly racist tone. Are these isolated incidents, or are they part of a larger trend? Are these individuals encouraged by "prophets of hate," and, if so, who are these prophets, and what do they profit from an enraged populous?
Anyone who has been awake for, say, the last forty years would have known that the debate over health care reform was not going to be a civil one. Right wing radio and TV personalities would stoke the flames, that is always to be expected. Politicians on both sides of the isle would try to rally their respected bases, that, again, is a given. What was not expected, what I think has far exceeded all of our expectations, has been the level to which some of these individuals have been willing to stoop. I am not questioning the beliefs of those whom I disagree with on the issue of health care reform, nor is my purpose here to make a passionate case for health care reform. I am simply wondering how it is possible to have a conversation in which the boogeyman of imaginary “death panels” is held over the collective head of our nation’s elderly by politicians they are supposed to look for for guidance; in which cries of “fascism,” “socialism,” or every other kind of meaningless “-ism” drown out any attempt at reasonable dialogue; in which race baiting and calls for terrorism are broadcast by our TV and radio stations and repeated in our emails. When you have calls to “put the fear of God” in the hearts of elected officials, or to “terrorize” those with whom one disagrees, is it any wonder that we, as a nation, are unable to communicate. I recently discussed this issue with Bryant Welch, a well respected psychologist whose book State of Confusion deals with how fear affects our national consciousness. Dr. Welch’s conclusion is clear, a frightened populous will be one which makes bad decisions. (My interview with Dr. Welch will be posted momentarily).
There are certainly forces at work in this country who know this, and who are exploiting this fact. So called “Astroturf” groups--fake grassroots efforts founded by corporate interests--have sprung up by the dozens in order to further spread misinformation and fear. Media personalities seem to compete with each other to see whose histrionics are the most ridiculous, in apparent attempts to prove Barnum’s axiom about suckers. Politicians rile the base with red meat, without ever thinking what the price of this red meat could be.
The damage done here cannot be overstated. Destructive to the Right, which is loosing a chance to provide its own plan and rapidly becoming perceived as out of touch and radical. Destructive to the Left, who see what should be a debate about health care devolve into a conversation about whether such civilized debate is still possible. Destructive to all of us, as we see our national dialogue hijacked by prophets of hatred. This is the state of modern America.
Listen to Huntley’s 1963 recording. He says that everyone had heard someone say that “those Kennedys ought to be shot,” and that even beltway magazines were guilty of using violent rhetoric. I am not saying that those who disagreed with Kennedy’s views were necessarily guilty of his death, nor was Huntley. However, the end result of all of this talk, of all of this red meat, can not possible be a healthy one for us as a nation. I, like Huntley, wish “it might be the hope and resolve of all of us that we’ve heard the last of this kind of talk, jocular or serious, for the result is tragically the same.” Let us just hope that on that last score, he is wrong.