The October Surprise

It’s been about two weeks now. I am still trying to process the savagery that took the lives of so many innocent people. What kind of person harbors so much hatred, that they could commit such atrocities and even more bewildering, is how some can condone the actions as heroic or justified, whether in their silence or their poorly thought-out protests. What are they thinking; if they are thinking at all? Does it not resemble a suicide attempt? Nothing about this seems right. And, because the media has been shown to be unreliable, (think the way they jumped on the hospital bombing BS story) when searching for the truth, I have read every thing I could on the attack and the interpretations and still can’t make sense of it.
I knew a man who lived near us some years back. He seemed like a good man. He was the kind of man who donated his time and talents to the schools and the church. He belonged to the Knights of Columbus, not a radical bunch, but mostly good-hearted Catholic men who share charity and companionship in the name of the church and Jesus Christ. He was not born here, but emigrated from Lebanon. He lived through the wars in Beirut, escaped that hell and eventually came to America, where he started a business, became very successful and started a family.
He died a while back but I will never forget what he told me as he lay on his death bed on my last visit before he passed on. He was very weak and I had to lean in to hear him as he said, “Jim, I only have one regret in life, and that is that I didn’t kill more of those Muslims.” How is that for a death bed confession?
Hate is a cancer, and one that requires blood to grow. It festers and metastasizes inside of some who seem on the surface to be normal people with a loving family. I have no ability to relate to this type of thinking but I have to wonder how many of the assassins seemed like good people to the people around them in their family and community. How is it possible to have so much hatred in one’s heart that one could torture, mutilate, rape and burn other people alive and behead children?
What is the proper response to such unprovoked violence? In my philosophy, the initiation of violence or force on another individual is never acceptable under any circumstance. And the proper reaction to that force or violence should be swift and overpowering violence to assure that the perpetrator never thinks of attempting another attack. (I have zero patience for the pacifist, who by turning the other cheek, encourages and ensures more violence.) This seems rational when dealing with an individual, but the scaled-up version of this philosophy tends to get messy. I do hope that the perpetrators, every single one of them, is delivered a punishing and powerful death blow and a trip to meet their maker. If the United States government can track down every grandma in the vicinity of the capitol building on January 6th, then I suspect that the Israelis are able to know exactly who carried out this assault on the innocents. And I suspect that they will over time. In the mean-time, the media is reporting (that used to mean something) on the upcoming invasions of Gaza.  The feeble old fool in the White House, is asking for more money without any indication of where it is going, where it will come from, who will benefit, and how it will be monitored. Same old script; same stupid players.
Where are the thinkers who can see where this cancer starts?  It is the “group think” that fosters this violence, and it needs to be irradicated, and, as in my example with my old friend, that cancer lies within, and those who have this hatred cannot be cured. Hopefully a new generation will do better. Unfortunately, the killing that is to most certainly come, will include some who aren’t consumed with hate. Such is the price of war.
Group think and group hatred Is not limited to the Hamas organization, one can see the same type of hate simmering on college campuses and other places, where the tribe is all important and the individual is subsumed into the cult.  My mom taught me to think for myself. Don’t fall for it. Be the individual who says enough. Do not comply, do not play their game or play by their stupid rules and their  messed-up philosophy of life.