Mercy & wisdom, thoughts & prayers
With all the killing and craziness going on, an American optimist is hard to find these days. Even without the prospect of a Trump presidency, pessimism abounds. Yet those who read history know that no matter how bad things seem, they can get worse.
Even True Believers now shudder when told that the Deity will embrace us in His/Her/Its own Infinite Mercy and Wisdom. After eons of such Mercy and Wisdom, they’re not sure they can stand much more. E.G. – and in no particular order – the Sacking of Troy; Bombing of Dresden; Bubonic Plague; the Civil War; Great Depression(s); Mongol Invasions; Burning Heretics and Witches; the Inquisition; the genocide of Native Americans; WWI; the Plague of 1920; Klu Klux Klan; the polio epidemic; WWII; thalidomide babies; assassinations of Lincoln, McKinley, Kennedy #1, King & Kennedy #2; Vietnam War & riots; Hiroshima; Nagasaki; AIDS; 9/11/; Iraq; unending worldwide Death by Poverty; and the unspeakable horrors of Ebola and the Kardashians.
For school kids and Millennials, killing sprees as have occurred in Orlando, Charleston, Columbine, Sandy Hook, San Bernadino, Boston, Aurora and in other cities and households nationwide are coming to define the America they know and ‘celebrate’ on July 4th. But given our history, old-timers say these recent tragedies actually represent progress.
Think the revenge killing of five Dallas police officers was a sign of the End of Days? Compared to “The Haymarket Affair,” Dallas was just a little good old-fashioned American tomfoolery. As explained on Wikipedia:
“The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot) was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day and in reaction to the killing of several workers the previous day by the police. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded.
“In the internationally publicized legal proceedings that followed, eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy. The evidence was that one of the defendants may have built the bomb, but none of those on trial had thrown it. Seven were sentenced to death and one to a term of 15 years in prison. The death sentences of two of the defendants were commuted by Illinois governor Richard J. Oglesby to terms of life in prison, and another committed suicide in jail rather than face the gallows. The other four were hanged on November 11, 1887. In 1893, Illinois’ new governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the remaining defendants and criticized the trial.”
Then there was the more recent 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by white, anti-government ex-GI, Timothy McVey, killing 168, maiming 350. With a blood bath like that, why even mention the 237 black Americans lynched in Arkansas in 1919 because they dared to form a sharecroppers union? After all, lynching black folks was an American pastime back then, and most schoolbooks didn’t think it noteworthy. As for Wounded Knee and Waco? Fagedaboudit.
Alas, inexcusably horrible as it was, Dallas doesn’t even make the American Horrors Top Ten list. But some politicians insist we can Make America Great Again. If so, surely tomorrow will bring a return to even greater Mercy & Wisdom, even more Thoughts and Prayers.
