BY JOELLEN COLLINS
Almost everybody I know is weighed down from the nasty emotional atmosphere of recent politics, no matter one’s affiliation. We have an unspoken rule at our daily get-togethers in my accommodations in Walnut Springs that we simply do not discuss politics in our dining room, EVER.
Thus, our meals are rather quiet, as the political realities have hit so close to home that one can hardly avoid a reaction to the onslaught of media coverage and unexpected events permeating our daily lives. I have felt this way since the January 6th insurrection, when I couldn’t believe that a hangman’s noose awaited Mike Pence and yells to get Nancy Pelosi rang through the halls of the Capitol. All citizens could witness this hatefulness.
I have always claimed that one reason the Vietnam War was so challenged is because through TV almost anyone could see the dismembered and mutilated corpses of war. Now the omnipresent deluge of vivid images of hideous events and the damage to victims is omnipresent through all our devices. Part of me is pleased that we can now understand the realities of suffering that exist behind generalized glorifications of battles, whether public or personal. However, I worry that often something sinister may stir within the observers of the results of hatred. And that is a denial of humanity and a lack of empathy toward our “foes,” even if they be fellow citizens.
I was a young teacher when JFK was assassinated. Even as the students filling the auditorium at Santa Mónica High School heard the vice principal announce that their President had died from inoperable gunshot damage, there was an undercurrent of an ironic ignorance of the emotional damage from this kind of violence. Our VP told the students that of course they were permitted now to leave the school grounds but, he reminded them, he hoped they would show up for the scheduled football game that night. I was aghast at that casual request, ignoring the resultant grief for and damage now exposed to our elected leaders and private citizens.
I fear for so many public officials, whatever party or philosophy they espouse, being recipients of death threats and retribution for even legally representing someone in a conflict. Today we must grieve, due to even more violence toward those in public life. The prosecutor in a very recent case—and his family—received death threats due to his legal responsibility.
Who is courageous enough to take on challenges like the attorneys in controversial cases? I remember a milder but still horrible reaction to my husband’s uncle who represented one of the “Hollywood Ten,” persecuted for affiliations with “suspect” communist groups during the McCarthy era. The government rescinded his passport as a way of punishing even those who legally fulfilled our once shining American obligation to defend the accused.
RFK and Martín Luther King, Jr., were, along with MANY other public figures, murdered out of hatred and revenge. Those of us born to witness these sad events, believed it couldn’t happen again. What has happened to us?