From the Edge of Darkness 11: Hater

Trashcan; Charley Freiberg photo

Confessions of a Hater

For a little more than a year, I find I really, really dislike a whole lot more stuff than I like. The stuff I dislike – despise – hate – gets longer and longer, every week:

I hate that I haven’t been able to read the news for more than a year because every single day there are at least three items that make me wildly angry.

I hate that politicians are so concerned about keeping their jobs that there are very few willing to do the right thing for the country.

I hate that we have a president who makes being a US citizen embarrassing.

I hate that we have a president who is a danger to us and the rest of the world.

I hate that our president is stupid, foolish, racist, misogynistic, an assaulter of women, cruel, boorish, egotistical, functionally illiterate, a multi-time bankrupt, insults our allies and praises our enemies, has no comprehension of diplomacy, is rude and pushy to other foreign leaders, panders to the worst tendencies of his followers, doesn’t understand politics or history, lies, lies some more, rarely speaks a truth – so rarely it’s impossible to tell when he actually is – acts like an out-of-control four-year-old, doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, can’t listen, wastes our money, is selling-out our nation to increase his personal wealth…and more.

I hate that news journalists keep interviewing administration spokespeople who don’t answer questions, lie about everything, and don’t even make a pretense of dealing in reality.

I hate that we don’t have the national balls to end gun violence.

I hate that corrupt adults make fun of children who are demanding a change in our laws about guns, dismiss them utterly, or accuse them of being pawns of hazy conspiracy promoters.

I hate the prevalence of conspiracy lies and the people who deal in such either to gain fame, make money, or otherwise foment disruption and scare people.

I hate that we’re losing our national heritage of wild and natural places.

I hate that we’re pretending that we aren’t destroying our environment.

I hate that most commercial food is no longer real food, tortures the animals who become our food, and is poison.

I hate that in 2018 we’re still a country of racist pigs.

I hate that in 2018 we’re still having to deal with men who prey on women as a gender right.

I hate that people are so afraid of each other that they feel they have to walk around armed.

I hate the stupidity of people who walk around armed and believe they’re under control of their weapons and know what they’re doing. 

I hate that rich people continue to speedily get richer, and poor people continually fall further and further behind, and yet we vote for and praise people who are promoting that scam, against our own best interests.

I hate that we don’t have universal health care, and that people who can’t afford decent health insurance are suffering – still.

I hate that so many rich people are fighting against any raise in the minimum wage – even to $15/hour, which in this day and age is barely on the edge of a living wage in some parts of the country, and in other parts of the country is still below practical poverty level.

I hate that so many people fear and hate any other people who look/live/worship/sound/love different from them, and that our mistake of a president has made those fearful haters feel justified and heroic in their fearful hate and the acting out of it.

I hate that at least once every day, in response to something going on in our national horror show, I say, “Thank God I didn’t have children; thank God I’m 61 and not 21.”

I hate the lack of compassion for others displayed by a majority of politicians.

I hate that those in charge, who don’t need to draw on state and federal aid programs, suspect a majority of those who do need to draw on those aid programs in order to survive of scamming the system.

I hate that there are so few politicians willing to do the right thing for the whole country – or the whole state- and that the others have sold their souls to the NRA or other corrupt entities that are trying to manipulate our political system to benefit themselves and their own narrow interests.

I hate that we never hear politicians say the words “compassion,” “honor,” “compromise,” or “justice,” nowadays – except in an ironic sort of way.

I hate that so many people believe the lies they’re being told.

I hate that so many lies are being told that journalists have to be our memories and arbiters of truth and falsehood, because there’s just too much for the average person to keep sorted without help.

I hate that there are so many people jailed for things that don’t merit jail time, and we refuse to fix it.

I hate that our president is trying to prove his false premises about illegal immigrants and others on the bodies and lives of decent human beings whose lives he’s making a living hell.

I hate that late-night comedians are the people we need to go to in order to hear rational thought.

I hate that so few politicians express strong disgust at the nasty things that happen in politics nowadays.

I hate that our president has made us a target of ridicule around the world.

I hate that our president has made us untrustworthy as an international partner.

I hate that we’re so blind to our own national deficiencies that we pretend we’re number one in all sorts of things – healthcare, education, civil rights, for example – when we’re actually far down the list of the best.

I hate that I worry that we’re living in the first throes of the end of our national experiment.

I hate that I no longer believe that most people – read that “politicians” – are actually trying their best to be good, humane, responsible, reasonable, honest people.

And that’s just a start. 

Yup, I’m a hater. And proud of it.

Printed in the Concord Monitor, March 7, 2018, as "Confessions of a Hater."