I am pessimistic. The reason is that I suspect we have no clue about what to do about domestic terrorism. The reason is simple but no one seems to see it. Domestic terrorists are harming people who are meant to be harmed by a significant number of people with some kind of power. Power is a slippery concept in this society. There are the obvious holders of power according to our laws. There are also others.
I grew up in Chicago. The legitimate forms of power there worked through a very efficient Democratic machine that controlled local government. The machine operated according to law some of the time. Other times it did not. Syndicate murders went unsolved, traffic tickets got fixed, building code violations were overlooked, etc.
The history of our country ,when looked at without the usual filters we were given in school, is one that has had people wronged or murdered by powerful forces because they were a problem. The history of the Labor Movement, Civil Rights Movement, Women’s rights movement, Peace Movement, and many others is one that is replete with examples of what I am talking about.
Today we had another episode. The details are not in yet. The fact that it happened at a Planned Parenthood building suggests the anti-abortion terrorists at work. This is an ironic situation because a perverted form of “Christian” morals is used to justify terrorism and murder in the name of being “pro-life”. The comments by people on Faux News blogs are murderous.
Other “Christian” movements support murdering Blacks and foreigners. If not murder they support ugly mistreatment. The power that this hate generates is real and it is shaping our society once again. I sense a real fear on the part of government to do anything about this. Yes there are investigations and some arrests and prosecutions but almost as a token rather than as an effort to clean up the mess.
My sense of systems theory tells me that our system is a multifaceted entity and that much of the real power that is manifest is pretty much invisible.
That is why the manifestation of Donald Trump is so interesting. Clearly the pundits are having trouble interpreting this happening. I don’t think Trump is stupid. He may be much smarter than most realize. He clearly sees the sources of power I am touching on here and is willing to tap into them without hiding it or playing games as all the others do. He is a kind of opposite pole brand of Bernie, if you like. He clearly has no fear of the reaction to his telling it as it is.
Stripping away the curtain like that can have consequences far beyond anyone’s imagination. One very likely consequence is that the dark powers will need to do something to try to cover themselves up again or, like Trump, come out in the open and try to take control of the legitimate sources of power.
As I said in the beginning of this discussion, I am very pessimistic. The dark sources of power are much more the real system we live in. The “legitimate” sources are not all that strong and clearly have never been able to contain the other.
We fought a Civil War that strained the system as much as anything has since we became a Nation. Yet that war settled little in terms of the real tensions in the country and we are seeing that more clearly now than ever before.
Maybe others can help me see how to have hope in this situation. I need hope right now.