Epidemiology of Hate

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Epidemiology of Hate

If only we could vaccinate
against hate.
It's the constant plague. It leaves
each era a wreck,
and from each new wreck
more hate mutates.

Consider the hate you hear
every day in common discourse,
in how our "leaders" talk to each
other about people they imagine
to be us. Language
becomes black bile. Vile
strategems go viral.

No mass-cure for hate exists.
Individuals must treat themselves,
must get to know how to learn.
Must go inside themselves, scrub
the mind, and think. Must
choose to get better; or
at least not worse.

To witness the pleasure of hate
play on faces and turn person-herds
rabid is to glimpse evil's vectors
and hosts. People, witness what
hate does to you, to them. Change.

Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom