The Epidemiolgy 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
stratagems 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.

I Want to Hope It's Not Too Late

 Some "white" Americans understand

and try to share their understanding
and act upon it: they live their lives
as if all human beings are... human
beings, as if there is no essentially
superior "race," as if the fact that
we're all one species is.... a fact.

But too many millions
now insist, still insist, on White Supremacy
as a way of life and government.
As the basis of their identity.

Every time the country looks
like it might escape the quicksand,
millions drag it back at the behest
of one of two major American parties,
and parts of the media, and billionaires.
This gets people killed. It gets deranged
people, even a president, elected,
and spurs people to violence.

It is America's permanent disease.
It eviscerates its core. White Supremacy
is founded on air, on the irrational belief
that phantom "whites" are essentially
better and more entitled than groups
they choose to hate. 2022 is very,
very late. As with climate change,
and nuclear weapons, I want to hope
it's not too late.

hans ostrom 2022

The American Climate

It's easy to think you'll just go
to the sea (e.g.) and ignore the wreckage
wrought by these White Supremacist
huns of the American oligarchy
and its minions who are hypnotized
by vicious religion and depraved hate.

It's easy to give up, as surrender
seems like the most logical next
move, not just the most sensible
emotion. Ritually you'll talk yourself
into caring again, keeping up
childishly with current events,
polishing your opinions,
and doing something small and local.
You'll round up your usual responses.

You know though that what's happening
is hard weather from the only climate
America's ever known. For it's a
fatally flawed culture in which the
powerful flawed exact fatalities
from their customary targets,
and unrelenting on and on it goes.



hans ostrom 2017