Words become speech, speech becomes action, actions become consequences

  I'm still reeling form the news coming out of Boston today. Explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon shattered the celebratory mood and reports are stating that two people were killed, twenty-two injured.

  I feel fortuitous that all of my people in the area are safe and accounted for - nobody was at the site. I know that it could have been much worse, but the idea that there are two beds that won't be slept in again, ever, is hard for me to deal with elegantly.

  It's far too early for us to know exactly what happened, who did this, what they wanted and why. It might be homegrown terrorism, it might be enemy agents. I don't know and at the moment, I frankly don't care. People who are trained in this kind of stuff will do their things and someday there will be an answer. I don't want to speculate because I think that's how we got here in the first place.

  I feel that rhetoric has been heating up a lot in the past few cycles. The sides are getting more polarized and the center (where I really, really want to be) is becoming the No-Man's Land of WWI. People are quick to anger and quick to point fingers.

"YOU DID THIS"

"I HATE YOU"

"WE WILL NOT COMPROMISE"

  These are wrong, terrible, hurtful things to say. When the most important word in the phrase "other people" is OTHER and not PEOPLE, we lose a very important connection to each other. It makes it easier to stop seeing people as... y'know, people, and instead start seeing them as some shadowy Enemy, some dangerous Other.

  That's how propaganda works. Check out the posters that the US designed in WWI and WWII. Look at the awful, racist caricatures that Dr Seuss drew of Japanese people to sell War Bonds. We stop seeing the enemy as Real People Who Are Just Like Us, and see them as dangerous, evil, ugly monsters bent on our destruction.This demonization helps us hate them, helps us want to hurt them, makes it easier to kill them.

Words become speech, speech becomes action, actions become consequences.

  What kind of world do YOU want?