DEMONIZATION

We have had a series of beautiful days on Laughing water Farm. Today it is cloudy but it is still great. It is nearly 70F. I finally got the sticks picked up in the yard, so I can mow when the urge strikes me. Our lawn is large and varied. Some areas won't need mowing for a couple weeks, other places could use it now. We have lots of trees and there are places where the grass has been shaded out. I had made the job, of picking up the sticks, bigger in my mind than it actually was. However, we did have more branches come down through the Fall, Winter and Spring than we ever had. We have several Soft Maples and they love to strew twigs and branches.

I expected some comments on my last blog. Climate change has become a litmus test for identifying as an intelligent liberal. I was hoping I was both. Can we be skeptical too? I didn't think, it was an issue, that one needed to believe or not believe. Clearly, the government had no plans to do anything about it. And, the idea that, what was it, 97% of scientist agreed that climate change was man made, struck me as a little ridiculous. In real life it is hard to get any two to agree on something. But the point of my discussion here, is that, the discussion got shut down before it could start. It was stated as a terrifying fact, and any attempt to discuss it, was demonized and any dissent from the gospel labeled one as a denier and beyond the pale. So things, become so polarized, that the believers never get to see the other possible explanations. The simple examination of the Planet's climate history gets lost.

When did we start demonizing those we disagree with? We certainly have become successful at it.

Being old, I have the benefit of some historical perspective. I was in the Air Force when the idea of UFOs became widespread. In 1954-5 I had a good friend whose father was a physicist at Los Alamos. His son told me his father saw a UFO and it was an open discussion among his colleagues. I remember discussions, about the presence of aliens, was common over dinner. Unlike the discussion about climate change, the demonization of UFO believers was gradual. I think it was still okay to bring it up in a conversation in the '70s, although there was a danger of being labeled a kook. It took a while, but most discussion in polite society, has been squashed.

We have become better and better at demonizing. The current measles outbreak reminds me of another situation. I spent the latter half of my career in Children's Mental Health. I was the supervisor of a children's mental health unit for a large metropolitan county and I finished up my career as the Program Manager for the Family and Children's Services. When I first began in 1962, I worked with a caseload of disturbed and disturbing children [the agencies labeling not mine]. Autism was unheard of, it was a classical disease known mostly to scholars. I don't think I worked with a child, so diagnosed, until much later. In the late seventies and eighties autism began showing up in schools. During the eighties we had regular meetings with special education teachers and their supervisors trying to find ways to deal with the increase in this diagnoses. We all wondered, what is this all about? What is causing this? When some researchers linked the mercury, used as a preservative, in vaccines as the cause of autism. Many people listened. But not for long; the demonization, of the offending researchers, was quick and their believers were labeled anti-vaxers. I didn't get a chance to hear any open discussion about the matter. Soon, I began to hear, the research was debunked. Nobody said, how it was debunked. I never had a chance to make up my mind. If vaccinations have nothing to do with autism, that would be great, but where is the reassuring research? Am I just suppose to accept the fact that it has been debunked?

This has been happening with greater frequency and we as a society have been getting better and better at demonizing those who think outside the box. We love that expression -but we don't want anybody to do it.

The dark have successfully herded us into pens labeled with various political and ideological descriptions. We are told what we are to believe, and don't you dare escape your pen, or visit in somebody else's. We are constantly being pitted against each other, so we don't see what is going on.

We don't need anybody to tell us what to think. We can train ourselves to see.  

When we finally give up our beliefs, it will be like fresh air, wafting through, our minds and hearts. If we have to believe something, let us just believe in Love. We will see the truth.

Love and Peace, Gregg 

Note: Early readers may have noticed I spelled demonization wrong. My spell check said so. I used their substitution which was an entirely different word. Hmmmmm I didn't trust myself.