THE DOCTRINE OF HATRED
According to The Wall Street Journal, today (page A16), Allen Johnson, a BBC reporter, was kidnapped and killed in Gaza. But Britain’s National Union of Journalists, instead of speaking out and writing excoriating articles condemning the Palestinian faction that murdered Johnson, instead decided on a boycott—against Israel!
This anomaly describes an unreasonable hatred becoming so fixed and so deep-rooted in a learned doctrine that one lashes out at the object of the hatred, in place of a real enemy that caused the new pain, even though the exact cause was obvious. It gives a snapshot of what results from the metastasizing of a mental and spiritual cancer that is destroying the soul as it hardens the heart.
The British Press and to some extent our own press have been showing such symptoms for much too long and their reporting contemptuous of the truth and of reality. A corrupt press can surely corrupt a nation; the people rely on the press to provide them with news that they are too busy to gather—they are going about their real lives—and with analyses that guide their subsequent opinions and their voting. Therefore, a percentage of the population will hate what the press hates, and fear what the press fears, despite the irrationality of the fear and the hatred.
The sickness has been with us much too long and it has spread much too widely, putting this nation in terrible jeopardy. It is time to correct the evil that men do because of the illness in whichever way possible to prevent further infection. If it takes firing those sorely infected, so be it; they have caused enough harm. Cancers must be cut out. If it takes closing down some schools of journalism and rebuilding under new, decent management, then so be it—it is a step in the right direction. We cannot continue a diet of lies, deceit, and cover-ups in the name of irrational hatred. If we don't kill it, it will surely kill us as it is killing Europe.
HJS
2 comments:
The word is a word the British should know very well, the word is appeasement.
By responding to a criminal act of terrorism, on the part of the Palestinian's, by boycotting Israel, Britain's National Union of Journalist have shown that sometimes terrorism does achieve it's political goals, which will only encourage more acts of terrorism and more innocent victims.
The best weapon civilized nations have against terrorism is their refusal to never allow an act of terrorism to succeed in achieving it's goal. We must make it our first priority to convince those that would resort to terrorism that, terrorism is a futile political weapon and in the final analysis is counter productive in reaching a political goal. Only when those that are now willing to resort to terrorism as a political tool, understand that we will never give in to terrorism, will they abandon the use of terrorism and find another way to advance their political goals.
It seems that the ghost of Neville Chamberlain rules the hearts of Britain's National Union of Journalist and not the ghost of Winston Churchill. We must never appease or surrender in the War on Terrorism.
BOB HARAN,
Phoenix
Mr. Harlan,
I could not have said it any better. We live in a world that requires, as Nelson would say, every man to do his duty. And that duty is to to fight back whenever we or our civilization is threatened. The Liberal doctrine includes the idea that nothing is worth fighting for. That is sad for those nations that need heroes more than they've ever needed them before.
Thanks for writing.
hjs
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