Well, they'll stone ya when you're trying to be so good
They'll stone ya just a-like they said they would
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to go home
Then they'll stone ya when you're there all alone
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned.
~ Rainy Day Women #12 and #35 by Bob Dylan
This song has been
replaying in my head for the last week. It popped up when I read that Mitt
Romney had selected Paul Ryan, a popular candidate with the Tea Party, as his
running mate. Ryan’s budget plan includes not raising taxes on the wealthy and
cutting social programs funding. He wants to turn Medicare into a partially
privatized voucher system. He is of the camp that the wealthy are more
deserving than the rest of us.
The song popped up
when I read about the shooting at the Family Research Council (FRC), an organization
that has spewed hatred about gays, calling them child molesters and suggesting
that homosexuality be criminalized. FRC president Tony Perkins blamed the Southern Poverty Law
Center (SPLC) for listing the FRC on its hate group watch list. He said, “And
in those stories where it says the Family Research Council, it says they're a
certified hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. We've seen that term
used increasingly over the last two years and it marginalizes individuals and
organizations, letting people feel free to go and do bodily harm to innocent
people who are simply working and representing folks all across this
country."
The SPLC responded
that it had listed the FRC as a hate group since 2010 "because it has
knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people -- not, as
some claim, because it opposes same-sex marriage."
Their statement
continued: “The FRC and its allies on the religious right are saying, in
effect, that offering legitimate and fact-based criticism in a democratic
society is tantamount to suggesting that the objects of criticism should be the
targets of criminal violence."
It frustrates me
that conservatives use inflammatory, hateful language and marginalize groups of
people and individuals all the time. And there has been violence as a result of
their rhetoric. But with one
incident, they can turn around and blame a group that has tracked hate crimes
for years, all hate crimes and all hate organizations, to benefit all of us.
It’s the old do as I say, not as I do saw.
When I first saw
the story, I wondered about the shooter. Most liberals carry signs, not guns.
But perhaps the malignant language used by the president of the FRC when
describing homosexuality was too much for Floyd Lee Corkins II, whose parents
said he felt the FRC was unjust towards the gay and homosexual community. A
strong and unwarranted response, but is anyone surprised? We are an armed
society and shooting is an acceptable way of solving a problem or dispute. At
least that is what many Americans believe, because they support the right to bear
arms and minimal gun control.
Then I saw a story
on the news a couple of days ago about the police shooting a mentally ill man
on July 1st in Saginaw, MI. The song popped into my head again.
Milton Hall, a
forty-nine-year-old African-American, was agitated, and he was wielding a knife.
When he refused to put it down, the police opened fire and shot him over thirty
times. Thirty times! He was a known mentally ill person to the police, having
been picked up in the past on vagrancy charges. They still shot him thirty
times! They couldn’t have tased him? They couldn’t have loosed the police dog
on him? No, they shot him thirty times! Thirty times! See a video that a
bystander took of the shooting. Warning: it is very graphic.
Can we talk about
itchy trigger fingers? They are epidemic in America.
How many people
have to be shot before we all rise up and say “no more?” It’s just getting
crazier and crazier, and because it’s an election year, nobody wants to talk
about the elephant in the middle of the map of the United States. Nor would the
Republican dominated Congress pass any legislation concerning gun control. Do
the conservatives and Tea Partiers realize that when you support the right to
bear arms and also support minimal gun control that a lot of people who
probably shouldn’t have guns are going to have them? That when a culture of gun
ownership becomes more and more common, people from all walks of life are going
to use guns more often and in more situations to resolve problems, differences,
and disagreements? When you hope to operate above the law and common decency,
others, people you think don’t deserve to, will follow you and act like you.
And when you want the government to limit the rights of some but not others,
like when you pass a constitutional amendment that says marriage is between a
man and a woman, you will end up limiting your rights as well. We are either
all equal or we are not. You can’t have it both ways.
Sometimes I feel I
am witnessing the decline of a world power. Our country is disintegrating from
the inside out. We’ve become more divisive than ever, and our politicians and
corporate fat cats are feeding the frenzy. They are blatantly choosing business
practices and passing legislation that favor the wealthy and leave the rest
of us struggling. We are so far apart philosophically that I wonder if we will
ever be able to reach a compromise.
It is the hatred
and meanness behind the spewed rhetoric and lies. It is the way people wish ill
of others because they don’t like them, are afraid of them, or judge them as
less than, as in less equal or less worthy and deserving. I’m definitely more
cynical at this age but I feel people are meaner, more self-serving, and that
they value some lives over others. Whatever strides we made toward true
equality, during the Civil Rights Era and because of the feminist movement,
seem distant and tarnished in this era.
Then I remember
Bob Dylan’s song. It’s meaning is layered. He could be talking about getting
high, very popular in the sixties and apparently as popular today. That’s too
simplistic in my mind. He was also talking about certain special, rare women in
his life (#12 and #35) whose presence made him feel as if he’d been stoned.
But I also think
he was talking about how everyone gets hit upside the head at one time or
another when one least expects it. We are the same in that way: at some
unexpected times in life, we will be stoned, in a moment of rare joy, love, and
splendor or in a moment of tragedy, loss, and sadness.
It has nothing to
do with who is more deserving or worthy. It happens to everyone, and trying to
protect yourself with money, guns, and inflammatory, hateful language will not
save you, because everybody must get stoned. It’s just a matter of how, when,
and to what degree.
Wouldn’t it be
better, knowing this, if we all shared compassion and empathy for one another
and remembered that no one is more or less deserving? Let’s put away our
weapons, harsh language, and lies. Let’s stop the violence. Let’s recognize and
acknowledge that every person is equal, vulnerable, and imperfect. Everybody
must get stoned.
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