When we wrote, where Where Did All This F*cking Evil Sh%t Come From? and recently, Right-wingnuts Bless Progressives, and in other posts, including practically everything we’ve written about the events in Ferguson, Missouri, it was to offer a rational explanation of why we are faced, constantly bombarded, with negativity, and why this provides an array of opportunities for good.
Flickr/creative commons
I know this sounds rather counter-intuitive, and understand why when bad things happen to good people it can become a source of frustration and helplessness, but these reactions forget the underlying ecology of progress.
There is a time tension of reality that causes budding personalities to seek out sunshine and sustenance to thrive. The alternative is death. So we take stock of all threats to life and health and grow around them, in spite of them. We point out the bad shyte, deconstruct it to its rotten core, reveal its ultimate futility, and challenge ourselves and others to look beyond and work around.
Who can deny that the legacy of Michael Brown is that he and has family are now lightening rods bringing about real change, not just in Ferguson but in every American city?
Who can deny that the misanthropic Westboro Baptist Church exposes the bankruptcy of organized religion?
Who can deny that the actions of today’s theocratic oligarchies throughout the world, including in the United States, are producing a newly energized and organized progressive counterpunch?
No doubt there is pain and sacrifice along the way, we all feel it. But progress cannot be thwarted. Just as the bud is determined to flower, so too will good triumph over evil.
In this instant news world we now live in, I wake up most days feeling besieged from every direction: ISIS, the Supreme Court, congressional venality and its ignorance, climate change, crime, injustice, you name it. But I get up, wash my face, and do what is within my power, as limited as that may be, to bring sunshine and nourishment wherever and whenever I can. I am challenged by all the bad examples of humanity around me but comforted that the chemistry of negativity dictates its eventual obsolescence because it lacks the vital building blocks of progress.
The humane will always triumph over the inhumane if only we are willing to move forward and do something about it.