Today's Shootout Inside the Crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

I just returned home from a visit to Uncle Travis and lunch out in Ruston at Captain D's seafood to find where there was a shooting inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in which one security guard was killed before the gunman was shot himself by other officers. Law enforcement officials said James W. von Brunn, a virulently anti-Semitic white supremacist, was under investigation in the shooting. Von Brunn has a racist, anti-Semitic website and wrote a book titled "Kill the Best Gentiles," alleging a Jewish "conspiracy to destroy the white gene pool." von Brunn's website has long been listed as a hate site. von Brunn was 88-years-old. (Source: AP Internet article By NAFEESA SYEED and DAVID ESPO - Associated Press Writers) Isn't it amazing that humans are never too young or too old to hate others so passionately.

I wrote a poem that seems appropriate here:

Why Is It So Easy To Hate?

Throughout history, humans
have found it rather easy
to hate other humans.
Hatred excuses killing,
conquering, torturing, enslaving,
and making war against other humans.
It’s amazing how the mind
can justify grounds for hatred
deep enough to allow any atrocity.

One human may hate another human
simply and instantly because:

He is of a different race,
with the wrong skin color,
hair texture, or eye shape,
speaks another language, or
has strange cultural habits –
any of which makes him
inferior and unworthy of respect.

He has the wrong religion.
Untold millions have died during
crusades or jihads to convert or
render dead the nonbelievers.
How can zealots be so religious,
yet so misguided?
"I kill you in the name of God!"

He lives in a different nation.
Chinese versus Japanese versus Korean,
Irish versus English,
Indian versus Pakistani,
– I rest my case.

He doesn’t think or act
exactly the same way,
even a fellow American:
Republican versus Democrat,
conservative versus liberal,
Protestant versus Catholic,
heterosexual versus homosexual,
pro-life versus pro-choice,
Ohio State fan versus Michigan fan,
the rich co-worker with the Mercedes,
the neighbor who plays loud music…
No reason seemingly is too petty
to engender hatred in some people.

How tragic that humans as a species
do not love as readily as they hate.

© Copyright 2007 Harry Gilleland