Tuesday, September 16, 2003

[Snap!]

Anyone who thinks that evil is a bedtime story must never have suffered a beating in her life.

Evil exists. It isn't a person, or even a personage but it walks in every schoolhouse yard, and it murders women in soccer stadiums, and it whispers in your ear that it isn't real, it's a misunderstanding, there are *root causes*.

Evil is a wife-beater telling himself how much he loves his woman.

Evil is a street full of good people agreeing that she was asking for it.

Evil is a beaten little boy finding someone weaker to hurt.

Evil is carrying a dead-fetus sign too close to a nondescript well-guarded building, and it's a fat man shouting abuse at a little old lady with a handful of anti-abortion tracts standing on the far side of the line.

Evil is burying a home-made bomb on the verge of a road outside of Ramadi, and he's an overheated soldier stealing whiskey out of a banker's cabinet in Baghdad.

Evil is starving the families of his enemies in a desolate corner of North Asia.

Evil is a wild-eyed young thug getting ready to beat protesters somewhere in Esfahan or Zimbabwe.

Evil is a bureaucrat planning to expel a hundred thousand immigrants from Djibouti, and a Defense Department PR hack trying to figure out how to sell it to the voters back home.

Evil is a "moderate" Islamic imam being arrested for the wrong reason.

Evil is the FBI agent arresting that imam, without knowing that the "moderate" is a two-faced hater, inciter and enabler.

Evil is photoshopping his enemies into politically embarrassing poses. Evil's making dreary "Hitler" puns about politicians she doesn't like.

The stupidity of the "axis of evil" trope has nothing to do with the existence of evil. Evil exists. And presuming to claim that your enemies possess a monopoly on it is itself a demonstration of its existence in yourself.

Evil exists. This I can assure you. Please, tell me - does good exist?

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