Maybe it's the anonymous free speech zone of the internet.
Maybe it's the sheer number of daily assaults average people have to endure in their lives.
Maybe it's frustration at our helplessness.
Maybe it's the barrage of hate speech coming across our radios and TVs.
Maybe it's our rage at the misdirection and weakness of our leaders.
Maybe it's just the war, everywhere around us.
We are lashing out, and we should
But I am sick at heart to read, see and hear the savage assaults that ordinary people feel free to pile on one person, to scapegoat her for every single injustice both here and abroad, a person whose crime, as far as I can see, is being smart and strong, wanting to lead, but going about things in the wrong way.
I'm speaking of Hillary Clinton.
She will lose the nomination; that's clear. Fine; it's a democracy, we should be allowed to choose, and it's probably just as well. But is it necessary to destroy her with such brutality in the process?
Here we have an administration which has committed so many crimes, one would be hard pressed to enumerate them. They have trampled on our rights, damaged our beloved constitution, dispatched our sons and husbands abroad to enrich and empower themselves, lied, stolen from and cheated our citizens, abandoned our poor, gutted our science, tried to impose their religious beliefs on us all, damaged our planet, protected their cronies, intimidated us with threats and fear-mongering...the list goes on and on. They have been abetted by leaders of their own party, as well as ours, who have gone along out of fear and weakness.
But reading the paper and plowing through the internet, it is not the administration and their abettors who come in for the most scathing commentary. It is not Bush, who deserves whatever we can dish out to him. It is Hillary Clinton. Why?
She has become the scapegoat for all that is wrong with our lives. And she does not deserve it. She is a brilliant person, and accomplished senator, a former first lady who has travelled all over the world representing us, earning the respect of leaders and citizens wherever she goes. She is a good parent, a serious listener, a quick learner. She is a Democrat, who has worked for other Democrats all through her career. If she's not meant to be president, so be it.
But the kind of bile that is heaped upon her is so out of proportion to her crimes, and is so ubiquitous, so savage, that I have begun to despair. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Is it because she is an easier target that Bush & Co? Are we that misguided, that we strike out where we feel we can get away with it, rather than where it is called for?
I am sick at heart reading the posts on Daily Kos, a place I had come to cherish as a civilized, reasonable community. I thought our goal was to get rid of these insane leaders and try to restore what we could of our beloved country. But right now, at least, there is more visible energy devoted to crucifying Hillary than to accomplishing the stated goal of the site.
And it has worn me out.