Prolepsis

I posted a piece today (see below, September 16) that I have been holding in my queue for a couple of weeks. It is about, mostly, the left's apparently broad concern that right-wingers, full of bombast and vitriol, are fomenting violence, violence that gravely threatens the government and the President of the United States. What I posted was written before I heard Nancy Pelosi's sobbing that she had not seen such divisiveness since the late 1970's when, in her beloved San Francisco, the rhetoric there led to violence in city hall (and a Democrat killed another Democrat). What I posted was written before I heard Jimmy Carter -- without any evidence -- posit for consideration that most of the opposition to Mr. Obama's policies was born of racism. My essay was also written before I had heard that New York Times essayist Thomas Friedman averred violence seemed, if not inevitable, at least explicable and expected. And what I wrote was drafted before I had heard Hugo Chavez at the United Nations General Assembly "pray" that God protect Mr. Obama from the bullets that killed John F. Kennedy. (It's interesting that Al Qaeda recently threatened Mr. Obama but nary a word was said about that; perhaps there really is no war on terror because there is no terror.)

My reluctance in posting what I began writing September 16 was due to what it suggests, namely, that there is a faction, perhaps even a very large faction, of leftists in the world who seem to be longing for violence against the president. I know that I don't have such a longing; I denounce ANY violence that might be brought against the office of the presidency or the person of the president. But I believe that there is something akin to a hope in America (and elsewhere) that something DOES happen, and this hope resides in the breasts of those who most ardently support the president.

Even mentioning that these people may be participating in some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy freaks me out, largely because I fear my own comments will become part of an overall self-fulfilling prophecy I pray my words will actually derail: maybe my noting what seems a dark desire of my leftist peers fuels the craziness and leads to horrors.

Please, I ask you not to take these words in these few paragraphs as all I have to say on this matter. I am quite aware of what I am doing and saying; I try hard not to be reckless or myopic. It was circumspection that led me to hold the essay for as long as I did; it was the remarks of Mr. Chavez and Mr. Friedman that led me to finally click the "publish" icon.

I pray that Mr. Obama remains safe in a cultural climate that seems intent on amplifying the very worst impulses and inferences of people; that seems to derive dark pleasure from horrific daydreams.