Fresh Look At Evil Reveals Same Old Ugliness
Rediscovering what we believe never can be overdone and always should be enthusiastically embraced.
Serving on the speakers panel for the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force’s recent gathering gave just such an opportunity.
Surprisingly, however, the motivation did not come from the presence of a diversity that would challenge the compassion of Gandhi: Richard Butler, trailing a sad, bedraggled gang of four Neo-Nazis giving front-row attention to the evening’s message; and our panel of five human rights activists representing three states, speaking from experience about how to encourage human rights.
No, the motivation came from our own local white supremacist, Vincent Bertollini of the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger. Sporting leather biking pants and an irrepressible grin, he politely listened to the panel’s collective message for about 40 minutes. As we broke for refreshments, he penned a dance of swirling exclamations on what appeared to be some brochures, tossed them on the speakers’ table and departed
Leaving, he said to me, clearly intended as a shot across my bow, “You’ll be happy to know this is going out to 43,000 households. Our best piece of work yet.”
As we reconvened, answered questions and finally closed the evening, I jotted my own less-artistic swirls on the opposite side of his brochure but did not look at its contents.
At home, I finally had the chance to look at Bertollini’s work. It was then I was offered, with deeply mixed feelings of frustration and gratitude, a moment to ponder and ask myself what I really believe. (And as the aforementioned threatened mailing has now happened, 43,000 of us now get the same opportunity.)
When my eyes gaze upon the propagandist rhetoric, what do I believe? When I see the words “Jew,” “Marxist” and “communist” used with a flagrantly self-serving ignorance, what do I believe? When people I know and care for are individually and collectively used as scapegoats in Bertollini’s bizarre interpretation of the Bible, politics and history, what do I believe?
First, I believe in the truth that people were born with brains that can liberate them from fear rather then encase them in it. I believe in the embracing, intoxicating and grace-filled beauty of diversity and the wonder that it bestows upon my soul every time I open my eyes and look.
I believe in the power of our hearts, the strength of our convictions and the wisdom of our spiritual guidance that keeps us focused and alert to the folly of such ignorance.
Second, I also believe that the last time I saw such a sorry excuse for publishing quality, informative content and motivating language was when posters appeared during the 1950s bearing a picture of a secretive and suspicious-looking manager drying his hands as he asks himself the question: “Are there communists in our washrooms?”
I also believe the most creative anti-racist demonstration I’ve heard of was when Saul Alinsky sent 100 unemployed blacks to sit in the town center of Rochester, N.Y., and have them eat watermelon and fried chicken while singing chain gang work songs to help stop the stereotyping of blacks in that city. I believe it is about time to for such creative civil action against Bertollini, for 50 of us Marxist, communist Jews to surround his house and sing “Amazing Grace.”
And, finally, I sadly believe that Bertollini is going to keep wearing leather pants and a grin, implying we are all ignorant fools. Yet I believe that we are not, in the words of that old Negro spiritual, gonna let Bertollini turn us around.
People of every color, race and religion are, in the light of every God and every decent religion, full human beings.
If there is anything in this world that resembles evil, it is Bertollini himself and God help him.