MK Gantt Ministries

FOMENT: It’s an interesting word: It means to incite, instigate, abet, or foment, for the purpose of spurring others to action.

To foment is to incite, words meant to stir up and urge on, and may or may not imply initiating, such as inciting riots, looting of private and corporate business, attacks on institutions, destroying public property, threatening the life and well being of another, public harassment or humiliation, vandalism to personal property, publishing personal information (doxing) for the purpose of intimidation and harassment, interfering with traffic flow, blocking access for emergency equipment. 

To foment is to instigate and definitely implies responsibility for initiating the actions of others and often connotes underhandedness or evil intention, as in instigating a conspiracy.

To foment is to abet and implies both assisting and encouraging, aiding and abetting an enemy.

To foment implies persistence in goading, as fomenting rebellion, violence, murder, or assassination.

To foment is attributing unwarranted or undeserved characterization, comparisons to evil, wicked, vile, and murderous persons or movements, i.e. nazi, fascists, Hitler, dictator, racist, misogynist. Or, suggestions or implications of nefarious intentions such as an existential threat to democracy, the enemy within, etc. These are fomenting words, specifically aimed at instigating, encouraging, and goading for the purpose of initiating the actions of others.

And so . . .

Cities are burned, businesses destroyed, and personal and public property is destroyed. 

Policemen are shot in the head while sitting in their cruisers. 

Patrolmen are gunned down while responding to a domestic situation or emergency. 

Fires are set and police, fire, and emergency personnel are gunned down while responding. 

Professionals fired from their jobs for refusing to participate in untested medical procedures. 

Students are harassed, beaten, barred from their classes, and robbed of their safety because of their heritage; they are blamed for events they had no control over or any involvement in.

Young women are stabbed in the neck, shoved in front of trains, or otherwise attacked without provocation.

Senators are gunned down while playing a friendly game of baseball

Lawmakers are murdered in their homes. 

Governors homes are firebombed

Presidents are shot

Good people are slandered and subjected to vile names and false news. 

And a good man is gunned down because he was doing the very thing that might bring us to any measure of civility, inviting young people to talk.

And those who pollute our air with their unending streams of profanity, frivolous and baseless accusations, inflammatory rhetoric; the constant stream of words that incite the worst in men, feigning innocence, declare with wide eyes that they have no responsibility for the violence, and that they never called for violence against anyone. But those who were subjected to these terrible acts deserved it.  

I read an interesting story once that went something like this:  “If you collect 100 black ants and 100 red ants and put them in a glass jar, nothing will happen, but if you take the jar, shake it violently, and leave it on the table, the ants will kill each other.”

Americans, all of us —right, left, and center —need to start asking, “Who’s shaking the jar?”