OUR HUMAN OBLIGATION
ByRichard Davis
Every so often we need to be reminded that the power brokers of the world are capable of
horrendous atrocities. The road to those atrocities is paved with unrestrained egotism, racism, misogyny, xenophobia and a disregard for the value of human life. World leaders become intoxicated with their power and as it goes unchecked they begin to believe that they can justify anything they do. Modern day examples are not hard to find.
As the U.S. impeachment process plays out it is important to realize that the current president has headed down a road that has led to the justification of the marginalization and torture of people not to his liking. This is the same road that was traveled by Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and many others.
Trump needs to be stopped before he is given a green light to proceed on his current course. That is why the impeachment hearings are so important. If he gets away with lying, bribery and using his office for personal enrichment he will feel that he has a mandate to carry out even more inhumane and harmful policies than he has executed to date.
Children and families are being housed in cages near the U.S. border because Trump believes “those people” are invading our country and because he thinks they are all just a bunch of criminals and freeloaders who want to take advantage of the U.S. People are dying in detention and in their attempts to cross the U.S. border. Trump is using his power to destroy the lives of people who are fleeing oppression and life-threatening situations in their home countries.
Instead of looking at the tide of immigration as a humanitarian crisis Trump is using those who are fleeing north as pawns in a political game in which he fans the flames of racism and xenophobia to get his base of voters worked up enough to feel they have a license to spill their vitriol and hatred upon anyone they don’t like, upon anyone Trump gives them license to denigrate, beat up or kill.
Make no mistake, Trump is already responsible for a number of deaths that could be labelled domestic terrorism and he has set a new tone for this country and for the world so that hate groups and gangs of thugs can feel emboldened to carry out terrorism on a variety of levels.
If Trump is not impeached and found guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and removed from office, the world will become a much less safe place. My relatives and their friends who survived the Holocaust always say that we must never forget what happened. That means we always need to be reminded that:
In 1915, 1.5 million people died in the Armenian genocide.
From 1941-1945, 11 million people were murdered by the Nazis including, 6 million Jews, 5.7 million Soviet civilians (an additional 1.3 Soviet Jewish civilians are included in the 6 million figure for Jews), 3 million Soviet prisoners of war (including about 50,000 Jewish soldiers), 1.9 million Polish civilians (non-Jewish), 312,000 Serb civilians, up to 250,000 people with disabilities, 196,000 to 220,000 Roma, 1,900 Jehovah’s Witnesses, at least 70,000 repeat criminal offenders and “asocials”, an undetermined number of German political opponents and activists, hundreds or thousands of gays and lesbians (might be included in the possibly also 70,000 repeat criminal offenders and “asocials” number above).
From 1942-1946 the U.S. government forced 127,000 Japanese Americans to live in internment camps.
In 1994, it is estimated that 500,000 to 1 million Rwandans were murdered.
Genocide and the marginalization of the other continues. If we have a chance to stop one maniac from legitimizing murder and mayhem we must do so. The impeachment and removal of Trump would make travel down his current road more difficult and, as human beings, we have an obligation tear apart that road.
the marginalization of the other
“the marginalization of the other”, I think, is a key phrase here.
Way back when, I helped work on an exhibit at Capital Children’s Museum about the holocaust. There were lots of advisors and holocaust survivors involved, and the exhibit eventually made its way to the National Holocaust Museum.
One part of the exhibit was a series of panels that begin with simple insults and putdowns that many might not see as “that bad,” but then it progresses as one went along showing how a little marginalization can build and build until, well.. you get genocide at the far end. In between little insults and outright genocide are many steps – all forms of marginalization with increasing dehumanization as it goes along. The takeaway message, we hoped, would be to nip it in the bud early, and recognize that minor insults can start you down the path of hatred.
I’m worried not only about the marginalization of Trump and his supporters, but also about the national discourse in general. People I know and respect spew forth some really awful things about people they have disagreements with. That’s republicans and democrats. I don’t see how “stooping to their level” and become course and provocative A. helps in any way, and B. convinces anyone of anything. It seems like there is tremendous anger inside of people, and it comes lashing out.
I can see why. The planet is dying, corporations are taking everyone’s everything, political folk don’t seem to get it, and it gets harder and harder for anyone to just sit and reflect for any longer than a moment. That’s bad.
Then there are the others who spread all of this by liking and reposting and so on. “Trump’s a criminal idiot” was a good observation decades ago. It’s old news now to anyone who feels that way. “Liberals are socialists” is locked in for people who feel that way. No convincing them otherwise.
So, I don’t see any coming together anytime soon. Any candidate talking about “working with the other side” or “bringing us together” is making things up.
And that brings me to another worry – the “I’d vote for a loaf of bread – anyone but Trump” is so depressing to me. It is the lowest of low standards. Have we really been so beaten down that we’d accept whatever was given as long is it wasn’t Trump? My gawd that’s a low bar! That tells me “my side” isn’t interested finding someone that could really lead us through some really difficult times.
That kind of low bar, I’ll-take-anyone attitude is music to the DNC’s ears. That means you will give up on the candidates that offer skills relating to poverty, climate, and so on. If I were head of the DNC, that would tell me voters would support the blandest, most corporate, least-likely-to-change-a-thing candidate I could muster. Bloomberg isn’t Trump. Jeff Bezos isn’t Trump. Kellyanne Conway isn’t Trump.
I want the DNC to get the message that voters are to the left of the candidates they keep supporting. If they have to lose another one to learn that lesson, it’s too bad for them. Clinton attacking Sanders the other day indicated to me that the party elites still don’t know why they lost to Trump. Hence we get Biden and Mayor Pete as the “safe” choices for now. Yawn. Those two could easily lose to Trump. He knows how to run against and defeat that sort of Democrat. Insults, lies, etc. It works!
Call me old-fashioned but I’m sticking to my guns and voting only for a candidate, if there is one, that has plans that correspond to what I’d like to see happen in the coming years. If candidates want my vote in 2020, they still have to work for it and not just have a different last name than the current president. A name change is not good enough. Not now.
I don’t feel like being marginalized, and I hope others don’t let this opportunity to get something better than “anyone but Trump” slip away.