Living

The U.S. Department of Justice has an opportunity to show the world that this country has an understanding of how not to repeat the worst events in human history. Jack Smith has been appointed to oversee the case against the most evil President ever to sit in the oval office. I hope that he is a student of history and that he understands how it is possible for a tide of fascism and human cruelty to sweep through a society if unchecked in its early stages.

If Trump is not punished for his attempt to overthrow the government of the United States then the door will be left open for others, such as the far right wing of the Republican party, to build a movement to continue to subvert the rule of law and open the door to not only minority rule but a new brand of fascism.

This is the time of year when politicians at all levels make the rest of us realize that there are promises more unrealistic than New Year’s resolutions.

We hear statements about how they are going to work to close the gap between the left and the right. We hear about ambitious agendas to make life better for everyone.

Then reality sets in and those politicians pander to special interests and they make it clear that their highest priority is getting re-elected. The public statements rarely match the results of political wrangling.

There is one issue in particular that has been pushed to the back burner for a number of years. In the mid-nineties and into about 2010 there was a lot of talk about health care reform. States such as Vermont tried to make bold moves to set up model systems and it started to look like meaningful reform might happen.

Even though the atrocities of World War II happened nearly 80 years ago, the stories of what happened must continue to be told. We still face threats from the rising power of authoritarian regimes and that makes the recounting of history more important. Accounts of the Holocaust and the Nazi efforts to eliminate Jews and other people they considered undesirable for inclusion in the master race must continue to be presented.

There have been movies and books on these subjects. Anne Frank’s diary is well-known and the attempts of her family to stay alive have been burned into the consciousness of anyone trying to understand what happened in Europe during World War II. There is another diary, written by Leo Berman, when he was 14 years old and living in northern Italy. His first entry was an account of September 8, 1943.

The best news that came out of the recent mid-term elections is the deflation of the gasbag that has had too much influence over our lives for the past 10 years. A creature of the media such as he has had the ability the cast a large dark shadow over this country, and much of the world, because of the way that information is disseminated.

One would hope that the current information age would be a vehicle for good, but it is impossible to prevent evil people from doing evil things. A man with such a large ego understands that he can promote himself by manipulating all of the tools that social media has to offer and he and his team have masterfully done that.