Whole Generations Fearing the Horrors of the Past Might Be Repeated in the Future: Facing What’s Difficult

How do we face what is difficult?

 

My wife greets me with a friendly, “Good morning,” and I can’t help but smile in response. One of my cats rubs against me. Outside, a cardinal sings its spring song, despite it being early March. A raven and blue jay join in.

 

Yet, in my head, not my ears, I hear the latest news. California experiencing winds up to 190 miles an hour with ten feet or more of snow. Texas suffering its biggest wildfire ever, and it could get worse. I realize these are further examples of the threats of the climate emergency.

 

The cruel, devastating wars in Gaza and Ukraine continue. DJT gave another deranged speech, dehumanizing immigrant people of color, lying about them, calling them invading criminals “released from jails and insane asylums,” “from countries nobody heard of,” “having languages nobody ever heard of.” Lying about his great border policy, which was in reality a cruel mess, while, according to a CNN fact-check,  President Biden gave a highly factual, rational speech. His speech was not what I wanted to hear but was probably the best we could expect considering he faces a DJT controlled House.  On the other hand, Biden’s State of the Union address was more what I wanted to hear, comforting in his clear, energetic, fiery defense of democracy and our rights. Some say the “media” exaggerates the threat posed by DJT, or they say it until they hear his words.

 

Under DJT’s leadership, the Maga GOP derailed bipartisan border legislation, legislation they previously thought a necessity, and they continued to threaten our rights and freedoms in so many ways. Some GOP controlled states added to their attacks on women’s health and freedoms with limitations on IVF treatments. And, in the same week or so, the Supreme Court forced delays in the prosecution of DJT for his crimes against the nation, and threatening democracy itself.

 

It can feel like we’re in a race. Will democracy win or authoritarianism? Fascism? Will DJT be tried and convicted for all his indicted crimes before the election, or will he go free?

 

I think about World War II and the Holocaust. I was born just after the war ended, so I didn’t know that time firsthand. But I felt immersed in it nevertheless. I read about it, listened to and attended talks by Jewish people from Germany and Poland who had been rounded up by the Nazis, sent to death camps but somehow survived. For years, I had wondered what I would’ve done if I had lived there then. I wondered how Jewish, LGBTQ+ and people of color could have stayed in Germany while Hitler was happening. While too many Germans and others allowed and embraced the hate, grievance mentality, and delusion, or just closed their eyes and hearts.

 

Why didn’t the Jews leave? Or fight back? Of course, many did fight. Many did leave. But so many stayed⎼ and died.  And now we have whole generations fearing the horrors of the past are being manipulated into the future.

 

Am I learning the answer to that question right now?…

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

What We Once Had, We Might Not Have Ever Again: Speaking for the Majesty of an Eagle Taking Flight

Listen. It’s raining. Luckily, it’s not yet snow. For the last four or five years, we have become more aware of how extreme and precious the rain can be, switching between either drought or flood. It comes like a storm, harsh, or like a shadow, then it’s gone.

 

But not today. The rain is steady, and the sound is beautiful. Like the sound of crickets and cicadas, the wind, and the waves of the sea, it’s absorbing and surprisingly comforting. For the moment, it even washes away any anxiety over the election.

 

Even the muted light is soothing today.

 

I notice the fallen leaves, yellow, burnt orange, a bit of startling red. The leaves almost cover the deep green grass, which is eagerly drinking in the rain. The earth is thirsty.

 

I close my eyes and just listen. The sound gets more distinct. There are currents in the rain. The pace of falling water speeds up, creating a wind of rainwater pushing against my body even though I am in the house. Then it softens to barely a whisper. What before seemed steady and continuous is now revealed as something else, something unique in its pace. When I simply listen, there is more to hear.

 

Two days ago, my wife and I drove into town. From the opposite side of the road, just before the farm stand where we buy corn in season, an eagle rose out of the tall grass. Majestically and ever so slowly, it took flight right in front of a dark van. Its wingspan was wider than the van, yet somehow the eagle wasn’t hit. It flew off in front of my car window, unhurt. But the driver of the van barely maintained control of his vehicle and then pulled off the road and stopped.

 

We can easily assume so much. That one moment will be like the previous one. We walk out of the memory of yesterday’s door and drive on our memory of yesterday’s road.

 

We might assume that because we can (hopefully) vote, now, or because we have (hopefully) protections on the job now, or can get Social Security, or healthcare, we will have it tomorrow. We might tell ourselves or others we will have it no matter who wins the election on Tuesday, November 8. But as the GOP have said, all this can and will end if they win control, just as they work to take away a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her own health and when or if to have a family.

 

We need reassurance that our world won’t totally flip over on us. But to get that, we must pay enough attention, and be ready to act, so we’re not shocked when today almost slams into the windshield of our car….

 

 

*This is an update of a blog from October, 2020.

 

**Please go to The Good Men Project to read the whole article.

The Republican Party is Evil Beyond Redemption– A Letter from A Friend

A friend, Alan, sent me the following post as a letter, and I decided to share it with you. It is his piece, his conclusions, and research, and very timely. Please consult his links if you question his conclusions.

 

The Republican Party is Evil Beyond Redemption

by

Alan Silverman

 

It is difficult to quantify evil. I will try.

 

Richard Nixon won the Presidency of the United States by convincing South Vietnam not to sign a peace treaty ending the Vietnam War. He then extended the war four more years, murdering millions more human beings. Finally, he abandoned American prisoners of war to die in Southeast Asia.

 

[See articles on Nixon’s treason at politico.com,  millercenter.org. SmithsonianArticle]

[Schanberg article on Nixon abandoning our POWs in Vietnam]

 

I’m seventy five years old. DJT’s January 6 insurrection is the third confirmed treason by a Republican President in my lifetime. Reagan’s Iran treason being a possible fourth.

 

The second treason was when the Bush administration outed CIA officer Valerie Plame to punish her husband for saying George W. Bush was lying to justify invading Iraq. Pure simple undeniable treason. Bush, Rove and Chaney took so many morally indefensible actions; it’s easy to overlook Valerie Plame. It shouldn’t be. It highlights Bush’s disastrous decision to invade Iraq while the Afghan War still hadn’t been won.

 

First and worst was Nixon’s treason to win the 1968 Presidential election. Worse than Trump’s insurrection because they botched it. Richard Nixon’s worked to perfection.

 

Through an intermediary Nixon approached the South Vietnamese delegation to the Paris Peace talks and talked them out of signing the peace accords. He told them he would give them a better deal than the Democrats.

 

Theorized for decades, now proven by tape recordings. Nixon made the offer, the South Vietnamese broke off negotiations, Nixon won the election and the Vietnam War continued four more years, killing millions more human beings and further tarnishing America’s image in the world.

 

Nixon also knowingly left perhaps a thousand American prisoners of war in the hands of our enemies. Not many people know about this because an official government investigation in 1991 said there weren’t any POWs left behind. By that time neither party wanted to know otherwise.

 

I found this out in an interesting way. After retiring from IBM I opened my own PC consulting business. Syd was a customer of mine. One night he called me and said he lost an entire article on his computer. Not unusual considering my client base. I once found a novel in an author’s recycle bin. Finding Syd’s article wasn’t that easy, but I was able to recover it for him. He was appreciative.

 

That article was about how Nixon abandoned our POWs in Vietnam and knew it. I immediately flashed to the Russian roulette scene in The Deer Hunter. Hell of a thing to read at one in the morning, dead tired.

 

Syd died in 2016. I knew Nixon had probably committed treason in an attempt to win the 1968 election. I never knew he succeeded. The South Vietnamese pulled out of negotiations shortly before the election to help Nixon win.

 

Being a computer scientist, I am very logical. Please read the following and see if it makes sense to you:

 

“Richard Nixon won the Presidency of the United States by convincing South Vietnam not to sign a peace treaty ending the Vietnam War. He then extended the war four more years, murdering millions more innocent human beings. Finally he abandoned our warriors, American prisoners of war, to die in Southeast Asia.”

 

That is undeniable evil. Evil without justification. Evil in intent and outcome. Nixon’s treason betrayed the men and women who fought for America, killed millions of human beings and altered our world’s path to something far worse.

 

DJT didn’t make the Republican Party evil. Since 1968 the Republican Party has been led by amoral psychopaths who don’t give a damn about other human beings, start wars for no reason and cheated on Democracy until they destroyed it.

 

Individual Republicans can be decent human beings. They cannot be moral human beings because their leaders are evil.

 

Every moral human being must vote for every Democratic candidate in every election until 2025 at least. That gives humanity a chance.

 

My profound thanks,

Alan

 

Alan Silverman protested the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic Convention. He later graduated with a degree in computer science and worked at IBM as a system programmer. Still later Al met New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for reporting on the Cambodian Genocide. The movie “The Killing Fields” is based on Schanberg’s life.