Yesterday I read a review of the book Tribes which discusses much about the fact or thought or reality that we are a society at war with ourselves, internecine warfare and where do we go from here? That was depressing enough as I truly feel that that is a statement of fact, a threatening fact, a worrisome fact, not only for us here in America but for the entire world. People look to the USA for guidance, for idealism, for principles, and if we lose them, or indeed have already lost them beyond the point of no return, then where does the rest of the world go and what happens then.
There are always groups within groups. That is what makes the world go round. There are people who can deal with opposition, different ideas, discussion and debate and there are those who cannot, who will not, for fear? For fascistic tendencies and the desire to be dictators? For all sorts of nefarious reasons including megalomania or even the other way around - for deep seated insecurities. For the need to feel important? These people are found all over the world from right here in CV to the head of Russia through the dictators of Africa, the would be controllers of American society and their political parties and that includes Trump and Sanders who is turning out to be quite a nasty character indeed.
These intolerant people, these dangerous people have unfortunately gained in power and influence these past years and it is indeed unfortunate and we, the rest of us, must speak up, stand up or we will lose that chance. Recently a famous historian, Fritz Stern, passed away. He was a man chased out of Germany because his family, though converted, could not run away from their background and thus had to run away from Germany. His life when he grew up became dedicated to the study of what makes a society trend towards totalitarianism, in particular, the land of his birth, Germany. He tried, in his writings, to understand all that had happened and why it had happened and worse, what made these seemingly ordinary men take such enthusiastic roles in it and why others, rare others, did not. He particularly felt that the political and cultural elites of society were the ones on whose shoulders rested the blame for society turning rotten, for allowing it to do so, for leading it down these horrific paths. These "guardians" of civilization failed, in their assigned role and opened wide the gates of tyranny.
Look at today's society and who are our leaders, our ostensible "guardians". Scary thing to do. We have Trump who once wished to have a black vs white team on his reality show. Idiot! He who has backers from the Klan, from bigots and scary morons, whose followers and supporters first trashed Julia Ioffe and then Jonathan Silverman, a distinguished editor of the Times, with all sorts and manners of anti Semitic trash and filth all thru Twitter. We are told that the "kikes are next after the Mexicans and the Moslems". Pictures and cartoons are sent with blood libel raising its ugly head again, with gates of a concentration camp having the motto "Maken Amerika Great" and the rest I cannot even begin to rewrite. These are bad enough.
And where are the people of the world, of America, those who still have a conscience, who still know right from wrong? I have no clue! Their whereabouts seem to become more of a mystery day by day. And on the other side we have members of a major political party, the Republicans, who turn down a bill insuring the rights of LGBT members of society, or a bill which subjects doctors who perform abortions to felony charges. Then we have a self hating Jew who is insisting upon threat of more violence, that the Democrats become more "even handed" in its treatment of Israel. Does he think he is immune to all this, that when they call out all the Jews they will leave him alone? Remember, the Jewish police, the kapos, the poor Sonderkommandos were all put to death before the Nazis picked up and ran away. There is no hiding from hate. There just isn't.
So what do we do? Do we allow people like Putin to achieve more and more power as he dreams his crazy dream of making a Great Russia once again? Do we allow these waves of hate to keep inundating the world? And remember, hate has no boundaries. It keeps on going like an evil energy bunny and not so cute either. Or do we build walls to keep 11 million Mexicans out - and make them pay for it. That was the same policy the Nazis used, levying a "tax" on the Jewish communities for the damages of Krystallnacht or sending the families a bill for the bullets used to kill a loved one. Do we go down that road again? Are we going to deport millions of people and dump them as Jews were dumped in the no-man's land between Poland and Germany? Let them starve?And lest you think that there is a level of exaggeration here, take a deep and calm look back at our world over the past few years and see what has been developing.
"Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people that want to be important." T. S. Eliot
Perhaps we need to decide on better blueprints for who we want to be important in the life of the world. Perhaps we had better do that quickly, very quickly. I really do not wish to be down the road some few years in the future and be saying told you so as the world goes to hell in a handbasket and I for sure do not want to be asking the question of G-d, "why is there no room for the Jews anywhere on Your planet? Why have You rained down more horror, allowed more death to befall them, Your people, the People of Your Book?" Think I know not of what I speak? Go check history. I pray I am wrong. I pray that this hatred of each other, this gender bashing of women, these restrictions of rights and the ever increasing violence of language and the rising level of violence all go away and the good people of this earth, this tiny orb spinning thru space, can actually mount a comeback. I know good people. They are here. They just have to wake up and speak up and realize that some other people are just evil to their core and need to be resisted.
Not a good day for hope or decency or gentleness today. Would that tomorrow would be any better. We can hope, we can pray, and we can be aware.
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