I have just finished reading and perusing fifty iconic pictures and commentary and have found it amazing as to subject matter included and those not. Why is a picture of three idiots doing dangerous acrobatics on top of the Empire State Building more iconic than a picture of piles of skeletal bodies of once "living" Jewish victims of Nazi oppression and persecution? Why is the inhumanity of man considered of lesser concern and import than a picture of a woman's landing on a car, body intact, after a jump from the same Empire State Building? As we look back, we also see forward, 'see' an eerie foretelling of a future time when so many will also jump from a major building, out of desperation, from burning floors of the Twin Towers. Beautiful it was not.
It amazes me at the truth of an unfortunate statement by Hannah Arendt as she witnessed and reported on the trial of Eichmann, a war criminal, an oh so efficient oiled wheel of the Final Solution anticipated, planned and ruthlessly carried out by Nazi Germany. Abetted and enabled by active collaborators of occupied lands and the silence of standbyers of the world who said nothing, did nothing to stop the brutal inhumane slaughter, and cared even less. Evil is not banal.
We gape at an enormous triangular carefully built pile of bison skulls prior to being crushed into fertilizer. Interesting, but really, did no one at the time understand the implications of the photo? Behind that enormous slaughter of the bison which once roamed the Great Plains of America, providing for so much of the lives of Native Americans and the early settlers who learned from them, hides a policy of early 'gentrification' at its worst, another foretelling of a future planned and way too successful extermination program? Nothing comes from nothing. Evil has too often been early forerunners of most egregious future violations of a code of humanity more honored in the breech than in the keep.
It seems that we never learn from our errors, from our callous and/or foolish plunges into actions that had been better not taken. We do not follow the threads of our behavior and thoughts, follow them to inevitable conclusions and permanent harm, treasuring the temporary now for the permanent ominous future. We refuse to accept the wisdom, hard earned, of the past and incorporate it into our present and future behavior. In short, we fulfill the prescient comment of a major character of Shakespeare, who states, "Lord, what fools these mortals be." From then, till now, nothing really has changed, at all, other than to multiply the toxic effects tenfold and more.
Read the following and follow the threads. Some have played out, others lead unfortunately healthy threads, whilst we entangle and enmesh too many other harmful threads into our home knit garments.
Around six million Polish citizens perished during World War II. Only half of them were Jewish.
" ... recorded standing on a ledge in front of a broken window on the U.S. Capitol Building’s West Terrace, adorned in a Louis Vuitton sweater and Chanel boots. “We the people are not going to take it anymore. You are not going to take away our Trumpy Bear!” (Dangnabbit! why not?!)
“It’s in the air, it’s everywhere, it’s amazing,” ... “It’s between neighbors, it’s when you go to restaurants, when you go to schools. You’re on one side or the other, and people know it.” (So sad, so true.)
'In its application, the program states that the purpose of the program is "to prepare students of color and Native Americans for graduate school." (Two wrongs do not make it right.) One would think that if a student had reached that level, they need no more specialized focused attention and aid.
“I had never before seen a whole stadium being racist," ( And someone did not pay attention in history class.)
" ... offers a disturbing contrast with the narration — a busy school that served as a torture center, a cozy apartment where a Jewish family was discovered and sent to a camp, people ice-skating on frozen canals where the bodies of those who died in hiding were dumped and many committed suicide.:
" ... sometimes it’s interesting to see past and present colliding.”
(Interesting? Interesting choice of word.'
" ... we will rain down our precision missiles and all the weapons at our disposal," senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said ...
Does it ever end.
How does one combat this willful blindness to the truth, to the lessons of history.
Why do we continue apace, even outdo ourselves, as we buy wholeheartedly into the errors of the past, the hatreds which consume humanity in a never-ending flood of brutality and bloodshed, the very air we breathe burning us rather than providing us with needed oxygen?
Why do we persist in walking the paths of loneliness, of solitude and distrust?
Why do we continue to value the deleterious influence of sick, but powerful individuals rather than unite, join together, create, together, a better world?
Again, for always, until we can say lesson learned.
Look what we have done. Together. Always.
The drum beat of together.
Together. Together. Together.
Only together.
Together.
Together - Together we can achieve it all.
Together we can
HEAL THE WORLD.
HEAL YITZY!
Yitzchak Elimelech ben Chana Sarah
May he be granted refuah shelaymah bimheyrah beyameinu.
May he be granted a timely and complete healing.
May Hashem hear all our voices raised in prayer.
Amen. Amen.
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