Dancing Perilously Close to the Edge
Picture this:
You live in a country where things are changing around you, but you aren't necessarily sure it is for the better.
You have seen a patriotic fervor in the past few years and, while it is good to see a love of country, you wonder how healthy this much national pride can be.
Those who control your government have slowly taken away some of your freedoms and, at the same time, increased their own power and authority. And no one has truly challenged them.
These leaders use a religious conviction to persecute others, mainly those considered to be minorities.
They also call upon that patriotic fervor and manipulate it to convince your countrymen to go to war against other countries -- to invade, to conquer and to occupy. And despite the deaths of your country's soldiers, not to mention the innocents of war, no one checks. No one really questions.
In the meantime, foreign -- and sometimes not foreign -- civilians are taken to concentration camps. Many of these camps are in eastern Europe, where the prisoners are tortured and some are killed.
All the while, the leaders of your country violate the laws of the treaty of the last world war. This, you sense is going to bring your country into another, even larger war down the road.
Did you think this was 1930's Germany? Well, it certainly could be. But I was talking about the current state of affairs of this country. Right here. The good ol' U.S. of A.
Think I'm kidding? Think I'm just blowing off some liberal smoke? Look things up for yourself:
About our rights and the increased power of the executive branch of government, one needs only to look at the USA Patriot Act. How oddly appropriate that it is called Patriot.
And the patriotic fervor? Didn't someone not too long ago say something about either being with us or with the terrorists? And right after that, he pushed for the invasion of Iraq, using the same swaggering threat. I have had my own patriotism questioned by one of my own friends for questioning our role in Iraq.
And this, of course, is not stuff that has already happened. This propaganda, these lies, continue to happen today.
We've all read recently about the concentration camps in eastern Europe and the big one in Cuba. You can call them by any name you wish -- they are concentration camps.
So what about the minority thing? Am I suggesting that this administration is about to target and attempt to exterminate a race of people, as the Nazis did to the Jews? Of course not. But they are a discriminating bunch.
The Christian Right, a movement in this country that has so much power that it can certainly claim this President as one of its members, has targeted Ford Motor Company and Wells Fargo because they have attempted to attract gays and lesbians for business. They even have the audacity to attempt to make people think that Christmas is in peril and that Christians must defend their right to celebrate their holiday. They neglect to see the whole separation of Church and state thing as one of the basic and necessary standards of our country -- one that had been lost for too long. And in their own ignorance they don't even realize they are defending a holiday that doesn't really exist in its time and place (Jesus was born in the spring and everything from Christmas trees to holly to mistletoe to the celebration itself was stolen from pagan religions that the Middle Ages Christian church fought to destroy -- but that is for a later rant on Christmas).
But the President isn't involved right? I know that Senator said something about holiday and Christmas but the President is above all this, isn't he? No. The President is openly trying to discriminate against women. Not only is he attempting to put anti-choice candidates on the Supreme Court, he'd even declared a Sanctity of Life Day. Sanctity of life. Whose life? Not the 2,000+ U.S. men and women killed in Iraq obviously. Not the thousands of Iraqis, soldiers and civilians killed by U.S. weapons. But sanctity of the life of the idea that the government should control women's bodies.
This is a dangerous time in America.
If you were a German citizen in the 1930's, what would you have done?
You live in a country where things are changing around you, but you aren't necessarily sure it is for the better.
You have seen a patriotic fervor in the past few years and, while it is good to see a love of country, you wonder how healthy this much national pride can be.
Those who control your government have slowly taken away some of your freedoms and, at the same time, increased their own power and authority. And no one has truly challenged them.
These leaders use a religious conviction to persecute others, mainly those considered to be minorities.
They also call upon that patriotic fervor and manipulate it to convince your countrymen to go to war against other countries -- to invade, to conquer and to occupy. And despite the deaths of your country's soldiers, not to mention the innocents of war, no one checks. No one really questions.
In the meantime, foreign -- and sometimes not foreign -- civilians are taken to concentration camps. Many of these camps are in eastern Europe, where the prisoners are tortured and some are killed.
All the while, the leaders of your country violate the laws of the treaty of the last world war. This, you sense is going to bring your country into another, even larger war down the road.
Did you think this was 1930's Germany? Well, it certainly could be. But I was talking about the current state of affairs of this country. Right here. The good ol' U.S. of A.
Think I'm kidding? Think I'm just blowing off some liberal smoke? Look things up for yourself:
About our rights and the increased power of the executive branch of government, one needs only to look at the USA Patriot Act. How oddly appropriate that it is called Patriot.
And the patriotic fervor? Didn't someone not too long ago say something about either being with us or with the terrorists? And right after that, he pushed for the invasion of Iraq, using the same swaggering threat. I have had my own patriotism questioned by one of my own friends for questioning our role in Iraq.
And this, of course, is not stuff that has already happened. This propaganda, these lies, continue to happen today.
We've all read recently about the concentration camps in eastern Europe and the big one in Cuba. You can call them by any name you wish -- they are concentration camps.
So what about the minority thing? Am I suggesting that this administration is about to target and attempt to exterminate a race of people, as the Nazis did to the Jews? Of course not. But they are a discriminating bunch.
The Christian Right, a movement in this country that has so much power that it can certainly claim this President as one of its members, has targeted Ford Motor Company and Wells Fargo because they have attempted to attract gays and lesbians for business. They even have the audacity to attempt to make people think that Christmas is in peril and that Christians must defend their right to celebrate their holiday. They neglect to see the whole separation of Church and state thing as one of the basic and necessary standards of our country -- one that had been lost for too long. And in their own ignorance they don't even realize they are defending a holiday that doesn't really exist in its time and place (Jesus was born in the spring and everything from Christmas trees to holly to mistletoe to the celebration itself was stolen from pagan religions that the Middle Ages Christian church fought to destroy -- but that is for a later rant on Christmas).
But the President isn't involved right? I know that Senator said something about holiday and Christmas but the President is above all this, isn't he? No. The President is openly trying to discriminate against women. Not only is he attempting to put anti-choice candidates on the Supreme Court, he'd even declared a Sanctity of Life Day. Sanctity of life. Whose life? Not the 2,000+ U.S. men and women killed in Iraq obviously. Not the thousands of Iraqis, soldiers and civilians killed by U.S. weapons. But sanctity of the life of the idea that the government should control women's bodies.
This is a dangerous time in America.
If you were a German citizen in the 1930's, what would you have done?
posted by E-Luv at 8:30 AM
1 Comments:
I find it highly ironic that you post this on December 7, the same day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and brought the US into WWII. The parallels are strikingly similar and very freightening to say the least.
It just begs the question of how is September 11 going to be remember in another 60 years?
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