Holocaust Timeline: My Jewish Learning

 

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/a-timeline-of-the-holocaust/?

When I began hearing about the rise in anti-semitism, misogyny and anti-gay attacks I joined this newsletter to find out more about how decent people became fascist monsters. What was it? That final cause that threw us off the edge into the abyss?

Reading about George Orwell's 1984 he saw how people became alienated from their community, how fear was used, how men were willing to drop their gentle parts for the cutting off of their feeling selves after propaganda took away their self-esteem.

I am afraid that we too shall lose our humanity if we do not feel the pain of others.

The Royal Family

I saw an article about public opinion on The Royal Family. Statistics were gathered  - a percentage believe the Royal Family are essential and another percentage felt they were not. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround

This had nothing to do with the quality of the people and everything to do with the perceived worth of THE ROYAL FAMILY as an institution. 

I remember someone once told me the King owns the United Kingdom (which would include the colonies). So no matter how King Charles III behaves or what he believes, the Royal Family is a thing - an institution. Empires establish ownership through status, castles, wealth, and manners. How people are treated doesn't matter as long as no-one knows about it.

Tabloid media is only interested in headlines, not humanity. Frenzy is key. What we do about it is not a thing. We absorb reality by collecting statistics. How we treat one another, how we care for one another, how we educate young minds, is all about points, winning, getting rich, being attractive or impressive.

I don't think its error - I think it is intentional. To organize society like a club where you score points like the money you have in the bank or things such as property, cars, diamonds, gold.

If capitalism  is the master of our conscience, then bullying is the game. How to insist that our club is about shifting positions. 

A perfect marriage is when a Roman Emperor holds a "trial" and decides to nail God to a cross and leave him there until he dies. In this warped system, the Emperor becomes God and so he can take his army across Europe and claim the land is his, or the British Empire can sail to Turtle Island, kill the people who live there and then make a profit from farms, timber, gold and oil. 

It's not that simple of course, but the first thing that must be done, is to teach the people, the animals, that they are owned by thieves who arrived by ship.

If importance is merely an inventory of what has been captured, how can we learn to get along, never mind survive. How can we care for the land if we are digging it up for oil, how can we be leaders to the people that were taken from their mother's arms, traumatized by violence from those who claim to be working for God and Jesus. How can we honour the King and expect him to rule the world fairly when the natural attachment we might have to the land, our parents, our neighbours and ourselves has been trivialized with bling.

Now if King Charles and Queen Camilla can somehow convey the meaning of life, undo all the harm done five centuries ago, we might have enough faith that the monarchy can keep us together in the realm of name and status. But first we humans must feel something about our own worth. That's work you and I have to do. No-one else can do it for us. 

Walking Libraries of Humanity

All we have achieved

all we have lost

all we have forgotten

dwells in us still

keeps us awake

gives us headaches

causes outbursts of temper

and longing for love

love is our garden

with its nutritious plants

seeds 

and weeds

those weeds that sprung up

when no-one was looking

who cares?

it's not a rhetorical question

it's on every shelf

we try to hide among

accounts of adventure

achievement

may get tucked at the back

one day

if we stop looking for the right book.

Weaponizing The Commons

The Gun Lobby and NRA have weaponized community by promoting ownership of guns as protection. Protection from whom?  Media presents news when it reports isolated killings without commentary on why it might have happened. For example why do old white men feel they should kill an unarmed youth for coming to their door by mistake. Why are they afraid of the stranger.

Jim Crow laws forbade "African Americans from living in white neighborhoods. Segregation was enforced for public pools, phone booths, hospitals, asylums, jails and residential homes for the elderly and handicapped.". https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws#jim-crow-laws-expand.

Honour killings - In 2022 "an 18-year-old woman, Aisha Abakar , died after an attack led by family members who believed the unmarried Darfur teenager was pregnant. Her younger sister is in a critical condition in hospital after being injured in the same attack. Three men have been arrested. Three days previously, in the same state a 21-year-old woman was murdered by her brothers and cousins who believed that she was talking to men on her mobile phone. No arrests have been made for her murder." https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/oct/03/sudan-campaigners-demand-action-after-alarming-rise-in-honour-killings

Could there be any other reasons for such a cruel response to suspicion? What makes fear such an affective weapon? What makes hate such a common denominator in tragedy?

Climate change  - long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns  since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas." https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change

The Holocaust, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

Hate creates among ordinary citizens, a sense of powerlessness. Corporate media loves stories of conflict, tension and violence, but it doesn't want to spend too much space on analysis around these issues.

A well functioning community is invested through the conscience of moral citizens. When libraries are threatened with lack of funding, when Canadians are threatened by short-sighted views that promote removal of funding and shared responsibility we know something must be done but what can a few relatives achieve in world affairs?

If you read this blog and wonder why I spend so much time and space on racism, misogyny, anti-semitism and violence -- it's because I see my community where I have been free to move around, visit art shows, apply for jobs, send letters to the editor -- now under threat.

The thought of people being murdered for their colour or race or gender is a sign that the commons will be ruled by FEAR and HATE if the citizens don't see what they have to lose.

While media space focuses on celebrity, glamour, beauty and entertainment - these are representations of power.  Powers that most of us don't have. And while we are right to feel the integrity of one person doesn't get much attention, I believe we must look more closely at what this means for civilizations particularly for our children and grand-children.

When the law bans a woman for getting an abortion because of expressed concern for life, but mothers who can't afford to feed the baby in their uterus once it emerges, when there is no protection for the pregnant against domestic violence, when criticism, blame and hate, stir up community tension -- what does our society offer the people who live in it, who nurse and teach and care for others?

It offers the glitz while expressing contempt for life.  It says we love gloss and glamour but not the families who wear it. It says we love the law that controls and defends the land but not the life that is cut down in order to get the profit. It says profit is merely a symbol of power, not the real power of nurture and good health.

The War on Journalists by David Beer, The Tyee

Listen to this. And remember - it ain't over. You have an opportunity to help save the world from Fascism.

 https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/04/14/War-Journalists-Part-Two/?utm

If the people of Germany and Western Europe had known what Hitler's campaign would do to all the people of the continent - alienate them from society, imprison and gas any soul who wanted to work towards a healthy society as well as murder all Jews, Gays and men who were in touch with their conscience - would they engage and encourage the activity of their people?

Now we are faced with the same question but the names are different. 

Fascism, authoritarianism, white supremacy, machismo, misogyny, anti-semitism and religious intolerance, all different ways of alienating us from our humanity. When any movement claims a few are okay, but all the others are a threat to your future - what is being said - is, human nature is vulnerable so we must discipline ourselves to see what is evil (vulnerable, soft, sensitive, tolerant, friendly and diverse). Human nature must be strictly controlled. The solution is not a solution. It's a way of controlling the universe by removing the diversity of humanity and replacing it with the mindless zombie.

This is the Boot on the Face of Humanity that George Orwell wrote about in 1984.

NRA Convention and the Human Imagination

 

“This is not a gun problem. This is a mental health problem, this is a social problem, this is a cultural problem, this is a spiritual problem,” Trump claimed. https://truthout.org/articles/republicans-attend-nra-convention-the-same-weekend-as-9-mass-shootings/?utm

It's a mental health problem when politicians can't regulate gun laws yet make abortion illegal. It's a social problem when people of conscience can't break through the ceiling of profit and see how it is destroying the most powerful country in the world. It's a spiritual problem when the gender who carries life to the point of birth is made a plaything to show, criticize, rape and ridicule for the slightest misdemeanour, yet the gun lobby raises rights to own guns more than rights to justice. Life simply becomes the meat of the economy.

Patriarchy has been at war with life for centuries, building temples to warriors, teaching history as a series of battles, winners in the determination to kill and murder, to rule over, to trade in slaves, cut down forests, build highways, invent weapons of mass destruction, systems of the law that are beyond comprehending in terms of outcomes.

The only recognizable changes keep punishing the vulnerable and rewarding the powerful.

If God is the highest element valued by men, its POWER OVER EVERY THING NO MATTER HOW IT HURTS. When man takes control he loves everything that elevates his achievements - even climate change and mass starvation.

About Freedom

Freedom is possibly the most valuable possession in the world.

Because freedom is so precious I cannot be cavalier with it. The people I love, who love and care for me, must not endure false or exaggerated claims of freedom from me. I hold them in respect so I cannot afford to make false claims against them. Ever.

The price of freedom is the determination to not make false claims. And though I set out to understand how the world works, including social behaviour and norms, my views are not always right. What damage might be done by generalizations that seem true to me.

Some have access to media outlets which seem to give credibility to extraordinary claims. It's up to us to think seriously about whether the claims can be true or proven. We know now that being published does not guarantee truth. We know that some people in high places deliberately tell lies.

History is full of liars and murderers and their victims.

A good friend once said you cannot assume anything. So I have stopped using "I assume".

My freedom is also a duty to be honest with myself and all that I say and do. Failing that, my children are left to deal with a world that is not only dangerous but an example of who we are. 

It's complicated because if I keep preaching about what we should do and be. The natural connection between myself and other beings can be splintered.  Seem superior to assume I have a moral duty to police others. Will it do more harm than good? What power is available to us? How can you and I engage in democracy when power is so confusing.

Freedom is a blessing in that there are some things we can do, and it's a curse because there is danger in it.

So the best I can suggest now, is my responsibility and freedom is wrapped within my society. A society that is authoritarian, that punishes people for expressing themselves, makes it seem there is nothing I can do. There is something. Stay awake and informed. Work locally and humbly. Question assumptions.

Just because I have written about freedom doesn't mean I am right.