- Trent Lott, Jesse Helmes, Louis Farakan or Jesse Jackson
in their racial prejudices and remarks, are no different than many who
hold prejudice, bias, and intolerance in their hearts towards the less
affluent, the less educated, the retarded, the mentally-ill, the handicapped,
the homosexual, the obese or varying ethnic groups. It's just that they
are more in control of their politcally correct speech when in public.
But, even then, no matter how careful, it is interesting to note the slip
once in awhile, which reveals a person's true thoughts on those they deem
inferior. Shockingly, this comes from those who present the opposite persona
in public, and are thought of as all inclusive in their solicitous, magnanimous
attentiveness to all mankind!
-
- One would naturally assume that indifference, apathy,
cruelty, bias and labeling of the 'other' would be most telling in the
large cities. At least that was my assumption. Not so. Not when I was able
to experience all sides of people's responses to suffering, homelessness,
needs and various disabilities. In fact, I found that those in rural communities,
are much more apt to be intolerant, and rigidly set in their stereotyping
of those not measuring up to some invisible plumb line! When I went public
with abuses taking place in the institution where I worked in a distant
state (not NH); I was astounded in this isolated area, of the rage and
anger in the form of threats, destruction of my personal property etc.,
that were the result. Furthermore, I was shaken out of any preconceived
idealism that people just naturally would take the most guarded care of
those most helpless and voiceless in society. Nothing could have been further
from the truth.
-
- The same people that I had seen in our downtown 5&10,
in the park with their children, offering the sign of peace in church,
were the ones brutalizing the most helpless. Behind the institution walls,
they felt free to wield their perverse power, their authority over a group
lesser then themselves in intellect (one wondered?) and physical prowness!
What made it all the more horrifying was that the residents suffering
these unconscionable acts, had no ability to speak of the various atrocities
being perpetuated against them. I worked with all men, male residents and
male staff. I surmised, that these poor specimens (staff) of humanity,
could never make it in the real world, and thus acted out their frustrations,
their loser lives, on those who couldn't pick them up by the scruff of
the neck and fling them across the room!
-
- Neither could I for that matter at 5'2", but I
had something they didn't possess. Intellect and the ability to use it
in the written and spoken word. Maybe the residents couldn't tell what
was happening to them, but I sure as hell could and did. They got flung
across the room alright....right out of their jobs but that's another tale.
The point is, that we are all, whether we acknowledge it to ourselves or
not, are brought to what I refer to as 'crossroads' decisions. The time
when you are asked to put into action that which you believe, or have thought
yourself to be! "I was just following orders, it wasn't me or mine,
I had my job to think of, I have a family, what would my friends and neighbors
think, yada," just doesn't make it. You know that you know, what the
proper thing or action is. It then comes down to 'choice'. The choosing
makes all the difference. For when one compromises in the little things;
after awhile, one's whole life becomes one compromise after another. The
'choice' is no longer there. One is never quite sure when the sense of
regret-remorse-guilt-of conscience; was seared to the point of indifference
and non-rembrance. Compassion gone-men become hollow men-zombie-drones.
-
- What can never be known, when the 'choice' to live what
you believe comes into being is; that the gain is ever so much more than
the fear of what you thought you might lose! Paradoxical to be sure! If
I no longer fear that my 'choice' in standing might require my very life,
then what else is there to threaten with that would stop me? Nothing. Therein
comes the power, all barriers and obstacles removed. This power can never
be obtained or even imagined until perfect love casts out all fear. It
can't be bought (no matter your billions) or found in any degree or marbled
hall. It's free.
-
- Far removed by time or distance, we can in non-threatening,
non-sacrificial circumstances, berate those who would stand idly by witnessing
the abuses, killing and extermination of their fellow man. We remark loftily
to one another, pouring ourselves another glass of wine, snapping open
another cold one, as the fire blazes, what WE would have done, if WE had
been there. Safe talk, empty nothing babble. One doesn't prepare for a
crisis of choice in the midst of. You will know in the moment of happening,
what you are made of, what foundation stones have been laid to weather
the storm you will surely be engulfed in. It has been said that the concentration
camps made saints of some and sinners of others. Some, snitched and sold
their fellow inmates out for an extra crust of bread, while others volunteered
to take the place of one sentenced to die.
-
- The German citizens are constantly set up as an example
of a people 'silent' in the midst of atrocities. WE would have acted so
much differently! It doesn't take a holocaust of distant history to show
forth the 'silence' of man. The accusations go up, "How could they
not have known of a camp and it's deaths right in their own midst?".
Simple, like today, with atrocities of health, poverty, homelessness, and
environmental degradation poisoning air, water and land it's someone elses
jobs; the authorities are in charge, who are we to question? It's reported
that homelessness is at an all time high with food and services greatly
diminished. So who cares. Take a look at the impossible situations of Waco
or Ruby Ridge? The media totally controlled the language that identified
these people as worthy of death. Very few wrote their representatives and
even fewer bothered to hear the truth in Senate Hearings, which showed
the lies. Indifference. People suffering, dying all around us, and we tell
ourselves it's elsewhere. People renamed "enemy combatants-my God,
no trials-made to exist like animals in Guantamo and silence. We hear
the distant drum beat of 'death with dignity', euthanasia, they're better
off', end their misery. Very insidiously, if one is listening. the elderly
are being maligned and blamed for expenditures, that monies for medicare
would be better spent elsewhere and that because of them, social security
will not be available to those now in their twenties and thirties. The
mentally-deficient, handicapped, are also being spoken of as expendable.
Those not knowing history will surely repeat it, despite the pronouncements
of "Never Again'.
-
- When we hear the word holocaust we bring to mind the
Jewish people, but not the multitudes of others. In the fall of '39 the
German government established the Euthanasia Programme-T4. Euthanasia typically
means 'mercy killing' and in the 1990s in the U.S. and other western nations,
it is synonymous with "physician assisted suicide'. The kinds of killing
carried out through the T-4 program bears little resemblance (right now)
to contemporary concepts. Hitler produced a new set of definitions. In
1935 the Nuremberg Laws provided for the forced sterilization of the unfit.
Hitler included not only Jews and Gypsies, he also included unfit Aryans,
the mentally defective, severely handicapped, the mentally ill and the
incurably sick
-
- To implement this program special carbon monoxide chambers
were constructed. Between Dec. '39 and Aug. '41, about 50,000 to 60,000
Germans---children and adults were secretly killed by lethal injections
or in gassing installations designed to look like shower stalls. The victims
were taken from 'institutions' and put to death. The total of those killed;
adult mental patients, 80,000 to 100,000; children in institutions, 5,000.
It was estimated that by the end of '41 some 93,521 beds had been emptied
for other uses. 70,000 patients gassed, plus over 20,000 dead through starvation
and medication. It is thought that even these numbers are significantly
low, with most likely twice as many perishing. Elements of deception, imposed
chaos and the destruction of records make an accurate estimate impossible.
-
- To render harmless the Polish intelligentsia, political
and religious leaders, and anyone else who might, theoretically, rally
and opposition, action groups were established (Einsatzgruppen). They rampaged
through the land, terrorizing and killing. Selections were haphazard. Shootings
were carried out publicly to heighten the climate of fear.. Homosexuals,
Catholics, epileptics and all deemed unfit were marked. ALL were not silent--many
voices arose that we never hear of: Letter fromDr.Hilfrich Bishop of Limberg
to theReichMinisterof Justice, Aug, 13, 1941.
-
- "Regarding the report submitted on July 16 by the
Chairman of the Fulda Bishops' conference, Cardinal Dr. Bertram, I consider
it my 'duty' to present the following as a concrete illustration of destruction
of so-called "useless life".
-
- About 8 kilometers from Limberg in the little town of
Hadamar, on a hill overlooking the town, there is an institution which
had formerly served various purposes and of late had been a nursing home.
This institution was renovated and furnished as a place in which, by consensus
of opinion, the above Euthanasia has been systematically practiced for
months-approximately since Feb of '41. This fact is, of course, know beyond
the administrative district of Wiesbaden. Several times a week busses arrive
in Hadamar with a considerable number of such victims. School children
of the vicinity know this vehicle and say, "here comes the murder-box"..
After the arrival of the vehicle, the citizens of Hadamar watch the smoke
rise out of the chimney."
-
- "The effect of the principles at work here that
children call each other names and say, "you're crazy; you'll be sent
to the baking oven in Hadamar"...All God-fearing man consider this
destruction of helpless beings a crass injustice. Officials of the State
Police, it is said, are trying to suppress discussion of the Hadamar occurrences
by means of severe threats. I beg you most humbly, Herr Reich Minister,
in the sense of the report of the Episcopate of 16 July of this year, to
prevent further transgressions of the Fifth Commandment of God."
-
- Impossible to imagine this indifference, the acceptance-indifference-apathy;
yet when Kevorkian went around with his death van, he was dismissed as
'eccentric'..'mad'. "Never Again?" A cursory look at society's
intolerance, passivity , and insensitivity to horrors and atrocities taking
place today, belies this fact. Will we one day hear the taunts of children
in our own towns, "Here comes the murder box". If you are silent
now in today's injustices-atrocities-abuses-evictions-hunger-social engineering
in schools-forever war-depleted uranium; poisoning soldiers/citizens and
the environment forever--insane weapons; micro-waving-melting-shredding
people etc., you are already deadened to conscience with hearts hardened.
Existing but not living.
|
