In the early 30's, an obscure German came to power in his country by playing on the fear and national pride of the people. Badly beaten in the first World War, the Germans were hungry for national esteem and wanting something or someone on whom to place the blame.
With some well-placed words and bombastic rhetoric, Adolph Hitler gave his fellow Germans a scape-goat and a hope for national pride and world domination. Thus was born the most heinous of regimes and the most horrible of genocides. That he did this claiming to be a devout Christian is even more horrible. His name is synonymous with "Evil."
The Holocaust still stands as a representation of the dark and ugly power of bigotry, religious intolerance, arrogance and fanaticism. The untold numbers of Jewish men, women and children, Homosexuals, Gypsies and others who were killed, starved, experimented upon and reviled as lesser beings should stand as a lesson to us all of how we can get off track if we are not careful. (We need to stop poking our noses in the bedrooms of others and get the lawmakers out of the uterus.)
In this country, they don't call themselves Nazis. But they do call themselves Patriots. They have their own party..the Tea Party..and they are doing all in their power to attempt to take down the current President, a man of mixed race, and return power to the elite, thinking they are doing it for themselves. I know some of these people. They are good folks. Decent, caring and usually reasonable. But the Glen Becks and the Rush Limbaughs and the Sarah Palins have fed an irrational line of hate and fear into the atmosphere and these people, these friends of mine, have been infected. I mourn the loss of their ability to think for themselves.
Every bit of progress that we fought for in the prior century, especially in civil and women's rights, is being dismantled, state by state, by these reactionary radicals. And these people are doing this in the name of the Christian religion and their idea of what is patriotic. What is happening is vile. It is anti-human. It is anti-woman. And it is elitist in a nation that supposedly touts equality.
I wonder how long it will be before our girls are required, again, to wear dresses to school? I wonder how long it will be before Maternity Homes reopen or expand to take in the "fallen angels" and distribute their babies to "the right kind of people?" I wonder how much wider the gap between the haves and the have nots has to get before we have a massive die-off of the disadvantaged? I wonder when it will get to the point that we have a Theocracy rather than a Democracy?
Make no mistake, these are dangerous times. The Tea Party backers, The Koch brothers, Combover Trump, and others, are monied and malevolent and will pursue their agenda if they are not taken down by the truth.
And I can only pray that, in 2012, common sense will prevail in the voting booths. Just as a hedge, I am updating my passport. I might want to leave the country.
Maybe they should cover Lady Liberty's eyes. I don't want her to see this.
