Remembering
My Mother got exercised once when I was young when my grandfather showed me a book (or I found it and opened it) containing photos of piled bodies from the WWII death camps in Europe. It must have been the late sixties or so and Mom pitched a fit. Grandpa didn't back down though, and I can remember the look on his face as he stared into mine- he wanted me to get it, to remember.
They were black and white photos, small, the book was a paperback, and quite abstract for my young mind. But I do remember.
Writing this it comes to mind how I felt when I heard about what was going on in Rwanda. It was current at the time, happening while it was being described, and I burned at the fact that we- The United States- were doing nothing about it. I didn't understand why, and I didn't know how I could do anything about it.
There have been other similar events for me, but I came to accept that alone, I couldn't do anything about them, and I started paying attention to government and politics to try and understand these things. Later I started paying attention to the press.
The blogosphere has been an enlightenment for me. I'm not any happier, I still can't do much except spout off on my blog, but at least I can do that small part, as much as it annoys some people.
Today I learned that it is the 55th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto from Ron Coleman's blog (via Instapundit). He makes a bold statement that I sadly have to agree with:
If we knew then what we know now, about the mass killings, the gas chambers, the sick human experimentation, the crematoria — if we knew it were going on right now …America, and the rest of the world, would not do a damned thing about it.
It's a short post, it'll take maybe a minute, and I dare you to read it.
Obama said last week that even if genocide ensued if we left Iraq before it was ready, he would be OK with it. John Kerry said last week that when we left Vietnam nothing big happened. Others have said similar things, intimating that these kinds of events- murder on a mind boggling scale- are inevitable, if they really ever happened at all. People still quote Mao, venerate Stalin as a leader.
What is mind boggling to me is that these politicians are actually supported by the same folks who would piss right down their leg if they witnessed an old growth tree being chopped down. Killing a tree gets them tremulous, but the mass slaughter of humans can't get their attention.
Where do you stand?
