This Sunday is Holocaust Remembrance Day
Apr. 9th, 2010 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
polimicksPlease read this piece on the Huffington Post by Lea Lane, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lea-lane/remembrance-for-nathan-wh_b_530262.html
The article talks about how she worked with a woman named Cecile who survived Auschwitz and wanted to write about her experiences, only to be told by publishers that there were "Too many Holocaust stories coming in right now."
As if such a thing is possible. As if there could be too many stories of survival in the face of the most horrific atrocities humans can visit upon other humans.
What I want to say here might be a skidge controversial.
I would like you all to go read this article. I want you to go and read this article about how a young, resourceful woman avoided being rounded up until she couldn't. About how a grandmother made the decision to hold her 2 year old grandson in her arms in order to save her daughter's (the child's mother's) life, knowing that she was destined to die anyway and wanting to give her daughter a chance at life. About how a sister helped convince a young mother to let grandma hold the child, so she could live. About how those three people hid the truth from a young mother so she wouldn't fight their attempt to save her life.
I want you to read about the other atrocities that young woman survived. About helping to write love poems to one of her captors in an attempt to try to keep the cohort of women she was grouped with alive. About stealing potatoes to survive, knowing she could be shot for it. About standing at the door of a gas chamber until her group was spared for more labor.
I want you to think about all the things that the Holocaust was, by focusing on the very real, very personal, very horrific things that happened to this young woman and her family.
Then I want you to think about what the Holocaust is nothing like.
Health care reform is nothing like the Holocaust.
Making you buy health insurance is nothing like the Holocaust.
Tax Reform is nothing like the Holocaust.
So why do right wingers keep insisting on comparing Obama to Hitler?
Why?
What is wrong with these idiots? Are they stupid? Evil? Or do they just lack any sort of human perspective? Empathy? Lack of a "reality-based" reality?
If you can read the article I linked above and still think it's ok to go to teabag rallies toting your oh, so clever sign of Obama with a Hitler mustache, or pictures of Obama's face photoshopped onto Hitler giving the Sieg Heil, then shame on you. SHAME ON YOU. You deserve nothing but the contempt of every right thinking person on this planet. You're not asking for discourse, you're spitting all over decent human beings around the world. You're spitting on human suffering and the bravery of those people who managed to survive atrocities the like of which, odds are good, your white, privileged ass has never and will never suffer.
There are going to be people who accuse me of being no better than the right wingers here, for using this article and the occasion of Holocaust Rememberance Day to make my point.
And you may be right.
In fact I waffled over this post for a long damn time. I even deleted an earlier version.
But I think it's important enough to point out the reality of the situation that I'm willing to let some of you think less of me for this, rather than not say a damn thing about the hideous, and continued, misuse of one of the greatest horrors and tragedies in human history.
If that makes me a bad person, so be it.
But trust me, I did not decide to do this thoughtlessly or lightly. Believe me. I do not have family members who were in the camps. I did/do have two grandfathers who fought against Hitler, one of whom was actually declared dead in France, before they found him wandering around with two burst eardrums and various other wounds from a German mortar attack.
I just can't sit here any longer, silent. Liberals and Progressives keep making the mistake of attempting to engage with these jerks as if they want actual discourse on these topics. We need to stop doing that. I'm learning to stop doing that on my blogs, the country needs to learn to stop doing that about issues that are far, far more important than sexism in videogames. They don't want discourse, they want their way and only their way. They don't give a shit about Democracy and they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves.
Please, this Sunday take a moment to think about the Holocaust, the victims and the survivors, perhaps light a candle. Think about what it was, and then, think about what it wasn't.
Thank you for indulging me. And if this is offensive, I apologize. I apologize for doing something that may emotionally harm some of you, but I'm not going to take it back. I'm sorry.
ETA: Because the question has been asked, link all you want.
The article talks about how she worked with a woman named Cecile who survived Auschwitz and wanted to write about her experiences, only to be told by publishers that there were "Too many Holocaust stories coming in right now."
As if such a thing is possible. As if there could be too many stories of survival in the face of the most horrific atrocities humans can visit upon other humans.
What I want to say here might be a skidge controversial.
I would like you all to go read this article. I want you to go and read this article about how a young, resourceful woman avoided being rounded up until she couldn't. About how a grandmother made the decision to hold her 2 year old grandson in her arms in order to save her daughter's (the child's mother's) life, knowing that she was destined to die anyway and wanting to give her daughter a chance at life. About how a sister helped convince a young mother to let grandma hold the child, so she could live. About how those three people hid the truth from a young mother so she wouldn't fight their attempt to save her life.
I want you to read about the other atrocities that young woman survived. About helping to write love poems to one of her captors in an attempt to try to keep the cohort of women she was grouped with alive. About stealing potatoes to survive, knowing she could be shot for it. About standing at the door of a gas chamber until her group was spared for more labor.
I want you to think about all the things that the Holocaust was, by focusing on the very real, very personal, very horrific things that happened to this young woman and her family.
Then I want you to think about what the Holocaust is nothing like.
Health care reform is nothing like the Holocaust.
Making you buy health insurance is nothing like the Holocaust.
Tax Reform is nothing like the Holocaust.
So why do right wingers keep insisting on comparing Obama to Hitler?
Why?
What is wrong with these idiots? Are they stupid? Evil? Or do they just lack any sort of human perspective? Empathy? Lack of a "reality-based" reality?
If you can read the article I linked above and still think it's ok to go to teabag rallies toting your oh, so clever sign of Obama with a Hitler mustache, or pictures of Obama's face photoshopped onto Hitler giving the Sieg Heil, then shame on you. SHAME ON YOU. You deserve nothing but the contempt of every right thinking person on this planet. You're not asking for discourse, you're spitting all over decent human beings around the world. You're spitting on human suffering and the bravery of those people who managed to survive atrocities the like of which, odds are good, your white, privileged ass has never and will never suffer.
There are going to be people who accuse me of being no better than the right wingers here, for using this article and the occasion of Holocaust Rememberance Day to make my point.
And you may be right.
In fact I waffled over this post for a long damn time. I even deleted an earlier version.
But I think it's important enough to point out the reality of the situation that I'm willing to let some of you think less of me for this, rather than not say a damn thing about the hideous, and continued, misuse of one of the greatest horrors and tragedies in human history.
If that makes me a bad person, so be it.
But trust me, I did not decide to do this thoughtlessly or lightly. Believe me. I do not have family members who were in the camps. I did/do have two grandfathers who fought against Hitler, one of whom was actually declared dead in France, before they found him wandering around with two burst eardrums and various other wounds from a German mortar attack.
I just can't sit here any longer, silent. Liberals and Progressives keep making the mistake of attempting to engage with these jerks as if they want actual discourse on these topics. We need to stop doing that. I'm learning to stop doing that on my blogs, the country needs to learn to stop doing that about issues that are far, far more important than sexism in videogames. They don't want discourse, they want their way and only their way. They don't give a shit about Democracy and they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves.
Please, this Sunday take a moment to think about the Holocaust, the victims and the survivors, perhaps light a candle. Think about what it was, and then, think about what it wasn't.
Thank you for indulging me. And if this is offensive, I apologize. I apologize for doing something that may emotionally harm some of you, but I'm not going to take it back. I'm sorry.
ETA: Because the question has been asked, link all you want.
