I am so done with this. I’m old enough to remember a time before the Internet, before a time when so much disinformation, so many lies, were available to everyone.
When I was young, we were taught the atrocities of the Nazi regime. We saw what happened to Jews, Romani, gays, and just about everyone else that disagreed with the people in power.
We saw Europe virtually destroyed. Yet Europe rose again, wiser, more determined, and devoted to ensuring something like WWII never happened again.
But then, maybe as a result of the almost complete disregard in the USA for the repercussions of letting anyone, crazy or not, racist or not, power-driven or not, have a voice, some people in this country started listening to those voices.
In the 70s and 80s, this was mostly confined to a few right-wing shortwave radio stations, at least before Rupert Murdoch, who himself is an IMMIGRANT, created Fox (pronounced “Faux”) News.
Before long, many people without morals realized they could make money preaching hate to the poor and uneducated whites of rural America. Hate always sells; it’s far easier to hate (and ridicule) than understand.
So here we are today, with multitudes of right-wing networks, podcasts, websites; you name it. And a significant portion of this country eats it up, because they feel maligned, abused, forgotten, and don’t really know why.
Shysters like the members of the regime currently in power take advantage of this. How? Not by offering them hope, jobs, and stability. But rather whipping their hate into a frenzy so extreme that they will ignore their own self-interest, in fact ignore common sense, in order to “get” the people who disagree with the regime.
ICE has introduced the usual playbook in Fascist regimes—go after the people who disagree with you, your methods, and execution. As a result, America (I can’t believe I am saying this) finds itself saddled with its own Gestapo. America! We have a gorgeous statue on Staten Island, gifted to us by France over a century ago, that celebrated the very basis on which the United States of America was founded.
I quote a portion:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus wrote those words in 1883. I fear he would be horrified at the USA as it exists at this moment.
It’s time to stop looking at the internet for the latest celebrity reveal. Time to stop looking at your phones and playing the latest games or anything else created to divert your attention.
America. the REAL America, needs you now more than ever to save it. Be disruptive, refuse ICE, refuse illegal orders, organize to protest, but do SOMETHING to save this nation, ere we end up like Germany in 1945, a completely ruined nation, along with a completely ruined Europe.
Of course, should it come to that, it will be far, far worse...
