In spite of a highly touted new TV Series fictionally accounting for what transpired in the years and decades after Naziism took over ... after the Third Reich dominated the World by winning WWII ... the House that Hitler Built did fall and a period of somewhat greater caring for each other did follow. Here in my United States, we did pass a Civil Rights Act and for a long time did put forth effort in preventing local municipalities from blocking many from voting. There are, indeed, in the US of A many places where people who are different than others in certain ways can walk unmolested.
Maybe it's just the places M and I tend to go, but:
mixed race and same sex couples walk without obvious fear;
folk from minority and ethnic bakgrounds are welcomed to dine and travel, live and recreate among their privileged brethren; and
people who pray differently are not assumed to be worshipping the devil.
It's not that I don't remember; I do. I recall folk trying to beat me up because of my religion (1950's thru early 1960's) and times when my Dad lost his job because of his religious practice (1956) and I do recall my Mom speaking of a time (1932) when she couldn't take the entrance exams to a New York Art School because the tests were only available on her Sabbath. I remember being asked (1972) just how it felt to be a Christ killer and someone counting me in the ranks of AIDS victims for counting myself among the Jews (1994).
I still do remember .... When I ran a school for disturbed inner city kids in the mid-70's, having lunch in a tavern in one of the Whitetowns of Philadelphia and folk smashing a glass ritualistically against a
brick wall if it was used by a black patron ... after they left. I recall people threatening to rape my wife after I integrated the school (1977). And I recall people in Saxis, VA and Greenfield, IN (there, it was the police after impounding our car on the highway after our alterntor failed) making it clear that I wasn't welcome in their towns. And I still can recall Larry King interviewing 3 or 4 Christian clergyfolk and one of them saying: "The problem with Muslims is that they,re praying to the wrong god" (during the 2004 election, I think). Funny. It was 800 years ago that Maimonides reminded his readers that all monotheistic religions must-of-necessity be praying the the same One-God!
brick wall if it was used by a black patron ... after they left. I recall people threatening to rape my wife after I integrated the school (1977). And I recall people in Saxis, VA and Greenfield, IN (there, it was the police after impounding our car on the highway after our alterntor failed) making it clear that I wasn't welcome in their towns. And I still can recall Larry King interviewing 3 or 4 Christian clergyfolk and one of them saying: "The problem with Muslims is that they,re praying to the wrong god" (during the 2004 election, I think). Funny. It was 800 years ago that Maimonides reminded his readers that all monotheistic religions must-of-necessity be praying the the same One-God!
I feel sad. Maybe large parts of my sadness are directed at my fears about an upcoming surgery that faces M in a just nine days ... Those of us in the Last Quarter know that if we are to continue Playing, some of our parts need to be replaced, especially when we realize that one or another "joint ain't jumpin'" without excruciating pain. M version 2.01 is about to be released. Does, indeed, make me sad to watch now and to anticipate the pain subsequent to her "Black and Decker" surgery.
Still, the schismatizing hate speech of the liks of Carson, Cruz and Trump and some of their confreres pains me, at least as much, as M's surgery and the angry atrocities perpetrated by groups who seek retaliation and terror against the civilization in which I live.
There is, I suppose, a form of what the Social Psychologists call the Fundamental Attribution Bias. The usual applications of that are to situations, such as:
If you succeed in life, it's dumb luck while if I do it is due to hard work and perservearance;
If you fail, it is due to your own malfeasance, while if I do, it was just misfortune.
In these months, the mouthings of the right wing Politicos make their view clear that Radical Islam is a type all to itself and has no similarity to Rad Christianity as in the Crusades or killing abortion
doctors or Radical Judaism as portrayed by the likes of Dr Baruch Goldstein who killed many during
their prayers in a mosque.
doctors or Radical Judaism as portrayed by the likes of Dr Baruch Goldstein who killed many during
their prayers in a mosque.
I suppose, for me, Radicalism, in its simplest form, is the blinding of oneself to the pain of others .... Radicalism is the denial that The Stranger in Your Midst, the Other, is a child of some Mom and a Subject in their Own Right.
I suppose I could reduce the above to a pithier:
RADICALISM -- IN ALL ITS FORMS and INCARNATIONS -- IS THE ENEMY.
