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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAre not ICE agents the real "animals"?
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RockRaven
(14,783 posts)and how infrequently anyone is held accountable.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)It starts with reducing "the other" to a sub-human.
triron
(21,915 posts)keithbvadu2
(36,368 posts)byronius
(7,369 posts)Kirk Lover
(3,608 posts)far worse than a mere "animal".
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)rhetorical
defacto7
(13,485 posts)in droves.
PatrickforO
(14,516 posts)The day is gray and overcast. Oskar Schindler sits in the saddle of a horse at the top of a hill overlooking the Jewish Ghetto in Krakow.
Suddenly, trucks roar in. They are filled with grey-clad SS einsatzgruppen with coal scuttle helmets who leap into action, clearing people, families from the squalid apartments in which they have been forced to live.
Soon, the narrow streets are littered with tattered suitcases filled with a few select possessions which each family is allowed. The jackboots of the SS killers echo down the alleys. There are screams - men, women and children begging for mercy punctuated by harsh commands in German. There are other sounds too. Rifle butts making slapping sounds as they cave in skulls and break ribs. Gunshots are heard.
There is a small child in a red coat walking through the chaos around her, keeping to the middle of the street.
The scene pans to a landing on the stairs of an apartment building. The SS shout and pound on the door. Someone kicks it in, and the SS troops barge in. There are screams as the Jewish family is torn from the protective interior and herded into the hallway.
Suddenly, one of the Germans forgets the myth upon which his entire order rests, upon which the entire Third Reich rests. The cruel myth that Jews are animals, and are somehow responsible for all German problems. He approaches a crying child in the arms of his mother and speaks cheerfully to him, consoling him.
This scene is incongruous, surprising, out-of-place. A member of the dreaded Einsatzgruppen comforting a small Jewish child during the liquidation and massacre of the Krakow Ghetto. What are we to think?
Trump and his minions, with their corporate capitalist propaganda organs - Fox, Breitbart, and a multitude of talk radio fanatics - have indoctrinated a substantial part of our population with the belief that racial and ethnic minorities, Muslims, Jews and immigrants from African, Central and South American countries are somehow less than human. Somehow animals.
But there is cause for hope. Consider the resistance. You and me. Those in the media who are finding their integrity. Those Republicans who are leaving Congress because they can neither condone nor support the Trump Tea Party and its white supremacist base. The Parkland kids who have awakened a whole generation. The athletes kneeling during the national anthem. The increased awareness of race-based police brutality. The ignorance of white people who call the police on people going about their business while being black, or American Indian, or Hispanic. More stories about corporate corruption.
Like the phoenix, we may emerge from the bitter ashes of this nightmare with our humanity reawakened, our common decency and integrity intact. It is the nature of the capitalists to systematically and cruelly divide us so we do not pay attention to who is really picking our pockets.
Let us have hope!
rusty quoin
(6,133 posts)The joy from the Nazis doing what they did stands out.
As for hope, I am really scared more than I have ever been in my life. I did not give up hope during the 2nd Bush administration and we overcame it.
But now its different. This is as dark a place that I have been. The big problem is ignorance. Too many people dont even know what truth looks like. Thats what brings down a Democratic Republic.
Duppers
(28,094 posts)+1000
green917
(442 posts)There has been a well coordinated effort for decades to dehumanize the enemy. The not so subtle use of nothing but derogatory terms to describe the "enemy" (i.e.- awful and egregious terms like "slope", "raghead", "camel jockey", etc) slowly but surely allowing one (particularly young and impressionable troops with little to no real education) to view them in no terms other than something "other". Instilling fear and disdain for other classes and races has been the stock and trade of our military for decades and has been transferred to use on the general populace as well. Sadly, large swaths of Americans are ignorant of the ways of the real world due to a number of factors that have been exploited by the powers that be for many many years now. We need to combat these techniques becoming common place and accepted. It is incumbent on those of us that understand that all people are, indeed, created equal to call out such dog whistle techniques at every opportunity.