This is not a recruitment ad but a sobering view of hatred. The picture was taken from James von Brunn's website. He's the man who walked into the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, yesterday and fatally shot a security guard for the sole reason that the security guard was black and working at the Holocaust Museum. The shooter claimed to be a World War II veteran. Perhaps he was. Many of you have read before about my favorite World War II veteran. A man who landed in Normandy on D-plus-14. Who told stories of the sky glowing orange on three sides from the fighting - the fourth side being the blackness of the Channel. A man who helped liberate a camp in Austria and was in charge of delousing the Russian POWs. Whose stories were first-hand accounts of the tragedy known as the Holocaust. Whose stories were scrubbed clean to become my bedtime stories as a child - of being separated from his unit in France, guarding the tanks during a hot summer night, attending Christmas service with a French family who invited him to eat with them.
How hatred develops is easy to understand. Perceived slights and indignities, one's feeling of entitlement not being supported by all around, grudges left to fester. But it's also learned. And quite frequently at an early age. One way of reaching younger and more impressionable people is through Facebook.
Facebook won't take down the Holocaust denier pages claiming that they are expressions of free speech, however ignorant. There's a fine line between free speech and Big Brother. We can't become like Iran which shutters access to websites, like Facebook, that the government considers to be a threat. Yet, there are stories from here in America of local government tyrants doing the same thing because certain online threads are undermining their credibility. But where can we draw the line?
What about people who declare that Dr. Tiller should die for his actions and someone following through on that? What about musicians who shout to the world about forcibly putting women in their place? What about people who claim the Holocaust never happened?
Any threat, verbal or written, against the President is perceived as real and investigated. All citizens should be given that same chance of survival. Whether an individual, like Dr. Tiller, or a group, such as Jews, and African-Americans, and Muslims, and Christians. For we've all been victims, at one time or another, of persecution and hatred and bigotry and ignorance.
I have a hard time, sometimes, understanding how someone can be sooo completely given to hatred. It's just unnatural to me. I think the worst of these pages/websites should be taken off, IF they try to incite violence in any way. Otherwise, it's just free speech, awful as that speech is to me. *sigh* I think I'll be glad when the end comes..:)
ReplyDeletehugs,
Jean
Such a sad and depressing thing. It depresses me that people are often so hateful and savage.
ReplyDeleteI do think however once you start censoring speech that it never ends and you finally find yourself living in a place like China.
Ever thought of running for office?
ReplyDeleteI just watched a movie last night from redbox called the Defiance. It was a depiction of 1941 when Germany occupies Belorussia and the SS death squads and police round up Jews. In the first week 50,000 people are executed and thousands upon thousands go into hiding. It was truly very sad.
ReplyDeleteMy mom was born and raised in Germany and her father was in the Nazi Party. My mom ran away at an early age from her father and was forced to live this way -- always in hiding. They would throw her over the fence of concentration camps so that she could gather food because sometime it was the only place that they could find it. I don't think she was actually in the German Resistance, but she was a participant in the way that involved doing what was necessary staying alive.
I was very sad to hear about the Holocaust Museum. My family went there a couple of years ago. All of it is so sad and disturbing.
P.S. I think Savannah needs the Girls Scouts. What a shame that they didn't want them their in the first place. I mean come on...if it's their birthplace why not. Shame on you Savannah.