I know I've said this recently in other locations, but it bears repeating here. Noted writer Rod Serling was a combat veteran of WWII, and his regiment helped liberate some of the Nazi death camps. The experience haunted him for the rest of his life, and several of his Twilight Zone episodes spoke out against those atrocities. "Death's Head Revisited" was the best. I paraphrase his words below:
Our parents’ generation was supposed to have "peace in our time. A very well-meaning gentleman waved his umbrella and shouted those very words. But this gentleman was afflicted with the worldly disease of insufferable optimism. He and his fellow humans kept polishing their rose-colored glasses when actually they should have taken them off. They were sacrificing reason and reality for a brief and temporal peace of mind, the same peace of mind that many of my contemporaries derive by steadfastly refraining from remembering the War that came before."
What appeasement bought then was the most horrific slaughter of a people ever perpetrated by mankind. Serling urged that all the Dachaus, Auschwitzes, Belsens, Buchenwalds should remain standing, so that they would remain a “monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the earth into a graveyard, into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the grave diggers.”
It took the Greatest Generation to rid the world of such horror, but now, only two generations removed from those atrocities, we see an uptick of antisemitism. Our children’s generation has succumbed to the party propaganda machines of persecution and violence, and chosen to openly criticize the Jewish people for “crimes against humanity.”
When political figures such as Ms. Harris, or Ms. Warren, or AOC, et al, criticize Israel, they give aid and comfort to a government and terrorist organizations that openly discriminate against LBGQT populations and deprives women of their dignity. Their refusal to support Israel is a direct contradiction to their reputed efforts to correct such injustices in America, and gives lie to their ramblings about rights and values and social justice for all Americans.
It is sad that any of our of our elected representatives would willingly refuse to support the Israeli people in their struggle against an enemy who uses civilians as human shields. I’m sure they have their reasons. Perhaps they even believe their reasons are noble and just. But are those reasons more deeply founded on prejudice and bigotry? Only they will know. Regardless, there is no place in civilized society where the hatred of a people can be condoned, no matter their creed, culture, gender, or their race, and no matter what the political stakes!
In effect, they are the grave diggers of today's generation.
I know I've said this recently in other locations, but it bears repeating here. Noted writer Rod Serling was a combat veteran of WWII, and his regiment helped liberate some of the Nazi death camps. The experience haunted him for the rest of his life, and several of his Twilight Zone episodes spoke out against those atrocities. "Death's Head Revisited" was the best. I paraphrase his words below:
Our parents’ generation was supposed to have "peace in our time. A very well-meaning gentleman waved his umbrella and shouted those very words. But this gentleman was afflicted with the worldly disease of insufferable optimism. He and his fellow humans kept polishing their rose-colored glasses when actually they should have taken them off. They were sacrificing reason and reality for a brief and temporal peace of mind, the same peace of mind that many of my contemporaries derive by steadfastly refraining from remembering the War that came before."
What appeasement bought then was the most horrific slaughter of a people ever perpetrated by mankind. Serling urged that all the Dachaus, Auschwitzes, Belsens, Buchenwalds should remain standing, so that they would remain a “monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the earth into a graveyard, into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the grave diggers.”
It took the Greatest Generation to rid the world of such horror, but now, only two generations removed from those atrocities, we see an uptick of antisemitism. Our children’s generation has succumbed to the party propaganda machines of persecution and violence, and chosen to openly criticize the Jewish people for “crimes against humanity.”
When political figures such as Ms. Harris, or Ms. Warren, or AOC, et al, criticize Israel, they give aid and comfort to a government and terrorist organizations that openly discriminate against LBGQT populations and deprives women of their dignity. Their refusal to support Israel is a direct contradiction to their reputed efforts to correct such injustices in America, and gives lie to their ramblings about rights and values and social justice for all Americans.
It is sad that any of our of our elected representatives would willingly refuse to support the Israeli people in their struggle against an enemy who uses civilians as human shields. I’m sure they have their reasons. Perhaps they even believe their reasons are noble and just. But are those reasons more deeply founded on prejudice and bigotry? Only they will know. Regardless, there is no place in civilized society where the hatred of a people can be condoned, no matter their creed, culture, gender, or their race, and no matter what the political stakes!
In effect, they are the grave diggers of today's generation.
This is extremely profound. Thanks for writing this.