So, the health care reform opponents have been at it again. Using images from Nazi Germany. Trying to tie this administration somehow to those…….abominations. Are some of these groups so hard up for fodder for their campaigns that they have to resort to using these horrors for personal gain? This is personal opinion, but I find this: God save us, these actions seem to be committed by individuals who are either abysmally ignorant or criminally cynical. If it’s through ignorance than I can only think they’ve been sitting in a corner with their fingers in their ears humming really, really loud. If it’s cynicism; honestly why should I be surprised. We’ve seen it before, over and over in the last election campaigns. Karl Rove would be so proud.
I stumbled across a rerun of a short mini series on the early years of John Paul II starting with the occupation of Poland by the Nazis. The program reminded me of other material I’ve read or watched over the years. I worked my way through the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in the ninth grade but seeing is still more immediate than reading.
Here was true horror. The Holocaust not only of the Jews but the attempts by the occupying forces to stamp out Polish language and culture. The Nazi’s plans for the Slavs were slightly more generous than what was planned for the Jews, but not by much. The attacks on refugee columns. The bombing and near wholesale destruction of cities. The closing of schools, seminaries and universities. Deportation of men and women as slave labor in the Reich. Teachers, professors, clergy, civil leaders, even monks and nuns either shot without trial or sent to concentration camps. Constant harassment by occupying troops. The country stripped of resources, the population to be reduced to slavery, ignorance, and near starvation. The Poles fought back, not only with guns and bombs but with underground theaters, schools and seminaries.
Heaven save us. May this country never be faced with a similar fate. America was singularly fortunate at the end of the war. We didn’t have to rebuild our cities, homes and factories. We could count our dead in thousands, not millions and almost all of those were military not civilians.
I’m truly afraid that we’re past the point where we’re willing to talk to each other instead of shouting at each other. I’m even more afraid that the violence in out language is mirrored in the constantly increasing physical violence around us. In the last week a police officer was killed in a drive by shooting in Seattle, the shootings in Texas and another in Florida. I feel like I'm watching a train heading downhill with no brakes and the bridge is out.
7 comments:
I try not to pay attention to the garbage... But it all seems to be garbage, these days, doesn't it? We're drowning in it.
It's difficult to not focus on the bad ... when there is so much of it put right in front of us. I may end up hiding my head in the sand now and again. But now and again, I have to to save myself.
I dont think people are comparing the Nazi's and health care reform because the health care reform will ultimately lead to genocide. It is being compared to the Nazi's because health care will ultimately lead to the government having control of a sixth of the American economy. Much like the Nazi's did under their environmental, youth, military programs. The Nazi's commonly used government programs that were supposed to be "good for the people" and used them as a means to control the people. If you support Obama and his agenda, then you will be manipulated and used as the "useful idiot" that you have become.
An appropriate nickname, "Toejamm," as you evidently have the IQ of that particular substance...
It would be more effective to leave out the incendiary rehetoric and state the problems opponants have with the health care bills the elected hired help are trying to reconcile.
My concern is the acid effect this is having on our spiritual lives. We overlook what this country has had to be thankful for in the years since the war and find time to say there but for the grace of God.....
Shouting at each other isn't doing us any good; perhaps we should try talking with each other.
Not to mention that the fact that "health care" IS a sixth of the American economy is a huge part of the problem. Health care should not be a consumer commodity. It should be an inalienable right available to all regardless of economic status.
But first We must speak of man's rights. Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary for the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social services. In consequence, he has the right to be looked after in the event of illhealth; disability stemming from his work; widowhood; old age; enforced unemployment; or whenever through no fault of his own he is deprived of the means of livelihood. (8)
From John XXIII's encyclical Pacem in Terris actually very readable for what it is.
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