MEMORIAL DAY
My childhood friends, family and teachers taught me that genocide is wrong. Anyone who commits it, funds it, or profits from it is a criminal. No exceptions. Now I'm told that I need to be wishy washy about genocide. I am asked to make exceptions for certain important political parties or important corporations or important religions. Now I'm told that opposing genocide means I'm being too much of a perfectionist.
My childhood friends, family and teachers taught me about the trans Atlantic slave trade and the Holocaust. My Black and Jewish friends and teachers made the point especially strongly. The lesson was simple. Never be wishy washy about slavery or genocide. Now I am asked to believe that slavery and genocide are actually ok, when certain special people do them.
My childhood friends, family and teachers taught me that democracy means you vote your conscience. When people vote against their conscience, and instead try to guess how everyone else will vote, that isn't democracy anymore. This creates an industry that convinces everyone about how everyone else is voting, to prevent people from voting for what they actually believe in. It creates political parties that focus on making money instead of helping people or saving the world.
Now I'm told that the lessons and agreements and frameworks created after the horror of the Holocaust should be thrown in the garbage. These international laws don't apply to the Israeli or American governments. I am asked to believe that it is now my moral duty to support genocide, to fund apartheid, to invest in weapons, to vote for racists.
I am now asked to be wishy washy about genocides, wars, slavery, racism, unaccountable politicians, unaccountable police, and environmental destruction. I am expected to believe these things are ok now, because they are done by certain political parties or certain corporations. Then I'm expected to act surprised when our political parties and corporations commit these crimes more often every year.
Now I am asked to feel sorry for war criminals. I'm asked to consider the emotional discomfort of people who commit genocide. I'm asked to believe that deep down they are nice people. I am asked to believe their words, and ignore their actions. I am asked to pay better attention to pre-apocalypse formality and etiquette.
When people feel abandoned by politics, when their needs are not met by government, they get desperate. They look for someone to blame. They look for saviors. They believe nonsense. They become nihilists. Many scream for systemic change. The far right promises systemic change, but is lying. The left promises systemic change, and is telling the truth.
The way you get rid of the far right is to empower the left. This might be by voting for left candidates, and it might be empowering the left in ways other than voting. The way you strengthen the far right is to empower the center, who betray their voters, collaborate with the far right, adopt far right policies, and attack the left.
My theory of why Democrats are losing so many elections on purpose is simple: they need people in power who won't prosecute their biggest superstars for war crimes, and in some cases pedophilia. That’s why they are comfortable with a fellow war criminal like Trump being president.
There's a big difference between saving the world and helping destroy it, but our society lumps them together and calls them 'politics'. Politicians have the power to choose saving or destroying the world. When they are paid by corporations to destroy it, their job is easier if you believe that they never actually had the power to save the world.
No country is perfect. But the reason the U.S. and CIA have always attacked and sanctioned countries with left governments is not because those countries were harming the average American. The reason is that Americans can't be allowed to see left governments succeeding, or taking care of their people. Especially in the global South.
For me Memorial Day is a time to grieve for the mostly poor families who had to sacrifice their sons, daughters, fathers and mothers so that weapons dealers could make more money, so that oil companies could stay in business, so that politicians could temporarily look tough or improve their polling numbers or win midterm elections, and so that colonialism and imperialism could be allowed to continue to destroy the planet and everything that lives.