I pledged to be an activist for justice after my mother responded to my asking why our neighborhood grocer and his wife, Freddy and Sonia, had blue numbers on their arms. I was a young child then and 75 now. I follow the Old Testament “justice, justice that we must pursue.” From Isiah. It is why I am a Jew who abhors what the Israeli government continues to do. It is not the way to achieve peace and certainty not just. I grew up among Holocaust survivors and stories of antisemitism in the US. My husband is African American and our adult son is biracial. I am very well versed in injustice.
Trump, Himmler...I mean Miller...etc. are laying the groundwork for another horrific event that will have its own "remembrance day" 50 years from now. It is the job of every good American to do everything they can to stop them.
A brief remembrance here for my Uncle Al, who was one of the Third Army soldiers who arrived at Buchenwald on April 11, 1945 and liberated it from the SS. The clock above Buchenwald forever reads 3:15, which was the time the soldiers arrived. He was awarded the Bronze Star. He passed away at the VA Hospital in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1973. Rest in peace.
They don’t make ‘em ( your Uncle ) like that anymore. I wish they did. If they did the orange imbecile would have an orange jumpsuit and a prison number a long, long time ago.
My dad and uncles fought in WWII. They had political differences between themselves. But, the shit that’s going on currently? None and I mean none of them would stand for it.
My mother, after surviving Auschwitz, married my father, who had survived 3 years in Siberia. In 1956, when I was 7 years old, my family escaped Hungary after the Revolt was put down and Russian tanks were rolling through the streets of our town. In early '57 we made it to the US. Years later, my mom showed me a picture of about 30 members of our extended family, and told me that only about half of them had returned from the death camps. The difference between Nazi Germany and the US today is the growing resistance to the Fascists' ambitions. But they are fully in power so I'm afraid many thousands of people will die or be sent to prisons before the new Holocaust comes to an end.
Thank you for this reminder, Steve. The many parallels between the Nazi regime and the genocide of Jewish people are chilling and grow ever more numerous. We must stand up and speak out and remind our friends and neighbors sitting on the sidelines that Silence is Complicity.
After witnessing how Trump's Chumps have targeted our neighbors, and fellow citizens with derision, harassment, and deadly force, which has recently culminated in the assassinations of a poet and a mountain biker - I am a poet, a mountain biker and a long-time peace activist/marcher myself - the mental anguish and agitation has formed this pearl, a song in my voice - ICE MUST GO. Please share widely, in our communal efforts to wake people up and remove this entire murderous regime from our government. https://youtu.be/SfJy4BCJjwo?si=2j0nMTXMhyQ0fdtw
Two interesting quotes about man's capacity for evil:
As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities. — Desmond Tutu
For the first time, he considered that utter indifference might inspire not inner peace but a limitless capacity for evil. — Dean Koontz
Steve's commentary today is evidence of how right these two men were. Every man and particularly every government official should consider these truths before making a legal, political or economic decision.
In 1974 on my Junior year abroad I visited Dachau with a Jewish friend. It’s not something that I would have done if she hadn’t suggested it but I’m glad I did. I didn’t know what to expect but seeing “Arbeit macht Frei” on the entry gate was chilling. The museum was not gruesome like a haunted house. There were no blood stains to be seen nor people re-enacting the tragedies. It’s very ordinariness and the stark black and white photos brought home the Nazi evil. I understand the Dachau gas chamber was never used but it looked just like an athletic shower room. This visit told me more about the Holocaust than any history class I’d had. It was pure evil and I recognized the potential for a repeat when Trump ran in 2016. When he was reelected in 2024 people told me not to worry. I’ve never stopped worrying and my worst fears are coming to pass. We must stand up to Trump.
Nazi Cheeto Building Concentration Camps With Big ICE Funding
Let’s call out what these ICE detention facilities are They are like the Nazi concentration camps like Dachau, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald Nazi Germany (1933–1945) imprisoned people on a massive scale in a vast network of camps and other detention sites
It’s no secret that there’s $$ to be had by the private prison system industry and DHS has contracted with many communities in the US to hold ICE concentration camps My own experience with the fourth largest US detention center on the Tacoma tideflats where 52 men have died has been the site of many of our community protests
But as Rachel Maddow reported last night multiple communities across the country are now pushing back against ICE trying to establish concentration camps in their cities and shutting the agency down This is what it looks like for WE the People to not only protest in the streets but to tell the current Nazi regime ”not in my town”
One step further What would it look like if Tacoma demanded that ICE leave its community??
My hope — in tribute to the memory, spirit and moral legacy of Holocaust victims and survivors at this perilous and ominous moment marked by International Holocaust Remembrance Day — is the following:
May we all possess the openness of heart, clarity of thought, richness of imagination, conviction of conscience and equanimity of emotion to know kindness from disrespect and indifference, fraternal embrace from exclusion and demonization, reason from irrationality, truth and fact from falsehood and lies, informed consent from disinformed blind faith, preference from prejudice, courage and civility from fear and bullying, neutrality from silence, the compulsion of truth from enslavement to illusion, mindful disobedience from mindless acquiescence, the love of others from self-love, discourse from disengagement, and social justice from an inequitable status quo. Herein lies a nexus of ideals whose apprehension and practice ennobles our humanity and our dignity, making possible our individual and collective success as morally worthy, loving, nonviolent and inextricably connected human beings.
I pledged to be an activist for justice after my mother responded to my asking why our neighborhood grocer and his wife, Freddy and Sonia, had blue numbers on their arms. I was a young child then and 75 now. I follow the Old Testament “justice, justice that we must pursue.” From Isiah. It is why I am a Jew who abhors what the Israeli government continues to do. It is not the way to achieve peace and certainty not just. I grew up among Holocaust survivors and stories of antisemitism in the US. My husband is African American and our adult son is biracial. I am very well versed in injustice.
Trump, Himmler...I mean Miller...etc. are laying the groundwork for another horrific event that will have its own "remembrance day" 50 years from now. It is the job of every good American to do everything they can to stop them.
A brief remembrance here for my Uncle Al, who was one of the Third Army soldiers who arrived at Buchenwald on April 11, 1945 and liberated it from the SS. The clock above Buchenwald forever reads 3:15, which was the time the soldiers arrived. He was awarded the Bronze Star. He passed away at the VA Hospital in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1973. Rest in peace.
They don’t make ‘em ( your Uncle ) like that anymore. I wish they did. If they did the orange imbecile would have an orange jumpsuit and a prison number a long, long time ago.
My dad and uncles fought in WWII. They had political differences between themselves. But, the shit that’s going on currently? None and I mean none of them would stand for it.
My mother, after surviving Auschwitz, married my father, who had survived 3 years in Siberia. In 1956, when I was 7 years old, my family escaped Hungary after the Revolt was put down and Russian tanks were rolling through the streets of our town. In early '57 we made it to the US. Years later, my mom showed me a picture of about 30 members of our extended family, and told me that only about half of them had returned from the death camps. The difference between Nazi Germany and the US today is the growing resistance to the Fascists' ambitions. But they are fully in power so I'm afraid many thousands of people will die or be sent to prisons before the new Holocaust comes to an end.
Thank you for this reminder, Steve. The many parallels between the Nazi regime and the genocide of Jewish people are chilling and grow ever more numerous. We must stand up and speak out and remind our friends and neighbors sitting on the sidelines that Silence is Complicity.
After witnessing how Trump's Chumps have targeted our neighbors, and fellow citizens with derision, harassment, and deadly force, which has recently culminated in the assassinations of a poet and a mountain biker - I am a poet, a mountain biker and a long-time peace activist/marcher myself - the mental anguish and agitation has formed this pearl, a song in my voice - ICE MUST GO. Please share widely, in our communal efforts to wake people up and remove this entire murderous regime from our government. https://youtu.be/SfJy4BCJjwo?si=2j0nMTXMhyQ0fdtw
Two interesting quotes about man's capacity for evil:
As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities. — Desmond Tutu
For the first time, he considered that utter indifference might inspire not inner peace but a limitless capacity for evil. — Dean Koontz
Steve's commentary today is evidence of how right these two men were. Every man and particularly every government official should consider these truths before making a legal, political or economic decision.
In 1974 on my Junior year abroad I visited Dachau with a Jewish friend. It’s not something that I would have done if she hadn’t suggested it but I’m glad I did. I didn’t know what to expect but seeing “Arbeit macht Frei” on the entry gate was chilling. The museum was not gruesome like a haunted house. There were no blood stains to be seen nor people re-enacting the tragedies. It’s very ordinariness and the stark black and white photos brought home the Nazi evil. I understand the Dachau gas chamber was never used but it looked just like an athletic shower room. This visit told me more about the Holocaust than any history class I’d had. It was pure evil and I recognized the potential for a repeat when Trump ran in 2016. When he was reelected in 2024 people told me not to worry. I’ve never stopped worrying and my worst fears are coming to pass. We must stand up to Trump.
Nazi Cheeto Building Concentration Camps With Big ICE Funding
Let’s call out what these ICE detention facilities are They are like the Nazi concentration camps like Dachau, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald Nazi Germany (1933–1945) imprisoned people on a massive scale in a vast network of camps and other detention sites
It’s no secret that there’s $$ to be had by the private prison system industry and DHS has contracted with many communities in the US to hold ICE concentration camps My own experience with the fourth largest US detention center on the Tacoma tideflats where 52 men have died has been the site of many of our community protests
But as Rachel Maddow reported last night multiple communities across the country are now pushing back against ICE trying to establish concentration camps in their cities and shutting the agency down This is what it looks like for WE the People to not only protest in the streets but to tell the current Nazi regime ”not in my town”
One step further What would it look like if Tacoma demanded that ICE leave its community??
My hope — in tribute to the memory, spirit and moral legacy of Holocaust victims and survivors at this perilous and ominous moment marked by International Holocaust Remembrance Day — is the following:
May we all possess the openness of heart, clarity of thought, richness of imagination, conviction of conscience and equanimity of emotion to know kindness from disrespect and indifference, fraternal embrace from exclusion and demonization, reason from irrationality, truth and fact from falsehood and lies, informed consent from disinformed blind faith, preference from prejudice, courage and civility from fear and bullying, neutrality from silence, the compulsion of truth from enslavement to illusion, mindful disobedience from mindless acquiescence, the love of others from self-love, discourse from disengagement, and social justice from an inequitable status quo. Herein lies a nexus of ideals whose apprehension and practice ennobles our humanity and our dignity, making possible our individual and collective success as morally worthy, loving, nonviolent and inextricably connected human beings.