Today in History...

Hiya Stevie baby, what's happening in your neck of the woods?  I hope you're doing well. I was joking earlier with Pete that I will most likely die before he will, and when I do, I asked him to take my well-preserved body to your bedroom, and place it at the foot of your bed. Then I added, "I mean, what else can you give to a guy who already has EVERYTHING?"  Yeah, morbid maybe, but I got a chuckle out of it. That's just how I roll.  Pete said, "You don't think HE will die before YOU will? He's 20 years older!"  I said, "Nope, he's healthy as a horse and still kickin'.  Me, I'm falling apart and besides it's my weirdness, so let me express it." hehehe (But you could park YOUR carcass at the foot of MY bed if you do croak before me, I wouldn't mind that a bit).

Ah well, let's change the subject.....I don't know about you, but I've always been a fan of those "today in history" blurbs that you find on calendars or on the internet, and today is no different.  If more of our world leaders would just read a friggin' history book once and awhile, they might actually stop repeating the same damned mistakes and learn from it.

Today in history, in 1938, wayyy before you or I were ever born, The Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) took place in Germany.  If you think you can go through life not realizing that your actions have consequences, or that only one person cannot do anything, let me explain that this horrible night----the beginning of the annihilation of the Jews by the Nazis---was caused by only ONE person--a young Jewish man, who became upset at a German official (I think his parents were denied some kind of passport), and the argument became heated, and this young man ended up shooting the German official.  It was for this reason that the Nazis retaliated against the Jews for 12 long years, killing over 6 million of them by 1945.

One simple guy, in one split-second moment of anger, and BAM, 12 years of hell and war and genocide. Makes your head spin, doesn't it?  I wish people would take a deep breath during those split-second moments in time, before they do something stupid like that, and ask themselves what could happen because of it. Why aren't humans capable of doing this simple thing?  How come God didn't program us like that? Or, maybe He did, but we have lost the ability to do so, because we're so used to mindless killing and war? This is the kind of stuff I think about on days like this.  I don't really open up much and talk to people about it, though, because they just think I'm a morbid, weird person.  But, I have been told by my mother all my life that I tend to "carry the world around on my shoulders," so this is just one of those things I carry.

You may wonder why the hell I'm so obsessed with Holocaust history, when I'm not even Jewish?  The answer is, I have NO IDEA.  All I know is, when I was 10 years old, I had to write a book report. I found a thin book in the library, The Diary of Anne Frank, and figured it would be an easy read.  I was wrong.  It was the most profound, poignant, and saddest book I've ever read in my whole life.  I had no idea that Anne Frank died at the end, I didn't know who she was before I found that book in the library.  So, being 10 years old at the time, I kind of related to her, as if she were a friend of mine, and it stunned me and horrified me that something so horrible would happen to a young girl like that.  I wanted to know WHY.

And so, I spent the rest of my life trying to find out why.  However, I still have no good answer to that.

I look around at the things going on in the news today, and I see similarities between pre-war Nazi Germany and our country.  As a matter of fact, you can read a book by Leonard Peikoff, (who was the personal assistant to Ayn Rand for over 20 years), entitled THE OMINOUS PARALLELS, if you want further evidence that my feelings have some validity.  In this country, every minority has been a scapegoat at one point or another.  The only ones who haven't been through this ordeal yet, are the white people, the Caucasians.  But, their time is coming.  One of my favorite poems is this one...by Martin Niemoller....

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.


That's what I see happening in our country today.  Since you were born, first, we scapegoated African-Americans and enslaved them for hundreds of years, then we scapegoated other minorities, one by one, and most recently, Mexicans and now Muslims.  Who's next?  Nobody seems to blink an eye when a hate crime is committed by the KKK towards anyone who isn't just like them.  Why was that group allowed to continue harassing and killing blacks for so long, when history shows that the KKK was started by Nathanial Bedford Forrest, as a JOKE, to scare some of his friends on Halloween night?? How could a simple prank turn into decades of horror for so many innocent people??


Nobody seemed too surprised either, when a vigilante 88 year old racist man walked blatantly and boldly, right into my Museum on June 10, 2009, killing a security guard for simply opening the door for him.  The guy simply saw an older man coming in, and OPENED THE DOOR as a nice gesture--but he immediately got shot point-blank by the old man's concealed rifle.  He died almost instantly.  Bullet holes could be seen in the windows of the entrance to the Museum for many months as a chilling reminder that Anti-Semitism still exists in our world.


But that's "old news" now. It's faded from our consciousness to be replaced by new evils.


Even though the masses don't seem concerned by these things longer than a blip on a t.v. screen for 30 seconds, I cannot help but continue to feel shocked and appalled, and horrified that these things continue even now, even AFTER the Holocaust, without so much as a nod to that awful time in the world's history, arrogantly and foolishly believing that it'll never happen again, or "here."  


But you see, I know for a FACT that it IS happening here.  In fact, it happened to the American Indians first.  When the pioneers ventured west, they killed off as many Indians as they possibly could, to take their land and their buffalo.  It most certainly was a GENOCIDE, but I defy you to find that word in ANY history book ever printed---you won't find it, so don't even bother to look---and you know WHY you won't find it?? Because 99% of all textbooks are published and printed in TEXAS.  The bias of this continued racism against Indians is what prevents that word from becoming mainstream.  But one trip to DC and viewing the new American Indian Museum, will tell you otherwise.


The problem with our world today is, nobody respects their elders anymore, nobody takes the time to dig into who they are anymore, and nobody bothers to read history books anymore. The lessons that are being presented to us, are clearly stated in those historical events, but nobody pays any attention. College students simply memorize it to pass an exam.  High school students skim-read at best, or use Cliff's Notes to condense so they can pass the state tests that they are required to take, and elementary kids aren't even presented with much history at all. 


Ah well. That kind of thing is my passion.  I don't know what the hell I can do about it, and yes, I DO feel that I'm just "one person" and how the heck can I, as one person, do much of anything that matters??  This is a question that haunts me every day I'm alive.  How can I help people see the truth about these things, and change the policies, the lesson plans, the television "newsertainment" channels who provide mostly FLUFF to people who never even bother to dig below the surface of anything anymore? 


Surface-dwellers, I call them.  Just skimming along, playing with their cell phones, video games, tv's, and other gadgets, drinking Starbucks 4 times a day, bored at work all day long, reading a blog on the Kindle at lunch...writing a blog (like I do), out of sheer frustration and lack of anything else to do....yeah, surface dwelling is a pestilence in our society as far as I'm concerned, and I long for the "good ole days" when people valued education, and encouraged creativity, and taught more than just "reading, writing, and arithmetic."  Hell, I wasn't even alive during that time, but I wish we could return to it in some ways...not in ALL ways, obviously, because even though I know we've come a long way into being tolerant of other cultures and ethnicities, we still haven't made a dent in solving the world's problems.


It gnaws at me, knowing I've been on this planet for 42 years, and haven't accomplished much of anything.  Sure, I created a children's web site (and the good news is, though it has been dormant for 10 years, it is now being re-created and built into something much bigger and better), and sure, I worked at a very prestigious museum for six years, and sure, I even have a children's book in the works...I've been published twice...and I've met a lot of celebrities and VIPs over the years.  But I feel like none of those things really truly MATTER to the masses.


So here's something I discovered today, and I feel (as a proactive person surrounded by REactive people), that we should really pursue this....in fact, I sent it to President Obama.


http://www.flixxy.com/convert-plastic-to-oil.htm


It would be a win-win situation in many ways, including:


1. Creating hundreds of thousands of jobs here in the US.
2. Reducing our dependency on foreign oil.
3. Helping to save our environment.


It would make lots of people happy. And it's so simple.  Yet, we're not doing it.  WHY NOT?!  If Obama wants to be re-elected in 2012, he should seriously consider this idea.  I may not be the smartest human on earth, but when my mom forwards an email with a link that is of interest like this one, I feel the duty to pass it on to those who might actually make it happen.


Well, those are my thoughts today. I hope you'll go to Google and read about the Night of Broken Glass.  I hope you'll read more about the plight of the American Indian too.  I also hope with all my heart that you'll become more of an activist to put your riches and fame to better use, than just settling into being a retired surface-dweller who doesn't give a damn.


Love, Rebecca