“Bigotry and national security have, sadly, close and old ties in American history.” So says the first line in the January 4, 2016 editorial in The Nation magazine.
Yet, in my experience, U.S. people and our government don’t recognize and acknowledge our unpleasant history. Things like:
• “National-security concerns mixed with anti-Semitism delayed our acceptance of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi German.”
• “Racism combined with panic after Pear Harbor led to the internment of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans.”
• “Over the past decade, we’ve wrenched at least 2 million people from their families with a record-setting pace of deportation.”
• We’ve allowed people to die in the desert rather than allow them to cross the border. National security? Really? How about racism.
• Donald Trump plans to build tall walls and ban Muslims from entering the U.S., and “11 of the 13 GOP president candidates oppose allowing any Syrian refugees into the country at all.”
Here’s another rather terrifying (dare I say embarrassing) fact: According to research, “more Americans have been killed in domestic terrorist attacks by right-wing zealots than by jihadists since 9/11.”
Yet we won’t launch a much-needed war on guns. No other “civilized” nation has the gun violence we have. I think I might blog about what civilization means to me. Hmmm….
Our behavior reminds me of facism. We make fun of Marie Antoinette saying to the poor clamoring for bread to feed their starving children, “Let them eat cake.”
Our U.S. Supreme Court allows the Koch brothers and their pals to invest more money than either the Republican or Democratic Parties to shape elections. My voice and yours just don’t count as much.
And on and on and on….. But I must curtail my anger today. I have work to do.
[All quotes — except “civilized” and Marie Antoinette – are from “A War on Guns,” The Nation, January 4, 2016.]
