There's a fear down here we can't forget, hasn't got a name just yet
From "Throwing Stones"
This is a political post, and not political in the traditional Republican vs. Democrat sense, but more of a political post on the statement of humanity as it pertains to my views of the Holocaust. I have been thinking a lot about it lately, and my exposure is limited to the media - movies like "The Pianist", "Schindler's List", "It's A Beautiful Life" (one of the lighter ones in the pack), and the one when I was growing up was the TV extended series "Holocaust" along with the book itself. I read a book by survivor Elie Wiesel, had a Jewish History class in college - but all of this is second hand and without being there, you cannot fully grasp the horrors of the situation, but you can certainly appreciate it.
My understanding in general is that it was a slow but painful extermination process. From being isolated with little access to food in places like the Warsaw Ghetto, they were in a weakened state taken into packed standing room only trains for days to weeks, often beaten on the way, and arrived in an exhausted, hungry and thirsty state (this is from "Auschwitz" book) only to be either sent to gas chambers that took up to 20 minutes to do the job, or exhausted through impossible work loads with little or no food to keep them going - so that exhaustion and starvation were other ways that death took hold. I am not clear if some were placed direcly into ovens to die - I thought I remember seeing an old movie showing this about to happen - but being burned to death in a small crammed space does not sound too pleasant either. I know Jews were not the only ones to go there, and I know in some form or another, a similiar process continues to occur today in places like Bosnia, North Korea, China and Africa.
I call myself a spiritual person who believes in some type of higher being - and once you know yourself to be that - the first question is - how - why can something like this happen? How can any type of God who has any type of compassion allow something so brutal and horrible to take place? And the answer is - I can't quite figure that out. I can't understand how torture and mass brutality has and continues to take place today - and yet I still believe in a spiritual presence in spite of that. The closest thing I can begin to come up with is - there is no being sitting up there in the sky on a king's chair looking down on us - because if there was, this being simply would not allow this to happen. My spiritual explanation of a higher power is that we really to a certain degree are here, on our own, by ourselves. There is an incredible life force that runs through us all, magical, beautiful, and sometimes classified as dark and evil, and when you take that sum total of that force together - that is what "God" is to me. We are here to either do good works, or screw up and turn against each other but as the title song I reference says "the future's here, we are it, we are on our own". We are all still here and we haven't completely done each other in yet, so maybe we are doing something right, but how and why people can be so brutal with their fellow human beings is really beyond me.
One thing that I come up with though - as being a Jew - non-practicing by choice, but with a definite blood tie - is that their pain is over - those in the Holocaust that died are in fact dead now - as much as we can re-live their pain and suffering, and we should never forget it - they are no longer experiencing it - wherever ever they are now - whether they live on in some form, or just in our hearts - it is over. Just as some Christians link Christ's deaths with their own lives, saying he died so I can live, I can do the same to some degree - these people through no choice of their own made a sacrifice to some degree, so that their surviving members (they weren't successful in killing every single one of us) could live on. If I think about what I have - my freedom, my family, a beautiful place to live, it really puts things in perspective. I may not be the most financially successful person in the world, maybe certain people in my family are disappointed that I could not make them proud of their own social status vicariously through me, but compared to those for whatever reason either have to or have had to suffer through starvation, oppression, torture - I am pretty damn lucky to have what I have.
So - now that I am one of the lucky ones who gets to experience what I have - what does that mean to me? Well - for one thing - it is something to shut me up when I start thinking about what everyone else has - what is lacking in my life financially and otherwise, because just having the basic freedom to eat, drink, sleep, and experience this "beautiful life" is the greatest blessing anyone can really wish for. Many others can only wish for such a blessing - and when things get frustrating emotionally, with my acquaintances, friends, and family - it again puts things in perspective and makes me step back and be grateful, thank God for what I do have, instead of whining and complaining about what I don't.
Now in addition to that, something else to consider - is what is my part in preventing something like this from happening again? I am just one out of 5 billion, I can't stop the death/labor camps in North Korea, the starvation in the world - I am not a powerful politician, what can one small human being do? Well - I can "preach" my own personal philosophy here that a small handful of people might read here, and probably won't agree with - but it comes down to a line from a Jimmy Cliff song "We all are one, we are the same person". People have a tendency to separate into groups of us and them, but from my point of view that is all an illusion - we are all human beings first and foremost, and it is the separation into groups based on skin color, religious preference, sexuality - that is what does us in. Whether you agree with me or not, we all get up, go to the bathroom, want to feel happiness and love in our lives - the similarities far outweigh the differences. Skin color is nothing but varying forms of skin pigmentation, and when you step back and think about it - to use it as a way of distinguishing one from another and judging another as a result - is simply ridiculous and just one of many signs showing how primitive us human beings really are. It reminds me of a Star Trek episode where one race is black on one side of the face and white on the other, while another looks identical, but has the black color on the opposite side of the face, and they passionately fight and hate each other for the trivial difference. Maybe some day we will look back at how stupid this is in the same way we look back at how primitive we were as cave men.
For all of the technological advances of humanity, the fact that mass exterminations based on illusions of difference can take place in some ways shows that we are still stuck in that cave, and in some ways are even more primitive and barbaric than ever. I am one of the few that still believes in evolution, and I don't think evolution and believing in God are mutually exclusive, and whether "God" created the earth in 7 days, or it took millions of years of actual evolving through various species - is kind of a stupid debate - because then you get into how long a "day" really is - and maybe it is meant to be more symbolic than literal. But stepping clear of that debate, that is the only way I can explain why mass exterminations take place. If somehow they can accomplish some sort of eventual evolution in human consciousness, than maybe some good can be seen from them. It seems like there are two directions to go from here, we can either stick with the us and them approach and slowly but surely kill ourselves completely, or we can take the unified approach and co-exist and get along. It seems to me the second makes a lot more sense, but for someone caught up in complete hatred/racism those primitive emotions are so strong.
It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am not married to a Jewish person - I am married to a beautiful woman, inside and out - of Hispanic heritage, with some Arabic and Chinese in the mix as well according to her family historians. Now that makes me an outsider in the Jewish community, because I am threatening the Jewish "race" and not allowing us to thrive through pure pro-creation. That may be how some see it, but obviously not how I do. When Victoria was pregnant with Sara, some in my family reacted the same way as if I had just told them - "hey guess what, I just came down with AIDS" - there was that complete awkward silence as if I had done something so horrible that there was nothing one could possibly say in response. One would think as Jews who have had something so horrible happen to us that we of all people would be understanding of persecuted minorities, unite in our differences. Instead, I tend to notice a lot of Jews are stuck in the us and them mentality, turning from victim to persecutor, remaining exclusive - and my own possibly twisted take is - that is not the lesson of the Holocaust. The Holocaust happened for that very reaon - a bunch of people who were suffering through various economic and political circumstances, decided to blame it all on one group of people - the Jews, and in their pursuit to destroy them, they ultimately destroyed themselves. The architect of this plan ended up taking cyanide in a bunker - so what was really accomplished there? In turn, in fighting it out with the Palestinians, what is really being accomplished in Israel - where it is the Jews who are now the ones in power? What have we learned here?
I have nothing against Judaism even though I do not practice it. Any faith one has in whatever form is a beautiful thing - AS LONG AS - one can accept, embrace, and tolerate that another has a different point of view which is just as valid and important to them, as yours is to you. So in my marriage to someone outside of my immediate race and belief system, I not only had to overcome some of my own twisted us vs. them views, but face those in my family and in society. Yesterday at a restaurant, and older couple was giving us the evil eye for being in a mixed marriage. Victoria very politely told them good night as they were leaving, and said something like I hoped we were entertaining you - you were staring at us the entire time, and the woman made up some bullshit to the extent of - oh I look at everyone, I was looking at your beautiful daughter... Again - I am a member of the human race - and the fact that my wife has slightly darker skin than I do - should not mean anything to anyone. If it offends you - I am sorry that you are so limited and primitive, but don't expect me to apologize for YOUR limitations. In marrying into another group, I am not betraying a group of close minded Jewish people or caucasians - but I am living out my own personal beliefs that we are all one race, one person - united, and not divided.
I met a man with a German name and an English accent for my job the other day - I expected one thing after hearing him on the phone, but it turned out to be a very nice elderly black gentleman. I thought I had the wrong person at first. Not all black people sound like rappers from the inner city. The fact that we separate into groups where certain cultures and languages dominate, make it appear that a black person is supppose to sound this way, a Jewish person is supposed to be "cheap", an Italian is supposed to be full of anger - etc. But personally, I think all of the stereotypes - even if they seemingly appear to be true on some level, just reinforce the illusion that we are all separated - and that is something that is a perspective, but only a perspective - and a limited one at that. If you really want to believe out of your own insecruity that you as a white person are better than a person with darker skin color - go ahead and believe that, but all that will do is continue to keep humanity in a state of fear that continues to create all of the divisiveness in the world that exists today.
Veering into direct politics now - what is it with the "war on terrorism" anyways? I do not agree with the mass killings of 9-11 or any type of terrorism, but the war on terrorism seems to me reminiscent of the war on drugs - it is a war that cannot be won, and fighting it in terms of a war with arms, is more of that us vs. them perspective. To me it indicates that we still are living in a state of fear, and not the compassion that was suppose to be part of the government's platform. No - I am not saying we should feel compassion for Osama bin Laden, but for every dollar spent on a bomb, gun, or invading Iraq - how much of that money could be going to feeding the millions/billions starving in the world - living in the desperate conditions of poverty that are feeding grounds for people who have nothing to lose in becoming a suicide bomber to begin with. It seems like the first impulse in the "John Wayne" society we live in is to shoot first and ask questions later, but is that really doing anything? Are we really winning this war? Is it a war that can be won/one? Mabye so - but not in the way we are fighting it - in my view.
Well - about enough that I can think of here for now - my beautiful daughter has just walked into the room, so time to sign off now. After reading this, if it has sunk in on any level, try saying hi to the next person you see - regardless of their difference in skin color, religious belief, or sexual orientation. They are a human being just like you, and loving your neighbor is going to make the world a lot better place for all of us. Over and OUT.
This is a political post, and not political in the traditional Republican vs. Democrat sense, but more of a political post on the statement of humanity as it pertains to my views of the Holocaust. I have been thinking a lot about it lately, and my exposure is limited to the media - movies like "The Pianist", "Schindler's List", "It's A Beautiful Life" (one of the lighter ones in the pack), and the one when I was growing up was the TV extended series "Holocaust" along with the book itself. I read a book by survivor Elie Wiesel, had a Jewish History class in college - but all of this is second hand and without being there, you cannot fully grasp the horrors of the situation, but you can certainly appreciate it.
My understanding in general is that it was a slow but painful extermination process. From being isolated with little access to food in places like the Warsaw Ghetto, they were in a weakened state taken into packed standing room only trains for days to weeks, often beaten on the way, and arrived in an exhausted, hungry and thirsty state (this is from "Auschwitz" book) only to be either sent to gas chambers that took up to 20 minutes to do the job, or exhausted through impossible work loads with little or no food to keep them going - so that exhaustion and starvation were other ways that death took hold. I am not clear if some were placed direcly into ovens to die - I thought I remember seeing an old movie showing this about to happen - but being burned to death in a small crammed space does not sound too pleasant either. I know Jews were not the only ones to go there, and I know in some form or another, a similiar process continues to occur today in places like Bosnia, North Korea, China and Africa.
I call myself a spiritual person who believes in some type of higher being - and once you know yourself to be that - the first question is - how - why can something like this happen? How can any type of God who has any type of compassion allow something so brutal and horrible to take place? And the answer is - I can't quite figure that out. I can't understand how torture and mass brutality has and continues to take place today - and yet I still believe in a spiritual presence in spite of that. The closest thing I can begin to come up with is - there is no being sitting up there in the sky on a king's chair looking down on us - because if there was, this being simply would not allow this to happen. My spiritual explanation of a higher power is that we really to a certain degree are here, on our own, by ourselves. There is an incredible life force that runs through us all, magical, beautiful, and sometimes classified as dark and evil, and when you take that sum total of that force together - that is what "God" is to me. We are here to either do good works, or screw up and turn against each other but as the title song I reference says "the future's here, we are it, we are on our own". We are all still here and we haven't completely done each other in yet, so maybe we are doing something right, but how and why people can be so brutal with their fellow human beings is really beyond me.
One thing that I come up with though - as being a Jew - non-practicing by choice, but with a definite blood tie - is that their pain is over - those in the Holocaust that died are in fact dead now - as much as we can re-live their pain and suffering, and we should never forget it - they are no longer experiencing it - wherever ever they are now - whether they live on in some form, or just in our hearts - it is over. Just as some Christians link Christ's deaths with their own lives, saying he died so I can live, I can do the same to some degree - these people through no choice of their own made a sacrifice to some degree, so that their surviving members (they weren't successful in killing every single one of us) could live on. If I think about what I have - my freedom, my family, a beautiful place to live, it really puts things in perspective. I may not be the most financially successful person in the world, maybe certain people in my family are disappointed that I could not make them proud of their own social status vicariously through me, but compared to those for whatever reason either have to or have had to suffer through starvation, oppression, torture - I am pretty damn lucky to have what I have.
So - now that I am one of the lucky ones who gets to experience what I have - what does that mean to me? Well - for one thing - it is something to shut me up when I start thinking about what everyone else has - what is lacking in my life financially and otherwise, because just having the basic freedom to eat, drink, sleep, and experience this "beautiful life" is the greatest blessing anyone can really wish for. Many others can only wish for such a blessing - and when things get frustrating emotionally, with my acquaintances, friends, and family - it again puts things in perspective and makes me step back and be grateful, thank God for what I do have, instead of whining and complaining about what I don't.
Now in addition to that, something else to consider - is what is my part in preventing something like this from happening again? I am just one out of 5 billion, I can't stop the death/labor camps in North Korea, the starvation in the world - I am not a powerful politician, what can one small human being do? Well - I can "preach" my own personal philosophy here that a small handful of people might read here, and probably won't agree with - but it comes down to a line from a Jimmy Cliff song "We all are one, we are the same person". People have a tendency to separate into groups of us and them, but from my point of view that is all an illusion - we are all human beings first and foremost, and it is the separation into groups based on skin color, religious preference, sexuality - that is what does us in. Whether you agree with me or not, we all get up, go to the bathroom, want to feel happiness and love in our lives - the similarities far outweigh the differences. Skin color is nothing but varying forms of skin pigmentation, and when you step back and think about it - to use it as a way of distinguishing one from another and judging another as a result - is simply ridiculous and just one of many signs showing how primitive us human beings really are. It reminds me of a Star Trek episode where one race is black on one side of the face and white on the other, while another looks identical, but has the black color on the opposite side of the face, and they passionately fight and hate each other for the trivial difference. Maybe some day we will look back at how stupid this is in the same way we look back at how primitive we were as cave men.
For all of the technological advances of humanity, the fact that mass exterminations based on illusions of difference can take place in some ways shows that we are still stuck in that cave, and in some ways are even more primitive and barbaric than ever. I am one of the few that still believes in evolution, and I don't think evolution and believing in God are mutually exclusive, and whether "God" created the earth in 7 days, or it took millions of years of actual evolving through various species - is kind of a stupid debate - because then you get into how long a "day" really is - and maybe it is meant to be more symbolic than literal. But stepping clear of that debate, that is the only way I can explain why mass exterminations take place. If somehow they can accomplish some sort of eventual evolution in human consciousness, than maybe some good can be seen from them. It seems like there are two directions to go from here, we can either stick with the us and them approach and slowly but surely kill ourselves completely, or we can take the unified approach and co-exist and get along. It seems to me the second makes a lot more sense, but for someone caught up in complete hatred/racism those primitive emotions are so strong.
It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am not married to a Jewish person - I am married to a beautiful woman, inside and out - of Hispanic heritage, with some Arabic and Chinese in the mix as well according to her family historians. Now that makes me an outsider in the Jewish community, because I am threatening the Jewish "race" and not allowing us to thrive through pure pro-creation. That may be how some see it, but obviously not how I do. When Victoria was pregnant with Sara, some in my family reacted the same way as if I had just told them - "hey guess what, I just came down with AIDS" - there was that complete awkward silence as if I had done something so horrible that there was nothing one could possibly say in response. One would think as Jews who have had something so horrible happen to us that we of all people would be understanding of persecuted minorities, unite in our differences. Instead, I tend to notice a lot of Jews are stuck in the us and them mentality, turning from victim to persecutor, remaining exclusive - and my own possibly twisted take is - that is not the lesson of the Holocaust. The Holocaust happened for that very reaon - a bunch of people who were suffering through various economic and political circumstances, decided to blame it all on one group of people - the Jews, and in their pursuit to destroy them, they ultimately destroyed themselves. The architect of this plan ended up taking cyanide in a bunker - so what was really accomplished there? In turn, in fighting it out with the Palestinians, what is really being accomplished in Israel - where it is the Jews who are now the ones in power? What have we learned here?
I have nothing against Judaism even though I do not practice it. Any faith one has in whatever form is a beautiful thing - AS LONG AS - one can accept, embrace, and tolerate that another has a different point of view which is just as valid and important to them, as yours is to you. So in my marriage to someone outside of my immediate race and belief system, I not only had to overcome some of my own twisted us vs. them views, but face those in my family and in society. Yesterday at a restaurant, and older couple was giving us the evil eye for being in a mixed marriage. Victoria very politely told them good night as they were leaving, and said something like I hoped we were entertaining you - you were staring at us the entire time, and the woman made up some bullshit to the extent of - oh I look at everyone, I was looking at your beautiful daughter... Again - I am a member of the human race - and the fact that my wife has slightly darker skin than I do - should not mean anything to anyone. If it offends you - I am sorry that you are so limited and primitive, but don't expect me to apologize for YOUR limitations. In marrying into another group, I am not betraying a group of close minded Jewish people or caucasians - but I am living out my own personal beliefs that we are all one race, one person - united, and not divided.
I met a man with a German name and an English accent for my job the other day - I expected one thing after hearing him on the phone, but it turned out to be a very nice elderly black gentleman. I thought I had the wrong person at first. Not all black people sound like rappers from the inner city. The fact that we separate into groups where certain cultures and languages dominate, make it appear that a black person is supppose to sound this way, a Jewish person is supposed to be "cheap", an Italian is supposed to be full of anger - etc. But personally, I think all of the stereotypes - even if they seemingly appear to be true on some level, just reinforce the illusion that we are all separated - and that is something that is a perspective, but only a perspective - and a limited one at that. If you really want to believe out of your own insecruity that you as a white person are better than a person with darker skin color - go ahead and believe that, but all that will do is continue to keep humanity in a state of fear that continues to create all of the divisiveness in the world that exists today.
Veering into direct politics now - what is it with the "war on terrorism" anyways? I do not agree with the mass killings of 9-11 or any type of terrorism, but the war on terrorism seems to me reminiscent of the war on drugs - it is a war that cannot be won, and fighting it in terms of a war with arms, is more of that us vs. them perspective. To me it indicates that we still are living in a state of fear, and not the compassion that was suppose to be part of the government's platform. No - I am not saying we should feel compassion for Osama bin Laden, but for every dollar spent on a bomb, gun, or invading Iraq - how much of that money could be going to feeding the millions/billions starving in the world - living in the desperate conditions of poverty that are feeding grounds for people who have nothing to lose in becoming a suicide bomber to begin with. It seems like the first impulse in the "John Wayne" society we live in is to shoot first and ask questions later, but is that really doing anything? Are we really winning this war? Is it a war that can be won/one? Mabye so - but not in the way we are fighting it - in my view.
Well - about enough that I can think of here for now - my beautiful daughter has just walked into the room, so time to sign off now. After reading this, if it has sunk in on any level, try saying hi to the next person you see - regardless of their difference in skin color, religious belief, or sexual orientation. They are a human being just like you, and loving your neighbor is going to make the world a lot better place for all of us. Over and OUT.
posted by Zook at 5:37 AM
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