Missing the Point
Sometimes a point missed is like an opportunity missed or time that you can’t get back.
I was poignantly reminded of this, by an article written by an almost 80 year old man who said that he remembered the rise of Nazi Germany and compared it to the US, today. Someone on Facebook saw that article, and argued that this almost 80 year old man couldn’t possibly remember the rise of Nazi Germany. To his way of thinking, since this old man had to be less than ten years old at the time of the rise of Nazi Germany, it just didn’t make any sense that he could remember it. This detractor…………I’ll call him Jim…..called the comparison “hyperbole”.
Well, those of you who know anything about me, know that I couldn’t let that stand, without looking into it. I looked up some of the scientific research about when children start to remember things, and all the research pointed to children being able to remember things from the age of about 3 years old.
Sadly, I was stupid enough to get sucked into an argument over this point, when the point of the original article was much more important:
We are repeating history.
Sadder still, there are those who can’t see the parallels.
They must be blind to all the “American” people (including cops) harassing anyone near them that doesn’t look to be “American” to them or who is speaking a language other than “American”:
https://www.theroot.com/white-woman-who-blocked-black-neighbor-from-entering-ap-1829822500
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maMq9i0bd8Y
They’ve forgotten that English was brought over from Europe, and it is NOT “American”. The truly “American” languages are the languages of the Native Americans and South and Central American peoples who were here, when we invaded from Europe. We even brought with us Hamburgers and sausages (read: Hot dogs). Hamburgers are from HAMBURG, Germany and Sausages are from ITALY. Even Barbecue is UNAMERICAN. It’s from Spain. ……….But I digress.
Those who argue the point that an 80 year old man can’t have memory of the rise of Nazi Germany are simply avoiding the real point, which is that racism is as rampant in today’s America as it was in early 40s Germany, when Hitler gained his foothold.
They don’t see that the root of the evil is the same now as it was then.
GREED.
Hitler wanted more money for himself and his inner circle, and he needed someone to blame for the poverty that was the lot of his nation. The Jews were his scapegoat and anyone else that didn’t fit his narrow description of the Aryan Race.
Our scapegoats are the asylum seekers. California directly benefits from immigration. The rest of the US, benefits by it too, because immigrants in California become productive citizens, who pay plenty in taxes from businesses that they open. They open restaurants and dry cleaners. They get drafted like we do and go into the military. They pick our crops which then get trucked out to the rest of the US.
The current administration needs a scapegoat. They have succeeded in conning their base into donating money for that wall, that is topographically impossible to complete. The money was refunded, but not before the federal government took land from farming families for pennies on the dollar for the building of the wall.
https://www.wfla.com/news/gofundme-is-refunding-20-million-in-donations-made-to-trump-wall-campaign/
The mind that generated the idea of the finished wall, also generated the idea of the deportations that cost farmers MILLIONS of dollars in rotted crops, when immigrants became too afraid to show up to work.
That’s not all that this regime has cost us and continues to cost us. I’ve been keeping track:
And the grand theft continues:
Did I digress? I think not.
The point is that it is NOT the “immigrants” that are the problem, here. As I’ve said before, WE are the immigrants. And it is Trump and his cabinet who are filling the swamp and draining the national coffer. (Read: raising the deficit). The new American Concentration Camps are costing tax payers too:
https://www.as-coa.org/articles/weekly-chart-cost-us-immigrant-detention-centers
Keeping people out, or “detaining them” or blaming them for our problems only makes a host of new problems:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/cost-us-immigrant-detention-trump-zero-tolerance-tents-cages.html
https://gothamist.com/2018/07/06/trump_separated_children.php
The children who will leave those “detention centers” emotionally and mentally stunted are definitely going to be the drain on the US economy that tRump’s base fears immigrants to be. They will need prescription drugs for the PTSD to fit into society or they will turn to theft and violence in order to survive when they can’t hold down a job because of those anxiety disorders.
On the other hand, letting them in and treating them with enough dignity and respect to leave them with their parents and giving them a bed to sleep on and decent food to eat will eventually boosts our economy and enriches us in other ways:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/alisoncaporimo/inventions-made-by-famous-immigrants-america
https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/inventor/
So enjoy your America, while it lasts. Once America’s favorite bigot deports all of those “dirty immigrants” even more crops will rot in American fields, meaning we will have less to export which will mean another slump in our economy.
Lots of immigrant kids have already been farmed out into dangerous conditions which means that more money will have to be put into sting operations to find their predators, or abusers and more money will have to be put into building more prisons to house them. That’s money that could and should be going into our educational system and affordable housing and infrastructure.
But hey, Jim, tell me again, how it’s more important to focus on establishing whether or not that almost 80 year old Holocaust survivor could remember the rise of Nazi Germany than it is to focus on being decent Americans TODAY, by not allowing this abominable repetition of history.
Tell me it’s not more important to stop tRump and his base of bigots in their tracks, before they continue to do irreparable damage to our reputation……….Oh wait. I forgot. They’ve done it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDPd5wOaBOU
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/11/politics/trump-photo-g7/index.html