6 things for you to remember on this Holocaust Remembrance Day:
1. Power allows bad people to be monsters. Hitler on a cul-de-sac is a jerk that ends up getting shot for trespassing. Hitler in government sparks a genocide and plunges the world into war, killing 100s of millions.
2. A disarmed people are a vulnerable people. The first move any oppressor makes before victimizing his target is to rob them of the ability to fight back.
FUN FACT: Hitler didn't pass gun control. He targeted Jews using gun control laws that were passed by the Weimar Republic.
3. The infrastructure they use to oppress others will eventually be used against you.
Many of the concentration camps that were used during the holocaust were built decades prior to hold "enemy civilians" (refugees).
Turns out you can put anyone in a cage once it's built.
4. Oppression and infringements happen steadily over time, sometimes slowly, not all at once.
Hitler started with propaganda against Jews and "degenerates", burning books, removing Jews from civil society, & many other gradual steps before rounding up and mass-murdering anyone.
5. "They would never do that here" is normalcy bias and should be ignored.
German Jews never dreamt that they would be targets for genocide. They were home. That couldn't happen.
Our government has done plenty to demonstrate our lives are disposable to them. Which brings us to:
6. When we say "Never Again", we need to mean it.
Right now, the Pentagon is funding and arming a Saudi-led genocide against the people of Yemen. 100s of thousands have already died, mostly from starvation.
Obama started it.
Trump expanded it.
Biden needs to end it.
The Holocaust, just like the Holodomor, Great Leap Forward, Khmer Rouge, or the Yemeni Genocide, is an example of what happens when the powerful are left unchecked, to do whatever they wish against a disarmed and disenfranchised populace.
It is time for us to end that, for good.
*10s of millions
Between the Holocaust and World War 2, roughly 100 million people died.
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Biden's order directing DOJ to stop renewing private prison contracts just means they're putting the prisoners in government-run prisons.
No one's being set free. The cage is just being changed.
And it doesn't even apply to the privately-run border camps because those are DHS contracts, even though those were the ones with the biggest problems.
For those who wonder if this somehow reduces lobbying for higher prison populations, three of the biggest lobbying groups in the prison industrial complex are corrections officer unions, prison construction firms, and prison labor contractors.
In order to not get banned from social media, I'm not going to say what I think is an appropriate punishment for someone who leaks their own children's nude photos on the internet.
Last day of the Donald Trump presidency. Let's see where we're at on those 2016 campaign promises!
1. "I will build a great wall, and Mexico will pay for it!"
Only 80 miles of new wall was built where there was none before. Mexico didn't pay for it... you did.
2. "If I become president, we're all going to be saying 'Merry Christmas' again."
...
3. "I'll eliminate 'Department of Environment Protection' (EPA)"
He did cut the budget, but the EPA is still alive and well. In fact, he felt the EPA was necessary enough to look into his claim of “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once."
No, really.