Tag Archives: white supremacists

history, lessons learned, musings, politics

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it…” George Santayana

Last night, as Bill and I were enjoying the cool evening sundown in our backyard, I suddenly remembered what I had wanted to write about yesterday. Lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of connections between people, events, and other things I’ve run into, like books, videos, and music. A few days ago, we had a memorial for a guy I knew in the Peace Corps. My former colleague and I served in Armenia, which has been in the news in recent years as the people there try to get the Armenian Genocide recognized by the international community. I am now living in Germany, where people have been trying to make amends for the Holocaust, which took place during World War II.

The other day, I was watching YouTube videos and happened to see one about The Holocaust. It was very well done and informative. I’ve read a lot of books about people who survived The Holocaust, and I’ve watched many videos about the experiences of people during that time. But, for some reason, this particular video made me think more about what happened than the others had. Or maybe this idea popped up because I have been talking to people I knew in Armenia, and Armenia is more on my mind than usual. It occurred to me that I’ve lived in Armenia, where people are descended from victims of genocide. And now I live in Germany, where I am surrounded by people whose ancestors had a part in committing genocide. It definitely offers a unique perspective. Or, at least I think it does.

Before I lived in Armenia, I had never heard of the Armenian Genocide. In fact, I barely knew anything about Armenia. The only reason I’d even heard of it was because my fourth grade teacher was of Armenian descent and told us a little bit about his heritage. At that time, Armenia was part of the Soviet Union, so as a nine year old, I never thought I would ever get to visit there, let alone live there. My teacher did not speak about the Genocide. He told us about how Armenians were Christians and that most people’s last names end in “ian”. He said Armenians were very proud of being Christians, hence the “ian” at the end of their names. Now I know that’s factually incorrect, but it sounded good to me when I was nine.

I also remember my Armenian fourth grade teacher played Jesus Christ: Superstar for us. I didn’t hear that music again until I moved to Armenia in 1995, where it was everywhere. People in Armenia LOVED Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famous musical. I even bought a bootleg cassette of the album and quickly became familiar with it. Andrew Lloyd Webber was very popular in the 80s and 90s, anyway, so I don’t know if Armenians always loved that show or it just became popular during their sudden independence in the 90s. Bill and I finally saw a production of it in Washington, DC in 2004.

I resisted this music when I was nine, but now I love it… thanks to Armenia. And Tim Minchin is perfect! I discovered him because of ex Mormons.

The Armenian Genocide, which occurred from 1915-1917, resulted in the mass murder of over one million ethnic Armenians by Ottoman Turks. The murders were achieved through death marches into the Syrian desert and mass executions. Many Armenian women and children were forced to convert to Islam. When I was in Armenia, I worked in a school in Yerevan that was named after a famous Genocide victim and poet, Ruben Sevak. I see that it’s now an elementary school, but when I was teaching there, there were students of all ages, and I taught kids who ranged in age from 7 to 16 years old. During my first months at that school, Ruben Sevak’s daughter, Shamiram, who was then in her 80s and lived in France, came to Yerevan. She attended a party thrown for her at my school. I tried to keep up with all the toasts and got very, very drunk. That was probably the drunkest I’ve ever been in my life!

While searching for Ruben Sevak’s daughter’s name, I found this fascinating blog post about Sevak and his family. I learned that Ruben Sevak (Sevak translates to “black eyes”) was actually a pseudonym. His real name was Roupen Chilingirian, and he was born in a city called Silivri, located about 37 miles from the city now known as Istanbul, but then called Constantinople. His family was wealthy, and Ruben was well educated. He became a physician, having studied in exclusive schools, including medical school at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He met his wife in Switzerland, Helene (Jannie) Apell. Big surprise– she was from a German military family! Their respective families objected to their romantic affair, but Ruben and “Jannie” finally got married in Lausanne, and later had a religious ceremony at the Armenian Church of Paris. The young couple had a son named Levon in 1912, and then their daughter, Shamiram, was born in 1914.

Ruben Sevak became politically active, joining the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. He was a prolific writer, and his works were published in literary journals and newspapers. He wrote a book of poetry in 1909. It was titled The Red Book, and the works within it recalled the Adana massacre— an event in which Armenian Christians were killed by Ottoman Muslims. He planned to write more poetry and political works in more books. He would never get the chance to fulfill that dream. Clearly, Sevak’s writings were threatening to the Ottoman Turks. He was one of the million people killed during the Armenian Genocide, having been conscripted in 1914 and serving as a military doctor in Turkey. In June 1915, Sevak was arrested, and though his wife and her parents tried valiantly to save his life, even involving the German government, their efforts would be in vain. Ruben Sevak was murdered on August 26, 1915.

If you’d like to know more about Ruben Sevak, I highly recommend following this link to the blog post I mentioned earlier. I wish I had known this story when I worked in the school named for Ruben Sevak. It actually blows my mind that I was once in the same room with one of Ruben Sevak’s direct descendants. I’m sure she’s gone now, but how amazing is it that she visited the school where I worked in 1995? What are the odds that I, an American from a small town in Virginia, would one day work in a country that was once part of a larger country that was pretty much off limits to Americans until 1991? And then I would attend a party held in honor of the daughter of a famous poet and doctor who was murdered in the Armenian Genocide? Fate is an incredible thing.

Playing For Time… a movie about the Holocaust that I saw on TV in the 80s.

I had heard of the Holocaust when I was growing up, but to be honest, I think it was because I had seen a made for television movie calling Playing For Time. That film aired in 1980, and my parents let me watch it, even though I was 8 years old. I remember the movie starred Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Alexander. It was about young Jewish women in a death camp who were musicians tasked with playing music for arriving prisoners and entertaining Nazi bigwigs. I’m not sure I totally understood the film as I watched it. I do remember thinking it was interesting and I never forgot it, but the horror of what it was about didn’t dawn on me until years later. And I honestly don’t remember learning about what actually went on during World War II when I was in school. Of course, that was many years ago. Maybe I’m mistaken. But it seems like there was so much that had to be covered during those years that we didn’t spend a long time talking about one specific incident in history. U.S. schools, at least in the 80s, covered world history in ninth or tenth grade, U.S. history in eleventh grade, and Government in twelfth grade. Prior to that, we had civics in eighth grade and social studies in seventh grade and below. I’m not even sure if learning about the Holocaust was considered age appropriate in those days.

Fascinating video, if you can take the subject matter.

So there I was a few days ago, watching the above video about the Holocaust, which had popped up randomly in my YouTube queue. I listened as the narrators described the conditions the Holocaust victims encountered as they arrived at Auschwitz. I tried to imagine the terror and extreme horror of it on some level. I thought to myself that I probably wouldn’t have survived, if I had been among the unfortunate people who went to Auschwitz or the other death camps. Hearing about it and seeing the footage is one thing, but actually living through that– watching friends and loved ones being marched off to be executed, freezing in filthy, inadequate clothes and shoes, starving while being worked to death, getting deathly ill or badly hurt and being forced to keep working… being treated as worse than the lowest form of life. It’s just so hard to reconcile that reality with what I’ve seen in Germany, having now spent about nine years of my life in this country. It amazes me that such decent people can be reduced to treating other human beings the way Holocaust victims were treated. I can’t imagine sinking so low… and yet so many ordinary people did.

It suddenly dawned on me that I have now lived in a country whose citizens were systematically exterminated by Ottoman Turks. And I have also lived in a country whose citizens systematically exterminated Jewish people, as well as political prisoners, Gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and anyone else Hitler didn’t like. I read that Adolf Hitler was actually inspired by the Armenian Genocide when he came up with his “Final Solution”.

This is a screenshot of the text on the last link… Hitler’s justification of the Holocaust, inspired by the murder of Armenians in the Genocide.

Then I thought of our present day situation. I read that Donald Trump is being encouraged to run for president again. He “handily won” a straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference. I have mentioned before that I see some similarities between Trump and Hitler. No, he’s not yet having people rounded up and sent to concentration camps to be murdered, although some people have compared the situation at the southern border of the United States to the Holocaust. I’m not sure I would go that far, as many of the people in that situation weren’t necessarily rounded up from their homes and forced to march to detention centers. And I don’t think there’s really anything that quite compares to the absolute sickness and sheer awfulness of the Holocaust. At least not yet.

Hmmm…
Worth a view.

The similarities I do see between Trump and Hitler have to do with the way both men worked a crowd, as well as some of the historical events in Germany that led to Hitler’s rise to power, and the actual things that both men say– which are things that most narcissistic types say. The narrator in the above video describes how Germans were caught up in fear, poverty, and bigotry. The public were frustrated and looking for scapegoats on which to blame Germany’s depressed economy. Hitler exploited people’s fears, humiliation, anger, and ignorance to get common citizens to accept him as the only person who could make Germany great again. Elections were suppressed, and soon Hitler became a tyrant who murdered millions of innocent people. If you listen to Trump’s speeches and compare them to Hitler’s speeches, you hear a lot of the same kind of stuff. No, they aren’t exactly alike, and they never will be. But I do see similarities that disturb me, and I am not the only one.

Another quotable idea.

I have watched from afar as people in my country have become more and more radicalized and unreasonable. I have seen a lot violence and heard a lot of disturbing rhetoric. I believe a lot of Americans think of Trump as their savior. They ignore the many disturbing signs of his extreme narcissism, as well as the obvious efforts of Republicans to suppress votes from people who won’t vote for them. People are very polarized and some have forgotten their basic sense of decency and compassion. I actually worry less that Trump will be re-elected than someone younger, smarter, more charismatic, healthier, and crueler might be waiting in the wings, ready to take over when Trump inevitably meets his end. I have noticed a lot of vocal Republicans who are rallying disenfranchised and ignorant people to support them in their quest to reclaim power.

“You don’t know me, but I’m your brother…”

Maybe I shouldn’t be writing blog posts like this one. Maybe I will end up being rounded up and killed. I’m sure the people who perished in the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust had no clue that one day, they would face the horrors they faced. But I can’t help but think of Spaniard George Santayana’s quote, “Those who cannot learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.” So I hope and pray that enough of my fellow Americans open their eyes and demand decency and compassion in our leadership.

If you’re supporting a politician who is beloved by the KKK or Neo-Nazi groups, you may want to re-evaluate your choices. Do you really want to be lumped in a group of people who are driven to hate and kill others? Isn’t it better if we come together in peace and moderation? Is money and power really worth more than other people’s lives? Think about it… and all of the exceptional people who have died because of extremism and the desire for power, money, racism, and religion.

Look familiar?
Trump refused to condemn the KKK. He claims to know nothing about white supremacists, and yet they all love and endorse him.
Holy shit. This man was a protester. Trump is all about silencing the critics.
And yet, they still love Trump, despite his “condemnation” of their groups! Why is that?

So ends today’s blog sermon… Gotta take Arran and Noyzi for a walk before the rain starts again.

Standard
memories, mental health, politics

Get the woman a snack…

A friend of mine shared this today on Facebook…

Good advice. I would also advise proofreading.

When I saw this, I was suddenly reminded of a story Bill told me about his ex wife. Bill’s ex is quite narcissistic. She has a way of turning the most trivial and ridiculous issues into huge dramatic events. She would take any mundane situation and turn it into a test of Bill’s love. Inevitably, he would fail, because nothing he did was ever good enough. And sure enough, that’s what she did one day when they stopped at a gas station and she wanted a soda.

Bill went into the gas station and bought his ex wife a plastic bottle of Dr. Pepper. When he handed it to her, she immediately got upset. Why? Because it wasn’t a fountain drink. Ex claimed that if Bill had really loved her and cared about her feelings, he would know that she prefers fountain drinks with ice in them to bottled ones. The rest of the road trip was spoiled by the heavy cloak of resentment that hung over them as they sat in the car, fuming at each other over the wrong soda.

Naturally, this seemingly insignificant event in their marriage turned into a huge row that Bill still occasionally talks about years later. It wasn’t so much about the soda, and the fact that Bill brought her a bottle instead of a fountain drink. It was about her constant need to test him, and to find ways to criticize him for anything and everything. It was her way of trying to stay in charge by turning on her rage machine and forcing Bill to be on the defensive. That kind of behavior, which she frequently indulged, was crazymaking. He never knew what would set her off.

I have experienced the same kind of treatment. It mostly came from my dad, who was not a narcissist, but did suffer from alcoholism. There were times when he could be very reasonable and calm. Then, there were times when he would freak out over something totally innocuous. And it was hard to tell when he would be calm and reasonable, or when he would blow up in my face. It caused a lot of anxiety. And then the anxiety would turn to depression, because there was nothing I could do to anticipate or stop the surprise attacks. All I could try to do was avoid my dad, who was supposed to be a “loved one”.

I think that’s why today, I have such a hard time with people who are verbally abusive. I can’t deal with people who yell at me. That’s a very quick way to get on my no contact list. Verbal abuse is not acceptable. It causes invisible psychic damage that makes it harder to trust. If you’re a decent person, and you don’t enjoy conflicts, you’ll soon find yourself walking on eggshells around this type of person– people who are always looking to be disappointed and critical.

Fortunately, I don’t really think that much about Ex anymore. It’s amazing how liberated I feel from her now, since Bill’s younger daughter started to communicate with him. I now see her as more pathetic than anything else. But I know that she still wreaks havoc toward anyone who is forced to be around her or deal with her. And she is remarkably similar to other narcissistic types we know… like Bill’s wartime boss, who delighted in fucking with people’s heads in Iraq. As if being at war isn’t bad enough!

A person has to be pretty miserable to ruin a road trip over a bottle of Dr. Pepper. Frankly, I love it when Bill brings me snacks. He knows what I like, and even if he brings me something unexpected, I usually end up enjoying it. Because if he brings me a snack, it means he thought of me. That, in and of itself, means he cares. Now, if he brings me something loaded with mushrooms, that would probably hurt my feelings. Bill knows I have a phobia of mushrooms. But Bill would never do that, even if we were fighting. He’s just not an inconsiderate person.

Moving on…

I didn’t actually mean to write about this today. There’s a lot I could rant about. For instance, I saw the below picture on Facebook as I was waking up this morning…

Absolutely unacceptable! Shocking this this is going on in 2020! Sadly, I don’t think contacting the police will even help, since a lot of police departments are staffed with the same types of thuggish creeps.

And I could also write about the dipshit white supremacists who plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, supposedly to put her “on trial”. What the fuck? Where do these people come from? And what gives them the idea that they have the right to kidnap elected officials? What did they think the outcome would be?

I think Donald Trump, who is also a narcissist, emboldens these people into thinking that he’s going to let them turn America into their warped vision of what they think it should be. Sad to say, their ideals are steeped in racism, sexism, and classism. On the other hand, if Gretchen Whitmer were a man, I doubt they would have ever tried this. These white supremacist fuckheads think women are inherently weak. I’m just glad they were dumb enough to reveal their plans on social media, so they could be dealt with properly before Governor Whitmer was hurt.

You would think that people could see that our leader, much like Bill’s ex wife, is toxic, crazy, and turns little problems into big ones. This morning, I actually saw a news article about Trump demanding that Hillary Clinton’s emails get made public. Why? I guess it’s because he’s losing big time in the polls and is scrambling to get people to talk about something other than the pandemic. But honestly, in 2020, who cares about Hillary Clinton’s emails? She’s not running for president. It’s a lot of much ado about nothing. Same as the bottle of Dr. Pepper versus a fountain drink.

And good people– good leaders– like Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who enacted policies for public health reasons, end up being targeted by dipshits with guns who think that America should be a place where the women are kept in their places. They’d prefer them to be beautiful, quiet, and docile… and just take the cake, please. It’s positively sickening. But it’s always sickening when abusive jerks get the upper hand.

Anyway… it’s time for breakfast. Bill made me a big snack. 😉

Standard
politics

There is no such thing as a “wasted vote”…

So… the guy I wrote about yesterday, the dude who was flabbergasted that people think that racial relations are better under Donald Trump, posted another controversial thread. This time, he asked his Facebook friends what percentage of people who voted for Donald Trump are white supremacists. Naturally, that opened up a floodgate of polarized responses. Several of his conservative friends took issue with, once again, being lumped in as “white supremacists” or “racists” simply because they back Trump. I have already expressed my thoughts on that. Personally, I don’t believe that all conservatives are racists, though I do think that many racists support Trump. I think Trump emboldens and normalizes racist behavior. I also think that people who still support having Trump in the White House are willfully ignorant to what a shitty, unethical person he is. Why not demand a candidate who is more ethical and qualified for the job?

Having written that, I understand that some people always vote for their party, regardless of who the candidate is. Some people will support Trump simply because he’s an alleged Republican, or because he claims to be against abortion. Some will vote for him just because they can’t stand the other candidate, for whatever reason. I know a lot of people dislike Hillary Clinton and they voted for Trump simply because they couldn’t stand the idea of voting for her. To be honest, I can’t blame them for that. Although I think Mrs. Clinton was much more qualified for the job, I am not personally a fan of hers or her husband’s. However, I also think Bill Clinton was a much better president than Trump is.

I am sick of political dynasties from either side, and I’m tired of people in high places getting away with being narcissists, crooks, and leches. Guys like my husband can’t get away with harassing women or being so outspoken about certain groups of people without risking their livelihoods. I see no reason why Trump, Bill Clinton, and their ilk can get away with their shenanigans while in government service, when the rank and file employees who work for them must adhere to an ethical code to be hired, let alone keep their jobs.

I voted third party in the last presidential election because I was voting in Texas, and I knew Hillary Clinton would never win Texas. She did win San Antonio, which was the city where I was voting. So really, my vote didn’t matter in terms of the election’s results. I still don’t think I “wasted” it, though. I did make a choice. I think more people should choose the person they think is best for the job, not the specific party.

I have never made it a secret that I vote for people over parties. I have voted for people in just about every party, from Libertarian to Green and, of course, the two big parties that always win. When I do choose to vote “third party” and dare to admit it, I often get a condescending lecture about how I’m “wasting my vote” by not choosing Democrat or Republican. I’ve heard it from die hard liberals and dyed in the wool conservatives. Frankly, that kind of talk pisses me right the fuck off. I find it extremely rude, not to mention shortsighted and fallacious. Please, for the love of Christ and everything else that is holy, do NOT offer me another explanation of how the electoral college works. It’s not necessary, nor will it be appreciated.

First of all, as an American, I still have the right to vote for whomever I please. I also have the right not to vote if I choose. That’s part of being free. Many people chose not to vote in the last presidential election. If more people had voted, maybe the end result would have been different. Or maybe Trump was simply destined to be the president. It’s hard to tell, because there is no way to know which way the non-voters would have cast their votes. Due to the electoral college, it’s pretty hard for one person’s vote to matter that much, anyway. What matters is how people as a whole voted in the state and how many electoral votes and how much influence that state gets in the election.

I do think voting is very important, and I try to make the effort with each election. But when one candidate wins the popular vote by millions and still loses the election, that’s pretty discouraging. I’m sure plenty of average Americans were terribly let down by the results of the last presidential election. Some people blamed third party voters, although I don’t think third party votes had much to do with the results. There still aren’t that many of us, and people often make assumptions about which way third party voters will swing without actually knowing if their assumptions are valid.

Secondly, even if a third party candidate has no chance of winning, by voting for that person, I’m still making my voice heard. People often complain that there’s not that much of a difference between Democrats and Republicans, yet they refuse to make a different choice. As long as people only vote for the two big parties, there can never be any evidence that the system needs to change… that we need more than one viable candidate for such an important job. I’m pretty sure that there will never be a third party president in my lifetime, but if no one ever gives them a chance, how can the system ever change? If I just vote Democrat or Republican, yet bitch and moan about how much I dislike both candidates, that seems to be a big waste of time. There’s nothing less empowering than whining about how much something sucks, yet still making the same choices that led to the situation sucking. If something doesn’t work, why not try a new approach? Maybe if we had more viable candidates, the big parties might choose candidates who are actually more qualified and higher caliber, rather than the person with the most money, power, and name recognition.

A popular cartoon that circulated after Trump won. I don’t care if people are “impressed” by my voting habits. In fact, I probably shouldn’t even discuss them among “friends”. I didn’t used to do that, but Trump changed everything.

People who claim third party voters are “wasting their vote” jump to a lot of conclusions, many of which could be wrong. A lot of people think that if there wasn’t a Libertarian candidate to vote for, Libertarian voters would naturally vote for the Republican, instead. I voted Libertarian in the last election, not because I necessarily identified as a conservative, but because I thought of the candidates presented, Gary Johnson was the best person for the job and had the least amount of baggage. I liked more of his ideas, and appreciated the fact that I’d not heard of him being a pervert or a criminal. He was a popular governor, and I liked his comments about social issues, yet I didn’t see him threatening my husband’s livelihood working for the military, which, sorry, is a valid concern for us– Bill is 55 and I’m 47. We have to think about our futures, so we don’t end up in the poorhouse. Even though Libertarians as a party have some policies that I don’t agree with at all, Gary Johnson just seemed like the best choice to me, in spite of his “Aleppo moment”. That’s just my opinion.

If Gary Johnson hadn’t been on the ticket, I probably would have voted for Mrs. Clinton, not Jill Stein, even though Jill Stein ran in the Green Party and supposedly is more aligned to Mrs. Clinton’s politics. I’ll admit that I didn’t know much about Jill Stein, but I’m probably closer to the right than the left. I am extremely liberal about some issues, but more conservative about others. Jill Stein, who advocated for drastic cuts to the military and closing overseas bases, seemed to be too left for me, although after the last few years, I might consider voting for her if she ran in 2020. But then, in 2020, I plan to vote for whomever has the best chance of unseating Trump. I want him OUT of the White House, and unless the other major candidate is somehow much worse than he is, I will probably be voting for that person. Trump may win in 2020, but that will not stop me from voting my conscience, and my conscience says Trump needs to go, pronto.

The bottom line is, I think people should be encouraged to vote. If someone makes the effort to show up to vote, or mail in their absentee ballot, that effort should be respected and appreciated. You may not like the way I vote. I may not like the way you vote. But as Americans who value freedom, we should all have the right to make our own choices. While I think that voting is a responsibility that all free people have, part of freedom is being able to choose whether or not to exercise the responsibility to vote. And– if a person is completely uninformed about the candidates and uninterested in the results, it’s probably better that he or she refrain from voting, anyway.

In any case, I posted my comment but decided to bow out of that thread because I simply can’t bear to read more sanctimonious drivel from either side of the argument. I don’t understand Trump supporters at all, even as I support their right to vote their conscience. I don’t see how supposedly decent people can admire a man who has such a long history of doing the wrong things. However… I am not yet at the point at which I assume all Trump supporters are necessarily bad people. I know a lot of them are simply ignorant or refuse to face the truth. They want to support their party. They think abortion is “wrong”, gun rights are “right”, and that certain people deserve fewer rights than others… and that making money is the most important thing. Or some of them simply believe that Republicans really are more “family friendly”… or Christian friendly, and they think being Christian is the only correct way to be. I’ve seen too much of the world to continue buying into that bullshit, but I know the people who believe it don’t really want to hear what I have to say. It would be a waste of my time to try to change their convictions when they aren’t open to the idea.

Not a fan of “tolerance camp”, either…

I also don’t believe in trying to force people to accept my point of view, shaming them into what I think would be a “more moral” vote, because that would be disingenuous. After all, I don’t like getting a liberal guilt trip about how I only need to think about the disadvantaged, when I would like to avoid becoming disadvantaged myself. There is no shame in considering one’s own interests when voting. While I can understand that many liberals would like to see the military drastically cut and installations closed, that would not be a good idea in terms of my husband’s livelihood. It wouldn’t be in our interest to vote for a candidate who wants to decimate the military, and as much as I appreciate a lot of left leaning ideals, I’m still sensible enough to know that I like having a roof over my head, food to eat, and the ability to pay the bills and help others. So I typically vote for the most moderate candidate, even if that person happens to be third party.

I don’t like heated arguments, so I’ll keep venting on my blog… and some people will read it and agree… or not. Isn’t it nice to still have that freedom?

Standard