Evil
John Steinbeck talks about living in migrant camps while researching for his Grapes of Wrath novel: “He watched mothers try to hush their crying babies with songs instead of food. He saw children digging through trash for rotten fruit. “You have no idea how terrifying hunger sounds when it cries,” he later wrote. “It changes the shape of a man’s face.”
In the wake of a ceasefire announcement in the Middle East, Israeli Soldiers torched buildings, homes, and a critical sewage treatment plant. They even burned pallets of food meant for Gaza and their starving children.
The men who performed this butchery were immunized to the suffering of another human being, and had “no idea how terrifying hunger sounds when it cries.” (John Steinbeck) They were able to execute these atrocities because they had been saturated in the propaganda that Palestinians were animals, scum, unfit to live. That’s what propaganda does, it shuts down the valve to your humanity.
Fascism’s DNA is cruelty. We saw it with ICE last week when they shackled fifteen kids during an ICE raid in Chicago. Yesterday they arrested a thirteen year old and sent him to an ICE detention center in another state. Just imagine the trauma this incident inflicted on both the mother and the son. And just the other day ICE snipers shot 8 pellets into a priest’s head, and not to mention that two kids with cancer were arrested. My heart weeps when I hear these stories, and they surface on a daily basis.
“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night or day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart; men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” Anne Frank, 1943
We have always had cruel people, but in the United States today, they are now in positions of power, which we enabled by withdrawing, shedding our responsibilities as citizens, turning away when witnessing the daily outrages and cruelty.
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Dr. Martin Luther King
The Republicans broadcast their cruelty in their Project 2025 manifesto. It’s all there, a blueprint for establishing fascism, with all its inherent cruelty, and we ignored it, comfortable in our bunkers, telling ourselves that this couldn’t be real, that it had nothing to do with us.
We blame Trump for his torched earth assault on our democratic institutions. But what is it about ourselves that we let this wolf into the chicken coop? We have gotten comfortable, jaded, denying the fact we are our brother’s keeper, that we are all responsible for the quality of our leaders, the quality of our government, the quality of our community. The excuse, ‘all politicians are the same’, no longer holds water, and it’s a cop out, a way of not confronting evil, of not taking responsibility. And make no mistake, fascism is evil, and it has been unleashed on America like a virus with no proven anti-body.
Among other outrages, Fascism’s goal is to disable critical thinking so when the fascist serves up its inevitable scapegoats, followers will robotically embrace the scapegoat, which in turn deflates our power, which in turn justifies subsequent cruelty.
We are not born cruel; we are not born racist. We are born full of wonder, full of innocence, full of love. Cruelty is implanted.
Here’s the thing about Democracy: there are no days off. Democracy has to be created daily, or we can lose it in an instant, or in nine months. It is that fragile. We want all the benefits of Democracy, like free speech, fairness, an equal playing field, but it doesn’t come free. There’s a cost, and the cost is vigilance.
Our Constitution is a living, breathing document, but only if it is fought for and defended daily. If not fought for, it ain’t worth the paper it was written on. People like Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Anwar Sadat, James Meredith, Abraham Lincoln know the cost, and it ain’t free.
We are being desensitized through disinformation. Every atrocity that we turn a blind eye to erodes our humanity, our empathy, our integrity, and our soul. Fascism depends on good people sitting it out, turning a blind eye.
We see this cruelty in Sudan where atrocities are committed daily, including sexual violence against women and girls, tortured and starved civilians, where people are rounded up and killed, with bombed hospitals and markets. These are war crimes.
Why this level of cruelty? Who are these men? We find them in Israel; we find them in ICE; we find them in the Republican Party; and most importantly, we find them in our current administration.
What has happened is that men and women of good will started to look away, saying it’s not my concern, not my responsibility, someone else will handle it.
But we didn’t.
We let cruelty, inherent in fascism, take our institutions and Democracy hostage. Cruelty and power spews forth daily from this administration, an administration motivated by revenge.
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” Sinclair Lewis
We have all seen the flags, and we have all seen the crosses. For Evangelicals, Jesus is no longer a man of peace, who comforted the weak, the sick, the hungry, or the forgotten. The evangelicals today have transformed Jesus into a warrior, one who ignores the poor and who glorifies crass materialism.
We have all seen the bastardization of language where the January 6th thugs are labeled patriots, and the peaceful protesters are labelled terrorists. We can’t stand down. “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell
When Democracy is functioning, being taught, it acts as a cleansing agent to our cruelty impulse. By practicing Democracy, it helps restore our humanity, our empathy, our kindness. John Dewey once said “the solution to the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.”
So we have to continue telling the truth, expose the corruption, bear witness and hold people accountable. Democracy is always being tested, witness the American First movement prior to World War II, witness the Civil Rights movement, witness the anti-war movement during the sixties.
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who during times of great moral crisis maintained their neutrality.”
— Dante Alighieri
One final thing. When a wannabe dictator tells you what he is going to do, believe him. At one point Trump stated that the 2024 elections could be the last elections. He has done everything possible to ensure that will occur, witness the gerrymandering scam being perpetuated by Republicans.
In 1931, the famous American journalist Dorothy Thompson interview Adolf Hitler. She asked him this question: “will you abolish the constitution of the German Republic”?
Hitler’s response was shockingly direct: “I will get into power legally. I will abolish this parliament and the Weimar constitution afterward. I will found an authority-state, from the lowest cell to the highest instance; everywhere there will be responsibility and authority above, discipline and obedience below.”
Thompson believed he was telling the truth about his dictatorial ambitions, yet she couldn’t fathom that he would be successful. The very idea struck her as absurd: “Imagine a would-be dictator setting out to persuade a sovereign people to vote away their rights.”
Not so far fetched after all.
‘’And how do you restore the humanity of Democracy? You restore it with love, kindness, with justice, and by shedding light on the darkness inherent in fascism.’’ Parker J. Palmer
Curt Strickland
Read my book: Democracy Under Siege: Essays on the Trump Years-2016-2024
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQJXKN3D/
And my essays:
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