WE SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF OURSELVES

By Praetor One

In 1943 the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto staged an insurgency against their Nazi oppressors which quite literally took the Nazis by surprise. Deceived by their own propaganda, the Nazis found it difficult to believe that their prisoners, their innocent victims would actually dare to fight back, a belief which was quickly shattered when the Jews, upon learning that they were to be exterminated anyhow, decided to fight back against what proved to be impossible odds. Eventually the Jewish resistance was destroyed, but not before the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto had proven that they believed in freedom and basic survival.

In the early years of the Twentieth Century–1916-1945–Mahatma Ghandi led a peaceful, nonviolent revolt in which he successfully gained Indian Independence from the might of the British Empire. Unlike the revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto and the following examples, Ghandi successfully obtained that independence by refusing to take up arms against British soldiers. Moreover, Ghandi not only believed that it was enough to win the political and military aspects of the peaceful revolt. He also believe that there was no victory unless he convinced his opponents of the moral superiority of his mission.

In 1989 the government and military fores of the Peoples Republic of China, were stunned and horrified when peaceful protesters took to the street in peaceful protest to demand reforms and more personal freedom. Again, the protesters clearly understood that they were both, out numbered and out gunned and that the government could lash out and crush them in a single blow, but that didn’t stop a brief, shining moment of idealism from outshining the forces of tyranny and repression.

Today, in the nation that we once referred to as Burma, Buddhist monks led a peaceful march against the Communist junta, in the hope of bringing about greater freedom and personal liberty. Carrying upside bowls, an indication that the monks refuse to bless or in any other way support the repressive Communist government, the peaceful demonstrators have fought back with little more than determination and sticks.

So what have the events in Burma have to do with anything in this country? Well let me put it this way. When I look at the Buddhist Monks in Burma I am almost as disgusted with the American people as I am with the goons and right wing hacks which have infiltrated our federal and state governments. Clearly we have a fifth column element in the form of the Republican party which is trying to eradicate both, personal freedom in the name of security, and the American Constitution in the name of safety, And the part that really wants to make me throw up is that we still (at least) have the vestiges of basic freedom and liberty. Despite fascist-inspired tactics which are designed to make the American Republic go the way of the Wiemar Republic, we still stand a better chance of freeing ourselves of the Republican yoke than the Buddhist monks do of throwing off the Communist yoke in Burma.

It seems to me that as a people we have lost our courage and our backbone. Do we love this country or don’t we? And if we answer in the affirmative then why do we not see a better organized peace movement? We do we not see a highly organized and determined effort to preserve what’s left of our Constitutional liberties and the American Republic in general.

I couldn’t be more proud of the protesters that I listed above. Would that I could say the same about the American people who have become fat, lazy, complaisant consumers, smug and self secure like cows on milking machines. If that’s what we think of freedom today, if we are unwilling to peacefully protest to keep our form of government and our personal freedoms, then that says a lot more about us as a people than it does about the increasingly corrupt and repressive regime in Washington.