10/23/2024
When I was a boy, I read the multi-volume World Book Encyclopedia (yes, we read books back then) that my parents bought about World War II and the Holocaust. It horrified me and sparked my lifelong interest in history. Later on, I read William L. Shirer's seminal work on that period, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, in order to learn how this tragedy of all tragedies could happen. I learned a lot - lessons that I have carried with me to this day. One of those lessons was to stand firm against evil, before, during and after it rises, no matter what the personal cost is, because I love humanity. It is my motto, which will be on my urn if there is one: "if you see a wrong, do everything you can to set it right."
The moment I saw Donald Trump come on the political scene as a candidate in 2015, after a brief moment of laughter (the same mistake the Germans made), I knew immediately that I was seeing history echo itself (it never repeats). Trump, a fundamentally evil man, has been a copious student of Adolf Hi**er and Na**sm, well before his ex-wife disclosed during their divorce in 1990 that he kept copies of Mein Kampf (Hi**er's ugly memoir) and Hi**er's speeches by his bedside. I sized him up back in the 1980s, when I first heard about him, as a person who has an unquenchable lust for sole attention and extreme unearned praise and a sadist who takes pleasure in seeing others in pain, unsought or not.
Ever since 2015, I have spent a large amount of time, most recently on my FB page and with my magazine BAVUAL, warning everyone I can of the coming dystopia - if hate prevails in America and Trump is returned to the presidency on November 5. Be aware that he is not an entertainer here to amuse you (though he deserves to be eternally laughed at), nor is he Jesus or the genius who will instantly bring you wealth or make all of your personal problems go away. Quite the opposite, you are nothing to him for he personifies death and destruction, the malevolent spirit that wiped out the N***s at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Trump as president again will have the power to turn America and the world into an uninhabitable wasteland.
If you are one who has been voluntarily enraptured by Trump and his Nazi-inspired MAGA cult and intend to vote for him in 13 days (if you haven't already voted for him by mail), know this: you are not my enemy BUT you are also not my friend. You will have become an opponent of humanity and I must disassociate myself from you, hopefully not permanently, but until you realize that you have made a grievous error, one that will doom billions. I do not exaggerate, I am quite serious. With my last breath I will never condone hate.
So, fight ignorance and intolerance and educate yourself. Read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or watch the YouTube video on the book that I have attached to this post below. (You might also check out the 1936 film Things to Come, also on YouTube.) And then, if you haven't already done so, vote to save democracy from dictatorship.
Hopefully, justice will out and there will be a sweeping Democratic victory on November 5, not for the sake of the party but for the continued existence of self-rule, liberty and humanity. As I always quote from MLK: "Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." If not, I will continue the fight for truth and justice, even if I am the only one.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoBxX6IBK1o
