Let's NOT take this road...

I saw a meme on Facebook yesterday.  It read “If you cross the North Korean border illegally, you get 12 years of hard labor. If you cross the Afghanistan border illegally, you get shot. Two Americans got 8 years for crossing into Iran.  If you cross the U.S. border illegally, you get a job, a driver’s license, food stamps, a place to live, health care, child benefits, education and tax fee business income for 7 years? No wonder we are a country in debt!”  It urged everyone to share it. It was created by an organization called seano.org.

 

I immediately wondered if the person who came up with such a brilliant comparison realized how utterly ridiculous it sounds.

The first thing that occurred to me was that the writer was urging the U.S. to act in the same brutal, heinous, violent, and inhumane way that North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran act toward immigrants (not to mention their own their own population).  Let’s not forget that most of the brutality issues in those countries stem from tribe fighting tribe or religion trying to eradicate other religions.  Sounds hauntingly like Adolph Hitler, his rabid followers, and the extermination of millions.

 

The actual demographic data of non-combatant lives lost during the holocaust include the following:

6 million Jews (all countries)
5-7 million Ukrainians
3.3 Russian POWs
2 million Russian civilians
3 million Poles
1.5 million Yugoslavians
½ million Gypsies
¼ million mentally or physically disabled
5K Jehovah’s Witnesses
Tens of thousands homosexuals
Tens of thousands Spanish Republicans
Anyone considered socially, racially, or politically undesirable (Jews, Blacks, Gypsies, criminals, prostitutes, homosexuals, and mental patients, socialists, communists, pacifists, anti-Nazi refugees from Germany and Austria, and anyone else they just didn’t like.)

The problem with picking on one ethnic or religious group, such as Mexicans, or Syrians, or Muslims is that it never stops there.  Hitler led the German people by making them believe that the Jews were their enemy and all the problems with their lives could be blamed on the Jews.  He made them believe, or at least look the other way, in the hope that elimination of that one group would make German lives better.  But he didn’t stop there.  It was one “common enemy” after another, as seen in the list above, and the citizens of Germany believed the lies and followed like sheep.  The Nazis stripped all those people they killed of their wealth and possessions, but none of those billions ever filtered back down to the citizens.  Their lives did not get better, no matter how many “undesirables” they murdered.

 

Right now, the far right and the religious right are stirring up their constituents in the same way Hitler stirred up the citizens of Germany.  It is not the Mexicans, or the Syrians, or those of the Muslim faith we should fear.  It is those that seek to profit from the misery of our citizens.  By giving the people a “common enemy” and telling us that all our problems stem from immigrants and non-Christians, they are doing EXACTLY what Adolph Hitler did.

We cannot afford to take that path.

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it

I was mortified by the story of the Chicago TV station that used the yellow star of David, a Nazi emblem the European Jews were forced to wear so they could easily be herded onto trains for the death camps, in a Happy Yom Kippur story.  Obviously we have learned nothing from the past.

We are being overtaken by younger generations who are ignorant of the incredible amount of hard work that was required to get us to the place we are today.  I was at a writing meeting last night and a young member voiced her opinion that she was tired of hearing about what women and African Americans had gone through years ago and that they should “get over it already.”

 

I wanted to deck the poor kid, but instead, I tried my best to make her understand that the past should NEVER be “gotten over,” and indeed, needs to be remembered vividly and accurately.  She looked at me quizzically as I described what women my age had to tolerate from society and what women had sacrificed to make sure that she could get whatever job she wanted, be better paid, and have legal recourse for issues in her life that we didn’t have 50 years ago.

I tried to make her understand that discrimination was discrimination regardless of the genre:  gender, race, religion, sexual preference, or citizen status.  I pointed out that repression was unforgivable, and being ignorant of or forgetting that people died and suffered for the freedoms we have right now is unacceptable.

I hope she remembers what I said, because our history is not something we have to “get over already.”  It is something we need to hang onto for dear life, so we don’t get sucked into repeating its atrocities.

An attempt to keep myself honest...so far, so good

In the 12 days since I returned from Middle Bass Island, I have managed to increase the word count in the novel by 8,000 words.  I was shooting for 500 words/day, but although I have skipped a day here and there, I am averaging 667 words/day.  My goal is to hit the total word count by the end of September, then give it to a few of my “readers with red pens” to see what they can find and to offer me their suggestions.  Once corrections have been made, and all suggestions taken under advisement, I’ll ship the manuscript off to Liz Petry for a once over.  In spite of the fact that I am neither Jane Austen nor Tony Hillerman, I am certain she will read it with a critical editor’s eye.

 

I know, I know.  I once had a publisher take a book on because she not only loved the content, but she didn’t find a single error in the entire manuscript.  I can be pretty anal about my writing.  But even I make typos, and the eye sees what the mind thinks it wrote.  Self-editing can be an excruciating task.  Generally, you have to step away from the manuscript for weeks, or even months, before you can distance yourself enough to edit your own writing properly.  In this instance, I want the book in print before the holidays so people can buy it for gifting; therefore, I need all the editing help and suggestions I can garner.

I will be absolutely ecstatic if I can have the book up on Amazon for purchase by November 1.  That entails a good bit of work between now and then, but I promised Steve FitzGerald I would keep up with my social networking sites, sooooooo, I guess I’ll be posting here, Tweeting, Facebooking, and Linking-in as well as writing, editing, and working full time.  It should be an interesting fall.  Oh, and there is the small matter of making notes and outlining Book 2 in this series!  I think I’m going to have to be a bit more disciplined about sleeping.  Feel free to ask me how I'm progressing...guilt can be a wonderful thing!

Sad reflection will remain an annual journey for far too many...

I hate this night.  Each year I dread it with an intensity that causes my stomach to roil and my head to ache.  I usually handle my demons by reiterating my 9/11 story, but not this year.  If anyone wants to read it, they have only to search back through the blog to 9/11/14 or 9/11/13 or…

But tonight, I can’t get my mind off those left behind:  the parents who should never have outlived their children, the children growing up without parents or grandparents, the husbands and wives still trying to reinvent their lives as singles or with new partners they had never even met those many years ago.  The heartbreak goes far beyond Manhattan, or the East Coast, or the Pentagon, or a lonely field in Pennsylvania.  My heart hurts when I think of those who lost someone on 9/11 unable to sleep tonight, perhaps crying until the tears can no longer flow.

 

I can’t help but recall the eerie silence in the following days, when not a single plane graced the sky and not a single vapor trail patterned the horizon.  It was as if the whole country had stopped to regain its breath and its perspective.  I’m not sure we managed the perspective part.

 

Sadly, the legacy of 9/11 continues as the responders fall to illnesses undoubtedly caused by exposure to smoke and debris and the death toll continues to rise. 

To all who read this, I encourage you to send your warmest thoughts and prayers to those left behind, and to those who came to the aid of the victims that are paying such a high price for their heroism.

Once again, I have returned home from a highly productive week at the President's Cottage on Middle Bass Island, owned by fellow member Steve FitzGerald. I made huge inroads on a novel that I now hope will be finished by the end of September. Steve's opinions and advice were instrumental in many of the decisions I made as to where the novel was taking the reader...and where it was taking me. 

There is no place that I have written with more inspiration, or accomplished as much toward my writing goals, as I have in my solo retreats on Middle Bass Island. If you are serious about completing a project, I highly recommend that you start now by setting aside a few dollars each week in a writing fund, and take advantage of what Steve is offering. You won't regret it!