Scrambled Eggs

I took my bike out the other day. It’s only the second time I’ve used it since I’ve moved here and the first time I left the development. I went out towards the campus and once I got away from the major roads it was a real nice ride. One of the things I like when I ride off the main streets is that I can really get lost in my head. By that, I mean I can just start thinking about anything. Today’s thoughts were all over the board.

For some reason I started thinking about Rodney King. I lived in southern California when the police beat him up and it was shown all over the world. I kept getting that picture in my head of when he made the infamous statement that we all laughed about, “Can’t we all just get along?” I remember that I, along with millions of others, laughed when he said it at the time. It was great fodder for late night television shows and you can still hear it said in any bar or social gathering on a regular basis.

Then, of course, I started thinking about that question. I mean, there’s the obvious, I don’t like you and you don’t like me but does that mean we have to do some sort of violent dance until one of us either agrees that one is better or possibly gets hurt? Easy answer, of course not. Maturity usually brings us to the point of either resolving our differences or simply agreeing to disagree.

I think most right thinking folks would agree that the question is one that should never have to be asked. That being the case, why is it we have such a hard time getting along with each other? I’m not talking about other countries, just right here at home.

We’re in the middle of an historic Presidential Race where, odds are; we will have either a black or a woman President. I swell with so much pride just thinking about it. Then I see some of the exit interviews from the West Virginia primary and I’m embarrassed to be of the same species as some of these folks. There were three in particular that I think need mentioning. The first was a woman who looked like she was just coming out of the mall, nicely dressed and by the looks of her, a relatively intelligent person. After saying she had voted for Hillary Clinton she was asked why? She stated, “It’s the racial thing, we’ve had problems in the past.” Her only stated reason for voting for Clinton over Obama was that Obama is black. Well, I guess she at least gets points for honesty.

It gets better. The second woman, asked about her vote, said she also voted for Hillary. When asked why she said. “Because he’s a Muslim and I could never vote for a Muslim.” Has this woman read a newspaper or seen any news program in the last two years? It has been stated numerous times on many stations and in scads of newspapers that Barak Obama is not a Muslim. If he were, the whole Reverend Wright controversy would never have happened. Apart from the falsehood of the statement, religious beliefs should be irrelevant when it comes to elections in this country.

The third person interviewed was another woman who, when asked why she didn’t vote for Obama stated, “I won’t vote for Hussein, we’ve had enough of Hussein.” And that was the end of her statement. Kind of makes you want to propose an intelligence test to be able to vote. John Stewart of “The Daily Show” showed all three interviews and ended the segment with a sign that said, “Welcome to West Virginia. Please, No Interviews.” How embarrassing.

I don’t mean to pick on West Virginia here, I’m sure there are people all over the country that have these same types of thoughts. It just goes to show how far we, as a nation, have to go until we can “all just get along.” I’m willing to bet that, in most cases, the very same people who won’t vote for a black or a woman will tell you that they are very progressive people that hold no race or gender bias. This ingrained racism is something that’s been with them for as long as they could possibly remember. It’s easy to let your fears control you once the curtain closes and it’s just you with your head in that voting booth.

Let’s be honest though. It’s not simply fear that causes these thoughts to go through ones mind. Sad as it is to say, there are a great many who still feel that men are smarter or better than women and Whites are smarter or better than Blacks, Hispanics or any other group that’s different. Does anyone really wonder why we “can’t all just get along?”

Please don’t think that I pretend to be above the fray. I too have my own prejudices. I’m not proud of them and I’m not even sure I can admit to all of them but I know they’re there. Of course I’d like to believe that I don’t let them influence my daily life but I’m sure they do. I do like to think that I know how ridiculous they are and that I constantly work on myself to not let them define who or what I am. I certainly would never go on television and use them as my reason for choosing the next leader of this country.

Anyway, that’s the kind of stuff I was thinking about when I took my little bike ride. I should really try to work on paying a little more attention to the road but that’s not nearly as entertaining.

Where Does Evil Begin?

The second essay for my original blog that I wrote was about my running into someone that was convinced that the Holocaust was a fraud. I wrote of my utter amazement at the whole concept. Since that time I have done a good deal of research on the computer about that time in history and I have also seen a number of documentaries about the subject.

I‘ve visited a number of white power sites and just shake my head at the things I read on them. I think most of you remember David Duke. He’s the guy that put a corporate face on the White Supremacist movement. Clean cut, business suit and educated. He actually won a seat in the Louisiana State House of Representatives. Oh, by the way, he was also the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

David Duke brings up an interesting point about these hate mongers. At some point in his life, he was just a guy. Someone we’ve all known in our lives. Someone we’ve gone to school with, played games with or had a beer with. He was once a child without a care in the world and somehow, somewhere, there was a disconnect from what I, and many others, feel is a sense of decency.

What made me think of this was a program I saw the other day about a German Officer during WWII by the name of Karl Hoeker. Someone had held on to a personal photo album of his and sent it to one of the Holocaust Centers for display and study. The photos were of him in social and “work” situations. The social ones were of him with friends, on picnics and out having something to eat with fellow officers. Just your basic scenes from what seems like a normal life.
That’s the part that gets to me. At some point, something happened. When the thought of a madman is brought up in this country the first name that comes to the mind of many of my generation is Charles Manson. Though in fact, he was never convicted of killing anyone, he is the epitome of evil to many. Guess what? He was a baby once, just like you and me. Where did it go wrong? Is there any way to find the point that the above folks’ minds went to the “dark side”?

Of the three names mentioned above, the one I find most fascinating is Hoeker, the German officer. Being Jewish, I have an emotional investment to the actions of the Third Reich. Apart from that though, he is the only one of the three that wasn’t at the head of the class per se. He wasn’t in charge. He was, though this is not excusing him in any way, taking orders from above. Does anyone really think that at that time in history he could have survived if he refused any of the orders given? It’s easy to say, sitting here right now, that you or I would have never done any of the things those people were told to do. We weren’t there. We don’t really know what it was like.

We all read in amazement when some hate group destroys a church or synagogue but let’s imagine that the vandalism is state sponsored. Imagine that you are told, day after day, that the cause of all your problems was this group or that group. Actually, I hadn’t thought about it until now but we get a lot of that kind of talk about illegal immigrants right now. Alright, try to put yourself in the steps of an unemployed worker. You’re having a really hard time feeding your children. The electricity is on the verge of being turned off. The stack of bills on the table only gets bigger. You turn on the news and you hear about some report from the government that says the reason for all your troubles were people with the letter P in their first name. You think, that’s crazy. But then you find that every day it’s all over the news, all the politicians are making speeches about it. All your friends are talking about those damn P people.

Reading the above scenario doesn’t do the issue justice. It seems so ludicrous to think that we, or anyone, could fall into this type of brainwashing. But it happened. Nobody can truly believe that all the citizens of Germany were these horrible people we see in all the old films. Something happened. There was a point where the switch was flicked over and lives changed forever. They came to believe that the Jews were the cause of all their problems. At some point though, they were just a bunch of guys.