Yom Hashoah

Words are real only in an intellectual sense. They are not material of any kind and as such have no shape, size, mass, or structure. As kids we were told 'Sticks and bones may break my bones but words will never hurt me' which is true, but only so far.

If you're a child in any school anywhere across the United States and don't quite fit in...too nerdy, too jocky, too prissy (one of my all-time favorite words), too bookish, too plain, too and-the-list goes on, we've tagged you with a sobriquet that didn't break any bones when we go to the x-rays but did amazing damage to your psyche.

As a culture, we are quick to anger and slow to forgive. We nurse injuries, real and/or imagined, until we've raised them to grievances and causes and then there's no negotiating with us. When the phrase 'we the people' is uttered I'm not sure about whom we're speaking but am absolutely positive that my definition and yours differ greatly from one another. Sadly, each of us not only sees the other's definition as wrong but we also have unkind thoughts about the person with that definition and very likely the horse s/he rode in on.

Instead of a civil dialogue, at the national, and other, level we have competing monologues. I am not so much listening to you as I am waiting for your lips to stop moving so I can speak my piece. And how dare you then to treat me the same way. We don't know how to disagree without being disagreeable. At one time we used to work on this-now we exult about it.

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day , marking the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghettto Uprising in 1943. When we insist on 'never again' we mean each of us cannot and will not allow the dismissive dehumanization of those with whom we disagree, by word, thought, or deed, to ever occur. 

If I can reduce those with whom I disagree to vermin or a minor form of pestilence, it's just a short step to accepting the conceit of destroying them and that step of that journey can never, ever happen again. Events and catastrophic consequences in the Middle East even as you are reading this should underscore the urgency of why we must learn to live together.

Reasonable people can agree to disagree while working to expand common ground to reach a common goal. 

You needn't be a Survivor or a Child of a Survivor to recognize that political theater and posturing transcends intelligent discussion and acceptable social mores. My visceral reaction is that this is abject crap and to shut down any and all efforts to listen to the views of anyone who comports in such trappings.

Hateful speech and even more hateful actions deliberately provoke people struggling to be the bridges over our chasm-like differences of opinion to STOP all of their efforts to help move us as a society to a more respectful of one another place and space and just drop the gloves and wail on someone who is obviously both arrogant and ignorant.

That angry response and the animus it requires and produces puts a lie to that well-meant and heavily advertised desire/goal of 'never again' condemning each of us to remain chained to a mandala of hate, hurt, and mutual recrimination over our insistence on the right to yell theater in a crowded fire while all around us burn the fires of a Hell of our own creation.
-bill kenny