How We Become Monsters
The monsters of childhood nightmare no longer live under the bed. They breathe and talk and walk among us; they double down on every abuse and cruelty; they speak of infestations and crime and all manner of horrific consequences if we—the public— do not follow their mandates, their prescriptions for the future or criticize their actions.
The monsters distract and lie with ever-growing intensity. They blatantly call reports of inhumanity over-wrought, fictional and dishonest. Abby Huntsman on Fox News said that the the separation of children from their families is unsustainable but that the kids are not being held in cages (don’t trust your lying eyes) and they’re not being gassed.
Is Abby Huntsman a monster? What she said is monstrous. The panel agreeing and nodding their heads is monstrous in its acquiescence. Spreading false equivalencies to an audience (well, we’re not gassing these people so it’s not bad or inhumane behavior) is a monstrous equation, a cognitive and emotional disconnect to what most people consider basic decency.
How do we become monsters?
When we remain silent, passive and/or apathetic. When we are willing to believe and say what is clearly untrue, beyond the pale, all in the service of monstrous policy or a particular political brand.
This is not new.
We need not scramble back to Hitler’s Germany but merely take a stroll with George Takei in his Op-Ed over at Foreign Policy, “At Least During the Internment . . . Are Words I Thought I’d Never Utter.” Takei lived this nightmare as a five-year old but as he states in his essay, he had his parents to protect him. This was enormously important because:
When a government acts capriciously, especially against a powerless and much-reviled group, it is hard to describe the terror and anxiety. There is nowhere to turn, because the only people with the power to help have trained their guns and dogs upon you. You are without rights, held without charge or trial. The world is upside down, information-less, and indifferent or even hostile to your plight.
Indifference is a pathway to monster-making. Fear-mongering is a road to monster-making. Racist and/or ethnic hatred and resentment is a trail leading straight to the monster factory.
Or we can detour from the path, shouting down the liars, the fear-mongers, the racists.
This is a defining moment for America. We’re with ‘em or against ‘em. There’s no gray area in the matter, no appeasement nor compromise.
We’re either decent human beings or we’re monsters.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/19/at-least-during-the-internment-are-words-i-thought-id-never-utter-family-separation-children-border/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-and-friends-defends-trumps-family-separation-policy
Btw, I’m listening to the Trumpster right now addressing the NFIB, National Federation of Independent Business. He is spouting his usual psychopathic reasoning. But he spoke a moment of truth: he doesn’t want more judges to handle the overflow at the border; he wants more police.
Monster Alert!
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