“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” – Joseph Goebbels
It’s late at night, and the Hog’s head and heart are hurting. We have elected a president who cannot find it within himself to unequivocally denounce Nazis. Who will not condemn the Ku Klux Klan. At whose alt-right hand sitteth the neo-fascist flamer Bannon. A president who rose to prominence as the birther-in-chief. Who fawns over authoritarian figures like Putin, Duterte, and Erdogan while castigating democratic leaders of our NATO allies. Who encouraged thugs at his rallies to wreak physical violence on protesters, even offering to pay their legal fees. Who casually threatens nuclear war to gratify his own ego. Who lies at every opportunity (see, e.g., birther-in-chief). And who, even in the wake of Ferguson and other similar episodes, actively and explicitly encouraged police brutality.
This is a natural consequence of society prioritizing bread and circuses. The old entertainment saying goes, “call me whatever you want, but spell my name right.” The current occupant (no need to mention him by name), who is nothing more or less than a reality TV personality, lives by the ethic that the only bad publicity is no publicity. Hence, there seems to be no limit to what he will say or do to keep his name in the public eye. Even when he pokes a short finger directly into that eye, America apparently cannot get enough of him. His name and image dominate the media he claims to despise. The President of the United States will actively denounce journalists and the media, but not the Klan. Not the Nazis. We are far, far, far down the rabbit hole now.
Just how far, you ask? “There are two sides to every story,” says the president. Right. The side of the Nazis and the Klan, and the other side. The side of Auschwitz and lynchings, and the other. The side of Birkenau and white-hooded terrorism, and the other. The side of Hitler, Goebbels, and the “grand wizards,” and the other. The side of the gas chambers and the cross burnings, and the other. The side of the big lie, and the other side.
Unfortunately, millions upon millions of the witnesses to one “side of the story” were murdered by such as the brown shirts and the white sheets. But their testimony to the bankruptcy of the ideas pushed by the Nazis and the Klan is writ large, in blood and tears.
One must ask what goes through the hearts and minds of the occupant’s Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his converted Jewish daughter, Ivanka, when the president spews his poisonous “two sides” billingsgate. The Jews are and have historically consistently been targets of white supremacists. What can these folks think when armed Nazis and Klansman parade through the streets shouting racist and anti-Semitic slogans, and proudly waving the swastika, while the current occupant blathers about “two sides to every story?” What can black citizens think when they see the same people arm-in-arm, ranting about taking their country back, and waving the stars and bars, while the president sides with the racists? And what are we all to think when our titular leader, afraid of offending his base, refuses to call out these ancient and ugly evils?
It is human nature to want to believe that the source of our troubles lies somewhere other than within ourselves. The greater our troubles, the greater the urge to find a scapegoat. Unfortunately, too often the truth hits much closer to home. In the words of Pogo, “we have met the enemy and he is us.” According to some obscure Bard: ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” But none of us wants to think he is his own worst enemy, and many yield to the temptation to place wholesale blame on those of a different race or creed. That is much easier than accepting responsibility.
This tendency is not limited to white supremacists. Those of us who stand on the sidelines, pontificating about how this is not our America, and about how this does not represent us, fail to recognize that there is a dark side to everyone, and each of us must make a choice between the dark and the light. Between the Nazis and the other. Between the Klan and the other. Between murder and the other. Between terror and the other. Between antisemitism and racism, and the other. And that choice requires that we shine a light first on the darkness in ourselves, however uncomfortable that process might be. Then we will understand how evil is enabled by the inaction of good people.
As Shakti Gawain said:
Evil is like a shadow – it has no real substance of its own; it is simply a
lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight
it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or
physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must
shine light on it.
Standing on the sidelines is a choice of sorts, but ultimately it operates in favor of darkness. From Edmund Burke:
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Which will we choose: the darkness or the light? There is no third option. It would be a bad mistake to believe that the shadow that darkened Nazi Germany could not fall over this country (or others). When the president embraces darkness (ironically in the form of white supremacy), as long as only his name is spelled right, then it is the obligation of each of us, and all of us together, to shine the brightest light we can on him and his ilk, while we still can.