Wednesday, June 16, 2010

A Thing or Two About Genocide

"So it may never happen again."

Isn't that the idea of the Holocaust Museum? Wasn't that the idea behind the provisions of post WWII and the United Nations? Didn't we, as Americans, swear it wouldn't happen again? Don't we know better?



It's difficult to conceive how important the United States is on the world stage. Regardless of our economic problems and such, we're still the best place to live in the world. The easiest way to really get an idea of that is to leave our country for even a little bit and come to a country like this. One of the things we all seem to agree on is how we've got it better and we're definitely more educated.

Well how educated and better than anyone else are we when we let 2 million people get fucking massacred not 30 years after we promised we would never let it happen again?

War protests over our involvement in the Vietnam War were pretty spot on. What were we doing there aside from killing millions of our own (and Vietnamese) people? Put this in your pipe and smoke it:

We got what a good buddy of mine coined, "war fatigue." Basically the people in America got sick of losing American life in Vietnam so we wisely decided to leave and bring everyone home. Then we pulled everyone out of Asia completely even though our government and our citizens were aware of an impending situation here in Cambodia.

Within months of the US leaving Vietnam the Khmer Rouge move into Phnom Penh, literally just a few hundred miles away from where US forces were already fighting, and begin to murder 2 million people in about four years.

Where the fuck was our commitment then? Somehow we decided that because we had no business in Vietnam and losing life wasn't good we should leave. Meanwhile we turn the blind eye to more massacre. Sounds a lot to me like we only value American life. Interesting isn't it?

Oh yeah I almost forgot Guess who came to push out the Khmer Rouge?

Better yet you look it up if you don't know. And make that a habit in the future. Don't believe everything you hear. As an American, you have almost limitless access to information. That's a luxury most of the world doesn't have. Don't waste it.

That's my rant. Stop being fucking ignorant sheep. That's where doing something for humanity begins - making sure you're doing your due diligence.

1 comment:

Lindy-loo said...

I know the answer to your question... :)ironic.

In response, we've ignored so many horrible situations. (At this moment, people are killing, raping, torturing, along lines of ethnic origin in Kyrgyzstan. But there are neighbors, strangers, journalists, who bravely refuse to sit idly by. I like to remember them, to learn from them.)

"They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

-Pastor Martin Neimoller, Frakfurt 1946