“I am ashamed” by Rebecca Rachmany

I am ashamed.

“I hate that you say that whenever the Holocaust comes up,” she says.

I am ashamed.

“You shouldn’t say that.”

I shouldn’t say that. There were a lot of people who didn’t say things they shouldn’t say then. Weren’t there?

Then there were the people who did say what they shouldn’t have said. They didn’t fare so well.

Which one am I?

I’m ashamed, because most of the time I’m among those who didn’t speak.

Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Maybe it is easier not to say it, because then I can pretend I don’t know it. It makes it easier if I pretend, like we all pretend, that we don’t know.

But I know it. I know just what I am ashamed of.

“We should remember on this day. What, do you think we should forget?” she asks.

We remember, but we forgot why we should remember.

We should remember.

Why should we remember?

“We should remember so that it can never happen again.”

It’s happening again.

Have you noticed that it’s happening again?

“… so that we will never allow it to happen again.”

We are allowing it to happen again. We are doing worse. We are pretending it is not happening. We are pretending it is not our problem. We are pretending it is not our promise.

I am ashamed.

I am ashamed that in Congo, in Sudan, in Syria and in Myanmar, it is happening. I am ashamed that it is happening in Ethiopia, Somalia, Pakistan, in North Korea and in Afghanistan. I am ashamed that it took me all of 90 seconds to look up where the genocides in the world are happening today and they are happening in 9 countries.

I am ashamed that I don’t really care. Well, if I really cared, I would be ashamed. Maybe I don’t even care enough to be ashamed. Maybe if I think about it for more than 90 seconds and the problem is so big, I’m too small to even wrap my mind around it.

Let me start small. Let me start with the country that is supposed to remember, with Israel.

I am ashamed that my country has closed its borders to refugees from Sudan and Eritrea.

I am ashamed that we changed the law and that now we don’t call them refugees. We call them “Infiltrators.”

I saw a campaign poster in the January elections for parliament. It took full credit, it boasted, that it had succeeded in stopping infiltrators.

I am ashamed that my countrymen voted into power the party that is proud of its achievement of turning away refugees at the border. In every city a billboard. “We turn away refugees. Vote for us.” Not in those words. Because we changed the vocabulary, you see. I am ashamed.

We were once refugees.

It is Holocaust remembrance day.

We should remember.

Why should we remember?

So it won’t happen again.

I am ashamed that my country jails hundred and thousands of refugees, called infiltrators, with no right to legal representation, no name, no number, not even – not even – not even proper winter clothing for cold nights. Even in jail, the prisoners get clothes. Not these ones.

I am ashamed.

I am ashamed that at my country’s borders, my sons and sons of my neighbors sit and watch as the refugees reach the border and my soldiers, my sons, it is their job to watch and wait for the Egyptian soldiers to take the refugees away.

I am ashamed my soldiers are following orders. They are following orders to give the refugees some water and chat them up, and give them hope until the Egyptian soldiers come to get them, and I don’t know what the Egyptians will do with them.

Yes I do.

And they do.

And every. Single. One. Of those boys. Should recognize the phrase:

“I was only following orders.”

I am ashamed that I and my countrymen are not up in arms about this. At least one day a year. At least on this day. Holocaust remembrance day.

We should remember.

We were once slaves in Egypt.

We should remember.

We should be ashamed.

“You shouldn’t say ‘we’,” she say. “It’s wrong to generalize. You say it like you are blaming others.”

I am ashamed.

It is happening again.

I am allowing it to happen.

It is happening again.

I am doing nothing about it.

I am ashamed.

potterr:

unocomosea:

www.now.org

www.rawa.org

www.womenslaw.org
www.amnestyusa.org
www.globalissues.org
www.globalfundforwomen.org

Female or Male, this is important.

(via liliyi)

The war you don’t see. The persecution and defamation of the truth. Today.

Do you use AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon? As of Wednesday, February 27 (2013), they are now spying on you. Switch providers. Switch Internet. Spread the message.

These providers made this choice on their own, together with MPAA and RIAA, and they are now reserving the right to turn off a user’s Internet and with possible financial and legal consequences.

Every person who leaves one of these providers and who chooses an alternate provider is a vote and a message and a voice. That’s you. That’s me. That’s everyone this affects. Get to work!

Remember when we defeated the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) last year? Well, it’s back with a vengeance. The leading Republican and Democrat on the U.S. House Intelligence subcommittee re-introduced the cybersnooping bill this week. We beat it once. We can beat it again. Click here to tell your lawmakers to support privacy and oppose CISPA. To refresh your memory, Demand Progress co-founder Aaron Swartz called CISPA 1.0 a Patriot Act for the Internet. But now they’ve rebooted the effort, and Rolling Stone says that with CISPA 2.0, “Congress is trying to kill Internet privacy again.”

The bill gives companies like Verizon and AT&T protection from customers’ lawsuits when they give the Feds information about your Internet use.   Amazingly, Congress and big businesses are claiming they need to violate our privacy to protect us from Iranian and Chinese hackers, but they refuse to put any basic privacy protections in writing.   CISPA would undermine our basic rights and jeopardize our privacy online. Click here to tell your lawmakers to oppose to it.   CISPA sponsor Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger even said at a hearing this week that he didn’t see any reason why businesses needed to hide your personal data from the government.   Already over 200,000 Demand Progress members have contacted Congress to oppose this bill, but we need your help again.   Help us defend Internet privacy from the latest assault by Congress and big business.   Click here to tell your lawmakers to oppose CISPA 2.0

Thanks,

-Demand Progress

anarcho-queer:

That’s a tough question. I made over 7,000 posts in the last 15 months, most of them articles that the mainstream media purposely avoid reporting on. When originally answering this question all of the articles I posted were about the increasing threat of America becoming a police state (if it isn’t already). So I decided to just create a link to my ‘police state’ tag (above) and recreate the list. This is what I came up with:

1. The series of drone strikes by the Obama administration in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, etc.

2. The LIBOR scandal.

3. The uprising in Bahrain and Obama’s role in arming the monarch against pro-democracy protesters.

4. The internet censorship campaign by the government called “Operation in Our Sites” which has resulted in at least 750 domains being seized.

5. Obama’s ‘kill list’ which includes American citizens.

6. HSBC’s laundering of money to Mexican drug cartels and being slapped on the wrist by the U.S. government.

7. Wireless wiretapping by the Obama administration with impunity.

8. America arming 15,000-17,000 African troops to fight a proxy war in Somalia.

9. The state repression against anarchists in the Pacific Northwest, which has been proven to be a ‘witch hunt’ (read second last paragraph).

10. The internal documents released by the government which revealed that the banks and U.S government worked together to repress the Occupy Movement before it even started.

(via littlehouseofhappy)

did-you-kno:

Source

My regard for Buddhism, while already high, just immediately skyrocketed even higher.

(via did-you-kno)

disquietingtruths:

1. Student-Loan Debt.
2. Psychopathologizing and Medicating Noncompliance.
3. Schools That Educate for Compliance and Not for Democracy.
4. “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.”
5. Shaming Young People Who Take Education—But Not Their Schooling—Seriously.
6. The Normalization of Surveillance.
7. Television.
8. Fundamentalist Religion and Fundamentalist Consumerism.

Read More

(via littlehouseofhappy)

littlehouseofhappy:

america-wakiewakie:

Unacceptable

They got money for wars but can’t feed the poor….

Now, how many of the people who read this and agree actually voted for Ron Paul—the one and only candidate who actually called for the wars to end?

did-you-kno:

Source

Did you get that? They’re making electricity from trash and they are RUNNING OUT! There is an immense lesson here for world governments.

(via did-you-kno)

The two most misguided notions held in America:

1. Our government wouldn’t really do that to us.
2. If they did, they would tell us about it on TV.

The need to educate yourself has never been greater!

(via littlehouseofhappy)

I’m a polyamorous hitchhiker who does drugs and advocates initiation (which can legally be classified as assisted suicide). I get this illustration in a way that most people will never understand.

(via integrityvsdespair)

guncrazyscholar:

ireallylovecats:

I love this so much. 

This works not only for abortion and contraceptive rights, but also for gun control, the war on drugs, and any form of wishful thinking powered prohibition.

(via asylumseaker)

laliberty:

Mostly, ultimately, they are wars waged on innocent/peaceful people.

Though the third point may be too gracious: I’m not sure I’d call those consequences “accidental” when the risks to innocents are calculated beforehand and deemed acceptable collateral damage. Truly: most who suffer are innocent. A full 25% of people in jail - not just among drug-related offenses, but overall - are there for non-violent drug possession - which is a higher percentage than those who committed violent drug-related crimes. And for every terrorist killed by drones, 50 civilians are killed. Fifty-to-one. How can it be an “accident” when it’s the most typical outcome?

(via littlehouseofhappy)