Thursday, March 31, 2016
Déjà vu all over again
One of the things about being an aspiring writer is that I tend to view life through the filter of a story-teller.
I’m always looking at things going on around me, trying to connect events into a coherent narrative as if I were a character being swept along by events in some Great American Novel.
And aside from the almost constant desire to go back and re-write certain parts of my past to improve that story (and my role as a hero in it), I can’t help but see certain patterns repeating around me.
Perhaps this comes from me being a history geek who has always wished he could hop into a time machine and experience what it was really like to live in whatever era has currently piqued my interest.
Usually these fantasies revolve around wandering down the fog-shrouded streets of Victorian London, getting involved in court intrigues and duels in 17th Century England and France or touring the great castles of Europe during their prime in the Middle Ages. But since minoring in history in college, the place and time I think I’d really most like to visit is early 20th Century America (1900-1955).
Unlike the other places and times I’ve mentioned, my view of this period of our country’s history is not colored by the mystery stories of Sherlock Holmes, the swashbuckling romance of “The Three Musketeers” or the adventure stories of “Robin Hood,” “Ivanhoe,” or the myriad of Dungeon and Dragon games I’ve played that were set in pseudo medieval settings.
No, my view of early 20th century America is informed though scholarly research I did to earn that minor in college. As a result I can’t help but notice that some patterns that happened at the beginning of the last century seem to be re-occurring at the beginning of this one.
Like the computer/Internet/electronics revolution we’re currently living through, the beginning of the 20th century also saw a great boom in technology. Electricity began phasing out other forms of lighting and power for the home; trains and expansion of the railroads, not to mention the invention of the automobile and airplane, began making once far-away and inaccessible places easier and faster to get to, and the advent of mass-production techniques from the previous century was transforming our sleepy, little agrarian nation into the world’s manufacturing powerhouse.
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| CREDIT: B. Deutsch at http://leftycartoons.com/ |
new technology replaced many jobs people used to do, rendering their skills almost obsolete overnight. Adding to the turmoil was the throng of new immigrants descending on U.S. cities drawn there by the promise of a better life, which fueled ant he anti-immigrant backlash not really that much different than the kind of hate-filled rhetoric spewed by some of today's political candidates.
Speaking of politics, I see a lot of similarities between the first two decades of the 20th and 21st centuries. As pointed out in the wonderful 2012 History Channel mini-series, “The Men Who Built America” these “Robber Barons” tried to control the political system through their proxies in the Republican Party, and even tried to derail the career of a reform-minded New York politician, Teddy Roosevelt, by sidelining him into what was then thought of as the dead-job of the Vice Presidency of the United States.
Now compare that to the way the Koch brothers are using the Citizen’s United decision, and I think the parallel becomes glaringly obvious.
But the one parallel that’s got me really worried is the one I see between the rise of Hitler in Germany during The Great Depression in the 1930s and the rise of Donald Trump in the aftermath of our own Great Recession.
Yes, I know a lot has been made of this already and I usually try to steer away from politics in my blogs. But as a Jew, I just can’t sit by and watch as another charismatic, demagogue tries to divide our nation under the guise of “Making America Great Again” by demonizing a whole class of people and blaming all our national problems on them.
(I’ve got news for you Mr. Trump. Whatever our troubles may be, this country STILL IS great! That’s why all the immigrants you want to throw out of the country want to come here!)
This is exactly the same tactic Hitler used to gain power. He focused the average German’s pent up frustration over their economic and political situation and turned it against the country’s biggest minority — the Jews.
And when late last year Trump said he’d close down all the mosques and make every Muslim carry an ID card, my jaw hit the floor. Hitler did the same to the Jews, closing all the temples and making them wear a blue, five-pointed star on their clothing with the word “Jude” (Jew in German) stitched on it. I half expected him to go on to suggest we should burn all Qurans and have people smash the windows of Muslim-owned businesses in a 21st century version of Kristallnacht
How people still cannot see the paralell between the two baffles and worries me.
It also baffles me when an elected official, Roanoke, Va. Mayor David Bowers, can justify the internment of Japanese-Americans in internment camps during World War II as a good thing when comparing it to the current Syrian refugee crisis. What's even more astounding about this is that Bower's is a Democrat, proving that our foolishness to repeat past mistakes isn't just limited to one of our political parties.
Pardon me, Mr. Mayor. But did you read the same history books I did? Because the use of those camps is considered one of this nation’s most shameful moments! How in good conscience can you even remotely suggest it was the right thing to do? Have you ever spoken to one of those internees? If not, may I suggest, starting with George Takei, Mr. Sulu from "Star Trek," who has first-hand experience of what it was like to live in one of those camps you blithely called a good idea!
Look, I'm not trying to belittle anyone's political views and I understand today's threats are different from those we faced at the beginning and middle of the last century. But it looks to me like the path we’re heading down is dooming ourselves to repeat the exact same mistakes we made 100 year ago.
We're better than that.
Or at least we should be.
So we all need to stop and take a good long look at our own history, because George Santayana was right.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
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