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Thomas Balistrieri, Ed.D.'s avatar

I read my first novel in about 1963 when I was 13. The protagonist was a Norwegian boy who was trying to escape the Nazi’s in order to help his family. I remember being impressed by his courage. The concentration camps were mentioned in the story. At 13 I had not heard of them yet but I remember being scared by them. About that same time I befriended a fellow student named Michael. One day we were at his house and Mike brought out a notebook of pictures. His dad was an army photographer in the war and was there when Auschwitz and other camps were located. The notebook was filled with black and white photos of the camps … and stacks of bodies and and and and. And I didn’t know about this. Over the years I learned the German people claimed to not ‘know about this’. How could they not know? And now … as an old man I am angry and anxious and horrified that I spent my life ‘not knowing.’ Not knowing how evil my country was. How evil my Catholic priests were. Not knowing that the government killed my ex-father in law by having him hold a little stone … that turned out to be uranium that filled his brains with tumors. I hate that my tax money has been used to create weapons that kill and maim people, animals and The mother. I feel like a spouse that was abused and betrayed. I hate the mother fucking Congress and pentagon and all the shit lies. I feel ashamed. I’m complicit because I remained ignorant. My ignorance is on me but goddamn it we are owed better by the government and the press. Fuck them all.

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The Revolution Continues's avatar

"The average U.S. taxpayer was forced to contribute more to militarized programs than to Medicare and Medicaid combined in 2023, according to a new analysis released Tuesday by the National Priorities Project."

This is the travesty. We're wasting so many resources on killing people than we are on taking care of people's health... Truly evil. (Like your cartoon--that face of the oligarch is SCARY!)

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