Musings on Nazism, God, and the Pope

[Prudence]

Sometimes I worry that I'm not paying enough attention to various attrocities in the world right now and that future generations will look back at me and wonder, bewildered, "Why didn't you *DO* something"?

But this country isn't immune to hateful beliefs. Just the other week I was reading some property-rights cases from the not-too-distant past that involved Japanese immigrants. And the language used by presumeably learned, rational human beings was horrifying. Language from appointed or elected officials saying things that don't even logically make sense. And yet it was "common knowledge." Maybe I'm impossibly naive, but I can't even comprehend that people look at fellow human beings and think those things, let alone write them down for posterity. But they did, and some certainly still do.

Granted, as far as I know my next door neighbors aren't being rounded up in the night and shipped off to crematoriums. But all over the globe are pockets of people who hold such contempt for their neighbors that they think nothing of exterminating the "others" to cleanse their little corner of existence. And what have we managed to do about it? We, the advanced, industrialized, Christian west have made colonies out those areas likely to provide us with the most benefit and largely ignored the rest. It's bad enough that history repeats itself in those euphamistically labelled "hot spots," but isn't it worse that those who should know better do nothing more than cluck their tongues and "tsk, tsk"?

Sometimes I imagine myself going to those global trouble zones, assembling those involved, and talking some sense into them -- because surely if they stopped to consider things they wouldn't do what they do.

I know it's not that easy, but still, I feel like I should do something. But I don't know what. Oh sure, I can donate money and warm blankets. But what can I actually do? I sit on my ass and do nothing. That's what I do. I try to tell myself that gee, I helped that one person -- but meanwhile people, real people, real live people that are just as entitled to life as I am, die brutal and anonymous deaths.

And somewhere in my soul is the sickening thought that if I lived in Nazi Germany, I wouldn't have resisted either. Because I don't want to be killed. Because I love my family. Because I think that if I don't think about what's actually happening maybe it will all go away and maybe it's not as bad as it seems and maybe if I just go with the flow for one more day things will change tomorrow. And a dozen other justifications that are just as meaningless.

And I hate that part of myself, and I hate knowing that myself exists, and I hate that saying that here means that now you all know that about me and how could it not change what you think of me?

And I hate that some day I'm going to look into a pair of big blue eyes filled with hurt as they ask me, "Grandma, why didn't you do something?"