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Do not give in to the Dark Side, the anger, the hate. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-09-15
The Star Wars Dark Side is a useful metaphor, for giving in to anger and hate:
We are all family.
All of humankind.
If “brothers and sisters” does not roll off your tongue, try “cousins.”
We are all cousins.
Remember when it was discovered that Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are cousins?
Clearly, if we look back far enough, we are all cousins.
Let’s go back to the invasion of the Americas by various folks from Europe.
Many of the invaders gave in to the Dark Side.
Remember Wounded Knee?
en.wikipedia.org/…
The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, was a massacre of nearly three hundred Lakota people by soldiers of the United States Army.
I recently read that L. Frank Baum, the man who wrote The Wizard of Oz, wanted to kill all the Native Americans:
en.wikipedia.org/…
Following the death of Sitting Bull at the hands of Indian agency police, Baum recommended the wholesale extermination of all America's native peoples in a column that he wrote on December 20, 1890 (full text below).[17] It is unclear whether Baum meant it as a satire or not, especially since his mother-in-law Matilda Joslyn Gage received an honorary adoption into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation and was a fierce defender of Native American rights,[18] but on January 3, 1891, he returned to the subject in an editorial response to the Wounded Knee Massacre:[19] The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.[20]
I am part Irish. My brother bought me a book, years ago, called The Irish Americans. From that book, I understood that many of the Irish coming to America were persuaded to join the Army.
The Massacre at Wounded Knee was carried out by the Army.
So, aside from the fact we are all cousins, I might have fairly direct cousins, who killed Native Americans. Who gave in to the Dark Side.
Do you suppose that most of my family, eventually, turned away from the Dark Side?
Likewise, the slave trade was a case of so many of our cousins, giving in to the Dark Side, with the slave trade. I will not give links and quotes for that, since it is very well known. In 2011, I married a woman, Tonia, who was both African and Irish. (Tonia died in early 2022.)
I know that many Americans still cling to the dark side, in some kind of irrational White Supremacy attitude. However:
Do you suppose that most white Americans have been gradually turning away from the White Supremacy Dark Side?
Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime persuaded millions to give in to the Dark Side.
Six million Jews were methodically murdered, just because they were Jews.
50 million died in World War Two, overall.
Hitler and his followers learned from the white supremacy hatred of Native Americans and of African Americans. They learned from Americans giving in to the Dark Side, seems to me.
Do you suppose that most of those who once embraced the Dark Side of the Nazis, eventually turned away from the Dark Side?
David Koresh and his Branch Davidians gave in to the Dark Side. They killed four ATF cops:
en.wikipedia.org/…
Casualties and losses 4 ATF agents killed
16 wounded
Total: 4 killed 6 killed on February 28
76 killed on April 19 (including 28 children)
11 wounded
Total: 82 killed
Timothy McVeigh was there. He gave in to the Dark Side:
en.wikipedia.org/…
Then there were the events of 9/11/01:
en.wikipedia.org/…
Seems to me, Bin Laden gave in to the Dark Side.
Do you suppose that many of his followers have since turned away from the Dark Side?
Earlier this year, Donald Trump held a rally at Waco, Texas which, it seems to me, was done to connect his followers to:
David Koresh
Timothy McVeigh
Osama Bin Laden
Seems to me, Trump wanted his followers to use aircraft or use a truck bomb, to destroy the Capitol building. He wanted his followers to give in, deeper, to the Dark Side.
en.wikipedia.org/…
That was not a high enough body count for Trump’s liking, and it did not give him the power he wanted.
Do you suppose that many followers of Trump are turning away from the Dark Side, every day?
My father was in World War Two, in the Navy. He joined the Navy in order to blow up German Submarines, and he and his shipmates did, in fact, blow up some German submarines.
My father had a personality similar to Richard Nixon, and I suppose he voted for Richard Nixon.
I do not feel that my father ever gave in to the Dark Side.
I was in my father’s hospital room when he died, on the 27th of January, 2001.
My brother married a woman who was the daughter of immigrants from Austria. My brother’s father-in-law flew jets for Adolf Hitler.
I am sure my brother voted for Donald Trump both in 2016 and 2020.
I do not feel that my brother ever gave in to the Dark Side.
My brother, like many who have been voting Republican, refused the covid 19 vaccine.
He and his wife had been smoking cigarettes for about 40 years, and their lungs were apparently weakened by that. His wife had oxygen tanks in their home.
My brother’s wife, Brigitte, died a week before Christmas, in 2021.
My brother died on the 28th of January, 2022.
My wife, Tonia, died on the 10th of March, 2022 (from kidney failure, not Covid).
My closest family now, is Tonia’s brother and his wife, Terrell and Ratana.
Most likely, Terrell and Ratana both voted for Donald Trump, both in 2016 and 2020.
Terrell and Ratana are the beneficiaries of my life insurance policy.
They are the only family I get to see face to face and get hugs. Plus, hugs from their two daughters, six and two years old.
Ratana is about to give birth, any minute, to another baby.
Some folks here at Daily Kos like to call anyone and everyone who votes for Republicans, especially those who voted for Trump, some folks like to call them, all of them:
Deplorable Fascist Maggot Scum
Do you truly want to use that label? for:
my father
my mother
my brother
his wife
my brother-in-law
his wife
??
Do you?
I know, I know. Those votes from my family members have been enabling those who gave in to the Dark Side.
But if you truly want to call them, or anyone:
Deplorable Fascist Maggot Scum
you are giving in to the Dark side.
Seems to me.
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