So, what to say or think now?
Remarkably, I’ve settled into a mood of sang-froid or c’est la vie rather than despair or depression. I’m shaking my head at the folly of it all, but pretty much resigned to it.
I can see where this is all headed. I’ve known for a very long time. And it concerns me, greatly.
As for the Canada thing, well, when the Canadian government announces that gay American couples can come to Canada and apply for refugee status and their cases will be individually heard, that brings it all home to me.
‘Move to Canada’ isn’t mere hyperbole or angst or ridiculous over-reaction for me. The next four years could see anti-gay hatred appended to the U.S. Constitution. And if history teaches us anything, it’s that the tyranny of the majority can be total and deadly. I’d rather be part of the group allowed to leave for safer havens than part of the group on the train to Auschwitz.
Again, as I’ve said many times before, Godwin’s Law be damned, if you can’t see the parallels to 1930s Germany here, then A.) I pity you; B.) you’re an idiot who knows nothing of history; and C.) bite me.
Face it folks, it’s 1935 all over again. In 11 states, and potentially the entire empire as a whole, the Nuremberg Laws have just been passed.
Short history lesson: Among other things, the Nuremberg Laws were propagated to ‘protect traditional marriage’ from undesirable, filthy Jews. The first law was titled, ‘The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor’ (sound familiar?). Jews were prohibited from marrying Aryans and vice-versa in order to keep marriage sacred. The second Nuremberg law stripped Jews of their citizenship and was based on America’s Jim Crow segregation laws, promulgated after the Great Compromise of 1877 and which were upheld by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.
History is repeating itself. First we had a quasi-legal accession to power; then we had our Reichstag Fire (11-Sep); then we had our Enabling Act (the USA PATRIOT Act) and now we have our Nuremberg Laws (Protecting Traditional Marriage amendments). The next step is the second law: stripping us homos of citizenship.
Our fight from here on will be to keep us from sliding further towards 1939. I see us as being 1935 between the two Nuremberg Laws.
Hysterical hyperbole? The only answer I have to that is … ask the Six Million. Read Victor Klemperer’s diaries. And when you know more about history, get back to me.
I have to say that it’s nice to be in Ann Arbor right now. An overwhelming majority here rejected the Gay Hate Amendment and voted against the Emperor. There’s a great deal of depression and sadness here this week.
And it helps to be around high school kids today. They give hope that the next generation is more tolerant of diversity and differences, less tolerant of fascism.
Kids in my second hour western civilization class this morning were talking about who’s gay and who’s bi and why it didn’t matter. Election results were still the topic of conversation. They are in the majority here.
And they take no crap from anyone. Two boys, who spoke as if they were ‘part of the tribe,’ obviously took no guff from anyone. Another boy, big and football-player looking, looked at them during their conversation and one of the boy — smaller, thin, blond and with braces — let him have it.
That’s a huge, wholesale change in the 22 years since I graduated from high school. We gay members of the class of ‘82 NEVER exposed ourselves in conversation like that, much less challenged the straight jocks to mind their own business and shut up. There would have been blood in the hallways.
So in some ways and places, progress has happened and probably won’t retreat, thank god.
There’s some concern about the draft. One 15-year-old in my third hour class said he wasn’t worried about the draft; he plans to join up voluntarily. He also admits to being a Bush supporter. In three years, he’ll be out of the protective cocoon of Ann Arbor adn his family and doing raids on suspected ‘insurgent’ hideouts in Teheran, Damascus or Baghdad.
But that’s just my opinion, and fear talking.
I guess my bottom line is this: American voters deserve what they are going to get in the next four years. The 20th century’s progress will be rolled back. Gone will be social security, corporate regulation, environmental protection, safe-legal-rare abortions and us homos will be put in our place. There will be great death, disease and war in the mideast. A draft of some form is inevitable as thousands of our troops will die. And a major terrorist attack once again on Imperial soil is now inevitable and unavoidable.
And in 2008, I can simply sit back and say, ‘Told ya so. You Bush voters got what you deserved. You CHOSE this path. You must now reap what you have sown.’
Ironically, when the next attack happens, it will be the Kerry voters in a big city which get hit and suffer. And the Bush voters in the countryside will all scream and want to get all patriotic and send blood and groceries and money to the devastated city. I think that city needs to throw their donations back in their fascist faces; Bush voters brought on the attack, they should have to travel to the target area and clean up the mess.
Not that I’ll be gloating or happy about all this. It will be incredibly sad. I hope my family and friends get through it unscathed. But with all seven of my nephews and nieces being of draftable age during the next four years, I have my doubts. And there’s still the imminent special skills draft, which can take people up to age 44 which could even snare me.
To be honest, if the special skills draft happens and I’m targeted, I’m throwing the gay-homo thing right in their fascist faces. Among other things. I will serve my community in the education realm; I won’t serve the nation which holds me in contempt and has abandoned me by supporting its wars and its imperial administration.
And that’s my childish stamp of the foot for today.
