Are We Good Americans?

When I was in High School, I used to wonder how the German people put up with Hitler and his regime. Was there something about the German language that destroyed empathy? Had someone spiked their water? And so on. I wasn’t wondering about the lunatics. I wasn’t wondering about the macho, sadistic souls gone bad. I wasn’t wondering about the top mongrels either, not about Hitler, nor Himmler, nor the rest. I was wondering about what I had sometimes heard called “Good Germans.” Normal citizens. Nice people. Among the most educated and cultured in the world. Millions upon millions of them.

Well, this morning our own Führer said: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Many are saying in reaction, “yikes, that isn’t the America I know.” Well, truth be told, what did people think was our America? But I don’t want to quibble about that. I get why so many people think of America as something wonderful, as a promise persistently delivering, as the height of human achievement and freedom, and so on and so forth. It isn’t those exalted things, of course. And it wasn’t ever those things. Not at the start, not now, not in between. But that obvious truth is at our moment beside the point.

The population of the United States, I suspect, more even than the population of Germany circa Hitler’s reign, has been told, over and over, that our government is hell-bent on sadistic mayhem and gore. If Trump can, Trump gleefully acknowledges that he will. Technically, he can. He’s got the guns for it. He’s got the bombs for it. What about socially? That is the question, isn’t it?

Will we be Good Americans, perhaps frowning, perhaps weeping, or maybe even applauding but not working to stop him (where the latter will ironically arguably have less culpability vis-à-vis this article’s theme than the former)?

If our country wipes out a civilization, and even if our country doesn’t but was ready to, was even eager to, will we all have lunch tomorrow like any other day? Will we get up, get out of bed, get dressed, and go to school or to work like any other day?

Will we maybe pick up a pizza for the family on the way home, eat again, watch TV, put the kids to bed, maybe even make love with our partner, and then sleep, only to get up and do it all over again, and again? While Iran suffers, the world gasps, and the environment withers. Or will we set aside smiling and even weep a bit in private, but otherwise maintain our routines?

Doesn’t it come down to that? Are we good Americans? We don’t have to wave the flag to qualify. We don’t have to do business exactly as usual to qualify. We don’t even have to applaud the mayhem. If we don’t resist, that is enough. After all, isn’t that what made the good Germans good Germans? So wouldn’t that make us Good Americans?

If you are in the government, to be truly good, really, don’t you have to stand up and say no? Don’t you have to refuse? Not quietly resign, but resist with at least civil disobedience, but better with outraged obstruction. And is that true only for those in government?

How about those receiving the order to obliterate a civilization? Don’t they have to refuse such disgusting orders? How about teachers in their classrooms? Don’t they have to say, hold on, today’s lesson is interrupted to address reality? And what about students, don’t they have to encamp, occupy, and organize? They face an abysmal future. They know it. They fear it. Why aren’t they so angry at it that going to class is deemed nonsense and fighting back is the way to be? What happened between the pro-Palestinian encampments and so few young people demonstrating now?

Listen to the radio. Some highly educated, highly civilized, social moron is likely pontificating on whether infrastructure that powers military activities, as well as the whole population, is, due to the former use, a legitimate target? Ditto, I suppose, for providing water, food, and so on. Don’t newscasters have to interrupt their daily dose of idiocy to proclaim that war is anti-human and that Trump is a wannabe Hitler who is quickly attaining his goal. In fact, doesn’t everyone who wants to be more than a Good American have to resist?

There is no longer much merit in just criticizing Trump. That alone, “oh, I don’t like him,” or even “oh, I hate him,” doesn’t violate the good American norms of admission. Sure, it’s not bad to do. But at this point, it is redundant in the extreme. Somehow, someway, we all have to contribute to stopping the mayhem. It is not enough to just say we don’t like it.

I felt that same way over Vietnam, and yet, honestly, this is so much more obvious, so much more blatant. I truly hated LBJ—“hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Well, DJT is no LBJ. He is immeasurably worse. “Hey, hey DJT, how many civilizations will you demolish before we the people, stop you and your regime?”

We have been the world’s biggest bully, the world’s Mafia don, the world’s least ethical hit man ever since Hitler left us. We carpet bombed Vietnam, “everything the flies on anything that moves.” We bombed Afghanistan when people on the ground, people in the know, the aid workers, warned that it could disrupt their harvest and starve a couple of million people. The list of our atrocities is endless. And yet, and yet, I don’t think I am just caught up in the moment when I say that the lunatic now in the Oval Office is a whole different matter. This is Hitler’s fascism armed in a way that Hitler couldn’t even dream of. It is Hitler’s fascism unfolding before our eyes, proudly proclaiming its inclination to destroy a civilization that’s over there—and then, where else. Here too, when you think about it, supposing we even warrant the label civilized.

When, oh when, will we the people really wake up and really resist? Not nine million on one day, but twenty or thirty or more million day after day?

Or will we go down in history as Good Americans, the last incarnation of mass evil by way by way of popular obedience? The last incarnation because the difference between good and evil, truth and lie, science and self-serving mysticism, and even love and hate are also being obliterated by the psychopath in the Oval Office.

Leonard Cohen’s song “Democracy” said, America is

the cradle of the best and of the worst
It’s here they got the range And the machinery for change
And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst

But do we have the spiritual thirst? Do you? Is Democracy and then more coming to the USA? I truly hope so.

P.S.  If you are looking for a way to resist, visit allofUSdirectory.org it has hundreds of organizations and projects you can search by your interests, locale, and inclinations.

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