Build a Better Mousetrap?

That is one thing that a mouse would never do, according to Einstein when asked about the atomic bomb: Mankind invented the atomic bomb but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.

When the film Oppenheimer was released, I was in Berlin. The movie theatre at 4 p.m. on a weekday was packed. Subtitles translated the story into German. While this is not a movie review, if you haven’t seen the film but plan to, stop reading now. If you have seen the film you may remember the moment when after the testing has been accomplished with all that power released into the world for the first time, the audience knows what those scientists knew: They had invented the ultimate self-destruction of human kind. There was no turning back. But, there was a choice whether to use it on our own kind (and by extension the earth). The movie shows a struggle between those who want to release this innovation for the whole world to see and some who cannot agree. Enter the U.S.Federal Government. Why was this not a surprise? It is not because we know how the story ends, but because we Americans have come to expect our own Government to use force to solve problems around the world, and as is often the case, we are expected to do so by others looking for support. Words, too, can be forceful. Yet, when the solution is to shoot first and ask questions later, this sets up a self fulfilling prophecy. World War II was not the exception. It is the rule by which every conflict and war has been measured since. We have grown used to it. We do not look away. The story repeats daily. Somewhere.

I think the most shocking words spoken in the film are by Oppenheimer himself after the bomb that he masterminded had annihilated 200,000 Japanese people in their own country. He said that he wished he had gotten the bomb finished sooner so it could have been used on the Germans. I held my breath wondering how all the German women and men seated in the theatre with me, an American, must have felt. I cannot imagine.

The idea of building such a murder weapon to use en masse should go against our sensibilities. Are we humans so self destructive that even a lowly mouse would not conceive of such a thing (assuming it could)? There is no logic behind these decisions that can be justified for any reason; while there are any number of excuses to tell ourselves or to be told by those who support such a decision. The inevitable long-term unintended consequences still reverberate whenever threats are heard from the likes of Putin or from the unstable regimes in North Korea and Iran. The threats alone should be deterrents, but one day someone will not see it that way, and Kabloom!

There is nothing hyperbolic in such a thought that could lead us down a dark path of destruction. Civilizations have been wiped out in many places by those in power with power at their fingertips. Whose fingertips should we entrust this power to is the question to ask ourselves? Who do we trust to protect citizens of our country and those others who look to the U.S. for help? We have no room for error in making this all important decision that holds our fate and the fate of the world. It's that serious. One vote is all we get. It counts for everything we hold dear. It counts for the future of the earth.

“We didn’t say any thing.”

“He was a Nazi.” He had invited her to breakfast then talked openly about hating “these” people, and“those” people who are not like him i.e., white. “We didn’t say any thing,” said my friend recounting her experience in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She seemed to wish that she had said something. I asked: “Why don’t we say anything?” The question hung there between us.

One week ago, Nazis carried red flags bearing swastikas and marched in formation down the Main Street of Nashville, Tennessee on a Saturday afternoon. They wore their uniform of red shirts and black face masks to hide their identities.*

From Nashville to Santa Fe and everywhere in between, the “idea” of Nazis rising up as if they are part of the mainstream is just beginning to take hold in a visible way. It is shocking. It is frightening. It is intended to both shock and frighten you and me. Last summer while in Berlin, I sensed a contriteness over their own Nazi history that the world should never forget. It is becoming clear that given the chance, a next generation of fascists will try again to obliterate entire populations of "those" people. In Germany, the reminders live on in memorials, in remnants of a wall that is no more, and in gold inlaid markers embedded into sidewalks where Jews were forcibly taken from their homes in broad daylight. Each "stumbling stone" bears the name and year of birth and death of a Jew who had lived there and was killed in a concentration camp built by Nazis for one purpose and one purpose only: annihilation. Nobody said any thing.

Why don't we say any thing when confronted with an ideology that dehumanizes others? The term Nazism is defined as:

Rejecting rationalism, liberalism, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and all movements of international cooperation and peace, it stressed instinct, the subordination of the individual to the state, and the necessity of blind and unswerving obedience to leaders appointed from above. It also emphasized the inequality of humans and races and the right of the strong to rule the weak; sought to purge or suppress competing political, religious, and social institutions; advanced an ethic of hardness and ferocity; and partly destroyed class distinctions by drawing into the movement misfits and failures from all social classes**

All of the above is meant to do exactly what it says, in a word: disempower. Any one who does not adopt such a perverse ideology should somehow be rendered silent. The simplest way to disempower large groups and individuals is to strip them of their own voice. But how?

It starts innocently enough when we self-censor. For example, the neighbor down the street may want to engage in that conversation about how these/those people are the problem with this country. Rather than starting an argument, or having an uncomfortable conversation, we do not say any thing. Or, at work, or school, or let's be honest, at church, words spoken out loud that are offensive, oppressive, or outright lies go unmet with any opposing comments. This self-censoring is exactly the tactic that Nazis used within neighborhoods as neighbors let neighbors be unjustly harassed at home! We know that was only the beginning of that horror story. In part it was allowed to happen because nobody said any thing.

Main Street USA on a Satruday afternoon has its own place in our American lives and memories and psyches. Whether downtown or rural, Main Street has traditionally been where people go to shop, or take the kids for pizza, or to simply stroll and stop on the sidewalk to linger with an old friend. It is the main thoroughfare for the Fourth of July and Memorial Day parades when town officials and local children wave to folks from the neighborhood while the school band plays on. This may sound like a Rockwellian portrait of a long ago America, and to some degree I would agree. Yet, when a nefarious group trespassed on that American icon in the "hometown of country music" our reaction is visceral and must be vocal. "These" people, "those" Nazis signaled to the rest of us with their red flags their intentions to destroy Main Street and all that it signfies, forever. They rightly wave "red flags" as a warning to be heeded. The warning is meant to silence us. If we let silencing begin it is at our own peril. Let's remember that Nazis got away with murder because neighbors stood by silently.

In the words of author, Timothy Snyder*** . . ."people who were living in fear of repression remembered how their neighbors treated them. A smile, a handshake, or a word of greeting -- banal gestures in a normal situation -- took on great significance. When friends, colleagues, and acquaintances looked away or crossed the street to avoid contact, fear grew. . . In the most dangerous of times, those who escape and survive generally know people whom they can trust. Having old friends is the politics of last resort. And making new ones is the first step toward change."

The shock value will wear off as Nazis show up in the commonplaces of middle America where they live, too! After a while, their presence will have a numbing effect on our sensibilities like seeing homeless people on every street corner in America. The Nazi threat is not from yesteryear. It is marching down the streets where we live. When we do not say any thing, they get the message.

I, and I hope you, too, will choose to add your voice to the people of Nashville who DID say something to the masked cowards who tried to take power over their Main Street, and therefore over all of us. https://x.com/brotherjones_/status/1758936273153085941?s=20

Please add your voice (anonymously if you prefer) in the comments section as a first step and a show of solidarity. This is our best hope against those dark ideologies. We must get used to saying some thing rather than not saying any thing.

*https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2024/02/22/neo-nazis-rally-nashville-great-white-south

**http://www.britannica.com/event/Nazism

***"On Tyranny Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century"

The Border Patrol officer asked:

“Are you both American citizens?” sticking his own Latino face into the car to get a look at mine.“Yes,” I said emphatically. We were not crossing any borders. We were on a good old American road trip. Hardly anyone else was on that winding mountain road hugging the Rio Grande River. My heart was not in my throat when I clearly spoke up, “Yes, I am an American.” What exactly does that mean these days? On that, I am not so clear.

The sheer beauty and magnitude of these vast valley plateaus, buttes and mesas shone crimson at sunrise and golden at sundown. No other than the hand of the Creator could have carved such magnificence. The opposite side of the Rio Grande looked identical. Yes, I am an American citizen who lays claim to this side of God’s creation. A river separates “us” from “them.” Yes, I am an American citizen, but for the grace of God, I would be over on the other border road. If asked that same question there, my answer would have entirely different implications. Who of us asks to be the citizen of the country of our birth? We simply become citizens immediately. Then at some time, someone asks, “Are you a citizen?”

There is only one answer.

Later that day, standing before a large flat boulder completely covered with handmade trinkets, I stared across the Rio Grande River. Within a stone’s throw, on the opposite bank, in the border town of Boquillas, there were Mexicans with voices loud enough to be heard. Both a rowboat and a burro were tied up at the water’s edge. When we look across at the Mexicans, I want to wave a “Hello.” Words on the white plastic jug read, “Boquillas no wall. 10 dollars. Good bless you.” I bend over to pick up one of the wiry figurines of that silly roadrunner bird. “It is illegal for us to buy these,” says a woman holding a chihuahua like a baby in her arms. “It’s illegal for them to sell things to us. As soon as you put money in that jar, they’ll jump in that boat and come to get it. They’ve set up camp over there and are watching us.” She and her husband, she says, are volunteers, training for work with the Border Patrol. “They’d risk getting arrested for ten bucks?” I ask, looking across the river, where the laughter is getting louder. “Yes, sometimes they row over. If the river is low, they walk across. Border Patrol warned us against interacting in any way with them. They come with others to get the money, but you never know how many of them will come.

Listening to her speaking of “them,” who appear to be a couple of young men wearing white cowboy hats, I decide I am not willing to take the risk for me or them. Just then, a Border Patrol truck appears and slowly comes toward us. As I walk away, the truck makes a U-turn. I wonder: “Who is the alien? ‘Me’ on my borderland, or ‘them’ on their borderland with the Border Patrol in between?” A river running through the two is a natural border if not a deterrent.

On the U.S. side, the Governor of the state with the most borderland is polluting the river with razor-sharp barbed wire as a means of torturing anyone who is trying to come across. He fails to understand that those who dare already know about torture from their homeland making it merely a calculated risk to remain or leave. Torture is torture no matter which side of the river you find yourself.

Some years ago, a U.S.Human Rights Commission in Guatemala worked to bring to light the disproportionately growing number of womens' bodies (often decapitated) left in the road for dogs to find, unless children found their mother's bodies first. At that time the number of murdered women had risen to 3,000 in a short few years* Nobody was named in these murders, no punishment was meted out because law enforecemt, of which there is plenty including young boys with machine guns strapped over their shoulders, turned away from these heinous crimes committed with total impunity.

In 2005, I traveled to Guatemala to join up with the group who worked to try to bring the pandemic of femicide** to the international news headlines. Within 24-hours of my arrival, the group had packed up and moved to an undisclosed location because their apartment and office had been ransacked. It was a warning to cease and desist. I never got to join them, all things considered, perhaps that was just as well. However, the question that burned in my mind remained: Why were so many women brutally murdered and by whom? I figured I would never find that answer as a white woman from America. Then, one day in a private conversation with a woman from the Habitat for Humanity office, she said in a whisper what could never be said out loud: "We do not talk about our husbands that way." Domestic violence! That I was taken by surprise says something about me, but it is not surprising to any woman living in a macho culture. These women breaking their backs daily over looms, or cooking over hotplates in the piazza before returning home to violence, have stayed with me the past twenty years. I am reminded of them whenever I see the latest nameless, almost faceless, migrants at the edge of the Rio Grande. These women with their small children trying to cross the Mexican-U.S. border have every reason and right to try.

*Guatemalan Humans Rights Commission/USA Annual Report, 2007.

**unwomen.org