Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The name itself, Holocaust, comes from the Greek&n

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The name itself, Holocaust, comes from the Greek holocaustos, a form of sacrifice in which an animal was set ablaze for the gods. The death toll varies extensively, from 21 million victims in Germany to 26 million Soviets alone. The mentally ill, colored persons, Romani people, Poles, Jews, homosexuals, Slavs, Spanish Republicans, political left, Freemasons, Serbs, and Jehovah’s witnesses and many more were all systematically, meticulously immolated in absurd numbers. It was a consequence of Nazi power, but it was not the main reason for World War II. We pretended we’d never seen something like this before. We acted as if this horror was something that had never been conducted, at least not in our time. However, from 1932 to 1933, we ate a substantial amount of corn and bread from the Soviet Union. The abundance was because they were starving 11 million Ukrainians. Stalin worked them until the rural farmers starved to death. The West was well aware of the great starvation but we did nothing but criticize it in our tabloids, as if it were some act akin to an oil spill or voting fraud. Since the Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge, Stalinist USSR, Sudanese militants, Hussein’s regime, and many, many more authoritarian systems around the world have conducted their own obliteration of races, cultures, and demographics.  The Second Congolese conflict and its two offshoot conflicts, the Ituri and Kivu conflicts (please read that previous post for more information), have reached the second highest death toll of any human conflict behind World War II. It is an ongoing war that produces the materials and minerals we use in electronics such as cell phones, computers, and MP3 players. Several factions use rape, fire, and mutilation as prominent weapons in exterminating entire tribes.  Understanding these conflicts is not enough. Knowing of them is not going to stop this. But at the same, we are individually powerless against a machine bred of hatred and fueled by ignorance. Many of these peoples were born into bigotry and violence, all these kids have ever known is greed. Until our action becomes as effective as our pseudo-care, the madness will continue as the breaths you take, the blood will continue to course through muddy soil and scorched villages from Kabul to Kisangani until we act.  -- source link

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