Monday, July 28, 2025
six million people
Six million people, mostly Jews but also homosexuals, gypsies, and just "enemies of the state." Enemies of the state of course could be defined as they wanted; in fact they probably maintained that Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals were by nature enemies of the state. like us who have TDS.
Nowadays, we meet Germans every once in a while and they're just like us except that they speak German. Most times they're reasonably liberal, smart, educated, generous, logical people. To be honest I have a problem looking at them and wondering about their ancestors, though I know I too have German ancestors. That is, I wonder how their ancestors could have let it happen the way it happened.
A guy takes power in the government. He sets up camps off where nobody's watching and controls access. He says he's just going to do this and not worry about due process or whether the victims have done anything wrong. He separates out people by race but also by perceived difference from the norm as if just being against the regime makes you different enough to send you off to the camps. They call the camps "work camps" but people die there. Sometimes that's all they do. Sometimes they push them into the ovens and the smoke goes wafting over the countryside, the ashes and odor of human flesh burned to nothing. Innocent people: women, children, old people, some young healthy people too. They didn't need a reason. They didn't wait to see if it cleared the courts. They just killed them
Meanwhile the people go on living their lives and in fact, the people we meet today are descended probably from those who just put their heads down, did their jobs, didn't say anything. Maybe they approved or maybe they didn't but they didn't do anything to prevent it. Or maybe they're like me, wondering what they could do short of ending up in prison themselves. You want to survive, and you want your kids to survive, and you don't want everyone to perish in some god-forsaken uprising or attempt to right the wrong. There will be no righting the wrong. It will play out all the way as racism, anger, fear and violence feed of themselves until there is nothing left. In the end people will look at us like we might look at Germans today: How did you let that happen? How are we to forgive that?
Much is said these days about the genocide. In general I avoid talking about it. It is a genocide, a whole race is being attacked, and successfully killed, and in general we Americans are not only funding it but also jumping all around justifying it as part of a war. I'll admit to some complicity here since I feel like those hostages are kin and anybody who takes hostages as an act of war can expect that war to go on until the very bitter end, and very bitter it will be indeed. But children are starving, people are starving, and whether they in fact voted for Hamas (the children certainly didn't) that pales in the face of pure hunger, starvation, and the boxing into fenced-in corners of the earth like life is just a cattle-car, a very hungry one. Do you kill? Do you watch killing? Do you mind standing here just paying for it, with every dollar, every minute, every child-death?
People will look at us forever, and wonder if we could have done something.
Nowadays, we meet Germans every once in a while and they're just like us except that they speak German. Most times they're reasonably liberal, smart, educated, generous, logical people. To be honest I have a problem looking at them and wondering about their ancestors, though I know I too have German ancestors. That is, I wonder how their ancestors could have let it happen the way it happened.
A guy takes power in the government. He sets up camps off where nobody's watching and controls access. He says he's just going to do this and not worry about due process or whether the victims have done anything wrong. He separates out people by race but also by perceived difference from the norm as if just being against the regime makes you different enough to send you off to the camps. They call the camps "work camps" but people die there. Sometimes that's all they do. Sometimes they push them into the ovens and the smoke goes wafting over the countryside, the ashes and odor of human flesh burned to nothing. Innocent people: women, children, old people, some young healthy people too. They didn't need a reason. They didn't wait to see if it cleared the courts. They just killed them
Meanwhile the people go on living their lives and in fact, the people we meet today are descended probably from those who just put their heads down, did their jobs, didn't say anything. Maybe they approved or maybe they didn't but they didn't do anything to prevent it. Or maybe they're like me, wondering what they could do short of ending up in prison themselves. You want to survive, and you want your kids to survive, and you don't want everyone to perish in some god-forsaken uprising or attempt to right the wrong. There will be no righting the wrong. It will play out all the way as racism, anger, fear and violence feed of themselves until there is nothing left. In the end people will look at us like we might look at Germans today: How did you let that happen? How are we to forgive that?
Much is said these days about the genocide. In general I avoid talking about it. It is a genocide, a whole race is being attacked, and successfully killed, and in general we Americans are not only funding it but also jumping all around justifying it as part of a war. I'll admit to some complicity here since I feel like those hostages are kin and anybody who takes hostages as an act of war can expect that war to go on until the very bitter end, and very bitter it will be indeed. But children are starving, people are starving, and whether they in fact voted for Hamas (the children certainly didn't) that pales in the face of pure hunger, starvation, and the boxing into fenced-in corners of the earth like life is just a cattle-car, a very hungry one. Do you kill? Do you watch killing? Do you mind standing here just paying for it, with every dollar, every minute, every child-death?
People will look at us forever, and wonder if we could have done something.
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Quaker Fellowship for the Arts Journal (#104)
A new issue has come out oF a journal called FQA and you can view it here.
I have several things to say. First, I'm not sure where I got it, or found it, but it's the first time I've ever seen one of these. I didn't know there was an FQA (Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts), or that they had a newsletter. I'm happy to see it!
Here are some things I'd like to comment on. First, there has always been an uneasiness between Quakers and the arts, since early Quakers were a serious lot, and rejected singing and dancing, not to mention pop art or poetry. I've always been aware of this and therefore been somewhat circumspect with my art. Not all of mine is Quaker, really, very little of it, but I am a Quaker playwright and pop artist, and have been considering leaning more into the Quaker side of what I do.
Because of that, I was interested in both Jeanmarie Simpson's and Chuck Fager's defense of the democratic nature of kdp, which has allowed a voice like mine to produce as much as I have. I agree with them - or at least Jeanmarie, who said that you can be aware of all the bad things about Amazon and still appreciate the fact that it has made it possible for so many little people to have a voice in this world. Chuck gave us a bird's eye view of the terrible economics which usually haunts us self-publishers, and made me feel glad I'm not alone. No giving up the day job here.
Finally, just knowing another Quaker playwright (Jeanmarie) is huge. for me. I knew she performed in them but never knew she wrote any, and I am already reading the one I saw in the FQA. I would say generally that there are not a whole lot of Quaker playwrights around. That makes each one of us very important!
Much to read in this journal, and my hope is that I can dig up and find more.
I have several things to say. First, I'm not sure where I got it, or found it, but it's the first time I've ever seen one of these. I didn't know there was an FQA (Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts), or that they had a newsletter. I'm happy to see it!
Here are some things I'd like to comment on. First, there has always been an uneasiness between Quakers and the arts, since early Quakers were a serious lot, and rejected singing and dancing, not to mention pop art or poetry. I've always been aware of this and therefore been somewhat circumspect with my art. Not all of mine is Quaker, really, very little of it, but I am a Quaker playwright and pop artist, and have been considering leaning more into the Quaker side of what I do.
Because of that, I was interested in both Jeanmarie Simpson's and Chuck Fager's defense of the democratic nature of kdp, which has allowed a voice like mine to produce as much as I have. I agree with them - or at least Jeanmarie, who said that you can be aware of all the bad things about Amazon and still appreciate the fact that it has made it possible for so many little people to have a voice in this world. Chuck gave us a bird's eye view of the terrible economics which usually haunts us self-publishers, and made me feel glad I'm not alone. No giving up the day job here.
Finally, just knowing another Quaker playwright (Jeanmarie) is huge. for me. I knew she performed in them but never knew she wrote any, and I am already reading the one I saw in the FQA. I would say generally that there are not a whole lot of Quaker playwrights around. That makes each one of us very important!
Much to read in this journal, and my hope is that I can dig up and find more.
