The Enablers of Hope

One of my arch-conservative extreme right wing acquaintances just posted something on my Facebook page that has me hyperventilating:

The Democrats are doing Exactly what Hitler did... He used the Youth to disarm and Control the People This is scary!

I am stunned that he could even draw this parallel!  It shows the kind of mind numbing idiocy that afflicts one third of our population.  His reason for believing this ridiculous idea is that in his mind George Soros is behind it.  He is claiming (without presenting a shred of evidence, I might add) that Soros is funding the entire effort that culminated this weekend with millions of people worldwide demonstrating and standing for rational thinking about gun legislation.  I am aghast.

He is equating the Hitler Youth organization with the March for Life Organization.  For those of you who don’t remember what the Hitler Youth organization was, here is a short definition of its origins, mission and objectives from Wikipedia:

The members of the Hitler Youth were viewed as ensuring the future of Nazi Germany and were indoctrinated in Nazi ideology, including racism.  Many activities closely resembled military training, with weapons training, assault course circuits and basic tactics. The aim was to instill the motivation that would enable its members to fight faithfully for Nazi Germany as soldiers. There was great emphasis on physical fitness and hardness and military training than on academic study.  Sacrifice for the cause was inculcated into their training. The Hitler Youth were used to break up Church youth groups, and in anti-Church indoctrination, used to spy on religious classes and Bible studies and interfere with church attendance. Education and training programs for the Hitler Youth were designed to undermine the values of the traditional elitist structures of German society along with their privileges; their training also aimed at an obliteration of social and intellectual distinctions between the classes, so as to be replaced and dominated by the political goals of Hitler's totalitarian dictatorship.^[  Besides promoting a doctrine of classlessness, additional training was provided that linked state-identified enemies such as Jews with Germany's previous defeat in the First World War, and societal decline. As historian Richard Evans observes, "The songs they sang were Nazi songs. The books they read were Nazi books.

So, my ‘friend’ is trying to persuade all of us that there is an equivalence between the Nazi Youth movement and the goals and objectives of millions of rising teenagers who represent the new movement to obtain rational change in our society.  What he doesn’t even acknowledge is that the Hitler Youth was an organization that was designed to destroy societal norms and promote racism and authoritarian dictatorship.  How does that compare with millions of youth, their parents and other major parts of our society being angry at the segments of our population and government that value the possession of guns more than the lives of our children?  And by the way, is this all a Democratic plot?  The fact that some actually believe and promote this parallel is so appalling that it defies true definition!

There had to be a deficit somewhere in our educational system that resulted in people promoting that kind of thinking.  It is not rational.  However it seems, hopefully, that this line of reasoning is confined to a strata of our society that is going to pass from the scene sooner rather than later.  What the youth movement of today has illustrated is that the rising generation of Americans who are coming of age and will soon make their voting power felt are motivated by humanistic values and objectives as opposed to the economic cynicism of the previous generation.

This is a generation of Americans that is adept at social media and has a unified identity that previous generations could not achieve.  They are instantaneously connected and share common ideas and motivations.  They have grown up together in an environment where they all are afraid to go to school!  The current generation of adults never had that kind of fear on a daily basis which probably explains their inability to empathize with the anger, fear and frustration felt by victims of this ongoing assault.  It is this vacuous understanding that contributes to current non-action.

The February 14^th massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was the final cathartic tipping point that awakened the pent up and unrecognized emotional tsunami resulting from years of inaction and “thoughts and prayers” instead of much needed regulation.  It was bound to happen, but the surprise is that the wave of action and mobilization came from an unexpected source…the victims!  And these are no ordinary victims.  These are articulate, highly motivated, angry, victimized young people who have mastered the new communication technologies.  They want change and seem driven to rid our government of corrupt decision makers who take money from the NRA and then stand in the way of any kind of rational regulation.  It is inspiring.

So, what are the prospects for change given this new force in the electorate?

Expect real political involvement by this new generation in November.  We are going to see a hopeful change in the complexion of our representatives.  It will take two more election cycles for a complete change to be effected, but each successive election will move the needle away from where it rests now.  Perhaps the most important impact will be a change in control in the House of Representatives that will break the chains of incompetence and rigid economic servility to lobbyists and vested interests that have gridlocked our democracy.

There are new energetic and intelligent voices in the political biosphere that are

going to push progress and change.    It will take time, but what we have witnessed over the past couple of months is the first real indication that there is hope on the horizon.

--> The most important thing that you can do?  Vote in the primaries and the general election….be sure that the people you support do not take money from corporations and vested interests that operate NOT in your best interest.  Representatives work for US!  Never forget that.