Where I had already seen familiar societal chords ringing through other books, reading THE UNQUIET GHOST again is striking me even worse. “This is the key to denial: your enemies are not people, but rabid dogs, rats, pigs, vipers.” (74) This is happening left and right here in the United States. Those on the far right seem to get no shortage of glee out of labeling those on the left or those not on the right other.
“This habit of thinking gradually spreads from executioner to bystander. It must, for without separating those before you into us and them, you cannot remain peaceful and untroubled in a society where imaginary enemies are shipped to the gulag or Jews are sent to the gas chambers, or the poor starve, or the homeless lie on sidewalks.” (74-75)
This is happening left and right. Those who are employed are petitioning for food stamps to feed their families. The unhoused are sleeping in parks, and those on the right are saying it’s the left or those vulnerable populations that are at fault. And the more that’s said the further the belief spreads. The closer we come to an era that mimics those of the 30s and 40s.
We can’t turn our eyes away from what we see in the news and/or the world around us. It’s telling that the Stale Cheeto kicked reporters out of the White House. It’s telling that immigrants are being sent back to wherever they came from. The unhoused are being arrested for being unhoused. The state police are killing anyone who doesn’t look like a Casper the ghost. We’re carrying out war on countries that don’t align with our stereotypes.
These are the actions which lead to an autocratic state. To a state where productivity becomes a quota one has to meet. Where no longer is it laudable to be a dissident.
To show how scared I am I’m going to work on getting to demonstrations of like minded people. Where there will be people I don’t know so I’ll be scared (I am an introvert after all). Where I will risk making my name and face made to an administration that doesn’t allow people to protest.
Here goes nothing.
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