Op-Ed: Are We About to Repeat Genocidal History?

The following Op-Ed was submitted by Michael Law. Note: Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.

After the conclusion of WWII, and especially after discovering the horrors of the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis, both the Jewish holocaust and those with other flaws such as physical and mental handicaps, religious beliefs, particularly Christianity, homosexual tendencies and so on, costing the lives of millions of our fellow travelers in our human existence, humanity vowed to never forget. In order to never forget, especially after over 75 years and that generation all but gone from this existence, it appears that humanity has forgotten, or rather, has never learned of the horrors, learned the warning signs and how avoid the repetition of genocidal history.

In order to prevent the horrific genocidal history from being repeated, we must know the steps that were taken in the past and learn how to counter each phase of genocide. The oft repeated phrase “that can never happen here in America” or anywhere else, for that matter, is exactly what it takes for the process to begin. Turning a blind eye or refusing to acknowledge that the history of mankind is that of slaughter and genocide, or the humiliating idea that it is happening in one’s own backyard is just what genocide needs to rear its ugly head.

Advertisement

Is government headed that way, as it is government that is typically, though not always, the culprit when it comes to genocide? We must take a look at our local, state, and national governments in America and governments around the world, see if they are in any stage of genocide and then turn back the growing horrors. Note that the stages I will discuss are NOT linear. There are 10 stages, with the last one being Denial, which can be discovered in any stage. One could be in various stages, say 1-3, 5, and 8 and still need to work on others before actual genocide occurs. Again, stages need not occur in a linear manner. The 10 stages, as conceived and published by Gregory H Stanton, a former law professor and founder of Genocide Watch, are as follows, though the comments about each stage are mine, with few exceptions.

Stage 1: Classification

Classification is simple. People are classified into race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, or, for our purposes, vaccinated or unvaccinated, masked or unmasked, right or left, white or colored and so on. Karl Marx, one of the founders of sociology, delves into this idea of classification quite well. Putting people into their designated classifications is important in the process of genocide, regardless of whether or not genocide is the goal.

Advertisement

While it was much more difficult in America, as this used to be a land of e pluribus unum, that is, from many, one, or in other words, a melting pot of cultures. American culture used to be an assimilation of cultures, not a separation of them. Even in code, discrimination against people based on race, sex, age, religion, etc. used to be what Americans believed. While prevention is impossible, we are seeing the beginning of the embracing of this classification process, rather than trying to prevent it by including others who are different in some way. When it comes down to it, the best prevention here is to recognize (classify) that each man, woman, and child is a beloved son or daughter of God, that humankind are brothers and sisters, and that we should treat each other with that dignity.

Stage 2: Symbolization

Symbols are the names, the labels that are given to the classifications. We call them the “unvaxxed,” “Jews,” “Rednecks,” and so on. They may be given symbolic items of their classification, such as Germany did with yellow stars for Jews. Symbols can also be used to show one is part of the accepted group, too, such as vaccine passports.

Here again, prevention is important but we must also recognize that it is impossible. Banning symbols, such as swastikas, is not a proper role of government and violates free speech. When government gets involved in approving or disapproving symbols, it is always with the threat of force, which itself can lead to the same horrific end as it tries to enforce it, though they may be well-intentioned. Well-intended acts can lead to the same actions it intended to avoid. However, society can refuse to support and even pressurize individuals into doing the right thing, to prevent thrusting symbols onto others, or even “self-symbolizing.”

Stage 3: Discrimination

Discrimination based on the classification is another step. In Germany, Jews had their citizenship stripped from them, were forbidden to go to state run schools, holding government jobs and so on. Today, discrimination can be in forbidding the unmasked or unvaccinated from entering federal buildings, restaurants, or flying, for example. It is a violation of individual liberties. Yet again, prevention of discrimination is impossible. Despite laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, sex, age, religion, etc., discrimination still occurs, even if there are penalties. The discrimination simply goes underground when discrimination becomes codified. Again, society should do all they can to prevent government from discriminating and to refuse to support those that discriminate. The real prevention is with government that attempts discrimination, as it is government that is the problem, when it comes to genocide.

Stage 4: Dehumanization

Dehumanization occurs when it is determined that one class of citizens is superior to another class. When a group of people claim that the unvaccinated or unmasked are somehow killing others and/or should be denied treatment or healthcare services themselves or should be looked down upon in any way, the dehumanization has begun. When any one group of people perceives that they are superior to another or certain groups of people are superior to others, dehumanization has begun. Discrimination and symbolization become easier and more justifiable.

Prevention is simply following the idea, found in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” and the law, found in the Constitution that “no State shall…deny to any person…the equal protection of the laws.” Prevention also includes full and complete freedom of speech. The dehumanization process includes denial of speech to those who may have differing opinions or ideas than the rest of society, censoring “hate speech” or speech that “violates community standards.” Only those of the “accepted” class of citizens are free to voice their thoughts. Those of the lesser class are prevented from doing so, from voicing how they are being discriminated against, how they are becoming less equal, or how others are becoming “more equal.”

Stage 5: Organization

“Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, though sometimes informally or by terrorist groups. Special army units or militias are often trained and armed.” These armed organizations can also be law enforcement, such as the FBI, BATFE, even more local authorities. For example, the use of the FBI to silence vocal parents at school board meetings that government has classified as domestic terrorists, wishes to discriminate against by silencing, as it violates the government’s declared “community standard,” has implications of what the future may bring. It is an EXTREMELY dangerous road to start down. Genocidal killings then become easier, as the declared “dangerous,” less-than-human groups must be silenced.

Prevention here is to prohibit government, which is the typical organizer, from going beyond its enumerated powers, which powers are extremely limited and were to be used SOLELY in protecting life, liberty, and property and ONLY upon a violation of any one of those inalienable rights. If government has organized beyond its limited authority, it the usurped authority that MUST be rolled back before government becomes organized beyond the ability of the people to prevent the horrors from occurring.

Stage 6: Polarization

“Extremists drive the groups apart.” Government, a complaisant media, state-run media, or any others may help to drive the propaganda that pits the classified groups against each other. Extremists willing to help silence others, whether it be physical intimidation, censorship, or any other means of silence play a vital role. Extremists of the despised group are first silenced, such as removal from social media, prohibited from travel using passports, seizure of assets through long court processes or heavy fines, or other methods of eliminating the “most dangerous” individuals of the opposition.

If this has begun, prevention may include extra security for the leaders of the opposition, keeping an eye on who is being targeted and moving to prevent those targeted from being silenced. Seeking common ground and focusing on that common ground rather than differences will help prevent polarization.

Stage 7: Preparation

Leaders of the group make plans against the targeted group, such as the “Final Solution” to the Jews. Typically, leaders cloak their intentions by referring to their goals as “counter-terrorism,” for example. Indoctrination of the people, instilling fear is vital to their preparation. For example, Hitler used the fire in the Reichstag to gain his power and vowed to round up all those who terrorized the nation, the leaders, by the act. Similarly, though far less destructive on the part of those the leaders claim are terrorists is the January 6 “attack” on the US Capitol. The claims of being worse or on the same level as the attack on Pearl Harbor or 9/11, is the disgusting propaganda needed to scare the populace into allowing for preparation to “cleanse” America of these “terrorists.”

Prevention here is free speech, though it may already have been squashed by this point. Parents are attempting to do so in school board meetings as government sponsored schools are an exceptional way of indoctrinating citizens with their propaganda. Education against propaganda that is approved by the accepted group is vital in combating the preparation stage.

Stage 8: Persecution

Victims of genocide are identified and separated based on the identity of the targeted group. Lists of the victims are drawn up, such as the unvaccinated, which includes the symbols, such as vaccine passports that identify the approved group. Property may be confiscated, victims may be moved to internment camps, such as happened to Americans of Japanese descent by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt at the onset of WWII in America. Yes, it has happened here in America within the last 100 years. Victims may be moved to famine-struck areas and starved. The genocidal massacres may begin and become much easier to perpetrate with the concentration of the despised group.

Prevention requires that society first recognize when groups are being targeted, by classification, symbolization, the propaganda from polarization and the organization that intends to persecute, then do all that is possible to avoid participating in any speech or act that aids in the persecution. One may be forced to hide the Anne Franks from a group from persecutors, as an example.

Stage 9: Extermination

“Extermination begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing ‘legally’ called genocide. It is ‘extermination’ to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human (see dehumanization)…Sometimes the genocide results in revenge killings by groups against each other, creating the downward whirlpool-like cycle of mutual genocide where the victims actually organize and commit a second genocide on the perpetrators,” wrote Stanton. Government will allow private groups to organize in assisting government in its “cleansing.”

At this point, only armed and overwhelmingly powerful interventions are able to stop the genocide. Unfortunately, it may be a generation after intervention before a return to decency may be possible, mostly because it is extremely difficult to rid the indoctrinated of what they have learned, especially if, upon presentation of the evidence, they continue with Stage 10, which is a stage that appears throughout the stages, Denial.

Stage 10: Denial

Denial occurs at every stage. Denial that classification, symbolization, discrimination and so on, is simply wrong. They will deny the crimes against humanity are crimes and continue persecution of the victims claiming they themselves are the victims. Denial comes when they block investigations into the “attack on the US Capitol,” blocking investigations into election fraud, and any other excuse into their own wrongdoing, claiming that their actions were warranted because of the perceived violations of the victims. Evidence is hidden, such as why a capitol police officer killed an unarmed victim or when an officer dies from the hands of the mob but in reality, of natural causes. Witnesses and investigators are intimidated, persecuted, dehumanized, much of the same actions from previous stages are repeated.

Prevention comes in every stage. We all must recognize wrongdoing in ourselves or groups we may associate with, regardless of how humiliating it may be. Continued denial means continue horrors. Admission of wrongdoing and forsaking all actions concerned with helps to end the denial stage.

Conclusion

As I stated at the beginning, the stages of genocide are not linear. Each stage may be occurring before a previous stage. Every stage may be occurring at the same time as other stages, though at various levels within each stage. Genocide may come when least expected. Genocide may occur as people justify their actions based on their own perceived victimhood. Genocide begins with an immoral society, with an unjust society, with a society not treating all equally under the law but rather puts everyone in classes, societies that justify the wicked in their evil acts and persecute those unwilling to drink the poisoned Kool-Aid of evil, societies that allow for those seeking for power and gain to sit and remain in a seat of governance over the people to the detriment of society and individuals.

The history of the world is a history of genocide, of killing simply because of a perceived wrong to themselves by the victim, an attempt to use force to obtain justice, such as was the case with Cain and Abel at the beginning. Germans believed they were being financially victimized by Jews. Social justice was then sought. The French seeking “justice” against the king, queen, other nobles turned “justice” into a bloodbath in their revolution. Though no genocide occurred concerning Americans of Japanese descent, America was well on the way at the beginning of WWII, not to mention Woodrow Wilson’s camps in WWI with Americans of German ancestry.

Is America making another attempt as she demonizes parents for speaking out, as they should, against the government education/indoctrination system? Or the unmasked and unvaccinated? Or the election fraud believers? How about the political imprisonment of the “January 6^th act of terror” citizens? Or the regular citizens who believe and know that they have certain inalienable rights granted by their Creator? Or doctors that question government approved science?

The lists, part of the persecution stage, are being filled. Government is classifying, creating symbols, persecuting, dehumanizing, organizing, polarizing, discriminating, and organizing. We are on a dangerous path and we must make an immediate detour to better roads. Genocide is found throughout history. There is a plethora of genocidal tendencies to be found everywhere. Prevention now, while still in the works, is needed today. But first, we must educate ourselves. Though there is much more to understanding the path to genocide than can be discussed here, we must learn what we can, discover ways to prevent and then act, while avoiding the same issues ourselves when we do act. The first great truth here that will prevent all is understanding that each individual man, woman, and child is a beloved child of God and should be treated as such. Each individual son or daughter of God is our brother or sister. We are all one great family of God. Armed with this knowledge real prevention of genocide is possible as long as each of us adhere to the knowledge we possess.