Cruelty

 I should know better.  As someone who has read fairly extensively about the Third Reich and the Holocaust and who has frequently attended events at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, as well as having read a fair amount on Mao’s China and Stalin’s gulags and starvation of Ukraine, I should know what cruelty humans are capable of perpetrating.

Still, the cold indifference to human life is disquieting, even more so since it has become manifest here.

Iran.

The murder of young Mahsa Amini by the “morality police” of Iran has sparked widespread protests in Iran.  They are reminiscent of the Green Revolution of 2009, toward which the Obama administration was largely tight lipped.  The brutal killing of Amini echoes of the shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan, then 26 by Iranian security forces.  This time, the uprising seems more widespread and threatening to the mullahs.  Oddly, the American left feminists are strangely silent as courageous Iranian women take to the streets, burning their hijabs, cutting their hair and demanding freedom.   American congresswoman Ilan Omar, who has an opinion about all things oppressive, is pretty mum on the struggle of her Islamic sisters in Iran.

Russia

Whatever your views on Russia and Zelenskyy, the snuffing out of so many innocent lives in Ukraine by Putin is disquieting, particularly when Russia threatens the world with nuclear weapons.  There are no good guys in this picture.  Zelenskyy is like the pro bona litigation client that is ok with spending bottomless legal fees and unwilling to settle.  Putin, on the other hand, has utter disregard for human life. 

China

The situation with the Uyghers is abhorrent.  Its takeover of Hong Kong was despicable.  Its cover up and handling of COVID19 was horrendous.  It continues to let fentanyl pour in to the U.S. and kill 100,000 people a year.  Yet, big business, academia and entertainment are still deferential to the CCP, even as it threatens Taiwan. 

U.S.A.

Once the bastion and enforcer of human rights, the U.S., human rights now takes a back seat to Wokeness.  Its Democratic city mayors are satisfied with the killing and murders of thousands of innocent cities so they can advance their notion of social justice.  The leftist mayors and governors were happy to permanently arrest the development of children under the guise of COVID policies in schools.  When the Dobbs decision was rendered, blue state politicians went apoplectic.  In Illinois, governor Pritzker initiated a program of mobile abortion units, echoing the Nazi mobile extermination units.

Worse, by permitting the crime surge in U.S. cities, government officials are implicitly subordinating the lives of innocent citizens to the interests of violent criminals. 

It’s hard not to get depressed when faced with all this.  I always thought that the U.S. would never advance political and ideological interests ahead of the lives of this citizens.

This is no longer the case. The cold indifference to human life has come home.