From War Crimes to Genocide

Bombing schools and hospitals is a war crime. Deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime. Yesterday’s fulminations from the Führer in the White House go beyond war crimes to announce that he intends genocide: the wiping out of an entire people and civilization.

That he has now backed down does not erase what he threatened. Timothy Snyder nails it:

“As any historian of mass atrocity knows, there is no such thing as ‘only words.’ The notion of killing a whole civilization, once spoken, remains. …

“The president speaks genocide. And so we too must speak. Not only about crimes, but about their legal punishment.”

Every single member of Congress is complicit in his genocidal rant so long as they fail to stop him. Every single one of us is in the position of the “good Germans” who did not stop Hitler. 

I alone cannot stop him, or to stop the war machine that Congress continues to fund and to grow. I can add my voice and my body to the resistance. I can and do tell my Congress members to act: to vote no on the monstrous military budget, to vote to impeach Trump and his minions, to reclaim our country and our ideals of human rights and democracy. 

I alone cannot stop him, or stop the war machine, or any of the domestic atrocities perpetrated by this evil cabal. But I am not alone.

Pam Costain writes:

“No one knows exactly what it will take to decisively stop the authoritarian takeover of our country, but we know it will not be any one thing. It will include legal challenges, boycotts, civic resistance, protecting our neighbors, mutual aid, supporting the opposition in Congress, winning elections, civil disobedience, and thousands of acts of resistance both large and small. It will require millions of people acting with courage and commitment and saying ‘We refuse. We will not comply. We will not surrender. We will fight you with our collective and sustained commitment to democracy./”

Think of one thing you can do today, one person you can talk to, one message you can send. And do it.