Subject: Law & OrderDate: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 12:09:19 -0000
From: "Jeanie Dean" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: "Jeanie Dean" <[log in to unmask]>
To: CSL
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Hello,
The anti-terrorist climate we are entering reminds me of an incident in
Adolph Eichmann's life. Eichmann is considered one of the worst
perpetrators and master minds of the holocaust. It was Eichmann who
"ingeniously" proposed the idea that, prisoners of the camps could more
efficiently be exterminated with gas chambers. He introduced the concept and
designed the logistics. Prior to his innovation the camps used huge
incineration furnaces and the ash, smoke, and time required, not to mention
the death cries were terrifically problematic.
Eichmann was orphaned and lived for a period in Vienna. As a youth he was
befriended by Jewish families and felt at home in their neighborhoods, at
their tables, and in Jewish culture. When he was about twenty years old
during the time of the rising power of the Socialist Democratic Party (SDP
the Nazi Party) a cadre of brown-shirt bullies cornered Eichmann on the
street one evening. They had mistaken him for a Jew and beat him with a
frenzy. He almost died. Perhaps he did. Afterwards he disassociated himself
from identity with his former friends. He blamed the Jews for his beating,
not the brown shirts or the burgeoning police state, that licensed their
aggression.
The recovered Adolph Eichmann transferred his loyalties, joined the Nazi
party and quickly rose through the ranks. He became one of it's most
vigilant proponents of racial cleansing. Later he used his contacts in the
Jewish community to obtain the lists and secure cooperation during the
arrests and relocation of the Jews.
Hitler made speeches about the "ultimate solution" Many believed that meant
relocation. It was men like Eichmann who interpreted Hitler's philosophy and
conceived the means to implement it.
In a police state, it is all to easy for an individual striving to protect
one self, in desperate fear, to blame the scape goat group, to become
intoxicated with the blood lust of power, to be comforted in the protection
of siding with might, and to be deceived into a public delusion of insane
rhetoric that justifies suppression, control and force.
How does one find safety in such a climate?
Jeanie
Life in mind
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