by John W. Whitehead, Rutherford Institute:
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must–at that moment–become the center of the universe.”—Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Speech
Once again we find ourselves approaching that time of year when, as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, we’re supposed to give thanks as a nation and as individuals for our safety and our freedoms.
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But how do you give thanks for freedoms that are constantly being eroded?
How do you express gratitude for one’s safety when the perils posed by the American police state grow more treacherous by the day?
How do you come together as a nation in thanksgiving when the powers-that-be continue to polarize and divide us into warring factions?
You can see this struggle—to reconcile the hope for a better, freer, more just world with the soul-sucking reality of a world in which greed, meanness and war continue to triumph—in John Lennon’s two songs, “Imagine” (which exhorted us to “Imagine all the people livin’ life in peace”) and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” (which was part of a major anti-war campaign, which were released within months of each other in 1971.
Lennon—a musical genius, anti-war activist, and a high-profile example of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to persecute those who dare to challenge its authority—made clear that the only way to achieve an end to hunger, violence, war, and tyranny is to want it badly enough and work towards it.
All these years later, we still don’t seem to want those things badly enough.
Peace remains out of reach. Activists and whistleblowers continue to be prosecuted for challenging the government’s authority. Militarism is on the rise, all the while the governmental war machine continues to wreak havoc on innocent lives.
For those of us who joined with Lennon to imagine a world of peace, it’s getting harder to reconcile that dream with the reality of the American police state.
Those who do dare to speak up about government corruption are labeled dissidents, troublemakers, terrorists, lunatics, or mentally ill and tagged for surveillance, censorship or involuntary detention.
And then there are those who remain silent while the world falls apart.
By doing nothing, the onlookers become as guilty as the perpetrator.
It works the same whether you’re talking about kids watching bullies torment a fellow student on a playground, passersby watching someone dying on a sidewalk, or citizens remaining silent in the face of government atrocities.
There’s a term for this phenomenon where people stand by, watch and do nothing—even when there is no risk to their safety—while some horrific act takes place: it’s called the bystander effect.
