November 3: Rumfoord, Nazis Marching in the Streets, Martin Niemoller

Rumfoord went on insisting for several hours that Billy had echolalia--told nurses and a doctor that Billy had echolalia now.  Some experiments were performed on Billy.  Doctors and nurses tried to get Billy to echo something, but Billy woldn't make a sound for them.

"He isn't doing it now," said Rumfoord peevishly.  "The minute you go away, he'll start doing it again."

Nobody took Rumfoord's diagnosis seriously.  The staff thought Rumfoord was a hateful old man, conceited and cruel.  He often said to them, in one way or another, that people who were weak deserved to die.  Whereas the staff, of course, was devoted to the idea that weak people should be helped as much as possible, that nobody should die.

Rumfoord is a hateful old man.  That point is not really debatable.  He is trying to convince everyone that Billy is simply a body without a mind, breathing only by instinct.  Billy represents something counter to Rumfoord's version of reality, and Rumfoord wants to eliminate him.  Erase him from the page.  That's how Rumfoord deals with threats.

Of course, the truth is sometimes difficult to accept, especially when it runs counter to your own beliefs.  Some people, especially ones sitting in or close to the Oval Office currently, prefer to make up their own versions of the truth. even if their versions have no connection to reality.  For them, the biggest threats in the United States are not Nazis marching in the streets and stabbing people on trains.  No, the biggest threat is some phantom underground army of dark-skinned immigrants, raping women, selling drugs, planting bombs, attacking good, rich Christian men.

Again, there's no connection between this truth and reality.  It's a Rumfoord ruse, like Billy's echolalia.  There is no fake news, except on Fox television stations.  Here is the truth:  thousands of innocent people were killed in the bombing of Dresden.  The current President of the United States is complicit in obstructing justice; encouraging racism, misogyny, antisemitism; and colluding with a foreign government.  Guns are a huge problem in this country.  Building a border wall is a stupid idea, costing billions of dollars that could be spent on providing health care or fixing up roads and bridges.  That is reality.

However, the Rumfoords of the world are in charge at the moment, and they are running unchecked.  That is the frightening part of the whole situation.

I try to stay out of politics in this blog as much as possible.  This blog isn't about preaching.  It's about poetry and life and love.  However, I've been thinking a lot about a quote by Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
 
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
 
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
 
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Saint Marty is speaking up tonight, before they start knocking on his door.