A United States?
This piece was inspired by reading an opinion piece by Steven Gimbel who is a professor of Philosophy and affiliate of the Jewish studies program at Gettysburg College and Gwydion Suilebhan, Executive director of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. I would like to share this part of the article with you.
“We live in a time when Democracy is becoming fragile and the cruel intentions of our fellow citizens are becoming clearer, their violence bolder. Barr is well acquainted with the possible tragic events of calls for extermination. Sadly, instead of targeting these dehumanizing forces with her comedy, she’s joining their effort with despicable rhetoric.”
One of the founding principles of this country is the right to free speech. It is very important to know that it is a freely given in this country and many throughout the world are unable to share this right. But when we weaponize our words with lies and untrue facts, what happens to that right? Technically, the right is still there. But what of the needless damage and pain this causes. The liars could care less. They are not trying to manipulate or convince themselves of anything. They just want votes and money. It is the ignorant and uneducated that bite, hook line and sinker and then perpetuate the lies. Soon we are fighting a battle to just give the truth a small space to breath. The original liars? They are laughing all the way home calling all of their minions, suckers! The really frightening thought is that they might actually believe the shit they are spewing. We, on the other hand find the results quite scary.
On June 14, 2023 Roseanne Barr sat down with Theo Von for an interview on his podcast. Barr, who is Jewish, said, “nobody died in the Holocaust either. That’s the truth.” She went on to add, “It should happen. Six million jews should die right now cause they cause all the problems in the world. But it never happened.”
Barr lost the revival of her namesake show, in 2018, for a racial tweet likening former Obama press secretary, Valerie Jarrett to an ape. Barr later said that she’d make restitution for the pain she had caused. Supposedly she begged ABC not to cancel her show promising to do anything to right her wrongs. But only to turn around and to continue to post racist and antisemitic views. And she still went after Jarrett.
Fast forward to June 14 and nothing has changed. The sad thing is that Barr has Jewish Lithuanian family members. In 1942, the Nazi’s took control of her relative’s village. They made the people dig their own graves and then lie down in them. The Nazi’s then used bull dozers to bury the townspeople alive. Barr knows this. Her own grandmother escaped this tragedy and emigrated to America to recount the tales of horror to her family. Also, many of Barr’s childhood neighbors were Jewish refugees. The stories of her youth must be filled with similar dreadful tales.
Antisemitic violence is rising. Hatred is rising. People are buying into crazy thinking such as the great replacement theory. Yes, we have a country founded on free speech but maybe everyone should not have a microphone. I believe fame comes with a price and responsibility. If a celebrity or a famous athlete is given a special voice then they should use it responsibly. Everyone should be allowed to have an opinion. In fact, I am using mine to write this blog, but I am nobody. If your goal is to foment hate and fuel this with the propagation of lies, then you should lose your microphone.
