Yom Hashoah

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.  What with all the "he's the new Hitler, she's a Nazi, all of them are Fascists" talk in the media lately it is hard to imagine forgetting the holocaust, but it does seem a few salient points have slipped peoples' minds.  A lot of jews died: everyone seems to remember that. Even the holocaust deniers focus their attention on all the jews that they are quite certain did not die, more or less.  I don't mean to be disrespectful, but there it is.

I think this might be a good time to take a look at another statistic holocaustian:  an estimated 100,000 homosexuals were arrested by the Nazis.  & homosexuals sent to prison camps died at a roughly the same rate (60% is the standard estimate) as the other much larger, much better documented group.  Prior to the 1930s, homosexuals in general & gay men in particular enjoyed a fairly "out" lifestyle in urban Germany & an estimated 1.2 million men were documented, one way or another as homosexuals at one time.  When things changed, homosexuals were the first group specifically & openly targeted for persecution.  They were aggressively "re-educated" even before the prison camps were established & of course men who were not yet out never came out, what with not wanting to be re-educated.  This was considered to be a measure of the success of re-education.

I am going to stop here & tell you an old joke.  A group of scientists measure the length a frog can jump.  They put the frog on a table with increments marked out, make a loud sound behind the frog & it jumps five feet.  Then they cut off one leg, repeat loud sound & the frog jumps four feet.  Then they cut of a second leg & the frog jumps three feet.  Cut off a third & the frog jumps two feet.  Finally the last leg is cut off & no matter how much noise they make, the frog does not jump at all.  The conclusion:  a frog with no legs is deaf.

Back to the Nazis:  once homosexuals were identified as un-German & largely eradicated, they moved on to other un-German groups & most of us know more or less how that went.  Then when the war ended, while other prisoners were treated, released, repatriated, whatever,, homosexuals were often re-arrested for the crime of being homosexual.  Did I mention the Nazis believed homosexuality was contagious? 

Enough with the Nazis!  Tomorrow Gainesville, Florida concludes a mayoral run-off election between two very different candidates.  One of them has been involved in local politics for years, as a citizen activist, served on the town council up until this election & served as mayor pro-tempore at one point previously.  The other candidate has not served on any public boards or chairs that I could find, but has instead made the arrogance of city government a major talking point.  One candidate talks about protecting the communities diversity & financial stability while the other has platform of lowering taxes, lowering utility costs (Gainesville operates their own power plant) & increasing police presence.

I went to their websites to be sure I was pulling accurate information (to the degree I was not attributing the either of them any ideas they would not have attributed to themselves).  Now let me give you my two cents: the second candidate uses a sizable amount of web space, front & center complaining about how the other side is persecuting him, criticizing him for using graffiti in a public space to promote his campaign, later having same public space painted over his name in a less-then-flattering manner, names his rival as a promoter of dirty tricks, etc.  & therefore fair game for any mud he wants to sling back.  & the first guy is gay.  This is not on his website, of course, because the only people who care about that are voting for the other guy.