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Letter wasn’t hurling insults

EDITOR:

Mr. John A. Bergman’s Feb. 27, 2017, letter, “Hurling insults is not a political argument.” It is somewhat of a cut and paste letter from the November 2016 one he wrote, with a few new tidbits of information. I do not hurl insults and I never called Mr. Bergman a fascist. In fact, Mr. Bergman misquoted the one sentence in my letter as “reads like defense of fascism and its (largest) manifestation.” I wrote its (latest) manifestation, meaning now, the present time. The only mention I made of the Holocaust, is the Holocaust Museum where the document, “The warning signs of fascism” is presented. Mr. Bergman used a hyper-bolic comment where he stated that I may be trying to state that his political belief would support mass murder. Absolute nonsense. I never went to college or to East Germany, I never was able to study political science of the German language. I was, however, able to go on a trip to French Indo-China at U.S. government expense in 1966-67. This experience helped form much of my thinking. This simple statement, “man’s inhumanity to man” became vivid and real.

Mr. Bergman spent a good deal of his letter defending the Alt-right and Steve Bannon, (The Grigori Rasputin of the Trump administration). Mr. Bergman dismissed The Anti-Defamation League and The Southern Poverty Law Center, but cited the right wing, Zionist Organization of America and Republican Jewish Coalition. He also uses the (left wing) civil rights attorney, Alan Dershowitz to bolster his case. (Dershowitz can turn “rightward” when it involves the state of Israel). Steve Bannon and his Breitbart news has presented a large platform and megaphone for many far right groups who spout anti-semitic and white supremacist rhetoric. Mr. Bergman tells us that words are “meaningless.” (Sounds Orwellian.) I will just say that Steve Bannon is a bully, a bad dude, a bete noire, but I will not call him the “F” word. Thanks for the tip on books to read, but I have read those two books of fiction by Eric Arthur Blair. There may be agreement about totalitarianism between Mr. Bergman, Blair, and myself?

Donald Trump seems to have developed a cult-like following among many of his ardent supporters. He has stated that he could shoot and kill a person on 5th Avenue in New York City and get away with it! I believe this may be true, he has broken nearly all the rules.

An admonishment from German Pastor Martin Neimoller during the Nazi era 1933-1945, “When they came for the socialist, I was not socialist, I said nothing.” “When they came for the trade unionist, I was not a trade unionist, I said nothing.” “When they came for the Jews, I was not a Jew, I said nothing.” “When they came for me, nothing was said.”

Past and present perilous times.

Jim Morrison

Garden Corners

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