When in 1692 Martha Corey said to her interrogators, "According to my experience and knowledge there are no witches,' she did not mean to become a hero or a martyr. She did not think forward at all. She said that because she was a free spirit and believed in herself. Freedom was as natural to her as to eat or drink. She lived her life, made up her mind and revealed the conclusions. Those conclusions were in front of her time by about 200 years. She paid by her life. But now we know: THERE ARE NO WITCHES!
Martha Corey, the old woman from 1692 was right but there is no monument to her or even a plaque- just a stone with her name at the Salem, MA cemetery's memorial of the innocent and a name on the list in the WitchMuseum. She died alone but her free spirit did not leave us apparently if we now have such people like Cindy Sheehan.
Stephan Lux, a Hungarian Jewish photographer in 1936 was not a martyr either. He just couldn't take it anymore. He saw the dark cloud coming and instead of a response he saw Hitler's Germany hosting the Olympics. He saw Jews and minorities persecuted on every step and the powerful International forces either looking sideways or even supporting the barbarism. Thus he shot himself at the League of Nations, right there, on the gallery, full of people. In his hands he had a briefcase full of incriminating papers about the Nazi policies towards Jews and minorities. Nothing happened. His body was carried away and the blood was washed off. Washing off the blood of the innocent became a tiresome endeavor after WWII, so Humankind invented a universal incinerator- a nuclear weapon, the one that kills thousands instantly. In a strange way Stephan Lux was right- none of us can now afford a self- detonated nuclear suicide. Thus we've got Cindy Sheehan.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
YB Yeats. Second Coming
I first found out about Cindy through the Gold Star Families For Peace. Simple, down- to- Earth Americans, parents of the GIs were against the war.
That saved my sanity. They were like me. Otherwise I felt as a traitor: as a first- generation immigrant I was supposed to support the endeavors of my new homeland no matter what it did, no questions asked. And ALL the media of Russian-Jewish Diaspora did just that- they howled with the support. If the Russian Jewish pundits could themselves become yellow ribbons they would do it. Who was I to doubt that campaign? I was alone.
Funny thing: Stephan Lux died for those people and they betrayed him. What would he say now about his Jewish brethren happy with the Iraqi and Afghan dead? What would he say about Israeli atrocities in Gaza?
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