Oscar H. Blayton
September 28, 2015
Among the many windswept cliffs that stand guard on the
shores of the island of Okinawa, one is known for its particularly gruesome
history.
“Suicide Cliff” is located on the southern portion of
Okinawa. It is so named because
thousands of Okinawans took their own lives at the site as American forces
advanced across the island during the last months of World War II.
Twenty five years later, flying low over cliffside memorials
honoring the dead of various towns and villages who perished there, I was
struck by the fact that so many people felt compelled to rush to their own
destruction. I soon learned that for tactical reasons, and to further their own
doomed war effort, the Japanese army had terrified Okinawan civilians with
tales of extreme cruelties they should expect at the hands of the approaching
Americans. The island's people had their minds manipulated to the point that
many chose to kill themselves rather than fall into the hands of a ruthless
enemy.
The propaganda campaign worked so well that stories began
filtering out through the news media of mothers flinging their infants and then
themselves over the cliff as the battle for Okinawa raged on in June 1945. It
was reported that “[f]ear and madness overwhelmed village communities,” leading
to mass suicides and the killing of close relatives.
Eventually, the people of Okinawa came to realize that these
were “useless deaths” as the Americans turned out not to be the monsters
portrayed by the Japanese army.
In the years since viewing this tragic site, I learned it is
not unusual for people to be manipulated into a mass hysteria that makes them
act against their own self-interest, or even to rush toward their own
self-destruction. In this cycle of the
U.S. presidential election, we have extraordinarily clear examples of the type
of propaganda and demagoguery that leads to this type of madness.
Donald Trump is the poster child for destructive
demagoguery. This bloviating bigot has pulled the Republican Party down to new
lows and, in the process, dumbed down the national political discourse to a
point where America is gnawing at its own flesh in an attempt to expel
nonexistent horrors.
Echoing the likes of Gov. George Wallace of Alabama and the
two Virginia senators, Harry F. Byrd Sr. and Harry F. Byrd Jr., Trump feeds his
followers platters of noxious vitriol that are devoid of facts. In addition to
demonizing Latinos and "Black Lives Matter" activists, Trump, a privileged
white person, once declared that the Pequot Indians “don’t look like Indians to
me.” This is a person who feels so entitled that he can determine what America
is and who Americans are.
Like the thousands who followed a manipulative Japanese army
to their hurried end on Okinawa, individuals who flock to Trump’s banner of
bigotry and foolishness –eventually will see the senselessness of championing
someone who makes extremely ill-considered pronouncements and whose campaign
completely lacks sound policy ideas.
Fortunately for them, however, Trump will not be president
of the United States. Unfortunately, however, other Republican presidential
hopefuls are mimicking his audacious and bigoted posturing because his
followers are giving so much credence to this cartoon of an ugly American.
Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Huckabee may not be stoking
the fires of the exact same bigoted causes, they are ramping up their rhetoric
to approximate Trump’s level of demagoguery. Just as George Wallace and both
Senators Byrd relied on a strategy of saying the “N-word” louder than anyone
else, this new breed of bigoted politicians base their strategies on attacking
liberal targets of opportunity with more vigor than anyone else. And while
there are varying degrees of bigotry among the Republican field of presidential
candidates, they all seem to be willing to have the country self- destruct
rather than give in to its liberalization.
“This way to the cliffs,” they urge their followers, “or the
liberals will ruin your lives.”
During the past seven years, they have urged their followers
to reject the Affordable Care Act, with little regard for the fact that many of
them cannot pay for basic medical needs. These Republican candidates have
called upon their followers to oppose an increase in the minimum wage, despite
the fact that many of those supporters are low-wage earners. They ask
conservatives to join them in opposing the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran,
even though the sons and daughters of those conservatives might bleed on the
battlefields of any ensuing war. And, of course, they oppose extending equal
rights to the LBGT community, while many of their backers have family members
and loved ones who are in the LBGT community.
They are urging their followers to go over the cliff and
pull the rest of America over behind them.
For those of us who refuse to swallow the venom of the likes
of Trump, Cruz, Huckabee and Paul, we have a pressing obligation. We must do
all that is necessary to prevent the forces of self-destruction from taking
hold. We must not allow a group of hysterical bigots to determine the future of
America. We must stand against those who are taken by a type of self-destructive
madness and would throw America over a political cliff to drown in a sea of
hatred and despair. We must choose our candidates wisely and then do all that
we can to support them. Good candidates not only deserve and need our votes,
they deserve and need our contributions and volunteer efforts as well.
In the coming months, we must seriously work to ensure that
America takes the path to progress and peace and not the one to self-destruction.
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