BRATTLEBORO-The incoming president has now signed pardons for the violent treasonous folks who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, signaling his intent to not hold his violent followers accountable.
He has also issued orders that those who are taking part in his efforts to round up people, put them into camps, and deport them should start with schools and churches. He also has attempted to revoke the 14th Amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship.
These are all straight from the authoritarian playbook. The Nazis in Germany forced Jewish leaders to list all the Jews in their towns with addresses, and then used the information to deprive them of property and their civil rights, and ultimately to murder them.
For police and paramilitaries, the Nazis also removed the fear that they might be held legally accountable. This allowed the Nazi police to torture, kill, and terrorize those with communist sympathies, LGBTQ people, and others seen as undesirable into revealing the names of their friends and connections, so that those people could be rounded up, encamped, and murdered.
Nazi doctors used medical records to reveal people living with disabilities, whom the Nazis would systematically murder. School lists and church lists were used to identify others who they might have deemed undesirable.
Having removed citizenship rights from these groups, the Nazis could act without interference to steal, murder, and torture, as well as expel people from the country.
Today, we face the first steps in such a system in the USA. I urge all religious organizations to take steps to keep their membership records from getting into the hands of violent extremists and the government. I urge schools to do the same.
We all need to take steps to do our best to obscure personal data - a challenge, given the frequency of data breaches.
Even if your group does not include anyone currently being targeted, it is important not to give over information. Someone may become an "undesirable."
And if all religious groups, schools, and organizations withhold data, it will make the overall project of ridding our nation of the "undesirables" more difficult.
Please, for the sake of democracy and justice, take action now!
The Beloved Community VT
Brattleboro
Rev. Ralph W. Howe, pastor
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