#YOUMATTER AND YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
Happy Birthday to My Son, Forever 21
How Wonderful It Is That Nobody Need to Wait a Single Moment Before Starting to Improve the World — Anne Frank
Who Will Fight for Those Who Cannot Fight for Themselves?
As the clock strikes midnight, the door to adulthood swings open wide, granting entry to a world of celebration and newfound freedom. On their twenty-first birthday, many stand at the threshold of an exciting new era of life, with the right to buy alcohol, enter clubs, and take control of their destiny.
As his 21st birthday approached, Kaleb had reached the age where he would no longer be eligible for support services in Georgia, and I had exhausted all other solutions. We sold everything we owned, purchased a used RV, and left for California to seek resources and help to care for Kaleb.
We were medical refugees of a Red state looking for hope in a Blue state.
Kaleb was born with dazzling red hair and a personality like no other! He was intelligent and happy, with deep brown eyes that saw straight to the heart of what mattered.
At three years old and after five pediatricians, Kaleb was diagnosed with autism, PDD (pervasive developmental disorder), and a rare chromosomal abnormality, most likely resulting from his father's exposure to burn pits during the first Gulf War.
Kaleb was a natural hacker, and he was most comfortable on his computer — he emptied my bank three times and pumped porn onto all of his class's computers, causing panic among his very crisp proper Christian teachers, and had inside connections at Google — another long story.
Kaleb loved Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, his gigantic Build-a-Bear collection, and monthly trips to the Georgia Aquarium. His autism was severe, and he was sometimes extremely hard to handle.
A day after Kaleb's 21st birthday, he was admitted to Sacramento's hospital.
After two months in the hospital, three blood transfusions, and numerous disputes with the administration, Kaleb still had no diagnosis; we had expended all our funds. I was left with no option but to return to Georgia. We disposed of the remaining possessions, including the RV, and loaded five of us into a tiny pick-up truck for the journey home.
When we stopped the first night, about 150 miles into our 3000-mile journey, we discovered Kaleb couldn't walk. We laid him on the bed in the hotel room and removed his hospital socks, and the soles of his feet came off with them.
In that instant, I realized Kaleb's life had become worthless. Looking back — I think I knew at that moment he was going to die. I cried myself to sleep that night on the bathroom floor.
Kaleb never walked again.
Despite being treated in five hospitals on both coasts, the non-verbal, red-headed kid who had autism and no soles on his feet was disregarded by all.
Empathy's stock price had collapsed.
On December 20, 2018, my beloved son, Kaleb, who gave the most loving bear hugs, smelled like a newborn and will always be my "young prince," silently passed away, and the world barely noticed.
My son's death was just the beginning.
In addition to Jews, other groups that were targeted and victims of genocide included gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, addicts, political opposition, communists and any other detractors to the Nazi party.
The Scapegoats for Everything
The heightened tensions following Germany’s defeat in combination with the deep history of cultural stigma surrounding the Jewish faith created the perfect setting for Hitler to fully develop upon his anti-Semitic ideas, subsequently blaming Jewish people for all failings in both Germany and the world. This prejudice within society at the time also created an opportunity for Hitler to infiltrate his anti-Semitic views into his politics successfully, and therefore igniting the wildfire of abuse and murder that later ensued during his rule in Germany.
History is repeating itself.
We’ve been here before.
We didn’t learn a damn thing.
Everything You've Been Through Has Brought You to This Moment
On my first plane trip, I flew into Frankfurt, Germany. Then took a bus to Wildflecken, a small town that the Nazis took over in the 1930s, where they built a training facility according to Hitler's exact specifications.
Afterward, it served as a displaced persons camp and a NATO and US Army training facility.
It was the late 1980s; I was a young bride who spent much time alone.
Al's Gift Shoppe was located just outside the main gate and was the perfect place to purchase souvenirs, exchange currency, or even get a piercing before going on the base.
He drugged his left leg when he walked, a constant reminder of his service as an SS officer in WWII. He resembled Gepeto from Walt Disney's Pinocchio strikingly.
All I knew of Hitler was the despicable person I had read about in history books— Al was quick to educate me.
"There are many Hitlers; he was not unusual, exceptional, or even remarkable."
You can’t be against bullying without actually doing something about it. — Randi Weingarten
"Hitler was nothing but a schoolyard bully who had the boldness to say what all the other bullies wanted to say but lacked the brass to say it first."
Al explained how Hitler created a cult to make himself superior based on a fabricated translation of the borrowed text — where blond-haired, blue-eyed people were the superior race — though he was neither.
The power of propaganda was as undeniable then — as it is now.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, some scholars and others transformed the Aryans into a mythical “race” that they claimed was superior to other races. In Germany, the Nazis promoted this false notion that glorified the German people as members of the “Aryan race,” while denigrating Jews, Black people, and Roma View This Term in the Glossary and Sinti (Gypsies) as “non-Aryans.” Source
Hitler sold his fabricated superiority to many other wealthy white guys who wanted power and hated the same people Hitler hated; some were millionaires who thought they could control him, causing the death of over 6 million Jews and more than 70 million people worldwide by the end of WWII.
Never forget — the Nazis came to power legally.
October 1939 Hitler authorizes killing of the impaired Adolf Hitler authorizes the beginning of the Euthanasia Program — the systematic killing of those Germans whom the Nazis deem “unworthy of life.” The order is backdated to the beginning of the war (September 1, 1939). At first, doctors and staff in hospitals are encouraged to neglect patients. Thus, patients die of starvation and diseases. Later, groups of “consultants” visit hospitals and decide who will die. Those patients are sent to various “euthanasia” killing centers in Greater Germany and killed by lethal injection or in gas chambers.
Hitler eased the Nazis into killing by starting with people with disabilities.
The term Aryan often was used incorrectly to describe a racial grouping of people. Aryans, however, are not a race and an “Aryan master race” does not exist.
A master race does not exist — but genocide, euthanasia, hate killings, and bullying until death are all genuine.
The beginning of the devaluation of human life required inventing a lie. It's a massive lie.
Devaluing Kaleb's Life Began Right Here —
On November 25, 2015, the world watched in horror as the man who wanted to be President of the United States — mocked a reporter with disabilities.
This moment is when my son's intrinsic value dropped in the eyes of the world.
Trump prides himself on following Hitler's path.
His [Hitler’s] primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
Following Hitler's rules, Trump had similar success with the same people.
Hitler was a master of psychological manipulation — he deliberately stoked feelings of superiority in some men, giving them the justification they needed to construct gas chambers, herd innocent people into them, and then proceeded to murder them.
“Hitler Did a Lot of Good Things” — Donald J. Trump
Trump was a master of psychological manipulation — he deliberately stoked feelings of superiority in some men, giving them the justification they needed to enact anti-Democratic laws, anti-LGBTQ-laws, turn blind eyes and devalue life.
Many Germans did not want to be reminded of individuals who did not measure up to their concept of a “master race” and were considered “unfit” or “handicapped.” People with physical and mental disabilities were viewed as “useless” to society, a threat to Aryan genetic purity, and, ultimately, “unworthy of life.” At the beginning of World War II, individuals with mental or physical disabilities were targeted for murder in what the Nazis called the “T-4,” or “euthanasia,” program.
People with disabilities were falsely deemed a danger to an imagined “Aryan genetic purity”. In reality, this was simply a ruse to justify a culture war resulting in millions of deaths.
What will you do when those in power come for someone you love?
Despite public protests in 1941, the Nazi leadership continued this program in secret throughout the war. About 200,000 people with disabilities were murdered between 1940 and 1945. Source
Due to racism and fascism, people with disabilities have been wrongly labeled as worthless by the 'Aryan genetic purity' ideology.
This is a way to justify the culture wars that could lead to the extermination of millions of people with disabilities, as well as members of the LGBTQ community, People of Color-, people in poverty, and those who do not conform to "Woke-corporate Christian" ideals.
What will you do when those in power come for someone you love?
Together, we can stop them before millions more have to die.
The only answer is equality. We must learn from our past and strive for a future where everyone is respected and accepted. We must ensure that everyone is valuable and worthy of love and respect.
Happy Birthday to Kaleb, my precious son; you are forever 21.
Writing this article has been a complicated process for me. I'm grateful for the time you've taken to read it, and I hope you hug your loved ones and think of Kaleb — for a moment when you do.
Everyone deserves a chance to shine.
Join me, and together, we can fix this.
Kimberlee Jakobe publishes We Are The Guardrails on Medium; follow her here and get each post in your email. If you're not a Medium member, you can join here.
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