This is one event that you don't "get over" or "move on" from. This is one event that should not be trivialized to create analogies to petty acts of theistic crimes against man or nature.
Contrary to what greasy Iranian despots who look like the snitch on "Miami Vice" may think, the Holocaust happened, and I take comfort that in its wake there was a groundswell of Jewish social and political dominance whose cry of "Never Again" kept the issue of hate on history's front burner.
Because of the Holocaust, we look for injustices whose origination might appear insignificant, and we nip it in the bud before injustice blossoms into hate, and hate morphs into sterilization. This is the muscle memory of history.
With every Nazi that was captured and brought to justice, a tumor was excised from society's underbelly. The sickness of a final solution is the result when injustice gains momentum. The famous quotation by Martin Niemoller, a prominent Protestant pastor who enraged Hitler with his anti-Nazi rhetoric wrote:
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me."
So when an author like Joan Rivers writes a book, "I Hate Everything ... Starting With Me," and her right of free expression and free trade is blocked by a publicly traded entity like Costco, then there is a problem -- a huge one. To equate this with Nazi Germany is not only appropriate, it's absolutely correct.
Costco's problems with the book harken back to a proclamation by the German Student Association's Press and Propaganda Office to take "action against the Un-German Spirit." The result of this action was a symbolic burning of 25,000 volumes of "un-German" books. Libraries were pillaged and book stores were raped to the rhythm of anti-intellectual incantations and the breath-steam of hate. Dangerous authors like Helen Keller, Jack London, H.G. Wells and Ernest Hemingway had their collective works thrown on funeral pyres in 34 university towns across Germany.
Think of that the next time you navigate and graze the crowded aisles of Costco seeking samples of mini corn dogs. With every piece of free spinach quiche that the Sample Droid hands out like a mother starling regurgitating food into the gaping beaks of her hungry young, they also seek to deny nourishment to Joan Rivers' and all of our right to free speech and free trade.
When you are a publicly traded entity like Costco (NASDAQ: COST) you have an inherent responsibility to serve the public. The censorship of one book negates all of their charitable foundations, donations to food banks, etc. That is the propaganda Costco promotes in order to seduce the public. Behind the charity pumps a black corporate heart that serves to foist their political and social sensibilities unto their customer base. Costco's problems with a four-letter word on the back cover of Joan River's book is a thinly veiled excuse to control the right of free speech and access to same.
Costco has no problem selling DVD's that include scenes of rape, brutality and violence. Costco has no problem selling fat-saturated, high sugar content foods that serve to promote the condition known as "diabesity" in our youth. Hell, Costco has no problem selling low cost caskets (please allow 3-4 weeks delivery). Yet when it comes to an outspoken woman whose life is of interest to thousands of people world-wide, it denies her of that right.
I'm not necessarily a fan of Joan Rivers, but I support her.
On those cold German nights when lemmings and anti-Semites warmed themselves at their fire of hate, one of the books that burned was written by German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who wrote "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen".
"Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people."
