75 Years After Kristallnacht

In Nazi Germany, 75 years ago tonight, the Nazis aimed coordinated attacks at Jewish synagogues, schools, homes and businesses, setting fires and breaking glass and killing and rounding up people to be imprisoned. No fire trucks came -- this Kristallnacht was an instrument of national policy. The world said little. Millions died as a result.

In his book, "Earth in the Balance," Al Gore in 1992 compared the world's silence in the face of environmental problems to both a dysfunctional family and Kristallnacht, quoting Sir Winston Spencer Churchill about entering a "period of consequences."

We're fixin' to enter a "period of consquences."

Tonight, we contemplate a world in which too many good people still do little to nothing in the face of oppression, where good people are afraid to speak out against evil, where they fear "I will get in trouble." Such is the root of madnnes, and oppression. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is ---fear itself."

We must do better, we can do better nad we will do better.