Lessons Not Learned, May 22, 2006

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!"
~~George Santayana, American Philosopher & Poet

Humanity has experienced many defining moments throughout history. These are the kind of moments that transcend national borders, religion, or politics. Some of those moments have been positive and others had an extremely negaitive effect. Each time we have learned , for better or worse, the heights and depths to which the human race can go. We as a species, for the most part, have taken the knowledge gained from our successes to build a better future and from our failures, we have tried to learn how not to make the same mistakes twice. Sometimes, the latter is a lesson not quickly learned. It looks as though humanity might be on the verge of having to re-learn one it's most painful lessons.

During the decades that followed World War II, the type of hatred that was witnessed in Hitler's Nazi Germany was, for the most part, gone from the visible landscape. Except for Middle Eastern Islamic regimes, the majority of the remaining anti Jewish activities was relegated to small underground subculture groups that had little if any relevance.

In recent months though, Iran has been extremely vocal in it's dislike and intent to harm the nation of Israel. In another apparent show of that hatred for the Jewish race, the Iranian Parliment has instituted a national dress code for all Muslims living in that country. There are also unconfirmed reports that other religious minorities would be required to wear colored armbands so they would be easily recognizable in public. Sound familiar?

While the reports of dress code and colored arm bands/badges for religious minorities in Iran have been firmly denied by the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, the fact that this type of discussion is even taking place is extremely disturbing and show just how far the human race still has to go. Almost as disturbing is the fact that relatively few media outlets are even talking about this story. The only place I could find anything about this was in an online version of the Canadian National Post.

As with the early days of the Hitler regime, those who voiced concerns or issued warnings about the current situation have been trivalized or called paranoid alarmist.

If Irans desire to posess the type of nuclear weapons that could do great harm to millions of people isn't enough to motivate the west to take decisive measures against Iran, then this should. This is one of historys lessons that is just to important to let go unlearned. READ THE COMPLETE STORY HERE!

(originally posted 5-22-06 on Yahoo 360)