Would golden rule survive if we were under siege?

After the most contentious and nasty election in my lifetime, I decided to take a break and delve into the world of history. Reading history is my comfort food; I find it a wonderful distraction from the day-to-day drama of life. There is an old expression that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it; I am afraid we are all doomed.

I have been reading about two major World War II battles that are not really talked about in our history classes, because we were not involved, and if we were not involved, it is somehow not important; but it is. The siege of Leningrad lasted almost three years from 1941 through 1943, and exposed one of the most diabolical objectives ever in war — the complete and total annihilation of a group of people, the Slavs, whom the Germans felt were inferior and were using resources that would be better used by the Germans. The Germans attacked the Poles and the Russians with the objective of depopulating the land and using it for German colonization and expansion. A German “Manifest Destiny” if you will.

When the Sioux refused to give up their land in the Black Hills, the solution was to starve them to death to get the land by cutting off their food supply, which led to the wholesale slaughter of tens of millions of buffalo. The Germans used the same concept at Leningrad — get the land by starving the people to death. Reading the first-hand accounts of the Leningraders reveals the bad and good of human nature — there were many bad, who hoarded food and had no qualms about watching others die, but there were many more good people, who took a “whatever you to others, you do to me” approach. Incredibly, even though hundreds of thousands died, hundreds of thousands lived.

Fast forward to the last battle of the war, Berlin. With the tables turned, the Russians had Berlin surrounded. Unlike in Leningrad, the cradle of socialist atheism, where the majority of people opted to help each other, Berliners helped themselves. Neighbor turned against neighbor and did not hesitate to turn them into the authorities for “liquidation.” The German government decided it would be better to destroy the city and the million plus people in it than let the Russians have it, even blowing up infrastructure that the citizens relied upon to live. When the Russian troops entered the city, one of the first things they brought was food. Yes, the Russians did commit atrocities, but those paled in comparison to what the Christian capitalist Germans did to them.

So, are we Leningraders or Berliners? I have heard some very nasty rhetoric lately, that somehow if you are not a Christian capitalist you are somehow subhuman. Ironically, it was the Godless Communists of Leningrad who actually behaved more Christian than the Christian Germans did. Your religion, or lack of one, does not make you better or worse than anyone else – it is how you treat others. When I see someone walk around Kroger wearing a shirt with the outline of the continental 48 and the words “F—you! We are full!” that is alarming. If you have ever been west of the Mississippi, you know that there is plenty of room available; or is it that we do not want people who we deem as “subhuman?”

When I see a customer at Kroger take every single loaf of wheat bread without any thought that others might want wheat bread, I wonder. When people hear insults and putdowns of others and do not stand up for what is right, that gossip mongering is wrong, and instead pile on because they do not like the target of the gossip, I wonder. When people know that someone is sick or injured and do not bother to check up on them and see if they are OK or need anything, I wonder. If we were under siege, would we be the Leningraders or the Berliners?

Seeing how uncivil, uncaring, and rude we have become with each other, I am pessimistic.

Community columnist Michael Schrader lives in Port Huron.