"I have no baby pictures."

[ck4829]

Whenever I read something with RW'ers saying "We're sooo persecuted", I get pretty riled up. This is because I actually know someone who was persecuted. So, I always have to make a couple rants to get it out of my system.

Last year, my best friend asked if she could see my baby pictures. I obliged. It turns out she wanted to see them because she has no baby pictures when she was little, it takes a minute for that to sink in, just how much that really means.

The RW'ers, they will never be chased out of cities, never be forced to watch their wives get raped, never herded into concentration camps, never used as scapegoats, never be subjected to ethnic cleansing, never be forced to leave their homes, never chased as friends and family get gunned down, and they will never have to leave the baby pictures of their children behind as they flee for their very lives.

[Bjornsdotter]

1. I do understand

..I once dated a guy whose Mom was from Russia. She came home from school one day to find her whole family hanging by their necks in the the trees in front of her house. She thinks she was about 7 at the time, she's not really sure, she isn't even sure when she was born. Anyway...she was taken in by neighbors who smuggled her out of Russia in a milk container to relatives in Poland. From Poland she eventually made it here....whenever I think I have it bad, I think about her and everything she went through.

Cheers

[Sequoia]

2. Good God, that's just awful.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

3. And they are so precious...my grandmother had to escape from

Latvia during the war, and all she grabbed was a handful of pictures. They are a treasure to this day.

[zonkers]

8. My grandmother escaped from Romania. 5 of her brothers and sisters were

not so lucky and fell victim to Nazis. We don't have many pictures. Pictures give you a sense of self. I have lost pictures due to flooding. While I feel bad about it, I can live with it. In this digital age, there really is no reason to lose images. I had a bunch of polaroids from the sixties that just fell apart -- bad format.

[YOY]

4. My Ukrainian Teacher in College was from near Pripyat

Chernobyl...

Had to leave home in a hurry when it happened. Lost all her memorabilia in on rushed blitz to escape radiation poisoning...it still got her though.

She lost two of her children to Chernobyl. One of them a baby really. Her mother was dying of something fallout related. Sweetheart of a woman too. Her surviving son was a cute kid.

Your title reminded me....

[valerief]

5. You are so right.

And the assholes who vote for war are voting for more of this to happen, just so that they can bolster their portfolios.

[Robbien]

6. One would never expect a good story which begins with the words

"I have no baby pictures."

And I agree, the GOPers continuous pity party over relative paper cuts is stomach turning.

[seemunkee]

7. Neither does my mother-in-law

One night her cousin convinced the family to hide in the woods. The next AM the Nazis rounded everyone up and took them off to camps. She spent her preteen years living in a partisan camp in the woods.

[Kixel]

9. Thank you for this thought

It is helpful not only to show the hypocritical side of the right, but also to remind us why we must never stop fighting for justice. Reality checks are always good-and something as simple (but important) as a picture can really make things clear.

[not_a_robot]

10. Of course not...

Rightwingers aren't the ones suffering that because domination through murder and oppression is the very definition of right wing.

[Caoimhe]

11. All these stories are heart breaking

My story is in no way intended to compete with any such tragedy. I have few pictures of myself as a kid. By the time I came around there were two before me and my parents didn't have time or money. Despite my understanding the reason, I still resent the fact that my brothers have baby books brimming with mementos and pictures and I really have nothing, no baby book, very few pictures. Just a thought for all of you who have little ones. Don't short change the younger ones because you are too busy/tired/strapped. There is no such thing as taking TOO MANY pictures. Childhood only happens once.

[AwakeAtLast]

12. Neither does my husband

But he grew up in the US. His mother was horrible towards him (I think he was the "It" in the family). He deals with the ramifications of that to this day. I wish he had pics from his childhood so that I could see my daughter in his face. They are so much alike!