During moment of great crises, people’s fears are accentuated. People begin to be burdened with so many worries. Concomitant to these worries and fears is the consciousness’ search for the culprit, that unknown something that surely is behind their suffering. And they want quick solutions. And if there’s something that they do not want – it is to be contaminated by the “evil” that seems to “surround them”.

By Godi Gutierrez, Humanist Movement, graphic artist living in Brasil.

This is very obvious with Donald Trump’s winning the Republican presidential primary, with the support of the Republican Party majority. And the “evil” enemies? The Mexicans and the Muslims. Even if Mexico is the U.S. greatest resource for cheap labor; and even if Non-Muslims Carried Out More than 90% of All Terrorist Attacks in America. Since 9/11, [Charles Kurzman, Professor of Sociology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, writing for the Triangle Center on Terrorism and National Security] and his team tallies, 33 Americans have died as a result of terrorism launched by Muslims. During that period, 180,000 Americans were murdered for reasons unrelated to terrorism.

Now, let’s go to the Philippines, where more than 700 people have already been assassinated by “death squads” in the name of “cleansing” the nation from the scourge of drug addiction. Filipinos that I personally know, that are educated, well read, erudite even, want to give the President who is an admitted murderer, a chance to achieved what he promised during the campaign period, which is to destroy the drug industry in 100 days. Some of whom, are outright in favor of these assassinations. And they are supposed to be learned Christians…
This is exactly what Adolf Hitler did to unite Germany behind him; create an enemy. So first, he demonized the Jews. He concocted falsehoods to make the Germans fear the Jews. And we know what he finally did to 6 million German Jews.

Now, Duterte is doing the same; except now, the enemies are not immigrants from other countries, or followers of a different religion – now, the enemies are the poor people who are actually, victims themselves of the scourge.

The solution: first, stop the assassinations immediately. Second, look for the drug factories and destroy them. Third, bring these drug lords to face justice in court. Fourth, look for the banks that are financing and laundering moneys for these drug lords.

And fifth: follow the model of countries that have succeeded in their fight against drug abuse – like Portugal.

The police at the end of the clip, from Michael Moore’s latest documentary, “Where to Invade Next?”, said:

“Human dignity is the backbone of our society, and all laws have to be based respecting and following that principle, and those principles are instilled in us even in our training as policemen. The basic principle in our training is the respect for the dignity of the human being. Always.” The police continued: “As long as the death penalty is allowed, human dignity can not be protected. Human dignity is above all.”

My tack is that assassinations of “drug pushers” is disregarding that respect for the dignity of the human being.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=advFVy5Ev6I