Please read this before reading the attached article to understand: This morning I woke at 6.30 am to an email that got me right up out of my bed, albeit an intended late morning, and to my desk. I admittedly subscribe to the AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION emails. For my work I have kept an eye on the American extreme right for almost 2 decades – those who have worked so hard to deny LGBTQI+ and women’s rights and who support America being a Christian nation.
I am Not Thankful if I am not Me!
by Melanie Nathan, November 24, 2011
It is easy to be thankful if I am simply me! But what if I allow myself to be someone else – for just a short while? My head spun this week with images and my thoughts were provoked by my visit to our nation’s capital.
This Thanksgiving week:-
I witnessed Republican presidential hopefuls debating a promise to fortify their sinister Patriot Act, to callously separate families in the name of immigration policy. This week I heard the crushing denial of the natural order of my sexual orientation by those who refuse the science. Am I thankful?
This week after I visited Truro Church, the Heritage Foundation , The Family Research Council and the C Street Family, I sought refuge in the Holocaust Museum, located in ironic proximity to the former organizations, all of which foster propaganda, scapegoating and stereotyping.
This week is the week of Thanksgiving and when I entered the building that screams “never again” this thanksgiving I refuse to be me!
I am Grietje Polak, a Dutch Jew. And with this name came an identity, a life – which I lived for two short hours – in a museum on the day before Thanksgiving, 2011, in the USA.
I was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, to a large Jewish family and we lovingly observed the Sabbath. I married Frederick Polak, an accountant and we had three daughters, Julia, Betty and Liesje and also a son, Jacob. I died in Sorbibor extermination camp in July 1943. No healthcare could have saved me, no job could have paid my way out – I was there because of hate sold to multitudes through propaganda and that is why I died. 
Today Melanie Nathan carries my name.[i] She may cry, shudder as the elevator meets that floor – the one that attempts to yield the horror of my last ride; but she will never know my pain. I am dead, unable to give thanks for the momentary memory. Perhaps all I can impart is that which you all promised in my name and the other 5,999,999, when you said “never again.”
Indeed I found a sinister parallel in the Holocaust museum today; are we watching a new genocide before our very eyes? I reflect on Uganda and the American connection to the insidious KILL THE GAYS BILL * We are watching, here on the sideline, as it is about to pass into law in Uganda. A government is providing a license to kill, based on a natural orientation. It is exactly the same as legalizing an extermination – to kill someone for being a Jew or to attach a death penalty to skin color!
There is no difference.
I think about all my brothers, my sisters and my gender neutral siblings – in Africa who are targets this very day – and am I supposed to be thankful “as me?”
I wonder “How dare I be only me in THIS World and how dare I give thanks?”
Today I was reminded that I am living in a world surrounded by the very propaganda to which we say “never again” – the very propaganda that serves as the underbelly for the justification of genocide; propaganda, the biased information purposely spread to shape public opinion and behavior – for if it starts in one country it is certain to spread to others.
Its power depends on the message, the technique, the means of communication and the audience receptivity. Propaganda uses truths, half truths and lies. It omits information selectively, simplifies complex issues or ideas, plays on emotions, it attacks opponents and targets desired audience.
Today giving thanks is nothing but a selfish reflection on self. Put yourself in the shoes of the oppressed and think of their fully empty glass and tell the world you are not grateful – you are not thankful – be someone else!
For as long as genocide sits on the edge of our existence – there is no thanks – there is only a call to action.
So no thanks! I am not Melanie Nathan – I am you!
By the way:– If you were thinking of spending any money on Black Friday I suggest change the meaning of Black Friday and send your money to an organization that helps LGBT refugees escape the horror of the impending genocide, that fights the religious right and their despicable propaganda.
Photo Melanie Nathan (2011) “C” Street connects American Evangelicals and politicians to David Bahati, the first Parliamentarian to introduce Uganda’s Kill the Gays Bill in 2009, wand who was influenced to do so by the Heritage Foundation, The Family, and Mr. Klenk (of infamous Truro Church fame, and a Bush era Evangelical hack, and repeated attendance through the Family Prayer Breakfast (usually attended by the US President) which had a direct influence on KILL THE GAYS BILL, 2011. American Family – which organizes something The Annual National Prayer Breakfast, the U.S. president usually speaks there – MP David Bahati was there was there in 2007 and 2009. He then helped organize the Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast in Uganda, to which American politicians come. The rest is history.
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UPDATED: NOV 28 THANKSGIVING 2024-
1.14 years after writing this – America elected Donald Trump to a second presidential term, whose platform was based on lies and scapegoating immigrants, turning away refugees, robbing women and LGBTI people to their rights, while quoting Hitler’s Mein Kampf and dining with known Nazis, as well as courting in his cabinet the authors of PROJECT 2025 which will essentially turn America into a CHRISTIAN NATION, ruled by white supremacist oligarchs.
2. Three years after writing this in 2014 I founded that LGBTQI+ refugee organization AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS COALITION – which was never my intention at the time of writing that article. We have provided safe shelter, food, emergency medical services, advocacy, resettlement resources, country conditions reporting for asylum seekers in global courts, and more for thousands of LGBTQI+ people forcibly displaced by criminalization and horrific violence targeting them for their sexual orientation and gender identity and sex characteristics (SOGIESC).
3. THE KILL THE GAYS BILL was passed in Uganda in 2014, and signed into law by President Museveni, who has now served as Uganda’s dictator for 33 years. The law was invalidated by the Ugandan Court due to a technicality and resurfaced and passed in 2023 as The Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023. It survived a court challenge in 2024 and has led to the vicious persecution of LGBTQI Ugandans and spread to other countries, after Museveni who signed it into law said African leaders should lead the world to save it from homosexuality.
4. During this time PROJECT 2025 was a secret underground blue print, impacting the religious right’s rise. Now its is an emboldened Republican party Policy platform and the new Trump administration will be attempting its implementation. The American people must resist. Failing which we will be a Christian nation and the true IDEAL of the likes of the American Family Association will come to fruition, as revealed in their newsletter today on this THANKSGIVING NOV 28, 2024. Those who will be jeopardized with be the LGBTQI+ community, the Jews, the Muslims and all other religions. (I AM WORKING ON PART 2 to this Article inspired by the AFA Newsletter which i received in my email today.
5. It needs a rework: Lest we forget the American Genocide associated with that for which Americans and the American Family Association attributes Christianity and gives thanks!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_%28Christian_organization%29
Photos and Article – ©Melanie Nathan 2011– All rights reserved:- Permission granted to use with Full accreditation and link back to this page. commissionermnathan@gmail.com
1940-43: After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Grietje’s husband’s accounting firm worked overtime to “register” Amsterdam’s Jews–the Germans had ordered all Jews to be listed. The deportation of Dutch Jews began in 1942, but Grietje and her husband were not deported until June 1943 because his business was used for various purposes by the Germans. After one month at the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands, they were informed that they were to be sent to Poland to work. In preparation, they packed their nicest clothes.
On July 23, 1943, Grietje and her husband, Frederick, were deported from Westerbork to the Sobibor extermination camp where two days later, they were killed.
O-blog-dee-o-blog-da 