In his Letter to the Editor this week, Joel Hinrichs reminds us of the obvious — that words have meaning.

I guess if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be words.

A word’s meaning can project images and stories onto our mind-screens. Like the words “tree” and “swing.”

A word’s meaning is shaped by context, including historical. When the word “genocide” was first coined and defined and made illegal following WWII, it brought to people’s minds images of German ovens. Today, for most people who keep up with the news, the word will likely bring to mind images of Gaza.

Etymologically, the word comes from the Greek word  genos, meaning “race” or “tribe,” and the Latin word cide, meaning “to kill.”

To kill is not a crime if it is justified, as in self-defense.

Because it’s my job, in my column here two weeks ago I expressed an opinion. I wrote that I was against genocide. I was pictured holding up a sign in front of the Anschutz Medical Center that said NURSES AGAINST GENOCIDE. Even if it’s justified, I’m against genocide as a solution. There has to be a better way. That was the message of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

Maybe the ceasefire will hold and a future court with universally recognized jurisdiction will decide that Gaza had been a crime, which would immediately create many criminals who will be on the run and desperate and liable to do something crazy. But they will have to be dealt with. I’d hope the world could act with blind justice and a balanced scale, not out of blinding revenge.

In my own personal opinion, expressed in a word, I think that what’s been going on has been, and continues to be, a crime. But that’s just my opinion. There is, however, something that I know, that I know for sure. I know that I don’t like feeling paranoid for using a perfectly descriptive word that comes from the Classical languages of Greece and Rome.

The New York Times recently refused to publish a full-page ad from the peace-loving Quakers, of all people, because they used that word — genocide. I have a good friend who’s a Quaker — Walt in Grand Rapids. I’ll tell him that Westphalia Publishing would gladly run the Quaker’s ad — for free.

Even Trump may not be able to protect TicTok from a growing chorus on both sides of the political isle calling for tougher laws against “dangerous speech” — a thinly disguised threat to anybody who thinks out loud.

I, personally, have never seen TicTok, but my granddaughters have, and they tell me the word is used there, too. One said the TicTok ban is all her friends are talking about. They don't buy the national security line, but think old people are pressuring them not to think out loud.

The night after I wrote the NURSES AGAINST GENOCIDE column, my stomach was in knots of anxiety and I couldn’t sleep.

They could destroy me. Who are they? With the flick of a quantum-age switch that they control, they could shut down Westphalia Publishing. They could sue me for tax fraud for claiming as a business expense the full price of 500-page reams of copy paper from Walmart when I only print on one side. I’d have to divorce Culley Jane so they couldn’t get at her through me.

Lying in bed, my mind raced — they have files on me going way back. They have files on everybody going way back, all our phone calls and keyboard strokes and the patterns of our motives.

I’d have to go back up north to the U.P. and live in a hunting camp in the woods where Capone went when things got too hot in Chicago.

Who are they?

A “Deep State?”

Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t think they’re that deep. Like in Edgar Allan Poe’s Purloined Letter, they hide in plain sight.

Paraphrasing Aquinas, they’re known by the fruit their fields produce. Soldiers just carry out orders. The theys make the war. I’m a nobody. They’re somebodies. I'm a bug on the pavement. Why not step on me? What's preventing them?

By the time I finally fell asleep, the sun was starting to come up and I didn’t wake up until almost noon, my stomach still not feeling too good.

Culley Jane had coffee on. “Restless legs last night?”

“Thought sickness,” I said.

Followed by the cats, I took my coffee downstairs to the World Headquarters of Westphalia Publishing.

I felt alone. NURSES AGAINST GENOCIDE was out on the internet for all the world to see.

Go ahead. Shoot me. Why don't you do it? Why?

But when I opened my Westphalia inbox, I found it filled with the Letters to the Editor that we ran last week. In various contexts, they, too, repeated the word... genocide.

I was not alone. I exhaled. That was why “The Theys” will think twice before squashing the little red voice of Westphalia Publishing way out here where the High Plains of America wash up against the mountains, waiting for a scout to return with news of the best path to the other side. Some say it's Jesus -- do unto others. Or the Buddha -- do no harm. Or the children. Or the wind that carries us along.

--30--

Robert Schwab

New York City

Clinical Social Worker

Robert Schwab

I was moved by your Nurses Against Genocide column. Like you, I have become active in the fight against war and genocide by the US. My best to the Westphalia staff.