From: wood@eisley.wa.com (Ken Wood)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs,talk.politics.guns,alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Re: Fort Wayne: Landlords Must Evict Drug-Dealing Tenants
Summary: "It could never happen here."
Keywords: government liberties nazis society america
Date: 1 Sep 92 12:46:23 GMT
Organization: Mos Eisley Spaceport BBS


In article <1525@ceylon.gte.com> RR04@bunny.gte.com (Rob Robertson) 
writes:


>What will I tell my daughter when she asks me 'how could you just sit 
>there and let it happen'? 'Well, gee honey, we tried, ya know. We wrote 
>letters to our leaders, we protested, we spoke out to neighbors and 
>friends,... I really don't know how it all happened, it just kinda 
>happened all at once, from a million different directions, and by the time 
>enough people saw it, it was too late to stop it.". 
>
>What kind of reaction will the term 'America' elicit 20, 30 years from 
>now? 

   =======================================================================

     This is something that I picked up off of misc.activism.progressive 
a few months ago.  When I first read it it really hit home.  I find it 
very relevent to what is going on right now in the US.

   =======================================================================

... when the Nazis attacked the Communists he was a little uneasy, but 
  after all he was not a Communist -- and so he did nothing. Then they 
  attacked the Socialists and he was a little uneasier, but still he 
  was not a Socialist and he did nothing. And then the schools, the 
  Press, the Jews and so on and he was always a little uneasier but 
  still he did nothing. And then they attacked the church -- and he 
  was a church man, and he did something.  But then it was too late...  

		
	------------------------------------------------------

		===========================
		THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE     

		(The Germans, 1933 - 1945)
		===========================

		---------------------------
		      by: Milton Mayer 
		University of Chicago Press
		---------------------------


   Chapter 13 (But then it was too Late)

   What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little
by little, to being governed by surprise. To receiving decisions deliber-
ated in secret -- to believing the situation was so complicated that the 
government had to act on information that the people could not understand,
or so dangerous that even if the people could understand it -- it could
not be released because of National Security.  Their sense of identifi-
cation with Hitler.  Their trust in him made it easier to widen this gap
and reassure those who would otherwise have worried about it.  This 
separation of government from people -- this widening of the gap, took
place so gradually and so insensibly. Each step disguised, perhaps not even
intentionally, as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true
patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crisis and
reforms -- real reforms too, so occupied the people that they did not see 
the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing
remoter and remoter. You will understand me when I say my that middle high
German was my life --it was all I cared about. I was a scholar, a specialist.
Then suddenly I was plunged into all the new activity as the University
was drawn into the new situation. Meetings, conferences, ceremonies and
above all papers to be filled out. Reports, bibliographies, lists, 
questionnaires.  And on top of that were the demands of the community.
The things in which one had to, was "expected to" participate that had
not been there or had not been important before. It was all rigamarole
of course. But it consumed all one's energies, coming on top of the
work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was then not
to think about fundamental things.  One had no time. Those I said are
the words of my friend the baker -- "one had no time to think -- there
was so much going on". Your friend the baker was right said my colleague.
The dictatorship -- and the whole process of its coming into being, was
above all diverting.  It provided an excuse not to think for people who
did not want to think anyway.  I do not speak of your little men -- your
baker and so on. I speak of my colleagues and myself. Learned men mind you.

Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had.
There was no need to. Naziism --gave us some dreadful fundamental things
to think about. We were decent people.  And kept us so busy with continuous
changes and crises -- and so fascinated, yes fascinated by the machinations
of the National enemies without and within, that we had no time to think 
about these dreadful things that were growing little by little all around 
us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful -- who wants to think.
To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it --
please try to believe me, unless one has a much greater degree of political
awareness, acuity than most of us had ever had occasion to develop.
Each step was so small --so inconsequential --so well explained or
on occasion "regretted", that unless one were detached from the whole
process from the beginning --unless one understand what the whole thing
was in principal -- what all these "little measures" that no patriotic
German could resent -- must someday lead to. One no more saw developing
from day to day than a farmer in his fields sees the corn growing.
One day it is over his head. How is this to be avoided among ordinary
men --even highly educated ordinary men. Frankly I do not know --I do
not see even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered
that pair of great maxims: "Resist the beginnings, and consider the end".
But one must foresee the end in order to resist or even see the beginnings.
One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done
by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men.  Things might have changed
here before they went as far as they did. They didn't but they might have
everyone counts on that might.  Your little men, your Nazi friends were
not against National Socialism in principal.  Men like me who were 
-- are the greater offenders. Not because we knew better, that would
be too much to say, but because we sensed better. Pastor Neimo (sp) spoke
for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke too modestly
of himself when he said that when the Nazis attacked the Communists he
was a little uneasy, but after all he was not a Communist -- and so he did 
nothing. Then they attacked the Socialists and he was a little uneasier,
but still he was not a Socialist and he did nothing. And then the schools,
the Press, the Jews and so one and he was always a little uneasier but 
still he did nothing. And then they attacked the church -- and he was
a church man, and he did something.  But then it was too late.  Yes, I said.
You see my colleague went on -- one doesn't see exactly where or how to 
move, believe me this is true, each act --each occasion is worse than the
last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You
wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others -- when such
a shock comes -- will join with you in resisting somehow.  You don't want
to act or even talk alone. You don't want to "go out of your way to make
trouble". Why not?  Well you are not in the habit of doing it -- and it
is not just fear -- fear of standing alone that restrains you.  It is 
also genuine uncertainty. Uncertainty is a very important factor. Instead
of decreasing as time goes by it grows.  Outside in the streets, in the
general community -- everyone is happy. One hears no protest and certainly 
sees none. You know in France and Italy there would be slogans against 
the government painted on walls and fences. In Germany, outside the great
cities perhaps there is not even this. In the University community -- in 
your own community you speak privately to your colleagues --some of whom
feel as you do.  But what do they say?  -- "It's not so bad" or "you're
seeing things" or "you're an alarmist". And you ARE an alarmist --
you are saying that this must lead to this and you can't prove it. These
are the beginnings - yes, but how do you know for sure when you don't
know the end? And how do know or even surmise the end. On the one hand
your enemies -- the law -- the regime intimidate you. On the other your
colleagues pooh pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic.  You are left
with your close friend who are naturally people who have always thought
as you have. But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off
somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see
as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become
smaller, attendance drops off and the organizations themselves wither.
Now in small gatherings of your oldest friends you feel that you are
talking to yourself -- that you are isolated from the reality of things.  
This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further 
deterrent to -- to what?  It is clear all the time that if you are 
going to do anything you must make an occasion to do it. And then
you are obviously a trouble-maker. So you wait, and you wait. But the one
great shocking occasion when the tens, or hundreds, or thousands will never
comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole
regime had come immediately after the first and smallest. Thousands 
-- yes millions would have been sufficiently shocked. If let us say
the gassing of the jews in '43 had come immediately after the "German
Firm" stickers on the windows of non-jewish shops in '33. But of course
this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of 
little steps -- some of them imperceptible. Each of them preparing
you not to be shocked by the next step. Step C is not so much worse
than step B -- and if you did not make a stand at step B -- why 
should you at step C. And so on to step D. And one day, too late,
your principals, if you were ever sensible of them all rush in upon
you. The burden of self deception has grown too heavy --and some
minor incident, in my case my little boy hardly more than a baby
saying --"jew swine", collapses it all at once and you see that
everything --everything has changed and changed completely under your
nose. The world you live in -- your nation -- your people, is not
the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there -- all
untouched -- all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs,
the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays, 
but the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong
mistake about identifying it with the forms is changed.  Now you
live in a world of hate and fear and the people who hate and fear
do not even know it themselves. When everyone is transformed -- no 
one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without
responsibility even to God.  The system itself could not have intended
this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself, it was compelled
to go all the way. You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life
is a continuing process -- a flow, not a succession of acts and
events at all.  It has flowed to a new level carrying you with
it without any effort on your part. On this new level you live -
you have been living more comfortably every day with new morals
and new principals. You have accepted things you would not have
accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father even
in Germany could not have imagined.  Suddenly it all comes down,
all at once, you see what you are, what you have done -- or more
accurately what you haven't done. For that was all that was required
for most of us --- that we do nothing. 





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