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1933-1945: It Could Never Happen Here
Because of all the distractions, it just kind of snuck up on them. The people had no time to think about the dreadful things that were occurring around them.....ever so gradually but ever so resolutely. The distractions included a political landscape rapidly evolving into an ideology with a primary guiding principle that the state or nation is the highest priority, rather than personal or individual freedoms. As well, there was the new distraction of convenient scapegoats (that is, groups of people blamed for crimes committed by others). Each incident or step was seemingly small, inconsequential, well explained or, on rare occasion, even regretted. But unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, where all these little measures where leading, one no more saw it evolving than a painter watching the paint dry. Each act was worse than the preceding one, but only a tad worse. Then the next occurs and the next.
Surely, things will slow down. They can't get worse. You wait for one great shock or flashpoint thinking that when it comes, others will join you in somehow resisting or changing things back to the way they were, but you don't want to risk doing anything alone. Heck, why go out on the limb to make trouble or become noticed? But that one great shock, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes.
And that's the rub. The structure is in place, untouched, all reassuring....the jobs, the homes, the warm neighborly visits, the schools, the concerts and plays, Church, the holidays, and Oktoberfest. However, the spirit has subtly changed and you never noticed because you made the mistake of identifying it with the structure. All of a sudden, you wake up one day and realize that you now live in a world permeated with fear and yes, even hate, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, because when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. It just happened.
Now you live in a Germany in the years 1933-1945 when it was governed by the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), with a Fuhrer as head of a Fascist state. Now you live in a country where the foreign policy pursued is based on the concept of Lebensraum which was among the leading causes of World War II which in turn resulted in the deadliest conflict in human history. Now you will come to know evil incarnate close up and personal.
This could never happen in America! I mean what the hell. It's not that major rights are being striped from us in one fell swoop, is it, but what about those little "harmless chinks" being chiseled out one at a time and from different direction and at different levels?
Look, the Patriot Act is really a safeguard; profiling helps us all; email invasion is necessary; web taps protect us; having mail opened is smart; random searches in the subways are a good thing (and they also are a good thing in the school parking lots); street cameras in New York City identify the bad guys from the good ones, wire taps keep us all secure; x-ray machines at the airport that expose your entire body are perfectly appropriate; phone records are fair game; random road blocks keep us alert; strict gun controls makes sense and prevent violence; public smoking bans are for our own good; eminent domain is eminently moral; seat belt protection is for our own protection; zero-tolerance allows teachers and school administrators to escape the burden of tough decisions based on the individuality of their students; and who needs trans fats in our food?
Each step has been small, non-sequential, inconsequential, well-explained and, at the end of the day, no big deal. While truly dreadful deeds, like perhaps the torturing of prisoners, produce some response, many are eventually accepted as either relatively minor or necessary. We seem to accept everything with a shrug of the shoulders. No big deal.
But all of a sudden, those rights that were taken for granted in the late 50's, 60's and 70's have vanished. Things have changed and you never noticed because you made the mistake of identifying with and becoming a part of the structure in which those changes were occurring. Someday we might wake up and discover that all the lost battles now add up to an irreversible loss of individual rights.
But no, this could never happen here!
"You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father could never have imagined." -- Milton Mayer, "They Thought They Were Free, the Germans, 1938-45" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955). Ted Sares is the author of the recently published book Boxing is my Sanctuary and welcomes feedback at tedsares@roadrunner.com Ted Sares, PhD, is a private investor who lives and wites in the White Mountain area of Northern New Hampshire with his wife Holly and Min Pin Jackdog. He writes a bi-weekly column for a local newspaper and many of his other pieces are widely published. Contact the Author
Ted Sares
Matters of Individual freedom
tedsares@adelphia.net |
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This intel was contributed by richmcl
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May, 2012
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