"People wonder how it is that we did not do something"

[dixiegrrrrl]

explains a Jewish Hungarian survivor of the Holocaust.

"Well, things didn't happen at once.
Things happened very slowly.
So each time a new law came out, or a new restriction, we said, well, just another thing.
It'll blow over."

I am watching Spielberg's "Last Days" the story of 5 Hungarian Jewish survivors of the German invasion.


Just another thing, it will blow over, it is not permanent, it is a mistake that will be corrected, it is happening
in another state, not here.
It can't happen here.

[snappyturtle]

1. Yep. K&R nt

[girl gone mad]

2. I was just looking at a book today..

which showed pictures of the daily lives of Jews in Germany and throughout Europe before the genocide began.

A couple of the images struck me. One was of a young Jewish girl being stopped on the street by German police because she didn't have the proper permit for her bicycle (which only Jews were required to have). What stood out to me was how perfectly resigned she looked to this predicament. I couldn't read an ounce of anger or fear in her expression.

Another was a photograph of a candy vendor standing next to rows of unsold chocolates shortly after the boycott of Jewish businesses had begun. Like the girl with the bicycle, she just looked to be going about her normal routine and hoping for the best.

I know I could be reading to much into these pictures, but I thought of this same quote. The people had become accustomed to this gradual erosion of their rights and their quality of life and didn't fight back until it was too late. The Nazis were certainly masterful at fomenting a sense of inevitability among all Germans, through propaganda and rampant displays of force and unity.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. I would love to know the title of that book, if you have it handy.

I am reading right now a book of the diaries and the letters of the German soldiers/citizens involved in the
"Final Solution", which contradicts some widely held beliefs that they were "forced" to do what they did.
It is frightening how quickly people in towns could be encouraged to turn on their neighbors,
people who had lived together for generations in some cases.
It is frightening to realize that basic human nature does not change, and how effective the Right here is in
appealing to the baseness of that human nature.

[girl gone mad]

13. It's called "A Vanished World" by Roman Vishniac. n/t

[laughingliberal]

3. K&R. It can happen here. nt

[McCamy Taylor]

4. When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a $100 bill.

[Solly Mack]

5. k/r

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Hi Solly...

Seems I have not seen ya around lately?
Maybe I just missed you in passing...



:hi:

[Solly Mack]

15. I'm not hard to miss. :)

:hi: dixiegrrrrl

[nyc 4 Biden]

6. reminds me of...

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

[bobbolink]

21. Glad you posted that... exactly what I was thinking. Here it would be.

Poor, gays, blacks, etc.

[gratuitous]

9. Not only do things happen slowly

But when the incremental changes happen, it is "just another thing" and we get used to it. It looks worst in retrospect, when all the excesses come squirting out like an overripe zit, and everyone wonders how it could have gotten to this point. Well, the Obama Justice Department just asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit in part because of state secrets that might be exposed should the lawsuit proceed.

This is of interest only to legal junkies and a handful of civil libertarians. Most of the people are fixated today on the mix-up in "Australia's Next Top Model." Nobody will protest. Nobody will march in the streets. Nary a peep will be raised in real time. Decades from now, as historians poke through the record, they'll find this development, and elevate to a stature it never enjoyed today. Future people will wonder at our blindness to what was happening right in front of us. And they will be pissed at us.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. From They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer, & link to free copy

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, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, 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 or 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 certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things' or 'You're an alarmist.'

and

"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 of most of us: that we do nothing). "

This excerpt is from:

http://www.swans.com/library/art16/xxx140.html

AND FREE DOWNLOADABLE COPY OF THIS IMPORTANT HISTORY LESSON IS HERE, IN SEVERAL FORMATS:

http://www.archive.org/details/theythoughttheyw027497mbp

[jgraz]

14. Wait... there was a mix-up in "Australia's Next Top Model"???

Why am I only hearing about this now?? :wow:

[Greyhound]

10. "Don't worry, we'll fix it later." "We need this power to deal with the current mess."

"Things are so very different today, this is nothing like what happened before." And other great denials in history...
:kick: & R

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. "This is AMERICA !!!!"

Cant happen here, we are the special ones.

[Panaconda]

16. K&R n/t

[Luciferous]

17. K&R

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Those who don't learn from history...

[jannyk]

19. It;s The Boiling Frog Syndrome

"The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

[GeorgeGist]

20. Christians did something ...

they cheered Hitler.

[crim son]

22. And yet we are ridiculed for mentioning the rise of the Third Reich.

Thanks for posting.

[Starry Messenger]

23. k & r

[TBF]

24. Recommended. nt

[Tatiana]

25. +1000! I will never forget Russ Feingold being the ONLY member in the Senate to vote against

the USA (un)Patriot(ic) Act. Folks like Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy and John Kerry and Pat Leahy KNEW better, but followed the cowed crowd. Our entire current Dem leadership (Reid, Durbin, Pelosi, Hoyer, Clyburn) voted for that bill back in 2001.

So yes, it is very understandable now that we are at a point where some of our friends actually believe warrantless wiretapping, unlimited personal internet/technological surveillance, and president-authorized assassinations without due process are just fine.

[dixiegrrrrl]

26. I feel outraged and saddened when I read , on DU, comments like

" if you have nothing to hide, why worry about _______________"

It is a form of denial, I know.
We don't know what to do about it , we know that appealing to our elected Reps.
it totally fruitless by now, we know we are outgunned in the streets,we realize there is no place to defend Constitutional rights.
Then I hear people from DU casually accepting the erosion of liberty.
Arggghh.

I honestly never thought I would be this happy to be past 60.
But I sure worry a lot about the world my 40 y/o kids will be living in.