FIRST, THEY CAME FOR THE COMMUNISTS...

"An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent." (~Edmund Burke)

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. THEN THEY CAME for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. THEN THEY CAME for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up." (~Pastor Martin Niemöller)

An ardent nationalist and prominent Protestant pastor, Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last 7 years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. He is probably best remembered for the above quotation. The quotation is taken from his lectures during the early post-war period. There are different versions of the quotation, which are attributable to the fact that Niemöller spoke extemporaneously and in a number of settings. There is a lot of controversy about the content of the poem, because it has been printed in several varying forms, as referring to alternating groups such as Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Trade Unionists or Communists depending on the version. Nevertheless, his point was that Germans, (and particularly, he believed, the leaders of the Protestant churches) had been complicit because of their conspiracy of silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. Edmund Burke said: "All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."

When people in privileged authority, who should stand up for truth and justice, consistently become arrogant, vain and self-serving, with the deliberate aim of attaining aggravated positions of lordship over others, bordering on militant indiscretion, they lose their salt, their value or their worth. Their substance continues to diminish in the sights of those to whom they are called to serve. Vain-glory and pomposity become the order of the day. The sad fact, is that an increasing number of members of the revered White Collar profession, the “Men of God”, of “standing and repute”; the “timbers and juggernauts” of acclaimed spiritual “calling”, people with responsibility for the lives of millions of souls, people who should speak up or speak out, continue to troop (or troupe) into the “Corridors of Power” in a sad show of shame, seeking cheap popularity and false accreditation. "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." (~Plato)

Yet, some of them decry some of those who stand openly towards an indication for necessary change. Change does not come in an instant, but by contributions from all necessary credible angles. They say “those who stand for nothing will fall for anything” (my paraphrase). Yet, many say they stand for “something”, except that, beyond the opportunity of personal self-importance and financial gratification, one would need a giant magnifying glass to determine which side they really fall with. I guess many will fall on the side where their bread is buttered, perhaps understandable, when they do so quietly. Stephen King said "It's better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost."

Rather than stand up for truth and justice, many with voice and opportunity seek to color the truth for personal gratification, proclaiming a “form of justice”. Many people have turned themselves into accusers and judges, telling old wives tales, and stories that hug lies. I assume that the audience and electorate are also to blame in a way, because many seem to have itching ears, choosing rather to believe lies and fantastic fabrications, than facts. Perhaps it is true that facts can be boring. The good book of Christians directly instructs people to “buy the truth, and sell it not”. I once asked my dad, why he always bought four or five morning newspapers. He told me that to get the fact you need to read the account of more than one reporter, because not one person has “an angle” on the “truth”. There are always two sides to every story.

Between 1950 and 1954, Milton Mayer interviewed a German professor in "Kronenburg" (probably Mainz--its population was about 42,000 at the time), and then wrote a book titled, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1955, 1966), p. 168f, in which he quotes the professor as saying the following:

"Pastor Martin Niemöller spoke for thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and 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; and 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 uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something--but then it was too late."

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." (~Edmund Burke)

A man in the Christian Holy Bible, named James once said “Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law, and judges the law: but if you judge the law, you are no longer a doer of the law, but a judge. There is only one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: Who are you, that you judge someone else? CLEAR OFF now, you that say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there for one year, and buy and sell and make profit: Whereas YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT SHALL BE on the morrow. For WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? It is even a vapor that appears for a wee while (a brief moment), and then vanishes (like a puff of smoke). BECAUSE OF THIS, YOU SHOULD SAY, “If it pleases the Lord, we shall live, and do this, or do that”. But instead of this, YOU REJOICE in your boasting: ALL SUCH rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin”. (James 4 verses 11-17 (my paraphrase).

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." (~Albert Einstein)

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