Resident Scholars of the A.P.I.
It Creeps Like A Surrealistic Fog Upon The Land
Many accounts of what happened when the Nazis enveloped Germany, the Fascists devoured Italy, and the Communists seduced the masses to control Russia, describe the denial involved in the series of gradual events that led to the subjegation of entire populations and the deaths of millions.
It is, I think, always difficult to believe "that anything like that could happen here", or to us, or that we would be the ones doing it to others. Read the following and put yourself in that person's place......
"What happened was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to be governed by suprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security........
To live in the process is absolutely not to notice it -- please try to believe me -- unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, regretted.
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 shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.
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 did nothing) ... You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair."
- German professor after World War II describing the rise of Nazism
Food for thought and a "Thank you" to the man who had the courage to provide the above description...............
*Try reading the above passage out loud to yourself and others, it really comes to life......Kitchen Window Woman......
It is, I think, always difficult to believe "that anything like that could happen here", or to us, or that we would be the ones doing it to others. Read the following and put yourself in that person's place......
"What happened was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to be governed by suprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security........
To live in the process is absolutely not to notice it -- please try to believe me -- unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, regretted.
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 shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.
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 did nothing) ... You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair."
- German professor after World War II describing the rise of Nazism
Food for thought and a "Thank you" to the man who had the courage to provide the above description...............
*Try reading the above passage out loud to yourself and others, it really comes to life......Kitchen Window Woman......
posted by Kitchen Window Woman at 9:50 PM
3 Comments:
You've got it. That's exactly how a dictatorship takes hold -- slowly, inch by inch, oozing in. A narrow court decision here, an amendment to a law there; repeat as needed (but infrequently enough for the masses not to notice).
As millions of red state voters have shown us: it works.
There is a lot of reason to believe that the filibuster compromise represents a crack in the Shrubber armor-Frist is still whining, but he probably just lost the votes he would have needed.
The Republican Party was never as monolithic as the Fascist or Nazi Parties-and their traditional elements have begun to resurface. I don't care what side of the spectrum you sit on, it is in your interest to encourage the moderates (and the newly-awake) to continue to speak out.
Interestingly enough, the ones who are screaming fascism are the one's responsible for it's spread.
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