Remembering Niemoller

It is easy to remain silent when one thinks it doesn't really effect one personally. It was that very thing that led Pastor Niemoller, in Germany during the Nazi era, to utter his now famous words:

"First they came 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 no one was left to speak for me.”

Award-winning journalist Robert Koehler reflects on Niemoller's words in a piece "Then They Came for Me" on CommonDreams:

"Speaking out a year ago against the idea of holding civilian trials for terrorism suspects, Liz Cheney captured the paranoid arrogance of the past decade with stunning efficiency:

“This demonstrates conclusively that we are going back to a pre-9/11 mentality,” she said.

Oh the horror! Fair trials, rule of law, habeas corpus, Miranda rights, blah, blah, blah — remember what a nuisance our justice system used to be before Liz’s father and the rest of the neocon High Nooniacs made us safe by hustling us off to a police state and perpetual war?

I can’t help but think about the younger Cheney’s comment — and the fear it implies, not of terrorists but of liberals — in connection with the lawsuit that a recently freed Guantanamo detainee, Abdul Razak al Janko, has filed in U.S. Federal Court against Robert Gates, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and about a hundred other current and former military and government officials."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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