Trump called Democrats “very unpatriotic” for pursuing his impeachment while he is overseas meeting with NATO leaders.
– News article
” … the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
We the People of these Untied States of America – at least some of Us anyway – have made a great noise about the crudities of the incumbent President of the United States of America, and of the political party that We (yes We did, it happened and We took no effective steps to stop it) voted into office to support him and his policies.
The people of Germany made similar noises about the crudities of the political party that they voted into power in 1933.
Had We been serious about Our supposed objections, then the campaign of civil disobedience, Dr. King, that We initiated on 9 November 2016 would have hijacked the political, social, and economic life of the nation, and kept it hijacked until the atrocity was reversed.
We did not do this. We wrung our hands meaninglessly, screamed ineffectively to our homies on social media, piled unnoticed (except for hit counts for advertisers) me-too remarks onto the comments sections of the web pages of profiteering cartoonists, and consoled ourselves with the jobs we now (except for the persecuted) had, the money accruing in our checking and retirement accounts, and the self-aggrandizing entertainment that Our elected officials (on all sides of the aisle) are providing us (“geez, I’m glad I’m not as stupid and corrupt as his representative in Congress!”).
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
– Frank Herbert
And, evidently, it’s magnetic to the electorate, which keeps voting in these pathologies. Probably, Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba surmises, to enjoy the spectacle and avoid having to face the ugly facts that an authentically wise and capable public servant would lay before Us and compel Us to heed.
The Germans in the early 1930s were no different. Especially in the early years of the regime, “good Germans” nevertheless complained loudly about the excesses of Nazi functionaries in the developing dictatorship. And despite massive propaganda efforts to bring these “good Germans” into line,
The Nazi leadership knew by 1939 that most Germans paid its most loudly and insistently proclaimed ideals little more than lip-service: they conformed outwardly while keeping their real beliefs for the most part to themselves.
– Richard J. Evans
But what these “good Germans” said or thought mattered little, because what they did conformed to the regime and its purposes. Because, jobs. Because, the stock market. Because it fattened their wallets.
It is only by recognising that large numbers of Germans had become willing administrators [emphasis added] of coercion and repression, and that millions of younger Germans had been heavily influenced by Nazi indoctrination, that we can explain the extraordinarily savage behavior of the forces that invaded Poland in 1939.
– Evans
We the People had our chance in November 2016. We didn’t take it. It would have been … uncomfortable, Martin.
It’s too late now. We can only hope that the Capitol Building and White House don’t wind up sharing the same fate as the Brandenburg Gate in 1945.
PEACE, n. In British English, alternative spelling of “pease”, which in American English drops the second “e” and becomes “peas”, the beady green vegetable that kids throughout the land love to mush into paste before not eating them. For parents, therefore, the image called up by the slogan “Visualize whirled peas” is altogether too graphic. But it only approximates the mess that results when peace is declared rather than made. Peace on Earth: The sound of one caught short in the wilderness.