Whites are already targets if they are aged or children. Care for those two groups are hindrances to opening up the commercial segments mid-pandemic. The GOP stopped saying it out loud but their actions are consistent with what they were saying - learn to accept the risks so we can get people back to work. Let the elderly die if it means we can get restaurants and shops open again. Risk the health of the kids, get them back to school, if it means mom can go back to working at Walmart.
Niemöller did much more than speak out, however, as did his friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As a consequence, Bonhoeffer lost his life and Niemöller lost eight years of his freedom.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
I don't know how long the US has been on a downward slide, but the one sliver of light afforded by the Trump administration is that it has stripped bare the illusion of ideology from the GOP and revealed the institutional rot across the DOJ, SCOTUS, and Congress. Trump, Barr, and Pompeo aren't even bothering to hide their naked power grabs...why would they? They know that the GOP House and Senate are complicit, even if they pretend that they never thought it would go this far (that's what complicit judges who supported the Nazi regime said post-WWII), and they know that the House is so afraid of derailing a Biden win that they will allow the Constitution to be shredded, civil rights to be eroded, and citizens to die of Covid-19. At what point does fear rise to the level of complicity? There is a tipping point, after which eroded norms can no longer be restored and a Biden win will be the aberration before we return to a Trump Jr/Ivanka Trump/Tom Cotton presidency. If the House continues to do nothing for the remainder of 2020, we will be well past the tipping point.
I no longer wonder how exactly it was that Germany could allow itself to be consumed by a maniac like Hitler. We're seeing it in real time here in America with #Cult45.
Whites are already targets if they are aged or children. Care for those two groups are hindrances to opening up the commercial segments mid-pandemic. The GOP stopped saying it out loud but their actions are consistent with what they were saying - learn to accept the risks so we can get people back to work. Let the elderly die if it means we can get restaurants and shops open again. Risk the health of the kids, get them back to school, if it means mom can go back to working at Walmart.
Imagine the plot for the movie 'Big'
– where Tom Hanks plays a grade 7 student who suddenly inhabits a grown-up body
– only instead a whole bunch of grade 7 'jocks' and bullies suddenly have their bodies transformed into 50~80-year-old-bodies.
Mayhem ensues.
Niemöller did much more than speak out, however, as did his friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As a consequence, Bonhoeffer lost his life and Niemöller lost eight years of his freedom.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
I don't know how long the US has been on a downward slide, but the one sliver of light afforded by the Trump administration is that it has stripped bare the illusion of ideology from the GOP and revealed the institutional rot across the DOJ, SCOTUS, and Congress. Trump, Barr, and Pompeo aren't even bothering to hide their naked power grabs...why would they? They know that the GOP House and Senate are complicit, even if they pretend that they never thought it would go this far (that's what complicit judges who supported the Nazi regime said post-WWII), and they know that the House is so afraid of derailing a Biden win that they will allow the Constitution to be shredded, civil rights to be eroded, and citizens to die of Covid-19. At what point does fear rise to the level of complicity? There is a tipping point, after which eroded norms can no longer be restored and a Biden win will be the aberration before we return to a Trump Jr/Ivanka Trump/Tom Cotton presidency. If the House continues to do nothing for the remainder of 2020, we will be well past the tipping point.
I no longer wonder how exactly it was that Germany could allow itself to be consumed by a maniac like Hitler. We're seeing it in real time here in America with #Cult45.