But Then It Was Too Late

Guest Author Uncategorized

This is from the always worth reading Kaye Lee at The Australian Independent Media – I hope she will forgive me for reblogging without her express permission (and I note that several Pubkateers have commented already).

(Image Credit: Daily Fumes)

An excerpt from They Thought They Were Free – The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer:

What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; 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 the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your ‘little men,’ your baker and so on; I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?

To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.

Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemöller spoke for the 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.

You see, one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. 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 great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.

Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.

But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.

You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.

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 do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.

Note: Thanks to mars08 for this chilling reminder

958 thoughts on “But Then It Was Too Late”

  1. Bronnie’s getting worse. If that’s possible. This time over the use of props, which she has allowed for the LNP but won’t for the ALP. She said that if it’s brought to her attention she will let government members know. Burke says they’ve done that and she didn’t. She lost her bottle and asked him to withdraw.

  4. Tony Burke, who is such a placid man, might soon lose his temper. Bishop’s rules are all over the place. Imagine her as a teacher. The poor pupils!

  5. Once you get the hang of the current QT it is kind of compelling viewing. The appallingly incompetent way government members attempt to answer direct ALP questions has to be seen to be believed. Abbott is running a mile from the Furnival issue, and he keeps on harping about the loss of Qantas jobs as being in some way incumbent on the ALP not question what he now calls a ‘job creation scheme’ for Cadbury. In other words, dont’ question corruption if it in some way results in a company getting some money. It’s messy.

  6. It’s tempting to join those who say Labor should just walk out en masse, given the actions of Madame Kero, but that’s not a good idea. Labor should keep hammering away. The more they question every decision MK makes the sooner she will crack.

  8. Looks like the idea is to break Slipper. Goes to show that you don’t cross the slime bags who claim that they have the right to rule.

    Maybe Slipper should try crowd sourcing for funds not that he has ever been a friend of Labor. I just want him to win because I could see the dirty deed section of Murdoch and the Libs at work.

    This will be appealed to the end of time no matter how many times Slipper wins

  9. And again Bronnie loses control. Her rulings are beyond credibility. King simply isn’t being allowed to ask whether Furnival will benefit from the $16M to Cadbury. She’s just after a simple assurance that he won’t. Bronnie won’t let her ask that for some reason, and all Abbott says in response is that the money to Cadbury creates jobs and we should all be happy with that.

  10. I agree with Aguirre. I don’t often get to watch Question time. Unbelievable. Good on Catherine King for repeatedly asking about the Furnival Cadbury thing. Love to watch the deflections to avoid useful answers.

  11. It will be interesting to see how far Abbott and co get with blaming the unions and working conditions for the disgraceful performance of the Qantas board,

    He is not dealing with the CFMEU etc etc but with unions representing engineers, pilots and flight staff as well as cleaners, baggage handlers etc.

    The rhetoric will not work here and I am sure pilots will not stand back and be accused of excessive pay and working conditions. Pilots, engineers, flight staff just do not fit the template being put forward by Abbott and co of “grubby militant unionists”

    Over to you Mr Abbott

  13. I’m watching Mesma’s gestures on mute. Florid. Bronnie is now looking flustered and a bit worried. Mesma is wearing what looks like television static.

    Burke’s called Bronnie out again. Hockey asked to withdraw ‘hypocrite’. In doing so, he repeated it, which would usually have a member ejected. But Hockey stays, which riled Burke a bit. It’s a little beyond farce now.

  14. What has it come to that a nation, a land so fair and plentiful has to witness it’s harvest bounty wasted by such intemperate leadership?
    How can the wringing of hands and the shedding of tears subdue the lascivious hunger for plunder and revenge from such a band of robbers?…..It would appear we are to stand unarmed and unprotected from the authority of these pusillanimous poltroons as they banquet on the “food of the people”…their front-bench line-up a “Last Supper” mockery… the difference being the citizen body going to crucifixtion…and they, with their drooling gluttony, unfettered and unsatiated, unleash a saturnalia of anarchy on the population.
    Where are the higher authorities that ought, should, must stand watch over the civilised security of our society?..Are they asleep at their watch?…They were “wide-eyed” when they attacked Whitlam, “…where art thou now, fair Prince?”..where the GG. and the High-Court advisers…are your stocks and shares too demanding of your attention?….or are you, too, indulged in the feeding frenzy, gourging drunkenly with money-mesmerised eyes and lolling tounges too drugged by promised riches to worry on the miserly fortunes of the peons?
    ” Will not someone rid us all of this meddlesome priest” ?

  15. Labor have got to the point of challenging the old madam in the chair and, she is suddenly looking a bit less confident – she does not like being attacked. Wait and see her crumble into a shaking mess when a MONC in put. (I reckon Labor are working up to that). In all of this the abbott is back pedalling furiously and stuttering his way in circles as he tries to cover his lying, cheating arse from Catherine King……my goodness, the lady is good.

  18. A touch of karma about today! I did handing out of “how to vote” at the pre poll in Queanbeyan last year, and while doing so copped a vile and obscene spray from a bogan who looked like he was probably on the dole. He made gestures towards assaulting a female colleague of mine and was restrained by the senior LNP rep there (who I know a bit, and is a real gentleman).
    I went out to Qbn this morning to meet up with a bloke who has recently been released from gaol and whom I have been helping a little. We met in a pub (a bit of a bloodhouse) and blow me down if my “mate” from last year wasn’t there, whingeing about how hard it was to find a job.
    The guy I went out to meet and I were talking softly at a corner table and I mentioned my experience with the whinger. Eventually the whinger, finding it difficult to get much sympathy from the barflies, came over to us but obviously didn’t remember me. My man listened to him for about a minute and then told him in no uncertain terms that he was getting exactly what he voted for, that he was an Fffing idiot, that he was happy to vote for other people to lose their jobs and livelihoods, and to Fff off and stop whingeing or he would get a hiding. As my man is about six feet tall and built like a brick shouse, the whinger didn’t hang around.

  22. QT has bee useful today. We’ve learnt that Abbott has a lot to hide re Cadbury and Furnival. And we’ve also learnt that he hasn’t the foggiest idea how to handle Qantas. And we’ve also learnt that the old slogans are getting stale and are no longer of any use in the current political climate. We’ve probably also learnt that bashing Conroy is a waste of time because nobody’s interested.

    Crying Keenan’s up now talking about Laura Norder.

  24. “Mr Ashby was awarded costs” – I presume that means that, for the appeal, Ashby is stuck with the bill? I’m never too clear what awarded means in these circumstances.

  25. From Australian Unions Facebook page –

    Just hours after CEO Alan Joyce today delivered the devastating news that 5000 jobs will be axed, Qantas international business travellers were emailed today with an offer to win two complimentary Qantas Club invitations.

    The email said, in part:

    Take advantage of this offer and enter the competition by filling out our online entry form and tell us in 25 words or less:

    “Why do you love flying with Qantas when travelling for business?”

    Why not enter the competition and, in 25 words or less, let Qantas management know what you think of their behavior: http://bit.ly/1mDMXOZ

    https://www.facebook.com/AustralianUnions

  26. I reckon the ALP should boycott QT for a week as a form of protest. Set up a press conference for the same time and explain in great detail with lots of examples exactly why they have taken this step.
    Tell the press the questions they would like answered and the reasons why…maybe they’ll do their job and pass them on.
    I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but the press jackals love a bit of movement and colour and this would certainly fill that criteria…at least for the first day.
    Of course it goes without saying that in all likelihood this will be spun as Labor not wanting to be involved in democracy, behaving like children, (insert favourite RW projection here), but if they do it for a week and have clear, concise and overall thoroughly documented and proven facts it would be hard for ALL of the press scum to ignore them totally.

  29. Watching Greg Hunt, however…

    He seems to think that the ‘no carbon tax under the Government I lead…” comment absolves the Coalition of all their broken promises. He also thinks that the Coalition’s “we will abolish the Carbon Tax” promise justifies all the other broken promises. He’s another Liberal member still fighting the 2010 election.

  30. Leroy
    It’s the opposite. Costs are usually ‘awarded’ to the successful party in an appeal. Slipper has to pay Ashby’s costs,

  31. Maybe just put forward a dozen or so written questions each QT. Then depart the chamber.

    Hunt. Government about to being open and transparent.

    Bring the bills on. Debate in full, then not vote, allowing them through.

  32. There are sure a lot of the unions involved with Qantas. Thanks for Abbott is gutless and not facing the media, the unions are getting a free run. Yes, and in depth questions by the media.

    Abbott’s is going to, using his words, regret their action, or lack of action he has taken today.

  34. Leonetwo,

    Seeing that Harmers are working pro bono for Ashby does this mean Slipper is only liable for the Court costs?

  36. Catherine King thrown out for defying the speaker. She refused to withdraw a statement she insisted was true.

  38. That was fun. King just spoke on the MPI, and ended by referring to the ‘cosy relationship’ between Abbott, Furnival and Cadbury. Someone on the other side objected to the imputation, the acting Speaker told King it would assist the House if she would withdraw. She said she wouldn’t withdraw because it was true. He directed her to withdraw, otherwise she would be defying the Chair. She ‘regretfully’ refused to do so. And then the acting Speaker sat there like a stunned mullet for a moment – didn’t know what to do! After advice he finally had her leave under 94A.

    I’m liking her more every time I see her.

  43. They are pulling the same stunt with this speaker. Withdrew imputation., It appears if one says anything about the PM, it is automatically an invitation.

  44. The Pollie Pedal thing could come back to bite Abbott on his boney bum and Labor know that. Cadbury was a major Pollie Pedal sponsor, which brings up a question – why didn’t they spend the money they frittered away on that sponsorship on getting their factory tour back up? Furnival went on the ride with Abbott. Are we seriously expected to believe they never once discussed a deal or an election promise? I mean there they are, both in their lycra, with ‘Cadbury’ emblazoned on it, spending over a week together, and they never mentioned it once?

  46. If the speaker says “it would assist the House ..” rather than directing a withdrawal then he shouldn’t boot her.

  48. Yes, it is time for Shorten to drop opposition to removal of the so called a carbon tax. Yes, just one of the eight or more bills that comprise of the CEF. Yes, just the so called tax, but leave all other in place. Abbott and Co only ever talk about a tax, not the rest of the legislation.

    If they are serious about Direct Action, most of the CEF suite can be adapted to suit.

  49. BarryJ
    I’ll admit to having a suspicious mind. We all need to be very suspicious these days.

  50. Labor is putting their second stringers up this debate. Even they outshine every one on the government front bench,.

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