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. Senate Estimates are the best gig in town with Senator Cash weasling around answering questions on putting some documents under Public Interest cloak, and Senator Conroy in Communications.

  2. billie11- like you I am another ABC regular who will no longer watch any of their ‘current affairs ‘ shows- Uhleman and Sales weaned me off 7.30- The Drum is Libs almost wall to wall- Lateline with Tony Jones (Hes more important than anyone)and Q& A with an audience bias and panellist bias. .At home with Julia an alleged comedy- so Where is at home with Tones? Oh they’ve nailed their colours to the mast its Abbott Broadcasting now. Too scared in case anyone of the Libs complains. Oh and if you complain to them you either get the standard ‘we are perfectly satisfied with ourselves’ or something along those lines

  3. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/feb/24/climate-change-dick-warburton-sceptic-australia-renewable-energy-target-review

    http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/jail-beds-crisis-looms-as-suspended-sentences-go-and-prisoner-numbers-set-to-soar-report-warns/story-fnii5sms-1226836441176

  4. BB. Yes, I did hear THAT interview…I was laughing at it and saying to the OH..; “Christ!…it’s like any half drunk sot in any suburban front-bar !”……Singo’..?.. What a effing mouth!…and Uhlmann?..What an effing tool!

  5. http://www.news.com.au/national/thousands-of-defence-jobs-set-to-be-slashed/story-fncynjr2-1226836405811

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/24/banks-and-big-business-warn-direct-action-will-lift-costs-and-deter-projects

  6. A very good clarifier

    http://pando.com/2014/02/24/everything-you-know-about-ukraine-is-wrong/

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/no-mr-pyne-school-system-suits-us-fine-says-state-minister/story-fn59nlz9-1226836398687#

  7. I didn’t hear Singo on the radio this morning as like a lot of people I don’t listen to AM now that Uhlmann is adorning the show. But I have met Singo a few times in the past and his crude, often rude, matey when it suits him schtick is something of a trademark.
    Singo is the quintessential Sydney wideboy. He is as cunning as a rat, ever on the lookout for shifty opportunity, always prepared to lick up and piss down, and expects blind obedience from all his hangerson but would betray the lot of them for a $.
    He was notorious back in the day for his associations with Sydney gangsters, possibly as part of his “anti establishment” persona of the day, possibly because of the inside information he was able to glean from them. He has always been careless of the origins of his money as long as it was plentiful.
    The old descriptor “prominent Sydney racing identity” has always been appropriate to Singo, although he now likes to pretend there is a little polish on him. However there is more “Touch of Class” than class about Singo.

  8. Jonathan is referring to ambassador rumours that seem to circulate

    http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/surfing-4m-croc-closes-broomes-cable-beach/story-fnhocxo3-1226836741160

  9. Can someone tell me why anyone would actually want to listen to Toolman on the radio? I’d struggle to do it at gunpoint. And why would you bother with 7.30 or Lateline or any of the other dross that the ABC say is current affairs if all you are going to do is complain about what you saw? It is not compulsory to watch or listen to anything the ABC serves up. Why do people persist if they don’t enjoy it?

    I haven’t turned on a radio for something like ten years now. Radio is so early 20th century. These days we have better ways to get opinion and news. I haven’t watched any of the ‘current affairs’ crap on the ABC for a couple of years either. Every so often – like last night – I decide to give it a try and every time I turn off after a couple of minutes because I can’t stand the obvious bias, the presenter and/or the inane questions.

    If I want to keep up with what’s going on then I look online. I know what news is breaking before the MSM report it, I can get both sides of a story, I can find a far wider coverage than any TV show will provide. On the very rare occasions something interesting happens I can track it down online and catch up. I don’t need the ABC, I don’t need to waste time watching, or listening to the endless yammering on the radio. There are better things to do.

  10. Once upon a time the ABC (radio) was my main source of news. No more. Like so many here, I read the o/s newspapers, look at BK’s and Leroy’s (and others’) excellent links, and catch up with the good blogs.

    Radio for me is now ABC Classics during the day and BBC World Service at night. I gave up on TV 25 years ago.

  12. http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/02/25/essential-voters-back-ret-not-so-happy-about-qantas/
    Essential: voters back RET, not so happy about Qantas
    Bernard Keane | Feb 25, 2014 12:47PM

    Voters back the current Renewable Energy Target, today’s Essential Report shows, while they rate the government poorly across most issues.

    The Renewable Energy Target is strongly supported by voters, today’s Essential Report has found, with 39% of voters believing the current target of 20% renewable energy by 2020 is about right, and 25% believing it is too low. Just 13% of voters believe the target is too high.

    The results come in the wake of the government’s appointment of climate sceptic business figure Dick Warburton to “review” the target, with the expectation the government is preparing to reduce or abandon it altogether. Voter support for the current target is bipartisan, with 41% of Liberal voters and 40% of Labor voters saying the RET is about right.

    ………………………

    On voting intention, Labor has retained its two-party preferred lead, 51-49%, although the Coalition picked up a point on its primary vote to 42% and Labor lost 1 to 39%; the Greens gained 1 point (9%). Today’s Newspoll, inexplicably played down by The Australian, has Labor with a remarkable 54-46% two-party preferred lead off the back of the same Labor primary vote. The difference is a softer Coalition vote — 39% — and a stronger Greens vote; for whatever reason, Newspoll persistently gives the Greens higher numbers than Essential.

    Perhaps more telling is the results from an Essential question about how voters rate the government’s handling of issues. Out of 11 issues, voters rate the government negatively on nine; the only positive ones were managing the economy, where the government was rated “good” by 34% and “poor” by 31%, and treatment of asylum seekers, 37% to 26%. The Coalition had a net rating of -19 points on “supporting Australian jobs”, -15 on climate change and -13 on health. For a government only six months old, it’s an unusually poor outcome.

  13. “Today’s Newspoll, inexplicably played down by The Australian”

    Someone at crikey has a sense of humour.

  15. From New Matilda –
    Manus Camp A Human ‘Experiment’: Staff

    A migration agent who was employed at the Manus Island detention camp during last week’s violence has told SBS Dateline the centre is not a processing facility – it’s a deterrence mechanism

    The Australian government is maintaining a “charade” on Manus Island by pretending to process the claims of asylum seekers when in fact the detention camp is designed to be nothing more than a deterrent to others, a former staff member has told SBS Dateline in an interview to be aired tonight.
    …………………………
    “That’s what Manus Island is: it’s the active creation of horror in order to secure deterrence. And that’s why Reza Berati’s death is not some kind of crisis for the [immigration] department – it’s actually an opportunity, an opportunity to extend that [deterrence] logic one step further, to say, ‘this happens’.”

    https://newmatilda.com//2014/02/25/manus-camp-human-experiment-staff

  16. Nice headline from the curious snail (won’t be front page or whatever, but still)

    http://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/abbott-government-popularity-drops-and-immigration-minister-scott-morrisons-resignation-sought-over-manus-island-riots/story-fnii5v6w-1226836409431

    Abbott Government popularity drops and Immigration Minister Scott Morrison’s resignation sought over Manus Island riots
    February 25, 2014 1:00AM
    steven scott The Courier-Mail

    Abbott Government popularity drops and Immigration Minister Scott Morrison’s resignation sought over Manus Island riots

    1 hour ago February 25, 2014 1:00AM

    Question Time 24th of feb 2014

    Prime Minister Ront Abbott confers with Immigration Minister Scott Morrison at Parliament House. Source: News Corp Australia

    THE Abbott Government’s popularity has slumped to the lowest level since the last election as it faces attacks over its handling of the asylum seeker centre in Papua New Guinea.

    Newspoll, published in The Australian, shows the ­Coalition’s primary vote has slumped to 39 per cent, a slide of more than 6 points since the election.

    Labor’s primary vote is level-pegging with the Coalition, putting the Opposition in an election-winning position of 54 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.

    The poll, conducted between Friday and Sunday, found Tony Abbott’s approval rating as preferred prime minister had slipped to 38 per cent.

    Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has improved as ­preferred prime minister and is just below Mr Abbott on 37 per cent.

    Leroy, this was in the Spam basket – now redated and retimed. F.

  17. What is going on in QT? I have heard one question from the ALP Opposition and then there has been a slew of Government speakers? Two gov’t dorothy dixers in a row?

  24. It dosn’t matter how vague or how specific Labor’s questions are. The government will always respond with a rant on the carbon tax or the mining tax, with a few personal insults thrown in so the boys on the backbenches can have a bit of a guffaw.

  25. Manus Island: How information is kept ‘under control’

    I've seen some censorship in my 20-plus years as a journalist reporting from Australia and various countries in the Asia Pacific region.

    But what I saw on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea has made me uneasy about press freedom in the Pacific and the Australian Government's approach to reporting on the detention centre.

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/manus-island-how-information-is-kept-under-control-20140225-33eob.html?utm_source=social&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=nc&eid=socialn%3Afac-13omn1676-edtrl-other%3Annn-17%2F02%2F2014-edtrs_socialshare-all-nnn-nnn-vars-o

  29. The synchronised nodders got a bit out of whack there for a moment. Karen MacNamara was nodding while Sarah Henderson was shaking her head. More practice needed, ladies, we can’t have such dissent in the ranks of the noddies.

  30. Leonetwo
    Asher Wolf reveals Ex-Queensland Member for Chatsworth Steve Kilburn was working as a Safety and Security Officer for G4S at Manus Island during last week’s violent incident.

    View at Medium.com

  32. Jason
    I was just looking at that. You beat me posting it.

    Good to see Asher Wolf getting the credit for that piece too, after being shafted by the ABC yesterday on the Dinesh Perera story.

  34. Leonetwo,

    Watching Karen MacNamara reminds me of all the “dumb blonde” jokes that circulated years ago. She certainly does not look like she comprehends what is going on.

  35. Your Government at work, for its mates

    The Environment Department did not conduct independent analysis of how much it would cost to dump dredge spoil on land before permission was granted to dump it in Great Barrier Reef waters.

    North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation undertook its own assessment of expanding the port at Abbot Point and found dumping 3 cubic metres of dredge spoil on land would be prohibitively expensive.

    The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) approved the dumping of the soil in the marine park in January with 47 conditions attached.

    Dean Knudson, from the department’s compliance division, said the department accepted the port’s own assessment of how much it would cost to dump the spoil on land.

    “The department did not undertake costing analysis of individual proposals. The proponent was in a position where they had undertaken costing estimates as you would expect commercial costings of the various options,” he told Senate estimates.

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/25/dumping-dredge-spoil-near-reef-cheaper

  36. Mr Bowles obviously has no idea or is lying

    Australia’s top immigration bureaucrat has told a Senate committee he is yet to make a call on whether asylum seekers will be told that his department released their confidential personal details on its website.

    Martin Bowles, secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, characterised the data breach as “regrettable” but appeared to play down the current risk, saying there was “no evidence to suggest data on individuals is actually in the public arena at this stage”.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/25/asylum-seeker-data-breach-no-decision

  38. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/25/john-singleton-launches-tirade-against-fairfax

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/indonesias-war-of-words/story-e6frg6z6-1226836349520#

  39. Checking Their ABC website is next to useless. The Guardian Australia is a much better source.

  40. But the essentially naive and ignorable nature of the commitment presided over by Hockey was neatly encapsulated in a put-down by German officials, who dismissed Australia’s initiative as a “slightly antiquated form of economic planning”.

    The Germans were very polite.

  41. Looks like Wataclownski is living up to his name:

    In a heated exchange, Conroy also accused the Coalition of deliberately cuttting the amount of time given to the Opposition to quiz NBN Co, and told Switkowski he would be expected to return to the estimates committee at a later date as a result.

    Switkowski took umbrance at accusations of a lack of transparency, and said it was the fifth time NBN Co had appeared here in the past three months.

  44. If any of the Pub’s eastern state ladies take a trip to Sandgropia make sure you refrain from doing this 🙂

    Here’s a bizarrely enforced law in our own backyard. Did you know it is illegal to crush a beer can between your breasts in Western Australia? It’s true, so best restrain yourself when in the Golden State; this law set back a bar just outside of Perth a cool $1000

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/food/the-worlds-weirdest-beer-laws/story-fni0dgmf-1226837031908

  49. Some great comments there indeed. BTW, that is the weakest shandy I have seen in my life. Sure it isn’t just lemonade with a bit of fluffy egg-white on top?

  50. Kaffeeklatscher, I don’t think the fine was particularly recent … the latest I’ve found on it was here (http://tinyurl.com/kklk96c) six years ago.
    I’m not so sure it is the illegality of the performance so much as the breech of propriety and (possibly) the OHS aspects … but then, people do weird things in pubs all over the world, and the control of pleasurable activities is always one that get some folk all het up *shakes head bemusedly*

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