Letters to the Editor
sysprog
Published Letters: 1544 Editor's Choice: 2
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Remembrance
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009887
First They Came for the Jews
A prosecution under the Espionage Act threatens the First Amendment.
BY DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
Monday, April 2, 2007The Wall Street Journal's editorial board is correct that we should never forget that authoritarians begin by persecuting unpopular groups whom few will defend.
Therefore, it would do the Wall Street Journal's editorial board a world of good to remember that Martin Niemoller's famous prose poem, in almost all of the different ways he presented it, began with the words,
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten . . .
When the Nazis came for the Communists . . .
My own family were in Berlin until 1936, and we know that the Nazis didn't come first for the Jews, because if that were true, then I'd never have been born.
Niemoeller was in Berlin until 1937, and he, too, knew that the Nazis didn't come first for the Jews.
In his 1946 book, Die deutsche Schuld, Not und Hoffnung, Niemoeller wrote,
When Pastor Niemöller was put in a concentration camp we wrote the year 1937; when the concentration camp was opened we wrote the year 1933, and the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers.
Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians - "should I be my brother's keeper?"
Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. - I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]? -- Only then did the church as such take note. Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public. Can we say, we aren't guilty/responsible? The persecution of the Jews, the way we treated the occupied countries, or the things in Greece, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia or in Holland, that were written in the newspapers.
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I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out.
. . .
We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934 - there must have been a possibility - 14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, it is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 Communists in the concentration camps, in order to let them die.
Remembrance isn't easy. Niemoeller himself, as a good Christian, probably wouldn't have minded that the Wall Street Journal used an inauthentic version of his words. But I do mind, and not just because I'm pedantic, and not just because the authentic version(s) of Niemoeller's words are more accurate historically, but because telling the true story is more powerful morally.
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How to win in 2008
[Read the article: Iraq: American public opinion vs. a "small but powerful group"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://richardsonforpresident.com/iraq
. . . We should get our troops out of Iraq this year. Our continued presence there only enables the Iraqi factions to delay making the hard political choices they need to make to end the civil war . . . We must remove ALL of our troops. There should be no residual US forces left in Iraq. Most Iraqis, and most others in the region, believe that we are there for their oil, and this perception is exploited by both Al Qaeda and anti-American Shia groups. By announcing that we intend to remove all troops, we would deprive them of this propaganda tool . . . I support the Feingold-Reid bill to force the President to end the war . . .
- - Bill RichardsonPajamas Media's straw poll results are at http://pajamasmedia.com/strawpoll2008/results.php
and their favorite Democrat is Richardson. Most readers of Pajamas Media web sites aren't Democrats, so you have to ask yourself what they see in Richardson. I think they see a guy with the guts to defy the pundits.Maybe some other Dems should try that.
I'm undecided as to which of the Dems I'd prefer, but I sure would like to see them all showing more intestinal fortitude. Not only would they get more support from the Democratic base, but they'd also get more respect (and thus more votes in 2008) from independents and Republicans.
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How "non-political" civil servants are hired nowadays
[Read the article: Profiles in Journalism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Another article by Charlie Savage, a week ago : http://boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/08/scandal_puts_spotlight_on_christian_law_school
. . . In a recent Regent law school newsletter, a 2004 graduate described being interviewed for a job as a trial attorney at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in October 2003. Asked to name the Supreme Court decision from the past 20 years with which he most disagreed, he cited Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling striking down a law against sodomy because it violated gay people's civil rights.
"When one of the interviewers agreed and said that decision in Lawrence was 'maddening,' I knew I correctly answered the question," wrote the Regent graduate. The administration hired him for the Civil Rights Division . . .
- - By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | April 8, 2007