WHEN THEY CAME

Well, congress went and did it. The detainee bill has been passed and to my shame the Republican senator from Oregon voted for it. Not only foreign suspects can be seized and potentially disappeared with no right to a trial or hearing or even to know what the charges are against them. American citezens are subject to the same treatment.

To anyone who believes that it will stop here this poem is attributed to Martin Niemoller, a German, a Lutheran pastor, an man who narrowly missed execution for treason at the end of WWII. A war he spent in the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen and Dachau. There are many versions, this is one of them.

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the social democrats
 and I did not speak out
because I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller