Hitler was a powerful, spellbinding orator with the ability to tap into voter anger and helplessness. He attracted a wide following desperate for change and pledged to restore Germany’s “rightfully position” as a world power. Their propaganda machine was highly successful in directing fear against the Jews, Communists, Catholic priests, Protestant pastors, ecclesiastical lawyers, and Social Democrats. When they talked of the purebred blond Arian race, their speeches were similar to those of White Nationalists. They tailored talks to each audience, downplaying antisemitism to business people, assuring farmers their government would prop up falling agricultural prices, and ensuring those on pensions their checks would remain stable. After the Nazis won the vote, Hitler was given presidential powers that ended their parliamentary democracy and convinced the public that the Nazi party was the only hope of ending chaos.
Though many people watched what was happening with horror, they did little to stop the Nazi party’s rise to power. Pastor Martin Niemöller explains the mindset well.
“First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out–Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out–Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out–Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–Because I was not a Jew.”
Then they came for me, and there was no one left–To speak out for me.”
Niemöller was a national conservative, antisemite, and supporter of Adolf Hitler who later opposed the Nazi’s program and wound up in concentration camps, narrowly escaping death. After the war, he initiated the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt and wrote the above poem. From the 1950s on, he was a pacifist and anti-war activist, campaigning for nuclear disarmament.
Change happened slowly in the public mind. When books were banned, and party membership became mandatory, people shook their heads, thinking things couldn’t possibly get worse. They went about their business, afraid to organize against it. Books were banned with public burnings. When liberal-oriented parties were forbidden, and leaders executed what was later called the “Night of the Long Knives,” people were silent. Some welcomed how anti-Semitism was used to mobilize the police against Jewish citizens. How exciting for a mob to destroy more than 1,000 synagogues and 7,500 homes and businesses in 1938 on Kristallnacht.!When ghettoes were formed and later emptied of their residents, the public was silent. After homosexuals, Romas, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Poles, disabled people, and political opponents disappeared in concentration camps, people pretended they didn’t know what was happening.
Our country is on a slow march, headed in the same direction. The Supreme Court recently ruled that bribery is okay, judges can overrule scientists and experts, and Trump is immune from anything he did while “officially” President. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the CP2 gas export terminal, which could lead to more global warming pollution than the Willow Arctic oil project. It is up to voters to not let the United States become a Fascist nation.
Right-wing nationalists twist the meaning in the nation’s founding documents, ignoring that diverse people came to our country to escape political and religious persecution. The Constitution accommodated “the tired and poor” without mentioning God. The notion that the United States was founded as a Christian nation is far from the truth. The founding fathers clearly desired to separate church from state. After living under King George’s rule, they wanted to ensure that our president was never given the powers of a king with a system of checks and balances now out of whack. The United States was designed with three branches of government charged with serving the COMMON good.
Though some were indeed slaveholders, the founders were far from establishing a Christian nation. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were Deists. George Washington, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Tyler are identified as having deistic beliefs. They saw God as having created the universe and humans to run it according to the laws of nature, and they believed that God’s existence could only be discovered through human reason and logic. Simply put-nature reveals God’s existence. Deists reject religious authority, scripture, revelations, and miraculous events as sources of religious evidence, relying instead on scientific fact and natural observation.
Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, and William Howard Taft were Unitarians, emphasizing the universal principles of most religions in an inclusive manner. In a more contemporary context, Universalism is the pursuit of a unification of all human beings under constructs such as human rights. It includes all individuals regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, and sexual orientation.
Those tolerant individuals were the founders of our country. They wrote an inclusive Constitution that thirteen colonies agreed to and signed. They were far from religious zealots pushing for a Christian nation. Unfortunately, many people today aren’t aware of the foundational beliefs our country is based on. Religious authorities and greedy business practices have turned us into hateful people who distrust one another. Rather than admit that humans continue to devastate the planet, they wait for a miracle to save them. They acknowledge authoritarian leaders interested in having power and money over the common good.
We are a lazy nation. It is easier to play computer games, get drunk, and attend concerts than to be an activist fighting for your future. Since writing The Water Factor, I’ve tried to awaken the public to how water cartels have commodified water by taking over water rights and managing municipal water and sewage systems. You and I will pay escalating rates that make those with limited resources suffer even more. What will happen when your city faces a Mexico City-style crisis where there isn’t enough water to go around? Will you move? Or will you pay 2000 times more to have your water delivered, hoping the truck wasn’t stolen on the way?
When you read The Water Factor, be aware that though the situations I write about are fictionalized and exciting, they are based on fact. Don’t sit back. Pay attention. Organize. Returning access to clean water is a human right, not a commodity to be sold on Wall Street.
The Water Factor is available in ebook, paperback, and audio formats. The book is a Firefly International Award winner that can be purchased on AMAZON, Barnes and Noble, and as an audiobook on Amazon, Audible, and ITunes.
Art is always for sale. Fractured America is an acrylic on canvas painting, 24” by 24” x 2”. Available for $ 485, includes shipping in the continental U.S. Purchase at www.eichingerfinearart.com
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References:
Website (2024) The Nazi Rise To Power. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nazi-rise-to-power
Website. (2024) The Nazi Party and Hitler’s rise to power. Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nazi-Party/The-Nazi-Party-and-Hitlers-rise-to-power
Website. (2024) Martin Niemöller. Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Niemöller
