I came across an new version of a Democratic Underground article today that had updated Pastor Martin Niemoller's 1945 poem, and it got me to thinking. Could we see the same problem here? For those of you who can't remember the poem, here it is:
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
Could this happen in the US? It came pretty close in the 1950's with Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Red Scare, which didn't stop until he and his cronies started to go after US Army officers. I'm pretty sure that it could happen today, and no one would notice (or care), until it was much too late.
How could I think such a dastardly thing? Try this out. Over 800 people were scopped up by the federal government in the days after Sept. 11, and held with no charges, no access to their families, and no access to legal counsel. Currently a hispanic US Citizen named Padilla is being held without charges, and the government admits it has no plans to charge him with anything. He has not been allowed legal representation. The only reason we know he exists is because the Bush Administration decided that it would be politically useful to scare the country with warnings about an almost non-existent "dirty bomb" plot. Oh, and he's been held incommunicado for over a month.
Not that the concept of a "dirty bomb" is laughable. This time the "plot" consisted of a convert to Islam, who might have had links to al Qaeda, looking up information about dirty bombs on the Internet. Get real. The point is that Padilla is a US citizen, who hasn't broken any laws. Who is speaking up for him? Only a few civil liberties groups. Mostly he is out of sight and out of mind.
Bernard Weiner of Democratic Underground has updated Martin Niemoller's poem to reflect the times:
First, they came for the terrorists,
And I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a terrorist.
Then they came for the foreigners,
And I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a foreigner.
Then they came for the Arab-Americans,
And I didn't speak up, because I wasn't Arab-American.
Then they came for the radical dissenters,
And I didn't speak up, because I was just an ordinary troubled citizen.
Then they came for me,
And by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
Let's hope it doesn't get to that.