Preface: German pastor Martin Niemöller initially supported Hitler. But he later opposed him, and was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp for years.
Niemöller learned the hard way that keep your head down doesn’t keep one out of trouble … in the long run, it increases the danger to all of us.
Niemöller wrote a brilliant poem – First They Came [2] – about the manner in which Germans allowed Nazi abuses by failing to protest the abuse of “others” … first gypsies, gays, communists, and Jews, then Catholics … and eventually everyone.
This is my modern interpretation of Niemöller’s poem …
First they tortured a U.S. citizen and gang member [3] …
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a criminal
Then they tortured a U.S. citizen, whistleblower and navy veteran [4] …
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a whistleblower
Then they locked up an attorney [5] for representing accused criminals …
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a defense attorney
Then they arrested a young father walking with his son simply because he told Dick Cheney that he disagreed with his policies [6] …
I remained silent;
I’ve never talked to an important politician
Then they said an entertainer should be killed because she questioned the government’s version of an important historical event [7] …
I remained silent;
I wasn’t an entertainer
Then they arrested people for demanding that Congress hold the President to the Constitution [8] …
I did not speak out;
I’ve never protested in Washington
Then they arrested a man for holding a sign [9] …
I held my tongue;
I’ve never held that kind of sign
Then they broke a minister’s leg [10] because he wanted to speak at a public event …
I said nothing;
I wasn’t a religious leader
Then they shot a student with a taser gun and arrested him [11] for asking a question of a politician at a public event …
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a student
Then they started labeling virtually every innocent and normal behavior as marking Americans as “potential terrorists” [12]…
I remained silent;
I didn’t want to be called a terrorist
Then they threw political dissenters in psychiatric wards [13] …
I remained silent;
I didn’t want to be seen as crazy
Then they declared that they could label U.S. citizens living on U.S. soil as “unlawful enemy combatants” and imprison them indefinitely [14] without access to any attorney …
I remained silent;
I didn’t want to be labeled an enemy
Then they assassinated an American citizen without any court trial
And they killed his son because he should have had a “far more responsible father” [15] …
I remained silent;
I live on American soil
Then they declared that they could assassinate U.S. citizens living on U.S. soil without any due process of law [16] (update [17]) …
I remained silent;
I didn’t want to be on the list
Then they forced down the airplane carrying the president of a sovereign nation [18], because they were looking for a whistleblower
I remained silent;
I’m not a foreign leader
Then they called for the founder of an independent publisher to be killed by drone [19]
I remained silent;
I don’t want to worry about drone strikes against me
Then they started spying on all Americans, even though top experts say that doesn’t protect us from terrorism [20]
I remained silent;
I didn’t want to call even more attention to myself from the spies
Then they charged the partner of an investigative journalist with terrorism [21] for transporting whistleblowing documents to the journalist regarding illegal NSA spying
I remained silent;
My wife isn’t a journalist
When they came for me,
Everyone was silent;
there was no one left to speak out.
Postscript: I originally wrote this poem in 2007. I have updated it with additional verses as current events have unfolded.
Bonus: