"When they betrayed Katrina NOLA, I did not speak out because..."

[omega minimo]

The Bushco. non-response to Hurricane Katrina/NOLA was a national wake up call -- an American genocide against our most vulnerable. We are all vulnerable to those same forces. May all those lost in the storm and those who survive them find peace; and forgive us for tolerating the inhumanity delivered upon them by a government charged with protecting them.


First they betrayed the truth, to make war
I did not speak out
because I was not responsible.

When they betrayed the Gulf War survivors,
I did not speak out
because I was not an Iraqi.

When they betrayed the Gulf War military,
I did not speak out
because I was not a soldier.

When they betrayed the Gulf Hurricane survivors
I did not speak out
because I was not poor or black;

And when they betrayed me,
there was only a gulf of silence,
there was no one left to speak out.

With gratitude to the original:
Martin Niemöller





First They Came... is a poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) about the quiescence of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. In Spanish-speaking countries the poem has been often erroneously attributed to Bertolt Brecht since the 1970s.

An early supporter of Hitler, by 1934 Niemöller had come to oppose the Nazis, and it was largely his high connections to influential and wealthy businessmen that saved him until 1939, after which he was imprisoned, eventually at Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. He survived to be a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after World War II. His poem is well-known, frequently quoted, and is a popular model for describing the phenomenon of social chaos, as it often begins with specific and targeted fear and hatred which soon escalates out of control.


First they came for the communists,
I did not speak out
because I was not a communist.

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

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

When they came for the Jews
I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew;

And when they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

--Martin Niemöller






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