First 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 for me.
Many people have heard of this famous quotation, and it's probably been mentioned in blogs here on this site. But I wanted to point to it again, and you'll see why below. The passage is attributed to Martin Niemoller, the late German Protestant pastor who regretted that he and other intellectuals did not speak out earlier against the Nazis' persecution of the Jewish people, which led to the Holocaust. Niemoller eventually did become an ardent critic of Hitler, and for that, got seven years in a concentration camp. (He survived the camps and died in 1984.)
I instantly thought about Niemoller's quote when I saw Mike Weinman of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police interviewed on the Rachel Maddow Show two nights ago. Weinman, a lifelong Republican, spoke of how he and other police officers - a typically conservative constituency - felt betrayed after Gov. John Kasich signed a bill stripping all state public employees of their collective bargaining rights. Watch:
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