The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have someone write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was.
-Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera ( 1 April 1929 – 11 July 2023) was a Czech and French novelist. Kundera’s best-known work is The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Before the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the country’s ruling Communist Party of Czechoslovakia banned his books. He led a low-profile life and rarely spoke to the media. He was thought to be a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature and was also a nominee for other awards.
The Velvet Revolution was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia included students and older dissidents. The result was the end of 41 years of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia and the subsequent dismantling of the command economy and conversion to a parliamentary republic.
Command Economy
Planned economies contrast with command economies in that a planned economy is “an economic system in which the government controls and regulates production, distribution, prices, ect. whereas a command economy necessarily has substantial public ownership of industry while also having this type of regulation. In command economies, important allocation decisions are made by government authorities and are imposed by law.
-Wikipedia
“History repeats itself ” is a statement, a truth, and an eventual outcome unless it is rectified by the intelligence, wisdom, and common sense of human beings determined and dedicated to change it.
Since the beginning of recorded history this goal has been accomplished, or ignored, or sustained by those whose objective was driven by greed, complete indifference to others, and ultimate control of everything and everyone, especially their thoughts, speech, and actions.
In the 1930’s and 1940’s, a man named Adolph Hitler attempted and nearly changed the history of the world by creating a Master Aryan Race, eliminating those he felt were not worthy of his conception of the human race- destroying the memory, knowledge, culture, and history of the past, thus creating a new world order in his own image.
There are those throughout the world and in our own country who are attempting and determined to follow in the steps of the Fuhrer.
If We The People do not adopt, embrace, and ardently engage in our own Velvet Revolution, so successfully accomplished by the courageous people in Czechoslovakia, we will lose not only our freedom, our rights, and our historic and envied standing in the free world, but possibly our lives as well.
Be engaged…Be an American…Be a human being.
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.
-Martin Niemoller
Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin (14 January 1892 – 6 March 1984) was a German theologian and Lutheran pastor. He opposed the Nazi regime during the late 1930s, and was sent to a concentration camp for his affiliation with the Confessing Church and his opposition to state involvement in Church. After the war, he went on tour around the world to condemn the Nazi cause and educate people about the importance of human rights.
Niemöller was a national conservative and initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler and a self-identified antisemite .He became one of the founders of the Confessing Church, which opposed the Nazification of German Protestant churches. For his opposition to the Nazis’ state control of the churches, Niemöller was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945. He narrowly escaped execution.
After his imprisonment, he expressed his deep regret about not having done enough to help victims of the Nazis. He turned away from his earlier nationalistic beliefs. From the 1950s on, he was a vocal pacifistand anti-war activist.
-Wikipedia
History is once again repeating itself.
Following the examples set by too many countries and regimes, our own country, the United States of America, is already manifesting the despicable, intentional actions of those dictatorial leaders and their minions: non-citizens and citizens alike are being intimidated, physically, mentally, and emotionally abused, arrested, imprisoned, and deported to countries known for unspeakable treatment.
These reprehensible methods are illegal, unconstitutional, and barbaric.
The words expressed by Martin Niemoller are prophetic…worthy of reading, memorizing, and sharing with all Americans.
If WE THE PEOPLE ( which means each and every one of us) do not launch, embrace, and sustain our own Velvet Revolution, which so many protestors, members of Congress, the Judiciary, and fellow Americans who already have committed themselves to defend our democracy and the Constitution, we will not only lose our inalienable rights, but our dignity…and our souls as well.
Do not make concessions…do not capitulate…do not surrender.
Be worthy to be called an American… be worthy to be called a Human Being.
Do Not Be Afraid.