The similarities between bush & Hitler are often addressed; but what about

[Sapphire Blue]

... the Germans who did nothing in Nazi Germany & the Americans who do nothing in bush's America? What would we have done if we had lived in Nazi Germany? What are we doing now in bush's America?

As I type this, someone is dying in Iraq; someone is being tortured; someone is being abused; someone has lost their job; someone is joining the military because they can't find a job; someone is hungry; someone is considering abortion because they can't afford to raise a child; someone is abandoning a baby; someone can't afford diapers for their baby; someone can't afford shoes for their child; someone needs medical care & can't afford it; someone can't afford their medication; someone can't afford the nursing home; someone can't pay their rent; someone can't pay their heating bill; someone is homeless; someone is sleeping under a bridge; someone is hopeless; someone needs us desperately.

10, 25, 50 or more years from now, how will we answer the question "What did you do in bush's America?"

Are we doing everything possible? Can we do something more? Will we do something more?

Are we waiting for a courageous leader to follow? Someone like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? What if we don't find that leader? What will happen? What will get done? What will change? What will happen to those who need us desperately?

Look inside yourself... the courage is right there. Don’t wait for someone else. Act. Now. Please do everything that you possibly can... for those who need us desperately.

Where Are the Good Americans?
Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith

(Excerpt)

Anyone who sees the photographs of the victims of the Nazi concentration camps must wonder how human beings could ever have allowed such things to happen. They must wonder how people of good will could have stood by while their government committed atrocities in their name. In the wake of that nightmarish era, people often asked, "Where were the good Germans?"

After the publication of the long-suppressed pictures of Abu Ghraib victims and the United Nations finding that torture and abuse are still taking place at the US prison in Guantánamo Bay, America has fashioned its own nightmare. We now must ask ourselves, "Where are the good Americans?"

(snip)

If Congress won't act, then it is up to the people. We must make every family dining table, every house of worship and every town meeting a place to stand up and speak out.

Only then will those who come after us know where the "good Americans" were.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/brecher

Elie Wiesel: The Perils of Indifference

(Excerpt)

In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony. One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it.

Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own.

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment.

(snip)

In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders. During the darkest of times, inside the ghettoes and death camps -- and I'm glad that Mrs. Clinton mentioned that we are now commemorating that event, that period, that we are now in the Days of Remembrance -- but then, we felt abandoned, forgotten. All of us did.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ewieselperilsofindifference.html (text & audio)

A Conversation on Poverty and Segregation
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber

(An excerpt)

"But for God’s sake, don’t ever give up, because some child is depending on you, some family is hoping for a better day, some worker needs a breakthrough, the voiceless still need a voice, the poor still need an advocate, those in the margin still need to be mentioned, people who are down still need to be lifted, the hurt still need to be healed. Use your life in the court of humanity to say “I WILL OBJECT UNTIL JUSTICE ROLLS DOWN LIKE WATER & RIGHTEOUSNESS LIKE A MIGHTY STREAM!"

http://www.unc.edu/law/povertycenter/audio/barber.mp3

May God / Goddess / Allah / Jehovah / YHWH / the Creator / Waheguru / the One have mercy on us, awaken our souls and restore humanity.