We have some interesting issues facing us here in Pagosa Springs, and that’s why I generally focus my editorials on local issues.
But we also have some big national issues facing us, and some of us with a basic understanding of national and world history are wondering if we haven’t been here, before.
According an article in yesterday’s (February 6) Denver Post, by journalist Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton:
Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Wednesday they were targeting more than 100 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in the metro Denver operation. But local immigrant rights groups pushed back on that Thursday, saying they believed the people detained in the roundup largely weren’t criminals…
Fox News reported 30 people were detained in the Denver-area raids, but that only one was a Tren de Aragua member…
Further confusing matters, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said more than 100 members of Tren de Aragua were deported from Colorado on Wednesday. But it was not clear where they would have been sent since Venezuela has refused to accept its citizens back…
Martin Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. He was an anti-Communist, and in the early 1930s, was a supporter Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.
That didn’t work out too well for him. When he realized what was happening to his country — when the Nazis began to imprison the country’s religious leaders — it was too late. In exchange for his opposition to the Nazis’ state control of the churches, Niemöller was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen 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.
His most well-known writing, translated from the German:
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
When the Nazis came for the Communists, they didn’t make a secret of it. They bragged about it. The newspapers wrote about it; the radio newscasters talked about it. Everyone knew what was happening, but most of the German public supported the imprisonment of Communist Party leaders. Then the Nazis began to arrest and lock up the Social Democrats, and then the trade union leaders. And then, the Jews.
By the time the church leaders began to protest, it was too late.
Perhaps some of our Daily Post readers have been following the news since President Trump was inaugurated?
Leading up to the November election, Trump promised to deport 15-20 million immigrants living and working in the U.S. Considering that recent published surveys estimate about 10 million undocumented immigrants, it might sound like a huge number of fully legal U.S. citizens will also be deported, if this plan is implemented.
That process seems to have begun. But deportation is a two-way street. Trump may wish to send immigrants back to their home countries… but those home countries have to be willing to accept the immigrants.
It seems likely we will first see the development of massive concentration camps, to house the immigrants as they are rounded up.
The greater Denver metropolitan area, for example, has a population of about 3 million people. We seem to be talking about 20 million people… put into concentration camps?
But why stop with the immigrants?
Surely, there are many other people who could be arrested and locked up.
Perhaps one of our church leaders will be able to compose a similar poem, within the next couple of years…
First they came for the Immigrants
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an Immigrant
Then they came for the Transgender People
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Transgender Person
Then they came for the Native Americans
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Native American
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for Democratic Party Leaders
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Democratic Party Leader
Then they came for Catholics
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Catholic
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
But maybe we don’t have to wait for our church leaders to be arrested. Maybe we can all speak out… now… before it’s too late?
