Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[dixiegrrrrl]

That is my single question..can anyone relate to the below ?
And for added points, does anyone know where the below book excerpt is from?

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, "was the ever widening gap, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with.
And it became always wider. You know, it doesn't’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to.
( Our government) gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic person’ could resent,
must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.


the book is: They Thought They Were Free.
Milton Mayer
first published in 1935.
The people are Germans, in Nazi Germany.

[Subdivisions]

1. MY GOD! And I'm not even religious!

I had NO IDEA that was not written by a blogger today. Absolutely incredible historical parallel.

Excellent post, dixiegrrrl. K & R!

[NightWatcher]

2. combine the German's incremental atrocities to Panem et Circenses (Rome's bread and circuses)

and you see where and how we got to where we are today.

The Totalitarian Tip Toe (as I heard it once before) combined with distractions and the instant gratification of the masses and it is very EASY to see what's going on. We should rise up against.... oh look, that "pants on the ground" guy is on American Idol again and my iPhone has a new app to tell me what to think.... what were you saying? the circus is coming.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. I am chagrined to say I had never heard of

"The Totalitarian Tip Toe"...
Nice phrase.

[arthritisR_US]

3. it's so bloody scary how much it parallels today. I'm going to order that

book from Chapters, thanks Dixie :hi:

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. You are most welcome.

the book is unfortunately not available to read online, so must be bought.
The excerpt I posted is really the key part, but I do recommend reading the book.


btw...a related book is:
It Can't Happen Here by Upton Sinclair
and it IS available on line to read:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html

[arthritisR_US]

7. Thanks! I'm going to start the online one now :-) n/t

[NoNothing]

4. You realize

This kind of rhetoric simply plays into conservative hammering of the government as some "other," some unholy beast that must be starved and diminished. Right? I mean, you can't simultaneously identify with the above excerpt AND think the same government should become bigger and more powerful, can you?

[Fire1]

6. Good point. n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Labeling ideas as either "right wing" or "left wing"

is one of the methods used to keep us from looking at what is going on.
The old "divide and conquer trick has been used well.
It is possible to see parallels in history without having to fight labels.

The SIZE of government. has nothing to do with my post.
It is the behavior of government that is an issue at the moment.

[NoNothing]

9. Size matters

If the behavior of the government is more bad than good, it is illogical to want more of it.

[Fuzz]

18. That's a simplistic way of looking at it.

The 'government' is us, the people. We, however, through our complacency and laziness and through jingoism over 'social' issues have allowed ourselves to be sidetracked where we view 'politics' as a sporting event, left vs right, arguing over bullshit while the big issues and real power are being taken away from us. We are allowing ourselves to be ruled and pushed around, allowing our constitutional rights to be taken away out of fear. That's how I read the above passage. It's not the size of the government, it's what it does in our name and how we allow it to control us.

[eridani]

17. What we need to defend here is the notion of public goods

If the government has given up on the notion, we need to call them to account.

[bain_sidhe]

11. part of that was my sig during most of the Bush years

very sad to think that it still applies.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. K&R

for Mayer's "They Thought They Were Free".

EDIT: Only, I thought it was published in '55 - it couldn't be '35, because it refers to events in '36 and later.

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. I double checked the pub. date.

You are of course correct,
typo, most probably.

Thanks.

[Mira]

14. A book I have been meaning to pick up and read for months now

This excerpt echoes what I heard from German family members and friends growing up in Germany. At least from those with enough brain and courage to speak about it.
Now I will speed up getting a hold of this book.
Thanks Dixiegrrrrl for bringing this to the attention of folks here.

Reading it makes my hair stand on end and my flesh crawl.
For all the obvious reasons.

I wish I could give it more than one recommendation.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one

Thomas Paine

[The Doctor.]

16. Yep, been spreading it around for years.

To little avail.

These days, we have a powerful propaganda machine to set the philosophically oblivious mouth-breathers against those of us who would stop it.