The disabled aren't in the poem either, and that's equally telling. - ThreadSky

taliabhatt.itch.io • 11 hours ago

The disabled aren't in the poem either, and that's equally telling.

Reposted from Sx. Shelley B Woke - Living Saint of Victory 🏳️‍⚧️🖤💜🤍 💛

First they came for the queers, and you didn't know it because we're not in the poem

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drjaimeashworth.bsky.social•10 hours ago

My handy guide to critique of Niemoller.

turnedtofire.bsky.social•6 hours ago

You also made me realise the poem's structure (then vs now, they did this vs I didn't do that) tends to distract us from this:

People who he didn't speak for had already spoken up for him before they were taken away, e.g. socialists valuing and trying to better the society of which he was a part.

emberendr.bsky.social•9 hours ago

*lutheran voice:* maybe we'll just leave those folks out

welshvalleysub.bsky.social•1 hour ago

Then all those perceived to be lesser than them with no thought of the value of life. This very threat continues if good people do nothing. The lesson Shakespeare wrote of 400 years ago there abouts.

taliabhatt.itch.io•11 hours ago

Niemoller didn't declare enough guilt and y'all should perhaps stop taking your moral lessons from the utterly inadequate.

mxmaxwellmusic.bsky.social•11 hours ago

I'll never forget how the first thing Niemoller did after landing in a prison camp was offer his services as an ex WWI navy officer to the nazis. The nazis were in the midst of genociding multiple groups, and he thought to himself, "They seem like decent employers."

thaddeus.zone•7 hours ago

the epistemic danger of getting your history from memetic popular art instead of from, y'know... actual history

ivynyx.bsky.social•11 hours ago

It hits different when you realize that all of the targets listed (and of course the ones not listed) were considered good/valid targets by Niemoller.

First they came for the communists (who I hate), and I said nothing...

Still has value, but you have to know he means "protect the icky, lest..." 😬

nyctemere.bsky.social•7 hours ago

To be fair, I only use that poem with people who I know will not do things like defending a group of people because they're human beings, and would only respond to "oh shit I am next"

epistemophagy.bsky.social•11 hours ago

Niemoller was an opportunist before and an opportunist after but he wrote a catchy little prose excerpt in the middle and that's what counts

m-ch.bsky.social•10 hours ago

Right. If we expect writers and artists to be moral beacons, we'll be left with very few choices. And for no benefit.

kayyf.bsky.social•9 hours ago

not a writer nor an artist though

epistemophagy.bsky.social•10 hours ago

I'm very sorry — I'm apologising because I have no beef with you personally and don't want to start a fight here — but I was being sarcastic. The view I was trying to convey was that Niemöller gets way too much credit for having half-heartedly renounced fascism in a nicely phrased way

daira.bsky.social•10 hours ago

https://bsky.app/profile/daira.bsky.social/post/3lmjdp7jikc2c

daira.bsky.social•10 hours ago

This was only one occasion on which he made the speech; disabled people weren't included in other versions. I don't know to what extent the erasure of disabled people from the poem was Niemöller's responsibility, but presumably he could have insisted that we were included in that, and didn't.

daira.bsky.social•10 hours ago

Also he volunteered to be a U-boat commander for the Nazis, so fuck him.

zaraworkercouncils.bsky.social•11 hours ago

The psychiatric hospitals where disabled people were gassed in the basement in Germany still operate as psychiatric hospitals to this day but just have cute little signs

fireantprincess.bsky.social•11 hours ago

that’s not even the worst example of how much entnazifizierung failed

zaraworkercouncils.bsky.social•11 hours ago

Ofc! And the US never had much deconfederateification or de-eugeniccation

pola.bsky.social•11 hours ago

I’d argue that Reconstruction was an attempt at something like that but it failed in a similar way in which denazification failed – offenders were ultimately brought back into power, and their crimes handwaived away.

fireantprincess.bsky.social•11 hours ago

sterilizing gay people is a crime?

pola.bsky.social•11 hours ago

Oh, I’m not using the word crime in a legal sense here but to mean generally an evil action.

bratapfel.bsky.social•10 hours ago

Just a band aid on a seeping wound.
Recently heard and interview and read Hildegard Knef, who started her career with a call for Entnazifizierung. Where she came back from Hollywood, having missed the Wirtschaftswunder and founding of the BRD no one was talking about Nazis anymore.

bratapfel.bsky.social•10 hours ago

And I think there is some truth to that experience. They could got "This went well, let's forget about it." and go with conservative argument that the Nazi's had been too sexy and not religious enough and that was the main problem. Becoming rich prudes in denial as a national identity.

jeanlucbacardi.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Yeah, I'm packing for the camps already. None of these "resistance" folks seem to remember we exist

rejserin.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Not to excuse Niemoller but the ransacking of the Institute of Sexology and killing of disabled folks were not widely publicised in Germany after the facts. Niemoller came from a particular social background which was anitsemitic and I see the poem as a mea culpa rather than factual accounting.

htownqueer.bsky.social•6 hours ago

I was told that was "antisemitism" for mentioning that.

chrismesser.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Lol, that word had been hijacked to mean "Against fascism."

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