I did a lot of thinking last night about some Big Ideas, and I am sure that comes as a complete and total surprise to you. I'd like to share a little of this. I won't pretend any of my thoughts or ideas are novel and bright shining glistening new...but they are my thoughts, assembled in my own way, and presented with no varnish or candy coating to help the medicine go down.
I want to start this essay off with a little bit of etymology. My last name is derived from the German Kniespol, which in succession is derived from the Czech Kněžpole. Kněžpole is a village and municipality (obec) in Uherské Hradiště District in the Zlín Region of the Czech Republic. This will become important later, so please keep this in mind, OK?
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We are told, time and again, that we have 2 years before midterm elections, and that's when we'll wrest the House from the Republican party. The thing is, we don't have two years...we only think we do because no one ever learns from history. We all think things will go differently when the plain and simple fact of the matter is that they never do. All one needs to do is look back at history and see the exact same set of variables occur time and time again to realise that the only change will come when the cycle is broken early, and when we do learn from the mistakes of the past.
To wit:
Adolf Hitler rose to power through an entirely populist movement in post-Weimar Germany. He made promises to the working class that he'd legislate to improve their lots, to free them from the shackles of an invisible entity of indistinct shape and size which oppressed them and kept them down. He played on their fears, their worries, their place in society, and promised to Make Germany Great Again for her people.
In 1930, Hitler and several other Reichswehr officers were brought up on charges of being members of the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers' Party. You may know them better by their common name, the Nazi Party. The NSDAP "was an extremist party, prompting defence lawyer Hans Frank to call on Hitler to testify. On 25 September 1930, Hitler testified that his party would pursue political power solely through democratic elections, which won him many supporters in the officer corps." (Wheeler-Bennett, John (1967). The Nemesis of Power. London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-1812-3.)
Three years later, on 30 January, Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany.
Two months after his election to the highest position in the German government, on 23 March 1933, the Reichstag were called to the Kroll Opera House to vote on the Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act). The Act—officially titled the Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich ("Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich")—gave Hitler's cabinet the power to enact laws without the consent of the Reichstag for four years.
These laws could deviate from the German constitution. Since it would affect the constitution, the Enabling Act required a two-thirds majority to pass. "Leaving nothing to chance, the Nazis used the provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to arrest all 81 Communist deputies (in spite of their virulent campaign against the party, the Nazis had allowed the KPD to contest the election) and prevent several Social Democrats from attending." (Shirer, William L. (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-62420-0.)
Two days later the vote passed 441-84, essentially rendering the German government a de facto dictatorship under the auspices of Hitler and his political cronies.
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"At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000 years! ... Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power!"
("Germany: Second Revolution?". Time Magazine. Time. 2 July 1934. Archived from the original on 17 April 2008.)
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If any of this sounds familiar, it should.
Now, considering that, look at the length of time between assumption of power and dissolution of any semblance of democracy.
Two months.
Not two years.
Two months.
Now, I'd asked you to remember something above, and here's where this comes into play.
Appeasement in a political context is a diplomatic policy of making political or material concessions to an enemy power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the British Prime Ministers Ramsay Macdonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain towards Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy between 1935 and 1939.
Appeasement can take many forms. At the least extreme, it can be 'when they go low, we go high,' doing things like donating money to rebuild campaign offices...money that would be covered by insurance, money that would have been better utilised by benefitting groups that truly need that funding to oppose the policies of the right wing. At a more extreme juncture, it can be assurances to work with the opposition if only they show themselves to have the best interests of (insert geopolitical phrase here) in mind, even when all publicly stated policies run counter to that.
And at the most extreme point, it's a decision to not oppose a nation taking over country by country so long as they leave us alone.
It results in things like the Anchluss.
The Munich Agreement of 1938.
The Munich Betrayal.
Comments like this:
"How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing."
And so it goes.
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1 September was the date that Germany invaded Poland. By this time, Germany had annexed Czechoslovakia, and by 1940 German occupation was pretty much absolute. There were several resistance groups...The Defense of the Nation (organised by the Czech army command), the Politické ústředí which was virtually eliminated following arrests in 1939, the Petiční výbor Věrni zůstaneme, formed by trade unionists and intellectuals, and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which found itself hamstrung for a swath of the early part of the war until actively fighting back in 1941 following Operation Barbarossa.
Kněžpole is a small municipality...even now it is home to less than 1100 people. However in 1940 the residents of the town took part in the Czech resistance against the Reich. Despite the overwhelming odds against them they fought back, and at least 18 residents were arrested for treason and summarily executed.
They didn't capitulate in the face of a stronger force.
It's even possible they knew that the fight was futile.
But they fought. They didn't appease. They didn't expose their bellies. They fought, were arrested, and died for the cause of liberation.
Right now in America, we have two major political parties. One is an extreme right wing party who draws ideas as much from Mussolini as they do the Reich. This is a party that thinks women are simply breeding incubators for babies, that gays and transgender people can be electrocuted into normalcy, that deporting the 'others' and registering Muslims is perfectly OK because there's precedent to do that.
The other party is a party of Neville Chamberlains and Stanley Baldwins.
It's a party of politicians who fought against the right wing, only to say 'well we need to give them a chance,' even as their own party was gridlocked for eight years. It's a party of journalists and pundits bummed out that people booed the vice-president elect at a musical, because at least he's trying to engage, and who state that said booing shows a lack of respect for said same.
We wonder so often why the good people of Germany allowed such atrocities to happen. We talk so much about how we'd be different, how we'd fight back, how we'd stare in the face of fascism and spit in it.
But when the rubber hits the road, no one has any rubber to hit the road with.
I am not a 'good German.'
I reject fascism.
I reject a party and a leadership that espouses and advocates othering and torture.
And like the people of my namesake town in the Czech Republic, I will resist, and I will bleed if necessary. Because I will not belly up, I will not be quiet, I will not appease.
We do not have two years.
And I will not be Neville Chamberlain.
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