Know Your Enemy

Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will be victorious. – Sun Tzu

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Never underestimate what a few individuals will do in pursuit of wealth, privilege, or power. The danger of a sociopathic powerful few being able to carry out monstrous acts, because the many refuse to believe such horrible acts are not possible, is an ever present danger.

The price of freedom, as well as democracy, truly is eternal vigilance. And sadly, the war on freedom and democracy is now in endgame in 2020. Inform yourself, and resist. Remember, the people always have the greater power.

And do read, or read again, Brave New World, 1984, Necessary Illusions, Escape From Freedom, The Shock Doctrine, The Ecology Of Freedom, the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., The Discourse On Voluntary Servitude, and Thoreau’s short essay, On Civil Disobedience.

We need maximum clarity and inspiration now.

JTR,

August 15, 2020

 

Lest we forget (the awful power of denial):

 

Chaim Engel, Sobibor survivor, interview with USHMM, discussing arriving at the death camp:

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/chaim%20engel.html

“Well let me say that we hear in Poland what happens with the Jews. They kill Jews and they gas Jews and things like that. 

But we really as young people, we really didn’t believe that something like that is possible. We thought, “Maybe the younger people will be taken to work – maybe only the older people…..” 

You just didn’t want to believe, because it was so incomprehensible, so unbelievable that something like that can happen that you just – even if you had the intelligence, you didn’t believe it.”

http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-066-08.html

 

Testimony from the Eichmann trial:

Attorney General: When you came there, did you know what was the place you had arrived at?

Witness Lindwasser: No. I knew it was Treblinka, but we did not know the purpose.

Q. Had you heard about Treblinka in Warsaw?

A. We had heard about Treblinka.

Q. Did you know that Jews were being exterminated at Treblinka?

A. We did not believe it.

Q. You did not believe it. Why?

A. Why? This would, perhaps, be difficult to answer. Possibly, it is an individual matter for each person. One simply could not grasp that such a thing was possible – actual extermination. Rumours reached Warsaw that the Germans were sending people out to work. And simply, it was better to cling to this idea.