“On Tyranny” - Chapter 8: "Stand out"
We’ve heard, possibly ad nauseam, that history repeats itself or that it rhymes or that it echos. In any case, we are witnessing a scenario that played out across the twentieth and seems to be playing out again in the twenty-first; the fall of democracy across the planet. We are also experiencing the fall of an empire.
Make no mistake, US foreign policy has been built on the idea of “Manifest Destiny” and this was assumed to be a universal axiom. It began as justification for the Western movement in the nineteenth century with all the acquisition of native lands possible and land grabs from Mexico and Spain, not to mention the crazy bargain basement buy-out of the Louisiana Purchase. Post Civil War, we see the U.S. expansionism begin across the globe, very often via armed takeover, but later in the twentieth century, by way of “soft” and not-so-soft, power.
With increased globalization, it’s obvious there would be those who would challenge US hegemony, but realistically, it’s been difficult for most to do so. We arrived at a moment when the dollar was the de facto world currency, where the US military is the largest and most well-funded in the world, and where we presented a face of benevolence that could turn on a dime to severe retribution through sanctions, if not armed conflict.
Along the way, many have protested and it would be inaccurate to say that demonstrations and protest haven’t effected substantive policy shifts in US legislation and policy, domestic and abroad. Nevertheless, at least since the 1980s, we’ve seen greater accumulation of wealth funnel upward to an increasingly small minority of the ultra-wealthy, while living with the lie of supply-side/trickle down economic theory. We’ve also lived out in real time, a Huxleyesque upsurge in distraction from our devices and the immediate gratification we’ve grown used to.
These distractions have proven effective in keeping us busy with trifles that are right at our fingertips. Consequently, our educational levels have diminished to remarkable lows for a developed country, particularly the one with - at one time, anyway - the world’s most robust economy. All the while, other stressors have obtained toeholds, if not entire feet, among the polity.
As we saw in the last election, there was an issue with messaging; that one party was emphasizing and touting the economic gains of the previous four years - all verifiable - but that ran counter to most Americans’ experiences in day to day living. Real wages did improve, inflation did go down, and it was obvious that corporations were jacking up prices irrespective of market averages. Indeed, the previous administration had plans to go after price-gouging, but as with other policies that were on the docket, this has vanished, and with it any sense of proportion of fairness for Americans.
The social safety net is being shredded, as are the institutions that help feed, clothe, and keep us relatively healthy. It is not an overstatement nor is it alarmist to say that we are living under the reign of oligarchs and would-be fascism. I say would-be because the transition isn’t yet total or complete.
Those of us who have taken part in protests over the past few years - while finding support among people who wanted to attend but couldn’t, for example - have often found ourselves mocked by cynics and trolls. Nevertheless, the cynics and trolls are only tangential to the discussion; it’s the complacent and the compliant who are more problematic.
Let me amend the above. It’s a typical, mocking cynicism that goes after activists; it often comes from a place of insecurity and maybe even a kind of jealousy. Of course, it also finds its origin in anger and hatred at whatever the cause is on the behalf of which one is protesting or demonstrating. But it’s a different kind of cynicism that informs the apathetic, the compliant, the complacent. Some would say that it’s just defeatism. Some might go so far to defend it as a viable response to the terror of the situation; why, with everything you see in the world and throughout the media landscape, how could people not retreat into some catatonic or somnambulant state?
Sure, that might be so. But it’s cynical and a self-fulfilling prophecy to convince yourself and others that nothing matters because the cards are so stacked against us. “You can’t expect everyone to get involved!” Also, true. And it takes a certain amount of restraint not to rail against those who didn’t realize what’s transpired until it affects them directly. A better approach would be to welcome people in and congratulate them on responding to the wake-up call. (With caveats; sometimes we wake up to have a cup of coffee and go right back to bed.)
Recently, there have been protests and demonstrations across the nation protesting the regime’s actions on a number of fronts but particularly in the handling of immigration issues, and the dismantling of the economy and the threats to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. That non-governmental actors have breached financial and other data of the country’s population without Congressional oversight or censure, is nothing short of a coup d’etat. This is where we are.
Snyder knows this, of course. His slim volume is twenty bullet points we should all be aware of and take to heart as action items.
We have voices, we need to use them. There is no security of waking up tomorrow to the same world you went to bed to. It’s not been that way, really, since the election. Maybe even since the current occupier was first in the seat of power.
“Chapter 8 Stand out.
Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.”
It does take a certain amount of courage to speak up, but I’ve found myself giving over to the moment and not really giving a shit after running my mouth. To date, no one’s cracked me in the skull for it, but there’s time yet.
“Well before the Second World War, numerous European states had abandoned democracy for some form of right-wing authoritarianism.” Let that sink in for a moment. We’ve been at this point before. We are at it again. America in the 1930s may not have turned its back on democracy, but was certainly isolationist and were even willing to accommodate the Germans and in some cases, opposed war with the Nazis. Europe by 1940 had pretty much accepted Germany’s expansion across the continent.
It was Great Britain who came to Poland’s aid when the Germans invaded and it was Britain who opposed the rise of fascism across the continent. Churchill was painfully aware of the possibility of an invasion by the Nazis. To be sure, as Snyder points out, Hitler didn’t have any particular bone to pick with Britain; but he did expect the Crown to capitulate in advance as others had. Churchill did not; the British did not.
Up until 1941, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had been allies but Germany decided to invade in echoes of Napoleon’s folly. Thus, they found themselves fighting two fronts. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the US entered the war and the rest, as they say, is history, but what I want look at and what Snyder is getting at are the exceptional voices that speak in defiance to authoritarianism, to totalitarianism. To tyranny, pure and simple.
Churchill was alone among the powers that met Germany’s challenge to the European order. After the war, he gave full credit to the British people for Britain’s victories and place in the victory over fascism. He stood out.
Snyder tells the story of Teresa Prekerowa, a young Polish woman who entered the Warsaw Ghetto surreptitiously, bringing food and medicine to Jews. As Snyder points out, “when it was natural to think only of oneself, she thought of others.” By the end of 1940, she had persuaded her brother’s friends in the Ghetto to move out and flee. She persuaded the rest of the family to flee in 1942, before the “Great Acton” in which the Germans deported 265,040 Jews to Trebliinka to meet certain death and murdering 10, 380 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto itself.
She later became a historian of the Warsaw Ghetto, documenting those who helped offer aid to the Jews there. “But she preferred not to write about herself. When, much later, she was asked to speak about her own life, she called her actions normal. From our perspective, her actions seem exceptional. She stood out.”
Through these examples, we have mandates. We can, each of us, lend aid to those in similar situations; we can help those in need or in danger. We can protest and demonstrate. We can stand out like Teresa, by not making a big deal about what we’re doing; simply by doing it. Will this change the ruling class? Oh, but yes.
Here’s the thing; despots always fall; empires don’t last; and the current occupiers are not geniuses. They are criminals, and not terribly bright ones. As they vaunt themselves above the law, more will oppose them. If they shred the constitution and the rule of law, then it will be down to resistance from the streets.
Nobody wants that, though, except for too many survivalists and alt-right militia types who think this will be “fun” and/or righteous. They may be surprised, too, when their efforts are stymied, when decency prevails in the most indecent of conditions.
How to start? By simply doing what’s right right now. Stand out by caring for others as much as yourself, if not more so. I genuinely feel as though I’ll be fine. I’ve lived long enough to know that I’m nothing special and that I get lucky now and again to do something decent.
But you, friend, you have an opportunity to be truly exceptional. I believe in all of you.
Next Chapter: “Be kind to our language.”
I don’t have to add a lot here in terms of what we will likely be called on to do. You will read, again and again, how important it is to contact your reps, to volunteer your time, to march in protest, and to help where you can/as you can.
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