f exe husic ton have to Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen diers finding themselves, one day, doing irregu- and sol- lar things. Be ready to say no.A uthoritarian regimes usually includ, ‘ le riot police force whose task is to di zens who seek to protest, . 3 Special ese ci. force whose assignment: ws on re dissenters or oth . oe ‘ others designated as enemie: indeed we find forces of the latter kind an involved in the great atrocities of the twe oe century, such as the Great Terror in aces ae of 1937-38 and the Holocaust of Europe fen pert by Nazi Germany in ais bos Ce : great mistake if we imagine that aa ogee D or the Nazi SS acted without cree ithout the assistance of regular police » and sometimes regular soldiers, we killed on such a large scale. In the Gi i : wt “oe Boe i the Soviet Union, “upposed enemies of the state ants or members of 8 of nati i : nal they could ,691 executions of most of them peas- minorities. Perhaps or better oy a mon years. Asn 1 namie a sKvD — small nu f : ° imber of men carried — out the ‘1 at certain NKVD of murders on their ibly have neck shots which meant cs ; ficers had thousands of political consciences: Even so, they could not possib! out this campaign without the assistance sce forces, legal professionals, and civil jnout the Soviet Union. ‘The Great during a state of exception that to subordinate themselves ‘The police- but they carried of local poli servants throug! ‘Terror took place required all policemen to the NKVD and its special tasks. men were not the principal perpetrators, provided the indispensable manpower. When we think of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews, we imagine Auschwitz and mechanized impersonal death. This was a convenient way for Germans to remember the Holocaust, since they could claim that few of them had known exactly what had happened behind those gates. In fact, the Holocaust began not in the death facilities, but over shooting pits in eastern Europe. And indeed some of the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen, the German task forces that perpetrated some of the murders, were tried at Nuremberg and later in 49- ee West German courts. But even these tri Tials Were ofthe time sentially d under their a kind of minimization of the scale Not the SS commanders alone, but of the thousands of men who serve command were murderers, And this was jt i Just the beginni j ing. Eve; ok shooting action of the Holocaust (ine ae " re mu iss thousand Jews murdered outside ne than twenty-eight thou: i " sand outside Ri and on and on) involved the regular Com ve : an po- eae ‘gular policemen murdered non ‘nsatzgruppen. Many of them had 00 special pre ‘Paration for thi themselves in an * this task. They found from y murde: i : T0us conviction. But MARY others who kille Were just afraid to sta tf just afrai id in 0 O 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. mber Rosa Parks. The moment you set an Remet the spell of the status quo is broken, example, and others will follow.At the Second World War, Americans, and others created m pen, teas resistance to Hitler. Tn the 19305, 4.08 > Rowe ‘ever, the dominant attitudes had been accom, and admiration. By 1940 most Europe, eon ans hag | 7 irresi: power of Nazi Germany. Influential Amen such as Charles Lindbergh opposed way ; ar wi the Nazis under the slogan “America First te Te is made their peace with the seemingly those who were considered exceptional, eccentr, or even insane in their own time—those aa not change when the world around them did " whom we remember and admire today. — Well before the Second World War, numerous Naropean states had abandoned democracy for authoritarianism, Italy nes “ “ 1922, and was a had been dr; wie samen drawn toward Germany by “de and territory. In March 1938 fered any Tesistance as In September 1938 and Great Brit- in—actually ved with Nazi Germany in the partition Cc re postovakia. In summer 1939 the Soviet oe sth Nazi Germany and the Red . Ilied wit Union 2 the Webrmacht in the invasion of Po- h government chose to fight, acti- vating agreements that brought Great Britain and France into the war. Germany, supplied with food and fuel by the Soviet Union, invaded and quickly the Netherlands, Belgium, and occupied Norway, ven France in the spring of 1940. The remainder of the British expeditionary force was evacuated from the Continent at Dunkirk in late May and early June 1940. When Winston Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, Great Britain was alone. The British had won no meaningful battles and had no important allies. ‘They had entered the war to support Poland, a cause that seemed lost. Nazi Germany and its Soviet ally dominated the continent. The Soviet Union had invaded Finland Army joined € tand. The Polis 53in November 1939, beginning with Helsinki, Right after Churchill a,., ssu the Soviet Union occupied and ann, bombing of Med off lexed the yp” evi . The United States had not Bae ve Adolf Hitler had no special mt animus three ania, Baltic states of Estonia, os Churchill to come to terms aft . tance. Churchill did not. He told fe : sn vats whatever you may do, we shall f tonne ever and ever and ever.” “ron * ; n June 1940, Churchill told the vament that : British par- the battle of Britain is are the German Luftwaffe began the bo b e bomb- Hitler expected that this hill to si begin,” '& of British cities, would force Chute the honor to helped the British to le who would 5 would have n to end d, and as a proud peop) define thems Other politician jtish public opinio found 0 purchill instead resisted, inspire Ie Toya Ai Force Gincuing 0 Polish wand a number of other foreigh pilots) Without control of the kc the Lufrwaffe. Id not imagine an amphibious port in Br won. equadror held bacl air, even Hitler cou .n of Great Britain. Churchill did what others had not done. x than concede in advance, he forced Hitler ‘The essential German strat- the west, invasior Rathe to change his plans. egy had been to remove any resistance in and then to invade (thus betraying) the Soviet Union and colonize its western territories. In June 1941, with Britain still in the war, Germany at- tacked its Soviet ally. Now Berlin had to fight a two-front war, and Moscow and London were suddenly unex- pected allies. In December 1941, Japan bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and the United States entered the war. 55N , ow Moss Washington, and and irresistible coaliti “io with the help of many other they er, y oth 7 great powers won the er allies, these - t Mey 5 Second World 7 in his vast histories and mer his vast . his own deci lecisions as self-evid lent, the British People and Bris Churchill did seems wee time he had to stand o OF course, G; Bri "s allies. Today stay , and right. But at the ily damags d about twent a ich had kille y-five thou- stood out among woman, is hor- Teresa, ily in her reaction thi 5 natural to think only of oneself, she thought of others. In late 1940, the s began to establish ghettos in the part German “tunder their control. That October the nding region were of Polan Jews of Warsaw and the surrou required to move to @ certain district of the city. One of Teresa's brothers had been friendly with a Jewish girl and her family before the war. Teresa now observed that people quietly allowed their Jewish friends to slip away from their lives. “Without telling her family, and at herself, Teresa chose to enter the Warsaw ghetto @ dozen times in late 1940, bringing food and med- icine to Jews she knew and Jews she did not. By great risk towat ~— the end of the year she had Persuad, er’ friend to escape the ghetto, In helped the girl's parents and brothe; That summer in the Warsaw ghetto, ¢ ed he, bron 1942 Tere, T to 6, he Ge carried out what they called the “Great Ae the classic nov- els of totalitarianism warned of the domination of the suppression of books, the narrowing of vocabularies, and the associated difficulties of radbury’s Fahrenheit 451, pub- thought. In Ray B tied in 1953, firemen find and burn books while ens watch interactive television. In than 100 screens, most citize George Orwell’s 1984, published in 1949, books are banned and television is two-way, allowing the government to observe citizens at all times. In 1984, the language of visual media is highly constrained, to starve the public of the concepts needed to think about the present, remember the past, and consider the future. One of the regime's is to limit the language further by elimi- projects of the hating ever more words with each edition official dictionary. 61ev - on KV’ The Brother, Kana hers. Fyodor Dosto- wtera's Ty and resistance is J.K. Rowlings Harry Pater andthe Deathly Ha Fro H'you ox your friends or your children did pot read it that way the first time, then it bears reading again. Some of the political and historical texts that inform the arguments made here are “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell (1946); The Language of the Third Reich by Victor Klemperer (1947); The Origins of Totalitarian- ism by Hannah Arendt (1951); The Rebel by Al- bert Camus (1951); The Captive Mind by Czestaw Mitosz (1953); “The Power of the Powerless” by Vaclav Havel (1978); “How to Be a Conservative- Liberal-Socialist” by Leszek Kotakowski (1978); The Uses of Adversity by Timothy Garton Ash (1989); The Burden of Responsibility by Tony Judt (1998); Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning (1992); and Nothing Is True and Everything Is Pos- sible by Peter Pomerantsev (2014). Christians might return to the foundational book, which as ever is very timely. Jesus preaches that it “is easier for a camel to go through 63ye of a needle than for a the kingdom of God.” Wea” en whosoever shall exale himaciy ®s a, he that shall humble hi im And of et ‘Ourse We must be Me and what i false: “Ang dw and the truth shall mal Ke you fice gelieve in truth. ‘To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothingiis true, then mo one can criticize power, because there is NO basis upon which to do so. Ifnothing is true, then all is spectacle. ‘The big- gest wallet pays for the most blinding lights. 65 oepetition? designed to make the ibe and the criminal desirable. The Pix of ncknames such 28 “Sleepy Joe” ' srrcstl lary” displaced certain char- that might more appropriately have cer ts aie othe president i Yer through we een ove Tote apres managed sp masformation ofindvduls into stereotypes har people then poke aloud and internalized At rales, the fepeated chants of “Build that wall” sc“Lock him up” didnot describe anything that ‘would actually happen, but their very grandiosity cstablished a connection between the speaker and his audience. “The next mode is magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction, A billionaire is someone who can pay neither his taxes nor his debts, Liberating the wealthy from taxes will not ‘means selling the presidency for favor. that kills hundreds of thousands will vanish. ‘The ‘ote is always rigged, and you shoud vote for me 6‘rw today. One of his former studem ee tS implored feelings, ang non the dicomon you re ag i ofr all the ame ‘bandon yourself to your always focus on the Fi Twelve years later, to ven to room femains for the small ida “hag a cernment and experi- od Klemp, er was the way that ent. Once truth mane jon seed factual evidence worker told ing is useless, yOu faith. I believe in the Fairer” the great Romanian play- after another slip Eugene Jonescos i soht, watched one frien by Tanguage of fascism in the 1930s. ‘The experience became the basis for his 1959 ab- surdist play, Rhinoceros, in which those who fall prey to propaganda are transformed into giant Pred beasts. OF his own personal experiences away into the Tonesco wrote: University professors, students, intellectuals twere turning Nazi, becoming Iron Guards, one after the other. At the beginning, certainly they were not Nazis. About fifteen of us would get together to talk and to try to find arguments opposing theirs. It was not easy. ... From time to time, one of our friends said: “I don't agree with them, vo be sure, but on certain points, nevertheless, 69vote e weeks later, this tng 10 would become a Nazi. He ws, caughy mechanism, be accepted everything, pe ieee rbimoceres. Towards the end, Only three or py Ms were still resisting. t Jonesco’s aim was to help us see varre propaganda actually is, seems to those who yield to i surd image of the thinoceros, © shock people into noticing what was actually happening, Just how bie but how. Dormal it it. By using the ab. Tonesco Was trying the Strangeness of The thinoceri are roaming through our neu. eryday facts and *S construction of alternative something new of tealities is 's notion of “dou- Post-truth restores hat h—and ¢ tude to trutl he fascist Suan world would startle isely ¢ our ow} recise! . in pothing # history ive myths to istentty and preferred creative eit ccna cligions and Py sed ne" ox jour: ro- beat of p' radio, to create a dru me was the tim had ings before people roused feelings , many that a facts. And now, as then a certain in a hugely flawed lea i paganda time to ast sh fused fait faved Peta about the world we all s wit Post-truth is pre-fascism. a