tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30870914409747975412011-08-14T01:03:54.240-05:00Welcome to my crazy exciting wonderful world!Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115684866216375000noreply@blogger.comBlogger11100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3087091440974797541.post-10468597903139437422008-09-24T20:56:00.007-05:002008-09-24T22:06:44.016-05:00<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;" >There is a quote: </span><pre><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-style: italic;font-size:180%;" >First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me. </span><p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-style: italic;" class="author"><span style="font-size:180%;">by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945*</span></p><p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 0); font-style: italic;" class="author"><span style="font-size:180%;"> </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">We were talking about supposedly "religious" </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">people who take delight in hurting others and </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: courier new;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >pointing out other's faults while not blieving they</span> </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">have any. I am struck by the blatent arogance </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">of people who think doing nothing means they are </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">not supporting other's actions. As you can see </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">by the above quote, it is a dangerous and very </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">scary tactic. Doing nothing is making a choice</span> </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">to do somthing...Would you not be better off </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">doing the right thing instead of nothing? </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">Then we discussed the fact that doing something </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">(i.e. the right thing) sometimes has consequences. </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">I paraphrased the above quote to show what the </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:lucida grande;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;">ultimate consequenses were. Spriritual people who </span></p><p style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:lucida grande;" class="author"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">believe </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">that good must triumph over evil must take </span> </span></p><p style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" class="author"><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" >action. It is simple. And, easier said than done.</span><span style="font-size:180%;"> </span></p><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;" > </span><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:courier new;" class="author"><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></p><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">* </span><a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">Rev. Martin Niemoller was protected until</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml"> 1937 by both the foreign press and influential</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">friends in the up-scale Berlin suburb where he</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">preached. Eventually, he was arrested</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">for treason. Perhaps due to foreign pressure,</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">he was found guilty, but initially given only</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">a suspended sentence. He was however then almost </a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">immediately re-arrested on Hitler’</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml"> direct orders. From then on until the end of WW II,</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">he was held at the Sachsenhausen</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">and Dachau concentration camps. Near the end of the war,</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">he narrowly escaped execution.</a> <a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">[from Charles Colson’s <cite>Kingdoms in Conflict</cite>]</a></span></pre> <hr style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); height: 4px; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" width="25%"> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">After the war, Niemoller emerged from prison to preach the words that began this post, that all of us know... He was instrumental in producing the “Stuttgart Confession of Guilt”, in which the German Protestant churches formally accepted guilt for their complicity in allowing the suffering which Hitler’s reign caused to occur. In 1961, he was elected as one of the six presidents of the World Council of Churches, the ecumenical body of the Protestant faiths.</a></span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">Niemoller emerged also as an adamant pacifist and advocate of reconciliation. He actively sought out contacts in Eastern Europe, and traveled to Moscow in 1952 and North Vietnam in 1967. He received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967, and the West German Grand Cross of Merit in 1971. Martin Niemoller died in Wiesbaden, West Germany on Mar 6, 1984, at the age of 92. [from </a></span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml">the <cite>Encyclopedia Britannica</cite>].</a></span></p><pre><a href="http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Politics/niemoller.shtml"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" ></span> </a></pre><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3087091440974797541-1046859790313943742?l=sweetjami.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Alicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12115684866216375000noreply@blogger.com0