Of Foolishness and Evil: Why the Life and Words of Bonhoeffer are Important for Today

by Nomad

The life and words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer underscore a fundamental truth: silence in the face of evil is a form of complicity and foolishness is a greater species of evil.

A Form of Liberation

When the Flossenbürg concentration camp was liberated by soldiers from the United States 90th and 97th Infantry Divisions in mid-April of 1945, they arrived too late to save the 39-year-old Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

As the Allied troops advanced, the SS authority overseeing the camps attempted one last desperate and insane measure. They forced the evacuation of prisoners to other camps under German control. 

In its final hours, the Nazi machine was folding in on itself tighter and tighter, trying in vain to cover up the atrocities it had committed.

According to one prisoner, "one man was left for dead for every 10 yards along the 125-mile evacuation route from Flossenburg south to the village of Posing."

One source provides more details: 

At approximately 10:30 hours on April 23, 1945, the first U.S. troops of the 90th Infantry Division arrived at Flossenburg KZ,. They were horrified at the sight of some 2,000 weak and extremely ill prisoners remaining in the camp and of the SS still forcibly evacuating those fit to endure the trek south. Elements of the 90th Division spotted those ragged columns of prisoners and their SS guards. The guards panicked and opened fire on many of the prisoners, killing about 200, in a desperate attempt to effect a road block of human bodies. American tanks opened fire on the Germans as they fled into the woods, reportedly killing over 100 SS troops.

Only two weeks earlier, on 8 April 1945, SS judge Otto Thorbeck had condemned Pastor Bonhoeffer to death by hanging. Without any mercy or objection, the death sentence was carried out the following dawn.

The order for the execution of a man of God had come from the highest levels of the Nazi command.

Land Grab Scam: How Ted Cruz May Have Found One Issue that Can Unite Both Parties.. Against Him

by Nomad

It's a rare and beautiful thing when the American people come together, forget their differences and agree on something.
GOP candidate Ted Cruz may have stumbled on that very issue. It's too bad for him that a study shows bipartisan public opinion, (including Independents) is overwhelmingly against him.

Under the Hammer

As loyal Nomadic Politics readers know, we have lately had a couple of posts (here and here) on Senator Ted Cruz and his support for a state-level Koch-brothers' initiative to force the federal government to turn over federally-protected lands, including national parks.
Well, it mainly operates at a state-level but as we have seen there are some Congressmen in Washington who are in on the scam.

To summarize (as far as humanly possible), it's part of a three-step arrangement that would also entail states taking on the financial burdens for expensive public land maintenance that they clearly cannot afford. The reason for that somewhat bizarre idea is to justify the auctioning off of protected land to the highest bidder.

But there's some bad news in store for Ted Cruz.

This American Life: Anatomy of the Atypical Trump Supporter

by Nomad

This American Life has another fascinating podcast related to this year's election. Not about the candidates but about one person who is an electrified supporter of Donald Trump.

Sex, Boyhood and Politics in South Carolina- Act One of the two-part podcast- deals with a young Trump fanatic named Alex Chalgren, the South Carolina director for Students for Trump.

One of the producers of the podcast, Zoe Chace says Alex was "one of those kids that adults adore." Why not? He immediately comes across as a bright, articulate, and exudes a positive self-assured quality.

And he is African American.

Perhaps not the usual demographic one automatically thinks of when they imagine a Trump supporter.

Added to that, Alex is openly gay in a state that isn't exactly as open-minded as New York or tolerant as Miami or Los Angeles. In fact, Alex's main reason for supporting Trump is his stand on same-sex marriage. (Not a position Trump particularly promotes on the campaign trail.)

Chace points out that Alex "fits into no known category of voter. All the ways that reporters and political consultants slice up populations, they don't apply to him."

A World on the Brink? Some Essential Questions for Serious People in Very Serious Times

by Nomad

With the US elections months away, and problems around the world causing many to wonder and worry, it's time we asked a few crucial questions about where we are headed.

The other day, the UK Guardian had a not-so-cheerful op-ed piece that is worth noting. 

In the piece, entitled Is The World Drifting Towards Disaster? Maybe, writer Michael White expresses a gloomy fear that things seem to be headed towards something as dark as anything we have yet seen

A lot of bad things are coalescing all over the place and no one seems to be in charge. A combination of opportunist ambition, of myriad weaknesses, systemic and personal, and of profound global power shifts put us all in danger.

We have been here before.

You must have read with alarm, or watched flickering black and white newsreels, how imperial Europe, rich and complacent, drifted towards fatal civil war in 1914. Schoolchildren are taught how 25 years later it all happened again, this time after self-deluding efforts to duck unpleasant realities ended in Hitler’s war.

“How could they be so blind?” we wonder as we read the latest history book or watch those TV documentaries.

Yet look at us.

A perfunctory tour of our troubled world backs up White's observation.