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By Steven Singer
First they came for people of color and I said nothing. Because I am not a person of
color. Then they came for the poor and I said nothing. For I am not poor. Then they came
for our public schools and I said nothing. Because I do not send my children to public
schools. Now they’ve come for our government and who is left to speak for me?
This is a paraphrase of Martin Niemöller’s famous lines about the cowardice of German
intellectuals during Hitler’s rise to power. The fascists purged group after group while
those who could have stood against them did nothing – until it was too late.
That’s very nearly the position we find ourselves in today in relation to the Trump
administration. The neoliberal and neofascist façade has fallen away. And the naked
greed of our runaway capitalist system has been exposed for what it is.
Just this week, Trump unveiled a new government office with sweeping authority to
overhaul federal bureaucracy on the business model.
Led by the president’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, The White House
Office of American Innovation will be an autonomous entity enforcing the president’s
will. Described as an internal “SWAT team” of strategic consultants, and staffed with
former business executives, the office will cut down democratic rule in favor of top-down
authoritarianism.
And the excuse is the same one used to deny equity for minorities, the same one used to
dismantle protections for the poor and the same one used to unfairly label and close our
public schools – we need to run government like a business.
But government is not a business.The goal of a business is profit for the few. The goal of
government is service to the many.
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