Will We All Die Alone?

Just finished Hans Falllada's EVERY MAN DIES ALONE. It's a book about resistance against the facist government of Hitler by a non-Jewish German couple whose son was killed in the war. The descriptions of fear and intimidation, the bullying and spying by police and other agencies of government seemed very familiar. Neighbors were afraid to trust neighbors. While the hierarchy all took the stance of uber-patriotism, the general public detested the government and but said nothing to keep themselves from becoming a target of investigation. Though written in the 40s, the book has great relevancy yet today.


I see co-workers afraid for their jobs unwilling to stand up for themselves. I see union workers targeted by management should they become too public with their unionism. And weak unions unable to do much more than collect dues and occasionally challenge management.

And of course, there are the police who neither "protect" or "serve" when it comes to dissent against government. The individual cops become a gang of blue going about their brutality toward peaceful people. Individual thought is not endorsed. Like the military. Sociopaths somehow get into the ranks and manage to get power. Like the military.

I vividly recall Marines so institutionalized by the Corps they chose to remain on base during times we were given liberty. They had money but didn't like to enter the civilian world. I remember a Staff Sgt. leading a platoon who had an IQ barely above a person with developmental disability. A concerned company clerk told some of us grunts about him. Of course, it didn't take a genius to figure that one out given his propensity to think he was John Wayne.

Is this the world we want? Automatons enforcing oppressive laws, fearful workers willing to accept abuse simply to remain working for unfair wages, government of the rich only?

Do we want a culture so vapid "reality television" is thought to be real? One where personal interactions are replaced by text messages and social media only? Where players earning millions with sports teams owned by billionaires are the "heroes"? A society so hypnotized by mass media and fluff entertainment it fails to see the true reality?

This may simply sound like a rant but it seems the more people are polarized and distanced from reality and each other the more likely the government and the puppeteers of wealth are to carry out their oppression. The more wedge issues created by bastards like Rove and the Koch brothers the less likely people are to rise up in angry resistance. John Paine and others were the pamphleteers of revolution in the late 1700s. Today there is a great variety of ways to do what they did. But for how long? Will Goldman-Sachs and friends soon be the owners of all the media?