This was published in the Fall, 1999 issue of Tikkun magazine
First They Came For . . .
by Reverend Martin Niemoeller
First they came for the
communists,
And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade
unionists,
And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the
homosexuals,
And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a homosexual.
Then they came for the
Jews,
And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the
Catholics,
But I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
And there was no one left to speak up.
Reverend Niemoeller, a German Lutheran pastor, was arrested by
the Gestapo
and sent to Dachau in 1938. This was written upon his release by
the Allied
Forces in 1945.
Nature: A Conclusion
by Nina Moliver, May 10, 1999
First they milled the flour, threw away the germ and the bran,
and added a few vitamin extracts.
And I didn't speak up, because I eat whole grains.
Then they removed babies from the breast and fed them artificial
formulas with cow's milk.
And I didn't speak up, because I breastfed my baby.
Then they laced the beef with hormones and antibiotics.
And I didn't speak up, because I don't eat beef.
Then they fed the chickens artificial pellets and kept them from
sunlight.
And I didn't speak up, because I don't eat chicken or eggs.
Then they marketed dairy produced by recombinant hormones and
laced with dioxin and pesticides, and all the rats got
cancer.
And I didn't speak up, because I don't eat dairy.
Then they marketed fish contaminated with mercury and dioxin.
And I didn't speak up, because I don't eat fish.
Then they poured pesticides over the vegetables and grew them
with commercial fertilizer.
And I didn't speak up, because I eat only organic vegetables.
Then they altered the genes of the vegetables, and the pollen
from the altered vegetables blew in and contaminated the organic
vegetable gardens.
And I spoke up, because there was nothing left for me to eat.
Paraphrased from Reverend Martin Niemoeller's original.