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Under the altar - the White Rose

bh | 03.11.2001 18:32

With Bill C-36 on the way in Canada and 'anti-terrorism legislation' either on the books or on the way around the world, it seemed appropriate to me remember the words of the White Rose

Under the altar - The White Rose

http://www.jlrweb.com/whiterose/

The Canadian government seems ready to pass 'anti-terrorism legislation,' 'Bill C-36', that seems to go even farther than the American version (does the American version include provisions for arrest before a crime is committed (a novelty in the annals of 'crime prevention' to be sure, and something completely new in jurisprudence). Vancouver IMC : Bill C-36 "Some of the more insidious aspects include: Preventative Detention: This gives the police the power to throw anyone in jail they choose, without justification or recourse for the detainee ... Access to Information: The right of Canadians to examine the activities of their elected officials be curtailed, but even worse, at least before they had to ask permission to monitor our e-mails, telephone calls, private discussions, etc. Now they can do it without permission." In a related story, Canadian police demand that no 'sunset clause' be included in the legislation. Canaidian police oppose sunset clause. "A national police group spoke out strongly on Thursday against a "sunset clause" in Ottawa's proposed antiterrorism law that would boost their powers, calling for even more support from Ottawa to fight terrorism ... The Canadian Police Association, representing 30,000 police personnel, said it is concerned about the death of the bill in three years, saying instead they might like to see police granted even more powers than those proposed in Bill C-36 ... "For us, the whole terrorism issue is not something that the sun's going to set on ... A sunset clause will, as time passes, diminish the required priority, support and sense of readiness, while sending a signal to terrorists that we are returning to a state of complacency."

With Bill C-36 on the way in Canada and 'anti-terrorism legislation' also either on the books or coming onto the books in America, Europe, and even in the despotic dictatorships around the world (truly ironic, if you ask me, and the latest expression of 'globalization') it seems appropriate to me to look 'under the altar' and remember the words of the White Rose. This page was inspired by a photo posted to the International IMC site.

February 22, 1943, 9am... Three students from the University of Munich are brought to trial for treason. The trial lasts until 1 pm and by 5 o’clock all are dead. What have these three young people done to cause the top justice of Hitler's People's Court to personally oversee the trial? Why are their voices silenced? And how many more innocent people will have to die before they are heard?

"When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, "O Sovereign God, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?" Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been." Revelations 6:9

A selection of quotes from their protest leaflets, the words for which they were executed...


Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes - crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure - reach the light of day? If the German people are already so corrupted and spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand, frivolously trusting in a questionable faith in lawful order of history; if they surrender man’s highest principle, that which raises him above all other God’s creatures, his free will; if they abandon the will to take decisive action and turn the wheel of history and thus subject it to their own rational decision; if they are so devoid of all individuality, have already gone so far along the road toward turning into a spiritless and cowardly mass - then, yes, they deserve their downfall. Goethe speaks of the Germans as a tragic people, like the Jews and the Greeks, but today it would appear rather that they are a spineless, will-less herd of hangers-on, who now - the marrow sucked out of their bones, robbed of their center of stability - are waiting to be hounded to their destruction. So it seems - but it is not so. Rather, by means of gradual, treacherous, systematic abuse, the system has put every man into a spiritual prison. Only now, finding himself lying in fetters, has he become aware of his fate. Only a few recognized the threat of ruin, and the reward for their heroic warning was death. We will have more to say about the fate of these persons. If everyone waits until the other man makes a start, the messengers of avenging Nemesis will come steadily closer; then even the last victim will have been cast senselessly into the maw of the insatiable demon.

Though he who has boldly risen from the abyss Through an iron will and cunning May conquer half the world, Yet to the abyss he must return. Already a terrible fear has seized him; In vain he will resist! And all who still stand with him Must perish in his fall.

Hitler states in an early edition of "his" book (a book written in the worst German I have ever read, in spite of the fact that it has been elevated to the position of the Bible in this nation of poets and thinkers): "It is unbelievable, to what extent one must betray a people in order to rule it." If at the start this cancerous growth in the nation was not particularly noticeable, it was only because there were still enough forces at work that operated for the good, so that it was kept under control. As it grew larger, however, and finally in an ultimate spurt of growth attained ruling power, the tumor broke open, as it were, and infected the whole body. The greater part of its former opponents went into hiding. The German intellectuals fled to their cellars, there, like plants struggling in the dark, away from light and sun, gradually to choke to death. Now the end is at hand. Now it is our task to find one another again, to spread information from person to person, to keep a steady purpose, and to allow ourselves no rest until the last man is persuaded of the urgent need of his struggle against this system.

But our present "state" is the dictatorship of evil. "Oh, we've known that for a long time," I hear you object, "and it isn't necessary to bring that to our attention again." But, I ask you, if you know that, why do you not bestir yourselves, why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanized state system presided over by criminals and drunks? Is your spirit already so crushed by abuse that you forget it is your right - or rather, your moral duty - to eliminate this system?

Aristotle, Politics: "... and further, it is part [of the nature of tyranny] to strive to see to it that nothing is kept hidden of that which any subject says or does, but that everywhere he will be spied upon."

So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead than the living which are yet alive. Ecclesiastes 4

But what are the German people doing? They will not see and will not listen. Blindly they follow their seducers into ruin. Victory at any price! is inscribed on their banner.

Do not believe the National Socialist propoganda which has driven the fear of Bolshevism into your bones. Do not believe that Germany's welfare is linked to the victory of national Socialism for good or ill.

The imperialist ideology of force, from whatever side it comes, must be shattered for all time.

"Philosophical training" is the name given to the despicable method by which our budding intellectual development is muffled in a fog of empty phrases. A system of selection of leaders at once unimaginably devilish and narrow-minded trains up its future party bigwigs in the "Castles of the Knightly Order" to become Godless, impudent, and conscienceless exploiters and executioners - blind, stupid hangers-on of the Fuhrer. We "Intellectual Workers" are the ones who should put obstacles in the path of this caste of overlords. Soldiers at the front are regimented like schoolboys by student leaders and trainees for the post of Gauleiter.

The workers must be liberated from their condition of down trodden slavery under National Socialism. The illusory structure of autonomous national industry must disappear. Every nation and each man have a right to the goods of the whole world!

Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the protection of individual citizens from the abritrary will of criminal regimes of violence-these will be the bases of the New Europe.

True anarchy is the generative element of religion. Out of the annihilation of every positive element she lifts her gloriously radiant countenance as the founder of a new world... If Europe were about to awaken again, if a state of states, a teaching of political science were at hand! Should hierarchy then... be the principle of the union of states? Blood will stream over Europe until the nations become aware of the frightful madness which drives them in circles. And then, struck by celestial music and made gentle, the approach their former altars all together, hear about the works of peace, and hold a great celebration of peace with fervent tears before the smoking altars.

Support the resistance. Distribute the leaflets!


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