BartBlog

With apologies to the late Pastor Martin Niemöller:

No One Left to Care

When they extended work hours and cut wages across town
I didn’t speak up –
After all, they were strangers and I was doing fine;

When they got rid of the unions at my company
I didn’t speak up –
After all, I wasn’t a union member;

When they shipped the jobs of half the employees in my company overseas
I didn’t speak up –
After all, I still had a job;

When they cut my wages and made me work longer hours for less pay
I didn’t speak up –
After all, times are tough and something’s better than nothing;

And when they finally fired me, closed the plant, and shipped my job overseas
I tried to fight back, but there was no one left to back me up –
After all, I didn’t care to speak up for anyone else in trouble,
why should anyone care to speak up for me?

Pastor Niemöller’s original poem:

In Germany, the Nazis came first for the Communists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

Then they locked up the social democrats,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a social democrat;

And then they came for the trade unionists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then they came for me,
And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

© 2009 R.S. Janes. LTSaloon.org.