Emails between Vincent Downing and Bruce Conklin 11/30/04-12/01/04

On Tuesday, November 30, 2004, at 03:52 PM, Vincent Downing wrote:

I just read a first person account of the years leading up to the
holocaust. The thing that fascinates me is that he was on a committee which was sending Jewish children out of Germany. The situation was that desperate and he never left. He never even mentioned that he and his wife even discussed leaving. Most who stayed died. He was very fortunate.
This is something that I and my friends who at least *say* we think a fascist takeover are doing as well. Even my friends with two small daughters are not leaving, not even discussing leaving. Well, it hasn't got to that point yet. I suppose we are just voicing our fears about what we think the future might hold. When you have kids it is much more difficult to pull up roots. What is up with this Bruce? I don't think that "there's no where to run" explains it by a long chalk. Of course there are places to run. Its the same idea as locking your car even though you are parking it in New York City.
They'll probably go for the easier target.......

Bruce Responded:

This is one of the few aspects of what we are going through personally that I don't come close to understanding. Well one has two choices, stay and fight or go somewhere else. The guy in Germany was in a position to do something good. But he also knew that by staying he would not be able to fight the Nazis, he would be crushed. Here today we can stay and fight because there is still a good chance of changing things. But even if we did that we would still have a high cost of living and no universal healthcare. The other choice, go somewhere else, in Germany most of those who could get out did, and it saved their lives. But that was a much worse situation. Here today, contributing to a Canadian society that is much saner and treats you better and isn't threatening everyone around the world is a very attractive option. Not unlike a citizenship divorce. Or liquidating your assets and retiring to a warm, relatively stable third world country where you could do some kind of helpful volunteer work is hardly running away.

To which Vincent Responded:

You are raising good points that need to be brought to the table. Especially 1. How is the nature of this totalitarian takeover different than the one that happened in Germany. 2. That leaving to contribute to another society is not running away. I'm going to post this to the blog.