We are all "Good Germans" now, writes Dave Winer. People who look the other way, who comply, who don't seem to know what's going on, who don't manage to resist, just as many Germans did in the 1930s and 1940s.
Many Americans occupy a peculiar space of privilege, where something that looks from arm's length like ignorance covers up more complicated circumstances. It's a corrupt privilege when we claim for ourselves these "rights" —
Not having to know, or seem to know, or be seen to know, not having to spend time with anyone who will call us out for knowing.
And if nobody is going to call us out, then there is no need to share responsibility for the country's condition and its actions. No need to do anything more than vote. No need to learn the skills of activism, which are the skills of making common cause with our fellow citizens. No need to admit that anything constructive in the face of disaster is even possible. No need, really, even to vote.
It's a profoundly dysfunctional psychological and social condition to inhabit, but as a nation here we are. Maybe an election changes the ruling party. Great, but that's not nearly good enough for a country that's as psychologically unsound as we are.
Where would the work even begin? It's hard to say. That doesn't mean we shouldn't begin the work of putting words to it. Doing so would have the immediate virtue of abandoning the privilege of not having to know.