When I was in High School, I used to wonder how did the German people put up with Hitler and his regime? Was there something about the German language that destroyed empathy? Had someone spiked their water? And so on. I wasnāt wondering about the lunatics. I wasnāt wondering about the macho, sadistic souls gone bad. I wasnāt wondering about the top mongrels either, not about Hitler, nor Himmler, nor the rest. I was wondering about what I had sometimes heard called āGood Germans.ā Normal citizens. Nice people. Among the most educated and cultured in the world. Millions upon millions of them.
Well, yesterday morning our own FĆ¼hrer said:
āA whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.ā
Many are saying in reaction, āyikes, that isnāt the America I know.ā Well, truth be told, what did people think was our America? But I donāt want to quibble about that. I get why so many people think of America as something wonderful, as a promise persistently delivering, as the height of human achievement and freedom, and so on and so forth. It isnāt those exalted things, of course. And it wasnāt ever those things. Not the start, not now, not in between. But that obvious truth is at our moment beside the point.Ā
The population of the United States, I suspect more even than the population of Germany circa Hitlerās reign, has been told, over and over, that our government is hell bent on sadistic mayhem and gore. If Trump can, Trump gleefully acknowledges that he will. Technically he can. Heās got the guns for it. Heās got the bombs for it. What about socially? That is the question, isnāt it?
Will we be Good Americans, perhaps frowning, perhaps weeping, or maybe even applauding but not working to stop him (where the latter will ironically arguably have less culpability vis a vis this articleās theme than the former)?
If our country wipes out a civilization, and even if our country doesnāt but was ready to, was even eager to, will we all have lunch tomorrow like any other day? Will we get up, get out of bed, get dressed, and go to school or to work like any other day?
Will we maybe pick up a pizza for the family on the way home, eat again, watch TV, put the kids to bed, maybe even make love with our partner, and then sleep, only to get up and do it all over again, and again? While Iran suffers, the world gasps, and the environment withers. Or will we set aside smiling and even weep a bit in private, but otherwise maintain our routines?
Doesnāt it come down to that? Are we good Americans? We donāt have to wave the flag to qualify. We donāt have to do business exactly as usual to qualify. We donāt even have to applaud the mayhem. If we donāt resist, that is enough. After all, isnāt that what made the good Germans good Germans? So wouldnāt that make us Good Americans?
If you are in the government, to be truly good, really, donāt you have to stand up and say no? Donāt you have to refuse? Not quietly resign, but resist with at least civil disobedience, but better with outraged obstruction. And is that true only for those in government?
How about those receiving the order to obliterate a civilization? Donāt they have to refuse such disgusting orders? How about teachers in their classrooms? Donāt they have to say, hold on, todayās lesson is interrupted to address reality? And what about students, donāt they have to encamp, occupy, and organize? They face an abysmal future. They know it. They fear it. Why arenāt they so angry at it that going to class is deemed nonsense and fighting back is the way to be? What happened between the pro-Palestinian encampments and so few young people demonstrating now?
Listen to the radio. Some highly educated, highly civilized, social moron is likely pontificating on whether infrastructure that powers military activities as well as the whole population is, due to the former use, a legitimate target? Ditto, I suppose, for providing water, food, and so on. Donāt newscasters have to interrupt their daily dose of idiocy to proclaim that war is anti-human and that Trump is a wannabe Hitler who is quickly getting attaining his goal. In fact, doesnāt everyone who wants to be more than a Good American have to resist?
There is no longer much merit in just criticizing Trump. That alone, āoh, I donāt like him,ā or even āoh, I hate him,ā doesnāt violate the good American norms of admission. Sure, itās not bad to do. But at this point it is redundant in the extreme. Somehow, someway, we all have to contribute to stopping the mayhem. It is not enough to just say we donāt like it.
I felt that same way over Vietnam, and yet, honestly, this is so much more obvious, so much more blatant. I truly hated LBJāāhey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today.ā Well, DJT is no LBJ. He is immeasurably worse. āHey, hey DJT, how many civilizations will you demolish before we the people stop you and your regime?ā
We have been the worldās biggest bully, the worldās Mafia don, the worldās least ethical hit man ever since Hitler left us. We carpet bombed Vietnam, āeverything the flies on anything that moves.ā We bombed Afghanistan when people on the ground, people in the know, the aid workers, warned that it could disrupt their harvest and starve a couple of million people. The list of our atrocities is endless. And yet, and yet, I donāt think I am just caught up in the moment when I say that the lunatic now in the Oval Office is a whole different matter. This is Hitlerās fascism armed in a way that Hitler couldnāt even dream of. It is Hitlerās fascism unfolding before our eyes, proudly proclaiming its inclination to destroy a civilization thatās over thereāand then, where else. Here too, when you think about it, supposing we even warrant the label civilized.
When, oh when, will we the people really wake up and really resist? Not nine million on one day, but twenty or thirty or more million day after day?
Or will we go down in history as Good Americans, the last incarnation of mass evil by way by way of popular obedience? The last incarnation because the difference between good and evil, truth and lie, science and self-serving mysticism, and even love and hate are also being obliterated by the psychopath in the Oval Office.
Leonard Cohenās song āDemocracyā said, America is
āthe cradle of the best and of the worst
It’s here they got the range And the machinery for change
And it’s here they got the spiritual thirstā
But do we have the spiritual thirst? Do you? Is Democracy and then more coming to the USA? I truly hope so.
P.S. If you are looking for a way to resist, visit allofUSdirectory.org it has hundreds of organizations and projects you can search by your interests, locale, and inclinations.
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10 Comments
Way to beat up on teachers!
I am not sure what you are saying here. I did single out a few categories,-people in government office, soldiers, newscasters, teachers, and students. I suggested that to not be āāgood American,ā analogous to āgood germans,ā people in those pursuits (other than students) could just do, well, what they in fact signed up to do ā serve the public, protect the public, report reality, and teach reality. Is that ābeating upā on those categories of people?
Wrong spot. Just a response to the comments below.
If the text of Michael Albert’s “Are We Good Americans?” antiwar article of April 8, 2026 hasn’t yet been read on the Democracy Now! show (which airs on 1,440 stations) yet, perhaps it might help encourage more antiwar youth mobilizing/organizing on U.S. campuses in April/May 2026 if Amy Goodman (whose Democracy Now! Productions media NGO was granted $950,000 in grants from the Annenberg Foundation between 2018 and 2024 and whose individual total annual compensation from DN! Productions in 2024 was $260,000, according to DN! Productions’s 2024 Form 990 financial filing) was lobbied to read the “Are We Good Americans?” article text on her show, if the partial ceasefire and/or “negotiations” break down–or before it’s too late?
https://ourrevolution.com/take-action/
Glad you liked the piece. I did read it for a part of the 385th episode of RevolutionZ that will be uploaded tomorrow, April 19th. I added some additional reaction, too.
No I’m not a good American. None of us are! We’re NOT doing enough. Enough would be MILLIONS of us doing the SAME THING at the SAME TIME. No Kings was a START but it obviously wasn’t enough. NOW WHAT? Providing a list of possible groups to join only further DIVIDES us! We have to act together. So, after your motivating article, either LEAD US or POINT US TO THE LEADER or SINGLE GROUP so that we develop CRITICAL MASS. No Kings’ 8 million didn’t do it yet! I guess we need 16 million – and we need it SOON! Or do we all call our representative and senators DAILY???
TRUMP MUST BE REMOVED NOW!!!!!!!!!
I have never met a more frightened group than teachers. There were the cynical ones I mentioned above. I recall the Poli Sci grad degree colleague a decade ago scolding me about the fact that most of the Social Science Dept teachers were now on anti depressants thanks to my frequent emails and lunchtime discussions about the rise of fascism.
The fear of losing the job that pays the bills for the kids’ lives and the Audi, and the suburban home mortgage, and the Disney World trips. And for what? they would say. It’s not going to make any difference.
The suburban employee class just don’t want to upset anyone. Yes the situation is horrendous. But the hopelessness is startling in its intensity. Sting from The Police, singing “When the world is running down, you make the best of what’s still around” seems to be the suburban anthem. And the firm belief that you are nuts to throw away whatever “security” you do have when your expressions of dissent are guaranteed to go nowhere. Public dissenters are Don Quixotes self destructively pissing into the wind.
The banality of the trap that has been constructed.
People of your generation Michael, I think grew up with a number of things my generation, the one that followed upon yours, either did or did not get. We got TV from the first moments of childhood. We learned not to read. We were marketed to from the cradle onward.
“What can break through?” indeed. Break through to what? This is the chilling thing I found myself staring into the face of. Who is there behind the veneer of the suburban consumer?
I have spent decades sharing the inspiring belief of your great friend Chomsky’s tremendous optimism regarding our species’ potential. That has not changed.
The kids I think still have the potential of idealism. That great sixties magic of young people taking seriously the adults’ talk of democracy. As your memoir so beautifully captures.
Their teachers are cynics, or have so completely consumed the societal Koolaid, including anti depressants, they can only espouse the platitudes the Masters of the Universe wish them to disperse.
I found my students frequently desperate for and exceedingly thankful for someone who would encourage their dissent. They, being humans, could still recognize the promptings of their humanity. At every turn however, were mechanisms to distract them from paying attention to their humanity.
I was just reading Chris Hedges substack piece “The Voice of Hind Rajab: The Film They Donāt Want You to See”. This was the sort of film I would use in the classroom. My colleagues found such things drove them to the psychiatrist seeking higher doses of anti depressants. Administrators who caught wind of my teaching made efforts to make my life very difficult. As if it was needed, they would use me as a demonstration for my colleagues about the foolishness of “upsetting” people and how easily in the name of being “professional” a teacher’s life could be ruined. I spent so much time and energy fighting for my survival as an educator.
I think the fundamental issue is that those who have some of the nice things the ruling elites toss (scraps from their table) to the middle class (a chicken in every pot), do not want to give up those goodies and will obediently maintain the status quo as long as they have those things.
“Breaking through” to them is problematic when the sharper ones know you are trying to break through and adamantly don’t want to feel what it feels like when the breakthrough occurs. The kids are as always our hope, but they are being “taught” by cynics and naive obedient adult children. SNAFU. The servants of the Masters knew what they were doing when they were alerted to the “Crisis of Democracy” and identified education as the crucial target. How to ensure that youthful naive enthusiasm about the ideals of a democratic society are stamped out.
And if we can preserve that youthful idealism, as I imagine you have done for all of these decades, as I have striven to do myself, then we are among the few. And we pay many a price. And we find ourselves wondering whether it was all for nought and whether we should have just put our heads down and enjoyed those scraps that were available to us. And we wonder whether we have been childish dupes who failed to grow up and recognize that the “real world” is the one that is heartless and violent and ruthless. And that we should have instead pursued greed and pleasure without restraint.
Again and again I have experienced young people confiding in me that they had learned their lesson and henceforth would no longer pursue foolish dreams of a democratic society. Their “failures” and setbacks, the obstacles they encountered, had finally shown them that the wise seek personal wealth and power.
Defeatism is a hard nut to crack Michael. I know you and Noam have spent lifetimes trying to do so. And I thank you for that.
I feel like – you should write for the public. Something like a Letter from a Howling History Teacher – or whatever. I think teachers need to hear you, but I also think, perhaps even mainly think, students need to hear you. Point being you have a way with words, on the one hand, and a whole lot of insight to convey with words on the other hand. Yes, I think their side, so to speak, took the lesson from the sixties to heart and pounded/coddled even more so than earlier at the heart of things, the minds that they feared would resist.
But I am still on the fence about what is at work. The reason I think knowing that matters is to answer the question, what does a worthy left that can grow and win need to embody and communicate to both be heard and to help people escape the internal baggage that binds so many.
Noam painted the ugliness so brilliantly and tirelessly that it helped free many of us. And while lots of leftist think that approach is still the key or even the only effective approach, I am skeptical. We didn’t know everything was broken and vile, and his tireless exposition of what was wrong and why helped showed helped show us a way out of the ties that bound us. But now it seems to me that everyone knows everything is broken. To prove there is injustice and to reveal the damage it does is almost beside the point.
Hopelessness about anything better being possible, and, if possible, attainable, is what locks people into the me-first grab what I can approach that you describe. And this is not just teachers or in suburbia. It is everywhere, I think. But it isn’t cowardice or even just fear down at the foundations. All over society there are instances of people showing courage to save others from natural danger. Consider first responders. But not to overcome institutions. And the selfish view as you describe it, isn’t outright dumb. If nothing better is possible, their way makes some sense. So it isn’t even enough in our times to show the contours of a better world. We have to do that, yes, I think so, still, but now the big task is to overcome the belief there is no way to get there.
And so I come to a request. Can you write me at [email protected] and I will send back a PDF of the book I have coming out soon. It is going to be a real uphill battle to get it seen – – because it is precisely an effort to congenially convey that to win is possible and, indeed, the biggest obstacles are, as they say, within us.
Thanks Michael. Having spent a quarter century in high schools often teaching History, one question invariably raised by the kids was How come the Germans went along with all that awful stuff the Nazis did? Concomitantly I worked in a public education system that was staffed by bureaucrats-educators and administrators- whose lives revolved around their devoted practice of consumerism. Invariably it appeared that the most devoted careerists would become the administrators. Invariably they sought to be associated with schools that attracted the least attention to themselves. Education as pablum. The public board of education began in the early millennium to refer to students and teachers as “customers”. The goal became to please the customer. Grade inflation became endemic. And the classroom environment became utterly devoid of authentic thinking and discussion. Do not upset anyone. Spoon feed for regurgitation. And the educator workforce became increasingly cynical. Put in your time and collect your paycheck. Enjoy the summers off. Don’t make waves. Keep your head down.
And behold, the answer to the question regarding how Germans reconciled themselves to the Nazi regime very simply is provided. Recently I spoke with a long time colleague from education. A graduate degree in political science. He said What is the point in paying attention to what is happening? There is nothing we can do. This was typical of his responses over the decades I knew him. Typical of most of the educators I worked with.
Something I noticed was how often these people would use sarcasm and would seek to convey a knowing world weary wisdom, mocking the hypocrisy of both administrators and our political leaders. A grim humor overlaying a grim resignation that one just keeps earning ones paycheck and hopes the obvious approaching train wreck doesn’t actually take place until much much later in ones life. Perhaps when one is old enough to have had ones mind pickled by the pharmaceutical industry sufficiently enough to no longer be capable of registering what is happening and ones complicity in the disaster.
Sedated by consumerism. And now this is the result. Adults who are frightened obedient children whose only hope is that somehow all of this scary stuff turns out after all to have been fake news.
No, thank you for an eloquent statement about a nasty situation. But, I wonder some things. Do you think the teachers sincerely believe what they say when asked how they can be silent about unfolding horrors, or do you think they say what they must say to avoid having to do things they don’t wish to do, though deep down they are embarrassed to do so?
And do you think teachers fear to teach truth, fear to rouse or even just to welcome or even just to allow sincere thought– because they fear authorities will punish such behavior, or because they fear to operate outside acceptable thought and thus no longer fit the faculty team? Do they go home disgusted with themselves, or feeling just fine? Do they believe the futility they claim unavoidable, or do they go along to avoid repression, or go along to get along?
I have asked my grand nieces, is there any discussion at all in their classes – – in high school — of “what’s going on”? War, Trumpism, ecological dissolution? They frown and say, not a word. I think I get the dynamics, hopelessness on steroids, but I still can’t help myself from feeling, what the hell resides in the minds of the teachers under the rationales they deploy? Do they go home feeing ill at what they have done, or do they feel fine about having fit their role as they are supposed to?
How do I put it? I know it is harsh, but have they become sincerely stupid, supinely cowardly, or mindlessly obedient and conformist? And is it a deep hold on them, or a quite tenuous hold that could disintegrate given effective organizing? Did MeToo and Black Lives Matter shake them up? Do they ignore No Kings? If their students strike, what will happen inside their minds?
And mostly, what can break through?