Jan. 26, 2012: Florida governor Rick Scott, speaking to the Board of a state business group, used his own interpretation of Niemöller’s quotation to defend Mitt Romney. He began by saying that he had a poster of the quotation on his walls (beginning with “… the Jews …”), then said other Republican candidates shouldn’t attack Bain Capital. One of the responses to the Herald blog post was this adaptation:
First Rick Scott came for the teachers, but I said nothing as my kids were nearly out of school.
Then he came for the university professors, but my kids don’t take anthropology so I said nothing.
Then he came for the prisons and handed those over to corporations. And still I said nothing because I hadn’t broken any laws.
Then he came for the writers and thinkers and the political activists, and I thought, serves those people right for being so mouthy.
Then he came for our county commissions, our school boards, he wanted it all.
And since I had said nothing all through this, there was no one left to help me.
Now I am in corporate jail raising tilapia in a fish pond for 25 cents a day.
Notes:
Miami Herald blog post
Local channel 10 news blurb.