FAST FOOD (2018): Thirteenth Helping
Guilt
Written By Albrecht Haushofer as he awaited execution
as an anti-fascist resister in Nazi Germany
The burden of my guilt before the law
weighs light upon my shoulders; to plot
and to conspire was my duty to the people;
I would have been a criminal had I not.
I am guilty, though not the way you think,
I should have done my duty sooner; I was wrong,
I should have called evil more clearly by its name
I hesitated to condemn it for far too long.
I now accuse myself within my heart:
I have betrayed my conscience far too long
I have deceived myself and fellow man.
I knew the course of evil from the start
My warning was not loud nor clear enough!
Today, I know what I am guilty of—
Self-deception and cowardice!
* Self-deception: the action or practice of allowing oneself to believe that a false feeling, idea or situation is true, lying to oneself, e.g. allowing oneself to believe that Jesus teaches, supports, justifies or endorses for His disciples under any set of circumstances the statement, “Kill your enemies.”
-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
