When Foreigners, or Those Your Consider Foreign, Run Your Country

I'm reading a book about Europe when German troops invaded and occupied several countries. The Germans and their local supporters were the minority. But this minority held the power.  

Those who opposed the German invasions and occupations set up systems oppose those in power. It was often many different cells of people looking for small opportunities to harm the invaders which raised the cost in blood and treasure of maintaining the discipline needed to run the countries. When the U.S. came these pockets of resistance worked with allied forces.

Probably all of us think if a foreign power successfully invaded our country and took over its government we would be working in the underground to overthrow the invaders. In reality, as learned from reading about WWII Europe, individual people had their own unique sets of costs and benefits. If you had small children and elderly parents to support, you might decide to keep your head down and say and do nothing subversive. The same if you suspected your friends and relatives would be killed if you were caught and identified. 

We've had a few times in our history when feeling ran so high against political or religious opponents huge prices were paid for defying their will. If you were a white Southerner in favor of racial equality during times of slavery you might have gone to prison. If you were inclined to help a slave escape you needed to make a careful calculation of the consequences. You lived in state run by people so different than you they were to you foreigners. 

There were elements of this during the Viet Nam war. Going into the military was a big life sacrifice. Going into battle risked your life. You might have considered the U.S. government your enemy and protested or left for Canada. 

Before the Roe v Wade decision legalizing abortion, we know men and women organized to make certain women got abortions. Their government was their enemy, it could just as well have been by a foreign country. The cost of unwanted pregnancies measured damages to careers, marriages and other children was so large they took big risks to get abortions. Many died.

Today women with unwanted pregnancies in states like Texas and Mississippi face state governments that must seem foreign to them. They are waging a form of underground guerilla warfare by getting abortions anyway they can and doing quite well.