When will we ever learn?
Friends, in Poland today they are holding ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland which started WW2. It was a war which involved much of the world and resulted in millions of casualties and massive destruction.
Prior to the German invasion, Stalin had signed a non-aggression treaty with Germany and they both agreed how Eastern Europe would be divided up with Poland becoming part of Russia. Russians and Germans jointly killed more Polish citizens than were killed in any other country (relative to Poland’s population). This included Jews as well as all the officers in the Polish army who were killed on Stalin’s orders.
Later on, Hitler ignored the non-aggression pact and invaded Russia, a strategic error which, like Napoleon, brought him undone. Another serious strategic error he made was not to have invaded Britain which allowed the Allies (of course, the U.S. did not enter the war for the first two years) to mount a relentless air assault on Germany.
As you know, I am not a lover of war. Ever since WW2 ended with the dropping of two atomic bombs, the world has seen constant wars.
Millions more people have been killed. More destructive weapons have been developed. More sophisticated delivery systems have been invented so that nowhere on earth is safe. Many countries have nuclear weapons. Empires are still struggling for supremacy whether it be military, economic or ideological.
There is still huge economic inequality in the world. Populations in some nations are obese while those in other nations starve. The rich get richer while the poor grow more numerous. Religion still divides the world into warring tribes. Greed drives much human effort: greed for money and greed for power.
And most worrying of all is that leaders of nations are still making all the decisions about war and the economy with little or no regard for the thoughts and feelings of their citizens. Most Australians do not want to be involved in Afghanistan. Neither do many Americans.
Most citizens do not want huge amounts of money spent on armaments and armies but on things like better health care and education and medical research. But who cares what the citizens think? Certainly not the politicians and those who profit from war.
In seventy years it seems nothing has changed. Only the names of the protagonists. Seventy years, seven hundred years, seven thousand years, it’s still the same! We’ve learned nothing from history. Nothing.
So what is there to celebrate? Our continuing stupidity? The farce we call democracy?
David, I asked myself the same question this morning when I heard on AM that the Poles were celebrating the start of ww2. Why the F#&K would someone with a sane mind celebrates or even marks the start of a war that killed millions and showed the way for the future empires? It is pathetic to celebrate a wars beginning and end, matter of fact why celebrate death on masse regardless of what flag they choose to wave. We should only celebrate or mark the end of a war if it is the end of all warfare forever. It’s like Gallipoli, why do we glorify a defeat, why do they imply our nation made a mark in the world by being defeated against a nation defending itself. Madness… utter bloody madness.
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David G Reply:
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:00 pm
War exposes human madness, Kemosobi.
With WW2, I guess we had to fight otherwise we’d be speaking German or Japanese now. But all the wars since then have been wars of choice, most of them led by America.
Sane people should condemn wars not glorify them.
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some people are celebrating this:
http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item
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p.s. read the article released 1st sept. entitled: advanced tactical laser defeats ground target.
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This is a saying I first heard in the 60′s: What if they gave a war and nobody came?
If all the people who are opposed to war would stop fighting in the wars that are wanted by only a few it would be much harder to wage those wars.
I read recently that many young Israelis are refusing to enter the army and fight in Israels wars and that some pilots are refusing to go on bombing raids.
Many of the soldiers here in the US are opposed to our wars in Iraq and Afganistan yet they still go over and fight. If they were all to stand up and refuse to fight these immoral wars it would be much harder for the US government to commit it’s terrible crimes.
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‘War’ is foremost a tool (in the toolbox) for ‘great’ nations here on earth to prevent unimployment.
or – in other words , there’ll be ‘wars’ as long as ‘great’ nations exists.!
Hitler (Germany) stood and fel with – if he could (and he did) put the crowds into work.
“More destructive weapons have been developed. More sophisticated delivery systems have been invented ……….”
Sad sad to realize David, my (unscientific) guess is that between 90-99% of the worlds energy-resources is consummed /(mis)used by useless, war wagings .
Jeannie, it isn’t a coincidence that a nations soldiers are the youngest, barely grown up, easy to manipulate by brainwashing.
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Coco, sad to say that war, for some, is a business. America has more of its manufacturing industry engaged in making weapons of war than any other country in the world! Yet it claims to be bringing peace to the world. Fat chance.
Jeannie, they grab testosterone-driven kids of 18 and fill their minds with patriotic propaganda. The kids think they’ll become heroes when all they are are expendable pawns.
John, those who profit from war should be hung and politicians who promote war should have to fight them. War would soon stop if that happened!
Cheers.
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War is addictive. Thrill seekers LOVE war. Young men and women think they are invincible and go for the adrenalin rush. It’s like a runner’s high. It’s a drug, some people NEED. Consider that Hitler survived as a soldier during the first world war. He knew war, supposedly he got a medal for heroism and he was the only survivor from his group (truth or fiction?) Anyhow, there will ALWAYS be wars due to the human brain structure. I know a Vietnam soldier who about cried and whined that he could not go to the Gulf Wars. A war makes you feel alive and happy until you get killed – like a drug…
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I wonder whether the Polish jokes, the epithet, dumb Pollack, which seem to be politically correct to invoke, originated to justify, help overlook, the malice, to put it mildly, inflicted on them by other countries. I find them so offensive and hard to understand why they are acceptable. I need to research more about their origins.
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So what is there to celebrate? Our continuing stupidity? The farce we call democracy?
David, there is much in this post That I would like to dispute. However, am not a typist nor ‘academic’ philosopher. I did not see any “celebrations”. Nor do I see any “farce” called democracy. At no point in this post did you recognise that Germany is one of the few “democracies” with a female “head of state”. At no point did you mention that the USA managed – as a “democracy” to get its act together and vote in an .. um ok, epithets aside .. an intelligent articulate President. Democracy is not a “farce” .. just works slowly through intelligent, articulate, educated populations .. heh.
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Margit, the picture you have painted is an accurate one. Feeling alive and happy while you’re killing others shows how sick humans are!
Poles are not the butt of jokes in Australia, Therese, but the Irish are!
Davo, the celebration was held in Poland! Regarding democracy being a farce, did not Howard take us to war despite the opposition of most citizens? Did he not bring in industrial laws which seriously disadvantaged workers? Did he not advantage the rich?
In America did George Bush go on a killing spree in Iraq and Afghanistan and spy on his citizens and use torture and rendition and stop protests, etc?
Democracy is supposed to be government by the people, for the people. It is not supposed to be a rort for self-seeking, megalomanic politicians. Democracy, too often, is a farce!
P.S. And where are these intelligent, articulate educated populations? They must be located on other planets!
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David, i could be flippant and write that democracy, like god, works in mysterious ways.
Is there a god? Technically, and according to the laws of conceivable physics – probably not.
However, from my point of view, and experience; most societies work best at the “Parish pump” level – for good or ill; best or worst.
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David G Reply:
September 5th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Ah, Davo, given the continuing hatred and violence between Christians, Jews and Muslims, I’m not sure that the ‘Parish pump’ philosophy is working as well as you might hope!
Cheers.
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“Who won WWII?” by Jacob Hornberger (can be found at his blog and at antiwar.com) gives the Polish perspective re a present-day tiff the Polish might be having with Putin. I wish Hornberger was USA Attorney General, by the way.
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Were they celebrating or commemorating?
Remembering a solemn occasion can be important to making sure it doesn’t happen again.
In America, we tend to forget the past, so we feel eternally innocent.
http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2009/02/memory-hole-my-speech-tonight.html
We also have a movement in which women can become virgins again. (Just by declaring it to be so.) Only in America?
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David G Reply:
September 9th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Those who made money were celebrating, Wage Laborer. Those who lost loved ones were weeping.
And here I thought being a virgin was something passe to modern women!
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I am of the opinion that Germany lost the war.But out of the nationalistic nazi s defeat emerged the global nazi when u think of Hitlers military industrial complex being divided up by the victors of east and west after the war .There were great “strides in furthering technology for the war machine. and what came out of Hitlers science lab and all the scientist that the usa and russia protected from prosecution it does make one think.
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Jeff B. indeed Germany did lose the war. But the irony is that America stepped in and took it’s place!
Now we have American army bases all over the world instead of German and Japanese ones.
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