4th May NL memorial day WW-II

Andre

Thanks Ms Music and Om, it's really quite revealing how this group polarization works. Obviously, the question arises if science can be affected too. Maybe have a look at Lysenkoism.

You can read how Lysenko managed to defeat main stream science ultimately resulting in a purging (genocide) of the scientific community

"the only correct theory".....Sounds familiar today?

I think this is a key observation:

Hence Lysenko's idea's were idealistic. They needed to be true to propagate the dogma, hence they became true or..rather truthiness.

Maybe this looks very familiar today too.

OmCheeto

Lysenkoism reads like an Onion post today.

Though, to me anyways, most everything reads like an Onion post...

Andre

Maybe it's not that uncommon.

ThomasT

Me too. I was born just after WWII. A US baby boomer.

I grew up in the US, which was unaffected by the violence, so, as I recall, it was never a topic of conversation ... even though my father was in it.

I don't think that that's the best way to characterize it. People were faced with difficult choices. Mostly, I think, there were few actual monsters. Sometimes, otherwise good people acted questionably out of fear. Which seems to me to be quite understandable.

The force behind it is when you're put, circumstantially, between a rock and a hard place, so to speak.

There's a sensible answer. Faced with tough choices involving danger, some people will act courageously, but most people won't.

It has and will continue to happen. Let's be clear what we're talking about, in general terms. The oppression of basic individual human liberty and dignity. The oppression of individual sovereignty.

A minority of people will have the courage to stand up to and oppose that. But most won't, imho. That doesn't make the people unable to resist oppression monsters. It's just part of the human/animal condition. Most of us aren't heroes. Most of us aren't especially strong. Most of us are simply not willing to forsake any hope of a normal, comfortable, life in order to actively oppose oppression.

Imho, no. But I think there is hope that it can be minimized.

OmCheeto

Tomorrow is our May 4th, and this still makes sense.

We can only do what we can.Too often. I looked at some genocide web sites the other day and ran across a picture subtitled: "Prisoners digging their own graves". It somewhat reminded me of a video I'd seen a while back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rodifJlis2c
It struck me that "moral entrepreneurs" had manipulated the financial system to basically commit genocide on businesses, for their own financial gain. A bit of a stretch? Maybe, but people are looking the other way. And looking the other way is one of the things I've learned that you simply cannot do.

liar...

Enemies come in all forms. Your choice of enemies is fortunately based on something legitimate.

As I said, we can all try to do our part. The first thing I did when focus moved from Iraq to Iran, was to attempt to learn the Parsi language, (A dismal failure by the way). among other things. I've facebook friends from Tunisia, Greece, Poland, The Netherlands, South Africa, Germany, Bosnia, England, Kuwait, and even someone from Kansas. I can think of no other way to remove the "them" from one's thought processes, then to make them all one of us. (kumbaya)

I suppose I'm a bit more aware of what's transpired than many, as I grew up at the exact correct time. I got to watch Hogan's Heros. I got to watch my mother cry after JFK was murdered. Then MLK, and RFK. Then I watched the World at War series. (not to be confused with World of Warcraft). Then I got to watch the war tallies from Vietnam every night. I thought it was odd that it was ok to kill so many of them, but it was very bad for our soldiers to die. Then I watched Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man". Probably one of the most influential documentaries I'd ever witnessed. Not to mention that I studied under Alan Watts through my adolescence. (My clock radio was above the level of my head when his talks came on every Saturday morning, so I can say that, literally).

This reminds of the week after my mother passed away. My sister took the framed picture of my mother, aged 16, in her Luftwaffe uniform, eyes pointed towards the heavens, smiling like Mona Lisa, and removed the picture from its frame. She noticed something odd, that no one in 40 years had ever noticed. The broach on her neckerchief was a bit shinier than the rest of the image. So my sister touched it, and it was pencil lead. So she got an eraser, and removed the penciling. Low and behold, mom had a swastika on that little neckerchief broach thingy. Mom was a freakin' Nazi after all!

But anyways, if your own mom can be a Nazi, which I'm sure she wasn't, then why can't I?

Soldiers are often like this. Thrust into battle against each other, yet they all want the same thing; to go home and see their girlfriends.(and boyfriends now). I remember thinking to myself during both Iraq wars, that I admired the soldiers on the other side, as much as I admired ours. I don't think this is an isolated attitude.

There is a story of the Kamikaze pilot who crashed his plane into the USS Missouri during WWII. The crew recovered his body and gave him a fully honorable and dignified burial at sea..

And that, is just as true today, as ever. (biting lip from elaborating...)

I agree, absolutely.

And then get hammered for "apologizing" if they do. [nixonian expletive deleted] apologies. If we were wrong, admit it, and fix it. If we were right, pat ourselves on the back. But DON'T call it apologizing. (ps. I will admit to being wrong, but I never apologize for anything. Life is. And **** happens. Sometimes I'm responsible for some freaky ****. Are you dead? No. Are you crippled? No. Then get the **** over it.)
Double Duh!
Me too! Though an Air Force brat.
Me too! Though I never graduated, and ended up with a big "L" tattooed on my forehead.
Me too!
Common ground! It's the first step in friendship.
(kumbaya again)

That was interesting, wasn't it. Not sure if anyone else noticed. I noticed that people who "looked" Middle Eastern, started eating lunch together. It was very strange. It took them several years to re-assimilate themselves into the "I don't give a **** what nationality you are" lunchroom society.
I once gave someone a can of peas, nested in a dirt filled brass flower pot for xmas. She said all she wanted was Peace on Earth. Peas on Dirt was the closest I could get.



And I've been suckered in.....

Enemy or scapegoat, it's the same thing to me. When things go haywire in a society, someone needs to be blamed. As I pointed out the other day, it can't be me who's at fault for all this poop that's going on, I'm never wrong, and if you're the only other person on the planet, then it must be your fault.

You got me there.

In conclusion, it is Memorial Day now on the right coast. I'll have to go visit my dead Luftwaffe mother and dead USAF father's grave tomorrow, they share the same plot.

ps. Sorry about deleting the Nietzsche post the other day. In hindsight, it was a mistake. (OK! I was wrong!) But I only knew at the time that Nietzsche was some sort of philosopher with a pretentious name. I've since learned that he was correct. As evidenced by the bumper sticker, which kind of, IMHO, expresses the angst of the thread:

Andre

Thanks OmCheeto, it looks like we agree.

May I wrap that up in my generic memorial speech, and feel free to copy it.

Dear friends
We are gathered here today to honor and pay respect to those dearly beloved who have gone before us defending our freedom, so that we may live free. We reflect on their service and their sacrifice defending our country and our people against the enemy.

But during this reflection it occurs to me that in many places on Earth, memorials are held on different days for different countries, when people pay respect to their heroes. We have called them enemies and they have called us enemies. And then I wonder why?

Why was it that both sides were determined to take lives for each one's own good cause. Did the end justify the means? We thought it did, because we were all convinced of the evilness of the enemy, we lived in fear, and our hopes for a bright future were dim. We were convinced that we had no choice but to eliminate the threat. Sometimes that choice was indeed inevitable, when we had to defend ourselves against actual acts of war.

But was it always inevitable? Now we know that the others, the people, the ones we used to call enemies, had exactly the same thoughts, that we were the evil enemy.

But we were no threat to them at all, we just wanted to live in peace and have a happy future together with the beloved ones we commemorate today. I guess it’s not too farfetched to assume that this too was the wish of the other side, the people in the street.

But why then, do we listen to those who come to tell us that we have a terrible enemy who needs to be eliminated or our future would be taken away and we would all perish? Why do we want to believe that so much? Is it the desire to feel comradeship that a common enemy brings about? Is it our eagerness to go and take action against the enemy given in by our wish to do good? But above all our wish to contribute to the common cause and show that we are a respected member of our society?

But don’t those on the other side do exactly the same thing? So if they do what we do, aren’t we like them, aren’t we our own enemy? Aren’t we part of the cause for this memorial? And will we create more reasons for this memorial in the future?

Dear friends
If we want to break this mutual positive feedback effect, we must no longer think in terms of them versus us. We must resist our initial reaction and resist the idea that we have an enemy. We must recognize demagoguery and we must not take it for granted when we are told that we have a terrible enemy.

Go back home and get friends on PF and facebook and so on, in China and Iran, Russia and Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, Vietnam, wherever you can find them. Talk with them, share thoughts and discover that peace is answered with peace. And then realize, there is no them and us. We are all in this live together. Let's' not waste more precious lives of our fellows our home country or our neighbor’s and perhaps we can prevent having to commemorate more heroes than the ones we respectfully remember today.

OmCheeto

Copied and distributed.

Thank you.

Ms Music

Andre, that is awesome!

ThomasT

I agree with your sentiments, and the idea that it would be a better world for all of us if everybody heeded those directives or suggestions. Unfortunately, it seems to contradict what the evidence suggests is our nature. That is, the statement ...
... seems to be contradicted by the historical record.

It would indeed be a nicer world if the strong didn't dominate and exploit the weak. There are certainly lots of people doing their part in being good neighbors. Unfortunately there are those whose stars burn a bit brighter than the norm who are particularly resistant to such messages. So we have to, on many levels, be prepared for conflict, or we'll be at the mercy of people with various weapons who mean to dominate us, imho.

OmCheeto

An acquaintance at work laughed at me today when I mentioned the finale to the thread. He retorted something similar to what you just said.

I reminded him, that there was no internet, historically.

I didn't ask any of my non-PF international facebook friends to be my friend*. I went to facebook, Al Jazeera in particular, and started saying, what they apparently could not. Friendship requests started popping up from all over the world.

It was a very strange feeling to think that there were places on the Earth where you could be executed for speaking your mind, and was very humbled to think that I might be speaking for them.

Sometimes, I think we take our freedom for granted.

But we have it, and just posting your opinion can be that; "Do what you can do" thingy. If enough people around the world can see that everyone else is thinking the same thing, then well, maybe.....

From my Grecian Radical Hippy's Front Page:

*With the exception of one. He is the googlewhack of facebook friends. He posted something in Arabic on Obama's facebook page. I figured it was some nasty Al-Qaedaish inspired insult. But I google translated it, and it turned out to be a greeting. It was refreshing, and made me a bit embarrassed that I was so presumptive. I requested his friendship, and he accepted.

ThomasT

Nice post Om.

OmCheeto

It would be even nicer if the weak would stop electing the strong who keep exploiting them. But you know how charming and convincing sociopaths can be.

Andre

Two more things, it's not so much the strong exploiting the weak, but the moral enterpreneurs cultivating fear to the crowd. Herd instinct makes them turn into believers and haters of the other side. That's the essence of the cause of WW-II.

Second. The internet can be a great medium to profilerate friendship but moral enterpreneurs can also use it to spread fear more easily. I wont link but if you google ' keeping the world on track for devastating romm ' - without parenthesis, you will find a nice example as first hit normally. I would specifically recommend to read the first response to the article.

Edit: and if you want to know what was snipped out of that first response, googling ' A student in despair over ' may help.

Andre

I noticed that the first google suggestion is now under the second hit. Anyway, the second google suggestion tells the whole story too.

Ms Music

So now are we back to the sociopaths again?

In the politics portion of this discussion I am certain it is the issue. In the other related portions of this discussion, I am not so sure yet.

Andre

Again, moral entrepeneurs are not sociopaths, I would think that the majority is socially involved, considerate, and convinced that there is a big threat looming. And they just have that mission, to save the world from that. They just want to do their share and make the world a better place to live in. They just have to dispose of that threat, even if it's the last thing they do.

Anyway in the case of that 17 years old desperate student, one can easily dismiss that. Adolescents cannot be considerated mentally stable. But how about professors? Kari Norgaard for instance?

ThomasT

I don't think that herd instinct is the best way, or even a very informative way, to characterize the essence of the cause of WWII, or any war for that matter. Just my current opinion.

The problem is that even if all of us had the courage to act according to our consciences, then, assuming that different socialization imparts different conscientious imperatives, then conflict is still inevitable.

And there remain those with no apparent conscientious imperatives -- an inordinate percentage of which seem to rise to positions of power. Just a particular take on things. But, if true, why is that? Is it because the actions of such persons aren't as constrained as those of persons of conscience?