Many people noting the unusual capitalization of the title of this blog post might begin to figure what it is all about. But even most of them will still be left wondering, "What bad news war , aren't all wars nothing but bad news ?"
Regular readers of my blogs, of course, will be in no doubt that I am referring to but one war in particular : The Good War, that war fought by The Greatest Generation Ever, aka WWII.
Rarely has any war been less worthy of being called Good and moral, rarely has one generation of wartime parents and grandparents (the attitude of the young soldiers is still an open verdict) being less accurately called Great.
For almost 15 years, dozens of small nations were beat up in the schoolyard by bigger - bully - neighbours while the rest of the world stood around like Bystanders at a Holocaust , only going to war against the bullies when they themselves were directly attacked.
A "Coalition of the very un-willing" indeed .
Princes of the churches, Statesmen and the collectives peoples of the gathered nations all fell down on the job : only a few individuals, here and there and plucked from obscurity God only knows why, actually did the sort of quiet heroics that the canonical myth said we all did back then.
And Henry Dawson's heroic story is surely one of those that richly deserves to be told, for the very first time, and in all its details...
Showing posts with label the good war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the good war. Show all posts
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
The "Not So Good" War : September 1931- December 1941
The Good War began December 11th 1941 when Adolf Hitler persuaded a reluctant American Congress to declare war against the evil of Nazism.
It lasted three years and eight months, from when America declared war on the evilness of Nazi Germany until August 1945, when America defeated the evilness of Tojo's Japan.
It is the war between the armed forces of morality and the armed forces of evil that American TV chooses to celebrate endlessly.
Infrequently discussed - in America - though perhaps not in the rest of the world, was the ten years and three months of The Not So Good War.
It began with the manufactured Manchuria incident in September 1931 that allowed Japan to brutally invade China without any reaction from the armed forces of morality.
Eventually it involved two dozen countries being invaded by aggressive neighbours without any action taken to defend them by the armed forces of morality.
That all changed when Hitler's declaration of military war against America on December 11th 1941, forced Congress and America to defend itself against this new military threat.
But this realpolitik approach to dealing with the worst evilness the world has ever known didn't make for good propaganda, both during the war and ever since, and so the War of Good against Evil was created - mostly, it must be said, on a Hollywood backlot set at the time
And ever since then, mostly it has been created in popular American history books, films and TV documentaries.
The big problem is that in any branch of any public library, there will also be literally hundreds of books, films and TV documentaries about the Holocaust and their basic line - to their authors' credit - is that America knew all about the Holocaust and did nothing while it was happening.
Hard to reconcile these two very popular "popular history" subjects , the Good War and the Holocaust , isn't it ?
It is almost as if the victims of all those years of the Not So Good War have become honorary Holocaust victims, with the six million dead European Jews also standing in for millions more dead all around the world who America also knew about at the time but did nothing to help.
Because in many ways, the Not So Good War carried right on through December 11th 1941, on and on well past the official end of WWII.
Then 1939-1945 could best be seen as a six year effort to violently subjugate the Polish people, begun by Hitler, but when he proved to be not up for the job, was finished by Stalin, with the complicity of Churchill and FDR.
The Good War, by this reckoning , was just an cosmetic overlay over a series of episodes between a group of superpowers, with smaller nations mere pawns in the conflict .....
It lasted three years and eight months, from when America declared war on the evilness of Nazi Germany until August 1945, when America defeated the evilness of Tojo's Japan.
It is the war between the armed forces of morality and the armed forces of evil that American TV chooses to celebrate endlessly.
Infrequently discussed - in America - though perhaps not in the rest of the world, was the ten years and three months of The Not So Good War.
It began with the manufactured Manchuria incident in September 1931 that allowed Japan to brutally invade China without any reaction from the armed forces of morality.
Eventually it involved two dozen countries being invaded by aggressive neighbours without any action taken to defend them by the armed forces of morality.
That all changed when Hitler's declaration of military war against America on December 11th 1941, forced Congress and America to defend itself against this new military threat.
But this realpolitik approach to dealing with the worst evilness the world has ever known didn't make for good propaganda, both during the war and ever since, and so the War of Good against Evil was created - mostly, it must be said, on a Hollywood backlot set at the time
And ever since then, mostly it has been created in popular American history books, films and TV documentaries.
The big problem is that in any branch of any public library, there will also be literally hundreds of books, films and TV documentaries about the Holocaust and their basic line - to their authors' credit - is that America knew all about the Holocaust and did nothing while it was happening.
Hard to reconcile these two very popular "popular history" subjects , the Good War and the Holocaust , isn't it ?
It is almost as if the victims of all those years of the Not So Good War have become honorary Holocaust victims, with the six million dead European Jews also standing in for millions more dead all around the world who America also knew about at the time but did nothing to help.
Because in many ways, the Not So Good War carried right on through December 11th 1941, on and on well past the official end of WWII.
Then 1939-1945 could best be seen as a six year effort to violently subjugate the Polish people, begun by Hitler, but when he proved to be not up for the job, was finished by Stalin, with the complicity of Churchill and FDR.
The Good War, by this reckoning , was just an cosmetic overlay over a series of episodes between a group of superpowers, with smaller nations mere pawns in the conflict .....
Friday, December 21, 2012
During the Ultimate Battle against the Nazi Evil, most of the world spent it parked in NEUTRAL
Only one nation group ( the British Commonwealth) was an combatant during the entire six years of WWII (September 1939 to September 1945) : even the original aggressor, Germany, ceased to be a combatant with its surrender early in 1945.
Every other nation on Earth - bar none - was neutral in the battle against Hitler and the Nazi Evil : for some, most or all of World War Two.
The sad fact is that most of the world's independent nations 'dog-danced' around the greatest moral crisis Humanity has ever faced.
Many independent nations were at first neutral, then supported the Axis, and then finally the Allies : depending whatever material advantage they thought they would gain moment by moment, rather than reflecting on the morality of the conflict and joining the side whose values they closest supported.
Again the British Commonwealth was the exception and it never wavered : it was opposed to Germany's invasion of its neighbours from beginning to end.
Many countries were further divided into two main camps : either over neutrality versus support for combat or between those opposed and pro the Axis.
Many of these nations had citizens fighting in organized groups both for and against the Nazis: so their nation was undergoing an form of Civil War during the greater world war.
Some even divided like Gaul - in fact very like modern day Gaul.
In 1941, France's public divided into three parts: those who supported Vichy's official "neutrality", those who joined the French SS troops that fought for Hitler, and those members of the Free French Forces who fought against Hitler.
My math suggests that the when you divide the six years of war into the world's population of independent states (those nations who had the power to decide for themselves whether or not they went to war), the largest lump of "people times days" was for neutrality rather than for combat on one side or the other !
The Good War ? Give me a large break !
The Korean War or the First Gulf War were good wars, where many nations promptly committed real lives and real money to quickly stop a nation from further invading its neighbour.
By contrast, WWII as a Bad War - particularly in view of the moral stakes involved : which everyone agrees were the highest in all history.
Most people in the world, most of the time, did nothing to stop Hitler from invading Poland and executing its civilians (and did nothing to help all the other nations he subsequently invaded ,s beginning ten months later).
Prove me wrong : note the populations of all the independent states existing in September 1939, and then note how many days each of these independent nations were engaged in combat or parked in neutral.
(For example : Great Britain , 50 million in combat for 6 years. The United States, 135 million, in combat for 3 1/2 years. Turkey, 18 million in combat for zero years and so on.)
Ignore colonies with no real choice whether to fight or stay neutral - like India.
And deal only with nations that make a formal declaration of war, followed by a population-proportional commitment of troops into combat.
I think you will be shocked : how on earth could the Official Story of WWII be at such variance with the cold hard facts ????
Every other nation on Earth - bar none - was neutral in the battle against Hitler and the Nazi Evil : for some, most or all of World War Two.
The sad fact is that most of the world's independent nations 'dog-danced' around the greatest moral crisis Humanity has ever faced.
Many independent nations were at first neutral, then supported the Axis, and then finally the Allies : depending whatever material advantage they thought they would gain moment by moment, rather than reflecting on the morality of the conflict and joining the side whose values they closest supported.
Again the British Commonwealth was the exception and it never wavered : it was opposed to Germany's invasion of its neighbours from beginning to end.
Many countries were further divided into two main camps : either over neutrality versus support for combat or between those opposed and pro the Axis.
Many of these nations had citizens fighting in organized groups both for and against the Nazis: so their nation was undergoing an form of Civil War during the greater world war.
Some even divided like Gaul - in fact very like modern day Gaul.
In 1941, France's public divided into three parts: those who supported Vichy's official "neutrality", those who joined the French SS troops that fought for Hitler, and those members of the Free French Forces who fought against Hitler.
My math suggests that the when you divide the six years of war into the world's population of independent states (those nations who had the power to decide for themselves whether or not they went to war), the largest lump of "people times days" was for neutrality rather than for combat on one side or the other !
The Good War ? Give me a large break !
The Korean War or the First Gulf War were good wars, where many nations promptly committed real lives and real money to quickly stop a nation from further invading its neighbour.
Parked in neutral during the most important moral conflict ever
By contrast, WWII as a Bad War - particularly in view of the moral stakes involved : which everyone agrees were the highest in all history.
Most people in the world, most of the time, did nothing to stop Hitler from invading Poland and executing its civilians (and did nothing to help all the other nations he subsequently invaded ,s beginning ten months later).
Prove me wrong : note the populations of all the independent states existing in September 1939, and then note how many days each of these independent nations were engaged in combat or parked in neutral.
(For example : Great Britain , 50 million in combat for 6 years. The United States, 135 million, in combat for 3 1/2 years. Turkey, 18 million in combat for zero years and so on.)
Ignore colonies with no real choice whether to fight or stay neutral - like India.
And deal only with nations that make a formal declaration of war, followed by a population-proportional commitment of troops into combat.
I think you will be shocked : how on earth could the Official Story of WWII be at such variance with the cold hard facts ????
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