This is the Way the World Ends - Part I

With Valkyrie now in theaters the History Channel predictably aired a special feature on the historical events surrounding the story. One statement at the beginning of the show troubled me especially, just as it has every time I have ever heard it stated.

To paraphrase: "The German people did not generally support Hitler or the Nazi's and really had no choice but to go along with what occurred...they were innocent".

I disagree with this for many reasons. My views might have been in vogue 60 years ago but no more - everyone is a victim it seems, so too the German people.

Yes there were resistance movements - my favorite is that of the White Rose (die Weiße Rose). Much is now made of the resistance from the officers in the Army. As I discussed in my post When Is Disobediance a Moral Imperative General Ludwig Beck is perhaps the only senior officer that might really be considered to have actually resisted. Many of the other generals may have considered the Nazi's and Hitler dangerous but they still commanded their corps, divisions, air wings and armies in following Nazi orders. In reality the only time that senior officers seriously considered removing Hitler was after it became obvious that he was going to lose the war for Germany.

I do not believe the officers of the German army should receive any sort of pass - they did not resign en masse and more importantly they did not refuse to carry out Nazi orders. If all the senior officers had simply said "no" the Army would not have moved at all in 1939. A leader that nobody will follow is just taking a walk - they could have made Hitler invalid.

Of the numerous lieutenants, captains, majors and colonels that participated in various plots to kill Hitler we should remember and reflect - however, their actions and bravery does not exonerate the German officer corps as a whole.

What of the German people - is it as the History Channel and so many others have tried to portray over the years? Do they get a pass a mere victims?

We can say that Hitler was pretty clear in his ideology, writing it down and publishing in in 720 pages in 1925. Anyone that has attempted to navigate Mein Kampf has no doubt that Hitler did not hide his goals and objectives. The German people could have known if they looked.

It was the German people in 1928 acquiesced to the Law on Firearms and Ammunition under the Weimar Republic. This law was geared toward the Nazis and the Communist. Of course the Nazis were much better armed than the Communist by 1928 and neither group gave up any weapons - only the ordinary citizen complied with the law. With everyone disarmed SA was indeed a pretty scary force on the street.

So here we have the first crime of the German people. In the parlance of the modern American gun-rights movement the Germans were all prags (pragmatist), willing to give up their individual gun rights for some notion of a greater good or simply because the government said they should. After all they were allowed to keep that antique hunting rifle so they still had gun rights, what is the big deal.

The second crime of the German people is obviously their stupidity at the ballot box. In 1930 the Nazi's ran a media and entertainment campaign par with any modern US presidential campaign - all show with the substance below the surface. The Germans elected the Nazi's, and this must never be forgotten. They voted for change, they voted on emotion and for showmanship. (Is our election process any different?) The German people, during difficult times, gave the keys to the kingdom to Hitler, it is impossible to later claim innocence for his actions.

The third crime? They did not rise up and either passively or actively resist when it became apparent what Hitler intended to so with his power.

Is there modern relevance to all of this? Indeed there is - this is how our world ends, the world we grew up understanding. More in part II.

Stumble It!

Paul on Lincoln's War

Tim Russert asked Ron Paul last Sunday on Meet the Press about Mr. Lincoln's War to which Paul said: "No, [Lincoln] shouldn't have gone, gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic."

Anyone that is honest in their study of history knows that Lincoln did not declare war on the Confederate States to end slavery and that he himself never freed a single slave while president. These are facts. What he did do is redefine (by force) the original republic and to do so inaugurated slavery of another sort (the draft). He started the war and invaded the South for the same reasons nations have always invaded other nations - power, control and economics.

What an asinine thing of Russert to attempt, what a brave and noble answer from Paul.

AOL wants you to speak on the issue, go here to express your opinion (vote) on the issue. They ask a simple question "Ron Paul says Lincoln was wrong to fight the Civil War. Do you agree?"

I am amazed at the results - the failure of our civics education is obvious. I am more disturbed at the numbers coming in from the South. Obviously a lot of morons have voted in this poll thus far.

Stumble It!

Our Founding Fathers studied the Magna Carta

While you're boning up on the Constitution, be reminded that a source for consideration in drafting our Constitution was the Magna Carta of 1215. Our founding fathers would identify his arguments in favor of the 5th and 8th Amendments originating more than 500 years before. Do you know what those amendments are? Know then, if we only had chief justices like Owen installed in our Supreme Court instead of the black-robed Mafia, our survival as a free people may stand a chance.

You will find many other elements of our Constitution embodied in the Magna Carta. It's not
that long a document. Be sure that Dr. Paul's read it. So should you. How can anyone be passionate to defend something (Constitution) if they are ignorant of its origins?

Your Founders knew the history of freedom and individual liberty inside and out. So does Ron Paul.

Stumble It!

So Long Joe

There is, of course, nothing romantic or enviable about war. It is something that brings out the very worst and the very best in people - a man's true character is exposed for all to see. I know that war has always been and always will be part of the human condition. In a world without war, considering all human frailty, we would be left with benevolent (or malevelent) tyranny. History has proven, over and over again, that somethimes war is neccesary, sometime it is just and occasionally it is the only option.

There is nothing wrong with children playing at war, so long as someone within the family explains that war is not simply a game. Playing with heroes and villians is an important part of a child developing into a man - so long, as I said they eventually come to see that the world is not so simple as all that.

So we have the venerable GI Joe, a man that I came to know and love as a child. He was a Marine but more than that. In his career after the Corps he performed every sort of exciting, adventurous job imaginable. I recall that he was a smoke jumper, an "Indiana Jones" sort of adventurer and a dozen other things (in the 1970's Hasbrio downplayed his Marine past and released several personifications of Joe performing these other adventurous but non-military functions).

To me these "politics" did not matter, Joe was always a Marine, no matter what other function he might perform. Perhaps I did not understand the technicalities but it was simple to me, Joe could always put on the uniform, no matter what image Hasbrio tried to sell. I owned the original (I guess) version of Joe from the early 1960's - he was a heck of a hero to me in my young childhood.

Now it seems that Joe is just not international enough, he is too American. Paramount would fashion Joe as not a man, but rather some international group of co-ed commando's fighting for world peace and harmony. Stripping Joe of his true historical connection and his identity.

Consider the story of the real Joe, the man GI Joe was fashioned to look like, the man that inspired the true action hero. (from Review Journal)

On Nov. 15, 2003, an 85-year-old retired Marine Corps colonel died of congestive heart failure at his home in La Quinta, Calif., southeast of Palm Springs. He was a combat veteran of World War II. His name was Mitchell Paige.

It's hard today to envision -- or, for the dwindling few, to remember -- what the world looked like on Oct. 25, 1942 -- 65 years ago.

The U.S. Navy was not the most powerful fighting force in the Pacific. Not by a long shot. So the Navy basically dumped a few thousand lonely American Marines on the beach at Guadalcanal and high-tailed it out of there.

On Guadalcanal, the Marines struggled to complete an airfield that could threaten the Japanese route to Australia. Admiral Yamamoto knew how dangerous that was. Before long, relentless Japanese counterattacks had driven the supporting U.S. Navy from inshore waters. The Marines were on their own.

As Platoon Sgt. Mitchell Paige and his 33 riflemen set about carefully emplacing their four water-cooled .30-caliber Brownings on that hillside, 65 years ago this week -- manning their section of the thin khaki line that was expected to defend Henderson Field against the assault of the night of Oct. 25, 1942 -- it's unlikely anyone thought they were about to provide the definitive answer to that most desperate of questions: How many able-bodied U.S. Marines does it take to hold a hill against 2,000 armed and motivated attackers?

But by the time the night was over, "The 29th (Japanese) Infantry Regiment has lost 553 killed or missing and 479 wounded among its 2,554 men," historian Lippman reports. "The 16th (Japanese) Regiment's losses are uncounted, but the 164th's burial parties handled 975 Japanese bodies. ... The American estimate of 2,200 Japanese dead is probably too low."

You've already figured out where the Japanese focused their attack, haven't you? Among the 90 American dead and seriously wounded that night were all the men in Mitchell Paige's platoon. Every one. As the night of endless attacks wore on, Paige moved up and down his line, pulling his dead and wounded comrades back into their foxholes and firing a few bursts from each of the four Brownings in turn, convincing the Japanese forces down the hill that the positions were still manned.

The citation for Paige's Medal of Honor picks up the tale: "When the enemy broke through the line directly in front of his position, P/Sgt. Paige, commanding a machine gun section with fearless determination, continued to direct the fire of his gunners until all his men were either killed or wounded. Alone, against the deadly hail of Japanese shells, he fought with his gun and when it was destroyed, took over another, moving from gun to gun, never ceasing his withering fire."

In the end, Sgt. Paige picked up the last of the 40-pound, belt-fed Brownings and did something for which the weapon was never designed. Sgt. Paige walked down the hill toward the place where he could hear the last Japanese survivors rallying to move around his flank, the belt-fed gun cradled under his arm, firing as he went.

Coming up at dawn, battalion executive officer Major Odell M. Conoley was the first to discover how many able-bodied United States Marines it takes to hold a hill against two regiments of motivated, combat-hardened infantrymen who have never known defeat.

On a hill where the bodies were piled like cordwood, Mitchell Paige alone sat upright behind his 30-caliber Browning, waiting to see what the dawn would bring.

The hill had held, because on the hill remained the minimum number of able-bodied United States Marines necessary to hold the position.

And that's where the unstoppable wave of Japanese conquest finally crested, broke, and began to recede. On an unnamed jungle ridge on an insignificant island no one ever heard of, called Guadalcanal.

When the Hasbro Toy Co. called some years back, asking permission to put the retired colonel's face on some kid's doll, Mitchell Paige thought they must be joking.

But they weren't. That's his mug, on the little Marine they call "G.I. Joe." At least, it has been up till now.

Mitchell Paige's only condition? That G.I. Joe must always remain a United States Marine.

It took just one tough 'sumbeach' on that hill to hold, that was the minimal number of able-bodied Marines required. I am not a warmonger, but wars happen and a free people - if they are to remain free, occasionally need heroes. Mitchell Paige was just such a hero, among thousands but because of his own character and the cruel combination of fate that placed him on that hill he showed that he was just such a hero- he through the image of GI Joe has represented the sort of hero free people require at times.

Now it seems that is just not good enough....

Stumble It!

Where it all began

Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself. (emphasis mine)

This is an except from The Declaration of Arbroath (1320), the first example in the western world of the sovereignty of the people and a clear articulation of the value of freedom. My family left Scotland in 1705, two years before the sad day of Union. The Scottish people have influenced the world vastly out of proportion to their meager population. The entire culture and heritage of the Southron people owes more to the Scots than any other influence.

May it please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own. We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves.

These pleadings to the pope went unheard but the truth that this document speaks still rings true today with only the names of the perpetrators changed to identify the guilty. England build an empire upon the bones of the Scots much as the Federal Government has always been able to rely on the service of young southerners to fight its wars.

It has been 142 years since my homeland was occupied and I and many of my brothers are still angry - I wonder how long it will take the Iraqis to love the neocons for liberating and occupying them?

Declaration of Southern Cultural Independence

Stumble It!

Re: America's First Terrorist

I wrote an article entitled John Brown: Prototerrorist a few months ago in which I establish, I believe, that John Brown certainly was a terrorist by any standard by which we measure the term today.

A more realistic and honest assessment of the man paints him as an individual driven by religiously inspired ideology. A man that distrusted the government to do that which he thought was right; a person willing to do violence, commit crimes, and foment terror to achieve his aims, all for what he believed to be a greater good. In this sense he is really no different than any terrorist we might compare him to.

[...]

The question of whether Brown and was a terrorist or not is best answered by analyzing his actions. For this purpose his raid on Harper’s Ferry is sufficient. Suppose that today a group of armed men raided a government arms depot, killed innocent civilians, took hostages and engaged the police and military all with the intent of using the arms they hoped to steal to start an open insurrection. Would the media not term this group as terrorist? (Jenkins, 1996) These actions and the actors that perpetrated them would certainly be labeled as terrorist, no matter which side of the right-left divide their ideology rest.

The assertion that John Brown was a terrorist is supported by analyzing three factors; advocacy of terror to achieve political objectives, ideology-based action, violent acts and intentions.

[...]

Laying subjective ethics aside and ignoring the socio-economic realities of 19^th century slavery, and the potential reality that slavery would and was slowly disappearing via a natural death based solely on economics we can clearly establish that Brown was in fact a terrorist. His actions in Kansas were akin to many other terrorist groups we might compare his group to. Brown himself declared that the express purpose of his work in Kansas was to influence the political process and it is undeniable that that “work” involved terror and violence. His grand plan for a massive slave insurrection began with an event that if it occurred today, by any group right or left, with similarly stated objectives would certainly be deemed as that of terrorist.

The matter is simple, whether Brown was the spark that lit the fire of secession and war and eventual abolition of slavery is debatable. Other potential outcomes and ways the institution of slavery might have ended are debatable. What is not really debatable is the application of the term terrorist to John Brown, right or wrong, vindicated by history or not, his actions were that of a terrorist.

Stumble It!

The Good Old Days

Someone else appreciates my favorite part of North American history-

Most high school American history textbooks devote one chapter to this period, lasting from 1609 (in the British colonial version) to 1788. The textbook model was set by the most widely used American history textbook in the first half of twentieth century, written by David Saville Muzzey. That textbook dominated the field from 1911 until 1963. By 1963, it had been assigned to 30 million students. The 1963 version was co-authored by Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson's hagiographer. (I know of no better single piece of evidence of the decline of the American public high school than a comparison of the two-volume 1922 edition, more rigorous than a college textbook today, with the 1963 edition. Yet 1963 was the year of the highest SAT scores; it was downhill after that.)

Why is there this short-changing of the colonial era? Because most high schools are funded by the civil government. Civil government was weak and decentralized before 1788. Any level of civil government above or beyond the town council was barely detectable in any colonial citizen's life. Therefore, to focus the narrative on the era of American cultural development in which a true multiculturalism existed – long before American political sovereignty existed – appalls today's academic multiculturalists, who see the United States Government as the only reliable agency of cultural coordination.

If we have a future that is worth having, it is to be found in the past - during our history prior to the deception of 1788.

Stumble It!