Saturday, February 14, 2009

JUST GIVE ME PEACE ON SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY

I know that world peace will never be achieved. I am simply praying to strengthen my inner peace and those of all my loved ones. It is a long list because I love so many people from almost every country, religion, ethnicity and political belief.

Since earliest childhood I have disliked scarlet roses for Saint Valentine's Day. Too many of my relatives and their friends died in the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines and in the Liberation of Manila by the Americans.

There are also a couple of massacres in the Philippines I never want to forget or even put behind me in which members of my clan died shot to bits and beheaded.

Saint Valentine's Day has always meant, for me at least, a time of reflection and remembrance of things gone awry. Romance has always come second or third. It is a state of madness which fortunately most of us who grow into wisdom eschew. We have been so Hall-marked and brainwashed that you are not worth a bloody farthing unless someone, even a convict or a loser of a lover or a husband sends you a bouquet of blood red roses.

My husband is sensitive to these things. I usually receive masses of orchids in every color and shade. The Italian Riviera has been drenched with rain and snow this winter so many yellow , orange and salmon colored roses have yet to bloom.

Lest we forget the Holocaust that was Dresden the Dazzling on February 13th and 14th, 1945. Since some apologists are claiming the numbers are inflated, how about this? Between the night of 13th of February and the 14th the Allies - that would be the British and the American bombers spewed out 35,000 incendiary bombs on a civilian, refugee and hospital city. The number of dead range between 3 to 650,000, depending on whether you are British, American, Neo-con or Zionist.

Members of my clan, some of whom were devout Jews living in Dresden burned to death. If you have read Bubi's Funeral, a chapter in The Indomitable Lucrezia from the Fray Paco books you will remember that Bubi's paternal grandparents were Judean bankers from Hamburg, Halle and Dresden. Our kin never experienced the horrors of a concentration camp. They had a mansion in Dresden called Schloss Ariadne. Yes. You guessed it. Composer Richard Strauss was a frequent visitor, hence the name. Nothing was ever heard or known again from any of our kin.

More human beings died in Dresden than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together. I question the nuking of those two cities. Tokyo, like Dresden had been firebombed day and night relentlessly. Supposedly, the Americans went atomic to "save American lives."

Bollocks!

It was done in an attempt to frighten the psychopathic Stalin, who never cared a whit for any human being and already had the secrets of the atomic bomb thanks to inumerable urbane and handsome gay British moles from Cambridge, to say nothing of fervent Communists like Harry Dexter White, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's closest Advisor.

There are those who claim that Dresden was tit for tat for Coventry. Hold your stampeding cows!
That is pure propaganda. Coventry had munitions factories and even stretching the truth till it bursts like a balloon; no more than 600 people died.

"You must understand that this war is not about Hitler or the National Socialist - but against the strength of the German people which is to be smashed and crushed once and for all,regardless of whether it is in the hands of Hitler or a Jesuit priest." Prime Minister Winston Churchil
as quoted in 'Winston Churchil - His Career in War and Peace," written by Emrys Hughes. You'll find this quote, never disputed by Churchill on page 145.

This is nothing new to a growing number of politologists and historians. Churchill had a visceral hatred of all things German. Could his massive pomposity have possibly masked a searing inferiority complex vis-a-vis German Kultur, Science and Technology as well as Gemutlichkeit?

2 comments:

  1. Fascinating disclosures, Isabel. Keep up the good work illuminating us about all our misconceptions. You are performing a great service in setting the record straight.

    Jeanne

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  2. Well, my response can be a demonstration of how friends can remain friends while we disagree peacefully about some things.

    I call Dresden a war crime, but do the exact numbers really matter? And it falls under the category of jus in bello - conduct DURING war - as opposed to jus ad bellum, the law of "just cause" for war, admittedly a dubious concept but still better than no concept at all. In every war, some members of all sides commit war crimes "in bello" (such as targeting civilians), but that is immaterial to the question of which side launched an illegal war. And personal motives are immaterial too.

    Germany launched a war of naked aggression in 1939, and the later war crimes "in bello" of its enemies are immaterial to that fact. But the Germans who fought according to the customary laws of war - as most Germans did - were NOT war criminals, although those who started the war, were.

    As Shakespeare's Henry V said, "Every man's duty is the King's, but every man's soul is his own." A soldier is not responsible for the justness of his country's war; he's responsible only to conduct himself honourably. Thus, mutatis mutandis, the justness of Russia's war of defense against Germany's naked aggression, does NOT excuse the war crimes committed by legions of Russians in bello. Yet Russia, as a state, was in the right to wage war. As Julius Caesar said of Pompey's defeated army, "They asked for it."

    As for Hiroshima, I say that was not merely a war crime, but an unprecedented crime against God, as is the very existence of nuclear weapons.

    Now, your mention of Jews who lived unharmed in Germany, is a worthy point, because it's generally unknown. One was the linguist Viktor Klemperer, whose book, "Language of the Third Reich", written in Germany during the war, is a classic study of propaganda. But he was spared because he had a Gentile wife. And other German Jews were spared for various other reasons. But not many. Still, yes it's good to clarify the record.

    But we'll continue to agree to disagree about Churchill. Your citation of page 145 of Emrys Hughes' book, was based on his citation of another book by a German historian (sorry I need to look up his name). And what was HIS source for that quotation? And was Churchill quoted (and translated) accurately? People are misquoted all the time, especially by their enemies. As for the fact that Churchill never disputed that quotation, did he even know it was published? And if so, did he have reason to care?
    Sometimes simply ignoring a lie is the best response, lest one give the lie unwarranted publicity.

    Churchill is quoted in myriad other credible sources as expressing admiration for the Germans, and compassion for their war dead. He said his anger against Germany died with Hitler. But I'd prefer not to debate about that with you, because we could go on forever about it. Still, it's right and proper for you to present lesser-known histories of Churchill, for others to examine so they can make up their own minds. No mortal man deserves to be iconised, nor does any mortal man deserve to be regarded as damned. But I guess I'm very Protestant in my way of eschewing icons. ;-)

    And then my greatest criticism of this piece, is of your final speculation about Churchill having an "inferiority complex" about Germany. Do you really think that's realistic? Sure, during Churchill's lifetime, Germany was the world leader in the natural sciences and technology, but isn't it a big stretch to imagine the English felt INFERIOR? I'll grant that Germans were better at music - but did the English give a damn about that? As for literature, England was unsurpassed. As for the rule of law, well speaking as an heir and practitioner of the English Common Law - the oldest continuing legal system in the world - we regard ourselves as unsurpassed. Then I guess one could argue, with good reason, that Germany's philosphers were more prominent than England's, but the thing about the English is that they just DON'T CARE about abstract theory; generally they hold abstract cogitations in contempt. And regardless of whether they're right or wrong to think that way, the fact remains that they were NOT inclined to feel "inferior" about philosophy, because they just don't care about it.

    Same goes for "Gemuetlichkeit". The English regard that as a foreign thing, to which they're indifferent.

    In other words, more simply, I think maybe you're underestimating the English habit of indifference toward anything and everything foreign. If something cultural is foreign, then most of the English just don't care about it.
    That might make them insular (of COURSE they're insular!), but that's precisely my point, that being insular is the OPPOSITE of feeling inferior - or feeling anything at all - about any foreign culture.

    The typical English attitude toward "foreigners" is that it's best just to ignore them. Of course that's NOT MY attitude, but then I'm only partly (yet deeply in many ways) English. And so I do understand how they think, even though I'm just a close cousin. But I understand them a hell of a lot better than most Germans do.

    Peace to you, my Friend!

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Isabel Van Fechtmann

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