Tag: World War II

EDITORIAL: Flirting With Nazis Is Dangerous

  By , , , , , , , , , , , ,

EDITORIAL: Flirting With Nazis Is Dangerous

The dark days of the Nazi control of Europe led to the death of millions.

EDITORIAL:

Flirting With Nazis Is Dangerous

A Neighbor’s Nazi Experience

D. S. Mitchell

Martin Hartman is a tall slender man. His thinning white hair is brushed back, his jacket zipped against the winter wind, as he leans against his cane for support. There is a deep sadness in his eyes and a soberness in his demeanor. You can tell he has a story, and he wants to share it. Martin Hartman is my neighbor.

Martin was born in Holland in 1924. Prior to the Depression of the 1930’s, his family had owned a prosperous construction business. His family like many others had suffered during those economically depressed times, but by 1940, the 97-year-old said, the economy “had begun to turn around,” things were looking up he confirmed. The future looked promising.

There had been rumblings of war, but few took them seriously, after all WWI was a mere twenty two years in the past. No one could imagine the world once again plunging into conflict. The next few days would change his life and those of his friends and family forever. “I was 16. It was May 10, 1940. We heard bombing and saw planes. It was the German invasion, and the blitz was over in three days.” The squashing of Holland’s defenses was quick, but far from painless.

After the German invasion, they began barricading city blocks and then sweeping the apartments for young men to fill the military ranks due to troop loss. Hartman describes it, “Gradually Nazism crawled into Holland. Good people were killed, or sent to prison . . . Jews and ministers.”

Continue reading

OPINION: America, Time To Wake UP

  By , , , ,

OPINION: America, Time To Wake Up

The U.S. claims it is more entitled to greatness than other nations.

OPINION: America, Time To Wake Up

By I.B. Freely and D. S. Mitchell

Myths

A recent crock of bullshit that has been pedaled is that the U.S. joined the Allies in WWII because of the holocaust. America entering WWII had nothing to do with the holocaust. Almost no one knew what was going on at the time, including several levels of the German government itself.  The only reason America joined, two years after the war started, I might add, was because of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The American Imagination

The vast majority of fighting by American personnel was in the South Pacific in its war against Japan.  Of the 16 million men and women who served in the U. S. military during WWII, only 2 million went to Europe. For some peculiar reason the war against the Nazis in their snazzy uniforms has taken on a supersized place in the American self-image. I will remind folks it would have been hard to kill Hitler from Guam. Not that it matters much.

Continue reading

Racism At The White House

  By , , ,

Racism At The White House

D. S. Mitchell

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Those words were put to paper 240 plus years ago when the founding fathers joined together to form the United States of America, a democratic nation.

Several days ago, in Charlottesville, VA, torch carrying, chanting protesters identified variously as Neo-Nazi’s, KKK, skin heads or white supremacists, carrying AK47’s and baseball bats threatened the peacefulness of one of America’s most charming cities.

Twelve separate white supremacists groups from around the country gathered together in Charlottesville, VA last week in a stated effort to start a race war.  The particular event drawing them together last week end was the advertised removal of a commemorative statute sitting on public property celebrating Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The Confederacy consisted of eleven Southern states which seceded from the United States in 1860 in a failed effort to protect and sustain the disgusting custom of slavery.  The south an agrarian society was “perfectly” suited to slave ownership.

The remaining states, known as the Union rejected the secession effort and a four and a half year long war tore the country apart. Affects of the social schism, war atrocities and the failed reconstruction have left an ugly scar on the face of this nation.

As severe reaction to the Confederate loss of the Civil War, a practice of “separate but equal” was instituted throughout the south, effectively separating the races in all aspects of life, whether it was using the a public bathroom, eating at a lunch counter, drinking from a water fountain, or riding a city bus.

Continue reading