Donald Trump has sullied everything else he's touched. Why not the sacrifice of the men and women who defeated the Nazis?
1
Are President Trump's words, or lack thereof this past week worse than President Reagan visiting the graveyard where Nazi soldiers were buried?
~”Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years.”~
trump should study what the Allies did to Nazi’s after World War II after they were tried and convicted of crimes against Humanity.
I forgot, trump has not studied history.
trump should study what the Allies did to Nazi’s after World War II after they were tried and convicted of crimes against Humanity.
I forgot, trump has not studied history.
"Blood and Soil". Means the German Aryan pure race must occupy as much land as possible, to keep it pure from alien, inferior races.
Sounds like the 19th C plantation USA South insisting that the new territories and states must be ruled by Whites over inferior races, and be slave states like the deep South.
So 21st century American politics has cultivated the political soil for the white, christian right wing KKK/ American Nazis, who proudly and defiantly march for the TV cameras with torches and proclaim themselves the master race.
Then the US president makes excuses for this, with rationalizations and bizarre distortion. This is what America has come to.
The public needs to be educated about the past. What are they teaching in high school history classes today? Time for PBS to stop filling it's TV schedule with British dramas like Downton Abbey, etc. Go back to it's previous role as Educational Television. That's what it was designed for with public funding, before congress cut funds, and forced public media to beg from corporate sponsors. The change in programming is obvious.
PBS and other TV networks should start repeating older documentaries or start creating new --- on American history of the 2 world wars and 19th and 20th century racial politics.
Otherwise the right wing will dominate. They will fill the vaccume . Voters will stay vulnerable to the our American Fascist's distorted interpretations of history, and we may get more Trump type leaders.
Sounds like the 19th C plantation USA South insisting that the new territories and states must be ruled by Whites over inferior races, and be slave states like the deep South.
So 21st century American politics has cultivated the political soil for the white, christian right wing KKK/ American Nazis, who proudly and defiantly march for the TV cameras with torches and proclaim themselves the master race.
Then the US president makes excuses for this, with rationalizations and bizarre distortion. This is what America has come to.
The public needs to be educated about the past. What are they teaching in high school history classes today? Time for PBS to stop filling it's TV schedule with British dramas like Downton Abbey, etc. Go back to it's previous role as Educational Television. That's what it was designed for with public funding, before congress cut funds, and forced public media to beg from corporate sponsors. The change in programming is obvious.
PBS and other TV networks should start repeating older documentaries or start creating new --- on American history of the 2 world wars and 19th and 20th century racial politics.
Otherwise the right wing will dominate. They will fill the vaccume . Voters will stay vulnerable to the our American Fascist's distorted interpretations of history, and we may get more Trump type leaders.
3
I have had the honor to attend the 60th, 65th and 70th anniversaries of D-Day ceremonies at Colleville sur Mer right above Omaha Beach. Presidents Bush and Chirac, Obama and Sarkozy and Obama and Hollande were there along with other world leaders to honor the entire allied cause to defeat Hitler's Germany.
I plan to attend the 75th on June 6, 2019. Given the manner in which President Trump has conducted himself with regard to contemporary Nazis after Charlottesville, I hope that he is no longer in office by that time to dishonor the sacrifices made by so many to free Europe from Nazi tyranny.
I plan to attend the 75th on June 6, 2019. Given the manner in which President Trump has conducted himself with regard to contemporary Nazis after Charlottesville, I hope that he is no longer in office by that time to dishonor the sacrifices made by so many to free Europe from Nazi tyranny.
13
Amen.
The many American heroes that died fighting the scourge of Nazi Germany, the fascism of Mussolini and the empire ambitions of Japan are the ones that need statues all over this nation honoring their sacrifice and love of country.
6 million Jews, 60 million civilians dead and the destruction of the European continent along with the nuclear annihilation of two cities in Japan, all of that and the current occupant of the Oval Office seems incapable of denouncing the admirers and followers of the perpetrators of that great tragedy.
6 million Jews, 60 million civilians dead and the destruction of the European continent along with the nuclear annihilation of two cities in Japan, all of that and the current occupant of the Oval Office seems incapable of denouncing the admirers and followers of the perpetrators of that great tragedy.
3
How can Trump's Jewish advisors go home at night and rationalize their continued enabling of this empty shell of a bigot? Blood and Soil? Jews will not replace us? What will it take to shock them into open protest?
7
I am embarrassed to leave this generation of great men and women with the impression of the final descent of America into the abyss of Nazi racism. Thank you Mr. Trump.
Oh forget the question of treason versus secession, forget even the question of whether slavery was the reason for the war : the unclouded view is that Hitler saw Germany in terms of an Arian master race, the self-declared white supremacists see America as superior when white.
Race trump's citizenship.
The conflation with the Confederacy is simply a recruitment ploy, a convenient flag to exploit as a curtain of historical legitimacy. They are chanting Nazi tropes, not Dixie. Their only connection to the old South is the goal to re-subjugate the others, the unUS, them.
The history is a distraction, thuggery is the game, America is the target and the victim.
Race trump's citizenship.
The conflation with the Confederacy is simply a recruitment ploy, a convenient flag to exploit as a curtain of historical legitimacy. They are chanting Nazi tropes, not Dixie. Their only connection to the old South is the goal to re-subjugate the others, the unUS, them.
The history is a distraction, thuggery is the game, America is the target and the victim.
3
Fifty to sixty million military people and civilians died in the fight to oppose Hitler's brand of fascism.
That includes 4 to 6 million murdered Jews. Men, women, and children.
That includes more than 400,00 American service members. They gave their lives to ensure that Hitler's dominance did not spread to our shores.
We have a President who ' saw some good people' marching alongside gun toting, torch bearing , brown shirted, Nazi saluting/ Nazi slogan chanting 'American' voters, carrying all kinds of Nazi symbols including flags with swastikas.
A President who thinks that the blame for the death and injuries in that crowd should be shared by another group of Americans who came out to protest against that vulgar display of unadulterated hatred.
And yet his base, and it seems most Republican members of Congress, are at best , a little put off by this.
This is the message that Mr. Trump wants to impart to America and the world.
Call it 'The Trump Doctrine'.
That includes 4 to 6 million murdered Jews. Men, women, and children.
That includes more than 400,00 American service members. They gave their lives to ensure that Hitler's dominance did not spread to our shores.
We have a President who ' saw some good people' marching alongside gun toting, torch bearing , brown shirted, Nazi saluting/ Nazi slogan chanting 'American' voters, carrying all kinds of Nazi symbols including flags with swastikas.
A President who thinks that the blame for the death and injuries in that crowd should be shared by another group of Americans who came out to protest against that vulgar display of unadulterated hatred.
And yet his base, and it seems most Republican members of Congress, are at best , a little put off by this.
This is the message that Mr. Trump wants to impart to America and the world.
Call it 'The Trump Doctrine'.
3
Donald Trump represents the worst of America. Our first African American president couldn't unite America to end racism. Maybe our first openly racist president will unite us to end this scourge.
1
Once again, your fervor in uncovering the Neo-Nazis creed in trying to deny the horrors of Hitler's savage assault of humanity, is highly appreciated. These ignorant thugs have no idea why they are marching to spew hate and division; they are an anomaly, a cancer spread out of a false equivalency, thinking they are superior to anybody else...by the color of their skin and their most recent geographic source at birth, a sore thorn totally irrational, baseless and stupid. Having been born in Germany (1941), in the most bombarded city (Essen, home of the Krupp factory), I can attest now the vast destruction locally but even more so the savagery in subjugating and killing any and all folks opposing Nazi's violent misrule, an impossibly 'evil' empire that knew no scruples nor justice while trampling anything resembling decency or civility. The current crop of youngsters, with misguided attempts to resurrect such 'evil' is, at least to me, incomprehensible, and certainly irrational, and requiring a deep ignorance of the facts, worse given this ignorance is willful (as the facts are readily available), hence, malicious in their intent. Accordingly, we must fiercely oppose any resurgence of Nazi terrorism, a brute force contrary to everything we hold dear as truly humane, loving each other, accepting our intrinsic differences as values to be treasured, and maintaining a basic tenet in society, the trust in each other. Our demagogue in chief is a lost cause; he must be fired!
4
Ah yes, "those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it." When you watch the hate filled faces of the young American Nazis as they marched and chanted the slogans of death in Charlottesville, it reminds one of the question explored by Linda Greenhouse in a recent NYT op-ed piece when people do wrongful things, that is "What are they thinking?"
What are these young Nazis, White Supremacists and others of their ilk thinking? Return to the murderous, anti human ways of the Nazis of the last Century? Return to the death camps and genocidal efforts of that time?
I suppose it really doesn't matter what they are thinking, only that they must be stopped and our American life must be cleansed of their actions and those of their Chief Enabler at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Repeating the past is unthinkable!
What are these young Nazis, White Supremacists and others of their ilk thinking? Return to the murderous, anti human ways of the Nazis of the last Century? Return to the death camps and genocidal efforts of that time?
I suppose it really doesn't matter what they are thinking, only that they must be stopped and our American life must be cleansed of their actions and those of their Chief Enabler at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Repeating the past is unthinkable!
2
Statues aren't history, but rather they are shrines. If a community elects to erect or take down a statue, have at it. But don't bemoan either act as an affront on history. If you want history go to the library, and if/when the government or any party pushes to ban books or censor what can be written, I'll stand with the counter-protesters. What grates in this mess is that the POTUS is trying to pivot the narrative from the stench of neo-nazis to the assault on history. Lee will be forgotten if statues or dismantled? Nonsense. Adolf Hitler is a common name and a well known story. Yet I know of zero parks that have a statue of Hitler.
3
Wouldn't it be be a beautiful sight to see a massive "battalion" of ww2 vets silently and peaceful gathered in protest to these hipster nazis at the next alt-right assembly instead of black masked anarchists?
7
Beyond bizarre to have a president and his supporters who finds lots to love and admire in assorted Russians, Nazis, Confederates, and white supremacists.
News flash: the south actually LOST the last Civil War, and losers do not dictate the terms or the placement of their commemorative tchotchkes in our public places. People are free to love and cherish the memory of their treasonous ancestors who fought against our country--but they should have the courtesy to do so without the implication that they are as worthy as our ancestors who actually fought FOR our country.
News flash: the south actually LOST the last Civil War, and losers do not dictate the terms or the placement of their commemorative tchotchkes in our public places. People are free to love and cherish the memory of their treasonous ancestors who fought against our country--but they should have the courtesy to do so without the implication that they are as worthy as our ancestors who actually fought FOR our country.
1
Excellent Op-Ed Piece by Irishman Egan. An additional piece with the same righteous venom is in order now to make clear the Genocide perpetrated upon the Irish by the British....
1
The Confederate statue issue is a public relations success for Trump and a neat deflection for him, safely tucking him away from the real issue, hundreds of Nazis in our streets. I'd like to see the Confederate statue issue set aside for now until the Nazi issue gets Trump censured or impeached.
Truly shocking that Trump defends those who follow the teachings of the very people who would put the president's daughter and her precious children into gas chambers.
Well stated Tim with the most important phrase being "...those were the flags of GENOCIDAL force in Charlottesville, VA, rally last weekend."
The men bearing swastika flag, brandishing symbols used by the SS, and shouting "Jews will not replace us" truly believe that they belong to a genetically superior race as did Hitler and his Swedish source, Herman Lundborg, founder of the Swedish Institute for Race Biology". Donald Trump is right there with them in his oft expressed pride in his German genes, one of his many fictions.
Time to ask Trump directly if he knows what those symbols mean and if the Jewish members of his family accept his support of men shouting "Jews will not replace us."
Thanks Tim
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen - US SE
The men bearing swastika flag, brandishing symbols used by the SS, and shouting "Jews will not replace us" truly believe that they belong to a genetically superior race as did Hitler and his Swedish source, Herman Lundborg, founder of the Swedish Institute for Race Biology". Donald Trump is right there with them in his oft expressed pride in his German genes, one of his many fictions.
Time to ask Trump directly if he knows what those symbols mean and if the Jewish members of his family accept his support of men shouting "Jews will not replace us."
Thanks Tim
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen - US SE
2
What is truly tragic is that about one third of the American people still support Trump. That third is the essential base of the Republican Party and the Party will not suppress them. Those people, by supporting Trump even after he equivocated and actually indirectly praised the Nazi's in America are the real problem here. If we have 330 million people in America, we must have 110 million people who are fine with the Nazi's and racists who protested last week, or are Nazi's or racists themselves. That is what is really troubling about all this.
2
Beautiful. Thank you! I hope more WWII veterans will be profiled to give true "context" to Trump's words and the actions of the nephew-Nazi and white nationalists.
Surprised no one mentions that Trump is German. Just sayin'....
Surprised no one mentions that Trump is German. Just sayin'....
Veterans voted heavily for Trump, especially in Florida. They knew full well that Trump considered POWs to "losers" and that he openly welcomed neo-Nazis into his campaign. Now they complain? Sorry, but sometimes you get what you voted for.
2
Timothy, magnificent writing as is your style and skill. At least the Nazi sympathizers have been drawn into public view where they can be identified, and they are more numerous than we realized.
I think of my late mother who will be gone 8 years next week. She proudly flew her American flag everyday and took it in every evening. Much of her identity was defined by being a teenager during WWII.
That being said, I have often wondered how she would reconciled her, without a doubt, vote for trump to his support of Russia and now neo nazis.
That being said, I have often wondered how she would reconciled her, without a doubt, vote for trump to his support of Russia and now neo nazis.
1
And the irony, Trump wiggled out of serving our country, his sons were to busy killing "big game" and the Nazi killer of Heather Heyer was kicked out of serving; unfit to serve.
1
My Father was born in Birmingham UK, served in the British Expeditionary Force in France and was evacuated from Dunkirk. I'm here because of the efforts of a nation to rescue 330,000 men from the beaches and escape the National Socialists.
I'm sure he and his fellows would have a very fierce retort to "some very nice people" marching for a revanchist cause. Pinky™ should be held for prosecution under 18 U.S Code §2384: Seditious Conspiracy.
Any and all enablers and apologists holding an office of trust and profit, having sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution should resign that office as of Monday August, 21 2017 or be held to the same course.
I'm sure he and his fellows would have a very fierce retort to "some very nice people" marching for a revanchist cause. Pinky™ should be held for prosecution under 18 U.S Code §2384: Seditious Conspiracy.
Any and all enablers and apologists holding an office of trust and profit, having sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution should resign that office as of Monday August, 21 2017 or be held to the same course.
1
Our 'greatest generation' is still barely alive to celebrate America's victory over fascism - Hitler in Europe, and jingoism - Japan's evil hegemony - in the Pacific from 1941-1945. A fine salute, Tim Egan, to our World War II veterans. Omens of doom are President Trump's ticket to ride in America today. The 45th President's illiteracy extends to our country's history and culture, as was so horrifically illustrated following the white supremacist and neo-Nazi rally that turned violent in Charlottesville, Virginia, one week ago.
Our treasured history and culture are still alive in the men and women whose turn it is to die from that greatest generation. Hatemongers and loathesome bigots that echo in our past history are President Trump's loyal base today. Trump's rants have driven all of us who despised Trump from his first days in the public eye into the unified desire to oust, impeach, remove him from our Oval Office and all symbols of our American presidency.
How can President Trump's presidency be nullified when his loyalists are neo-Nazi and alt-right and white supremacist thugs who do not understand world and American history? Who parade their evil banners and slogans, jackboots and "heils" with their right arms extended and the Swastika flag - the crooked cross that meant obliteration for Europe's Jews and 'untermenschen' in last century's Germany? May God save us fromsuch an unexpected tryranny in America!
Our treasured history and culture are still alive in the men and women whose turn it is to die from that greatest generation. Hatemongers and loathesome bigots that echo in our past history are President Trump's loyal base today. Trump's rants have driven all of us who despised Trump from his first days in the public eye into the unified desire to oust, impeach, remove him from our Oval Office and all symbols of our American presidency.
How can President Trump's presidency be nullified when his loyalists are neo-Nazi and alt-right and white supremacist thugs who do not understand world and American history? Who parade their evil banners and slogans, jackboots and "heils" with their right arms extended and the Swastika flag - the crooked cross that meant obliteration for Europe's Jews and 'untermenschen' in last century's Germany? May God save us fromsuch an unexpected tryranny in America!
Hitler was evil and it was good for Europe that the US army defeated him. Most of the Europeans are still grateful to FDR. Nevertheless, the American intervention had not only moral reasons but served national purposes as well. Stalin was as evil as Hitler and was allowed to be an US ally. So, may be this war was not that pure and angelic as Egan depicts it. The white supremacy people and the KKK are evil and disgusting people. Nevertheless, some of the antifa people in Europe and in the US do not have purely ethical motives. They like to beat up other people under the pretext of fighting for the good cause. So DT was not entirely wrong even if his tweets were inappropriate in view of the murder committed by a right winger. In Egans article, there is a little too much pure white and dark black.The worl is gray.
So many young people oblivious to our history, what we have stood or, what so nay have fought for and against...these young people who claim to be proud of their Nazi thinking are terrifying not only because of their marches and fear tactics, but more so because we have to wonder how many will eventually become members of government and be in positions of power. They are a slap in the face to those who fought to end Nazi power, and more proof of our failed education system. These are misguided young adults, and we need to stop them before it's too late.
The American Nazi may be a fringe group of “deplorables”: but emergence of the alt-right has amplified their voices.
1. Social media allowed them to organize and plan anonymously. In online game rooms they toy with violence and communicate in a virtual world.
2. ACLU provided them with excellent free legal advice.
3. Virginia gun friendly laws allowed them to carry semi-automatic guns. (the police should be commended for not escalating)
4. The Nazi’s violated the permit routes.
5. University towns are susceptible to abuse of free speech. Diversity of ideas brings large numbers of young people into public spaces.
6. Trumpsters gave them legitimacy.
We need to honor those fought Hitler: but the foxholes have changed.
1. Social media allowed them to organize and plan anonymously. In online game rooms they toy with violence and communicate in a virtual world.
2. ACLU provided them with excellent free legal advice.
3. Virginia gun friendly laws allowed them to carry semi-automatic guns. (the police should be commended for not escalating)
4. The Nazi’s violated the permit routes.
5. University towns are susceptible to abuse of free speech. Diversity of ideas brings large numbers of young people into public spaces.
6. Trumpsters gave them legitimacy.
We need to honor those fought Hitler: but the foxholes have changed.
Maybe not the greatest generation, but a generation that shoots at Nazis is certainly better than one that doesn't.
Maybe modern slavery in the USA is alive and well and black people are the users of illegal immigrants and every other poor working class citizen for their own financial gain.
Nothings changed America! Black owned businesses are now using poor whites for slave labour as well! Time to get real and introduce yourself to 2017 where lots of ethnicities are suppressed. In Australia the minimum legal wage across all of Australia, set by central government, is twenty two Australian dollars an hour and their first twenty thousand dollars of income is tax free. Australia is a very productive nation with a legal minimum wage of $22 an hour.
Nothings changed America! Black owned businesses are now using poor whites for slave labour as well! Time to get real and introduce yourself to 2017 where lots of ethnicities are suppressed. In Australia the minimum legal wage across all of Australia, set by central government, is twenty two Australian dollars an hour and their first twenty thousand dollars of income is tax free. Australia is a very productive nation with a legal minimum wage of $22 an hour.
Exactly how did Trump give comfort to Hitler sympathizers? Find one sentence from Trump where he did that. What he did do was say that some of the protesters were there to protest the removal of Lee's statue. That doesn't make them Nazis. It is perfectly legitimate to protest the progressive and PC reeducation of America by a bunch of fascists.
To the president: there are no "good" Nazis or white supremacists. Period. The people rundown and the young lady killed by one of them don't share the blame for being attacked by the terrorist.
Over 16 million Americans fought against the Nazis in WWIII. They don't share the blame for Hitler and his evil either. Got it?
Over 16 million Americans fought against the Nazis in WWIII. They don't share the blame for Hitler and his evil either. Got it?
An older man I knew, let's call him "Herman", used to joke, saying "Don't mess with me! I was a paid killer!" He'd go on to say "The US government paid me $125 a month to kill Germans!"
"Herman" was a veteran of the European Theater of WWII and, yes, he did kill German soldiers, fighting to defend the attempt by the 3rd Reich to rule Europe and the world. Had they won, "Herman" wouldn't have lived to be an 80+ bald, Jewish senior citizen, as they would have killed him immediately.
"Herman" was an ordinary soldier, and ordinary infantryman, and a hero.
Donald Trump is his opposite. A draft dodger on a phony ailment, the son of a draft dodger, and White supremacist, and the grandson of a draft dodger and a pimp.
While these guys try to appear tough, when they REALLY confront opposition and courage, they crack and cry, run and lie. We saw Christopher Cantwell crying as he realized he might WELL go to prison, tough guy no longer. We saw one coward pull off his "uniform" and say "Hey! I just came here for fun!" Fun? You think it's fun to chant "Jews will not replace us!" and "Blood and Soil"?
Men like "Herman" fought and died to purge the world of the Nazis, but, like cockroaches, or mold, they keep coming back.
"Herman" was a veteran of the European Theater of WWII and, yes, he did kill German soldiers, fighting to defend the attempt by the 3rd Reich to rule Europe and the world. Had they won, "Herman" wouldn't have lived to be an 80+ bald, Jewish senior citizen, as they would have killed him immediately.
"Herman" was an ordinary soldier, and ordinary infantryman, and a hero.
Donald Trump is his opposite. A draft dodger on a phony ailment, the son of a draft dodger, and White supremacist, and the grandson of a draft dodger and a pimp.
While these guys try to appear tough, when they REALLY confront opposition and courage, they crack and cry, run and lie. We saw Christopher Cantwell crying as he realized he might WELL go to prison, tough guy no longer. We saw one coward pull off his "uniform" and say "Hey! I just came here for fun!" Fun? You think it's fun to chant "Jews will not replace us!" and "Blood and Soil"?
Men like "Herman" fought and died to purge the world of the Nazis, but, like cockroaches, or mold, they keep coming back.
Amazing how you can turn a story about honorable veterans of WWII into a bashing of Donald Trump. Trump wasn't carrying any Nazi flags or memorabilia, Trump openly condemns such show of disrespect, and you know it. But you make the connection anyway because to you it's a clever way to get attention for your twisted propaganda. I know it, the majority of your readers know it and we all know you know it.
1
Columns in this paper are becoming more overtly angry. Good! Anger is appropriate. A man in the office of the president is aligning himself with Nazis and other racists; I am more angry than I can say, and I hope all decent folk are too.
1
I deeply apologize to Mr. Civitella and all living veterans from WWII who have to witness an American president making excuses for and then equating Hitler and Nazi worshipers with protesters. They are not the same. Trust me. I was a child when George Lincoln Rockwell was a faux nazi army in Northern Virginia. They were punks then and are punks now.
Thank you Timothy Egan for a great column and for illuminating the story of one veteran who sacrificed for his country. It is a fitting comparison to a draft dodger, self promoting, ignorant and egotistical president who simply cannot face truths or act presidential under any circumstances.
Thank you Timothy Egan for a great column and for illuminating the story of one veteran who sacrificed for his country. It is a fitting comparison to a draft dodger, self promoting, ignorant and egotistical president who simply cannot face truths or act presidential under any circumstances.
My father also was WW II vet who fought in Leyte, Philippines, Okinawa. Four ungodly years. I vividly recall him screaming at night, nightmares that my mother always said were because of the war and that today I'm sure would be diagnosed as PTSD.
Of course my Dad, like some of the Greatest Generation, never talked much about his experience, not until the very end of his life. The closest he came to a complaint was when I asked him how he felt about fighting in WW II. He said, I'm glad I did it, but I'd never want to do it again.
Contrast that to the whining Neo Nazis today who can't complain enough about how aggrieved they are, poor things, how they want their country back, as if someone stole it from them. Seeing these self-righteous, "angry" white supremacists sickens me. They are a disgrace to this country, just like the President who supports them.
And, to the person who commented that the Greatest Generation were racist, you need to refrain from such sweeping generalizations. Really? All of them? My dad raised us to value all people, regardless of race, religion, or color of their skin. We were taught that prejudice is ignorance. But then my dad was an honorable man. Nothing will tarnish his legacy. The Fascists flying Nazi flags will know no honor, but maybe one day they will feel shame, for they are on the wrong side of history and do not represent this great country.
Of course my Dad, like some of the Greatest Generation, never talked much about his experience, not until the very end of his life. The closest he came to a complaint was when I asked him how he felt about fighting in WW II. He said, I'm glad I did it, but I'd never want to do it again.
Contrast that to the whining Neo Nazis today who can't complain enough about how aggrieved they are, poor things, how they want their country back, as if someone stole it from them. Seeing these self-righteous, "angry" white supremacists sickens me. They are a disgrace to this country, just like the President who supports them.
And, to the person who commented that the Greatest Generation were racist, you need to refrain from such sweeping generalizations. Really? All of them? My dad raised us to value all people, regardless of race, religion, or color of their skin. We were taught that prejudice is ignorance. But then my dad was an honorable man. Nothing will tarnish his legacy. The Fascists flying Nazi flags will know no honor, but maybe one day they will feel shame, for they are on the wrong side of history and do not represent this great country.
3
In honor of Caesar Civlilita and his fellow World War II veterans, Korean, and Viet Nam
Wars President Trump and Congress could if had they had the will begin the step to better understand one another in the future — reinstate compulsory civilian service in the United States. I am not advocating compulsory military service; rather civilian service though one of a number of federal departments or agencies.
I do not deny this would be a complex and difficult to initiate, however, I believe it would be a significant step to bring a better understanding one has for one another over time. It would be a walk in the park compared to the dedication and sacrifice and will that went into successfully waging World War 11 in Europe, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. All we need is the will and honesty with ourselves to alter 'the divide and conquer take no prisoners political agenda' that divides us today.
Wars President Trump and Congress could if had they had the will begin the step to better understand one another in the future — reinstate compulsory civilian service in the United States. I am not advocating compulsory military service; rather civilian service though one of a number of federal departments or agencies.
I do not deny this would be a complex and difficult to initiate, however, I believe it would be a significant step to bring a better understanding one has for one another over time. It would be a walk in the park compared to the dedication and sacrifice and will that went into successfully waging World War 11 in Europe, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. All we need is the will and honesty with ourselves to alter 'the divide and conquer take no prisoners political agenda' that divides us today.
Theodore Roosevelt recognized the power of the presidency to speak out for the good of the country, and he coined the term “bully pulpit.”
Donald Trump also recognizes the power, but he changes the meaning of “bully” from good – as Teddy meant it – to the evil, modern version which has been an earmark of Trump’s entire life.
Like all bullies, Donald Trump is a coward. He spoke out in praise of the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville because Trump is afraid to offend the misfit bigots who comprise his core group of supporters.
It should sadden us that the elderly gentleman, Caesar Civitella, a true hero interviewed by Timothy Egan, should have to hear the ignorant nonsense spouted by the current occupant of the White House.
Donald Trump also recognizes the power, but he changes the meaning of “bully” from good – as Teddy meant it – to the evil, modern version which has been an earmark of Trump’s entire life.
Like all bullies, Donald Trump is a coward. He spoke out in praise of the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville because Trump is afraid to offend the misfit bigots who comprise his core group of supporters.
It should sadden us that the elderly gentleman, Caesar Civitella, a true hero interviewed by Timothy Egan, should have to hear the ignorant nonsense spouted by the current occupant of the White House.
1
What magnified the Nazi rally in Charlottesville?
1. Social media allowed them to organize, coalesce and plan without detection anonymously. The online game rooms encourage men to toy with violence and communicate with like minded degenerates in a virtual world.
2. ACLU provided them with excellent free legal advice.
3. Virginia's gun friendly laws allowed them to carry semi-automatic guns. This made policing them much riskier. (the police should be commended for not precipitating a worse calamity- they were dealing with essentially an infantry.)
4. The Nazi’s changed their march routes just before the demonstration confounding the police effort and plans. Adherence to the terms of the permits was sabotaged.
5. The political rhetoric of the trumpsters has provided a dog whistle and tacit approval from national leaders that normally provide moral guidance to whites.
6. University towns are particularly vulnerable and susceptible to abuse of free speech. Its become very expensive to provide a safe environment where diversity of ideas brings large numbers of young people into public spaces.
I have thought of the American Nazis as a small fringe group that had a high prevalence of mental illness. Not really a threat: but emergence of the alt-right particularly in the White House makes me think we need to address strategically any multipliers they may have.
Racism toward blacks is a much more pervasive issue that festers in the soul of America.
1. Social media allowed them to organize, coalesce and plan without detection anonymously. The online game rooms encourage men to toy with violence and communicate with like minded degenerates in a virtual world.
2. ACLU provided them with excellent free legal advice.
3. Virginia's gun friendly laws allowed them to carry semi-automatic guns. This made policing them much riskier. (the police should be commended for not precipitating a worse calamity- they were dealing with essentially an infantry.)
4. The Nazi’s changed their march routes just before the demonstration confounding the police effort and plans. Adherence to the terms of the permits was sabotaged.
5. The political rhetoric of the trumpsters has provided a dog whistle and tacit approval from national leaders that normally provide moral guidance to whites.
6. University towns are particularly vulnerable and susceptible to abuse of free speech. Its become very expensive to provide a safe environment where diversity of ideas brings large numbers of young people into public spaces.
I have thought of the American Nazis as a small fringe group that had a high prevalence of mental illness. Not really a threat: but emergence of the alt-right particularly in the White House makes me think we need to address strategically any multipliers they may have.
Racism toward blacks is a much more pervasive issue that festers in the soul of America.
These statue-fetishists would have us think libraries do not exist.
Isn't it strange how the equate statues with historical memory? Really? Is it all about the statue? Come on.
Isn't it strange how the equate statues with historical memory? Really? Is it all about the statue? Come on.
2
Fetishism and idolatry stalk the USA.
Lost and left out in the feeding frenzy attacks on the Trumpets is the horrifying reality of the intense persecution and discrimination of the Irish People by America. Broken families, broken culture and a devastated language (Irish Gaelic) is the legacy of the cruel abuse against the mostly Roman Catholic Irish Immigrants in America and their subsequent progeny.
Monuments to American elected officials who were complicit in the persecution of Irish Americans are deeply offensive and oppressive to many of us who are Irish Americans.
The Union Jack Flags displayed on homes are as offensive to many Irish Americans as the Confederate Flags are to African Americans.
We hear nothing from the Left or the Right about the persecution and vicious persecution of Irish Americans.
Monuments to American elected officials who were complicit in the persecution of Irish Americans are deeply offensive and oppressive to many of us who are Irish Americans.
The Union Jack Flags displayed on homes are as offensive to many Irish Americans as the Confederate Flags are to African Americans.
We hear nothing from the Left or the Right about the persecution and vicious persecution of Irish Americans.
2
Thank You Timothy,
My Father was 17 years old when he shipped out to fight the Nazi's.
He took his GED halfway thru his senior year of high school and still had to beg his Mom to sign his early enlistment papers so he could go to War.
My Dad fought the Nazi's and Japanese before he hit the age of 21, he was a proud American who loved his country.
To see the Nazi flag fly on American soil is an insult to all Veterans and their families, how sad it is that this display of hate is what he was willing to give his life for.
America, we need leaders. And we need them now ( I won't be holding my breath)
My Father was 17 years old when he shipped out to fight the Nazi's.
He took his GED halfway thru his senior year of high school and still had to beg his Mom to sign his early enlistment papers so he could go to War.
My Dad fought the Nazi's and Japanese before he hit the age of 21, he was a proud American who loved his country.
To see the Nazi flag fly on American soil is an insult to all Veterans and their families, how sad it is that this display of hate is what he was willing to give his life for.
America, we need leaders. And we need them now ( I won't be holding my breath)
4
Paul--The you must do all you can to fight the right wing. THEY are responsible for this.
1
Some of the commenters to this column seem more knowledgeable of history than the columnists. Mr. Egan has kind words for the Bush family without the codicil that it was largely during their administrations that the Republican ‘Southern Strategy’ was implemented. It was that strategy that cemented racism and racists into their political party. Hitler provided the racists only the addition of another flag and more bombast to the creed.
4
MK--Actually, you can probably back that up to the overrated Ronald Reagan, who got the ball rolling.
2
It seems few actually listened to Trump's press conference. Saying there were people at fault for violence on both sides does not infer support for white supremacists.
Is Trump an articulate president? Few would argue that. Obama was articulate. That doesn't get us very far. But both are/were divisive.
Is Trump an articulate president? Few would argue that. Obama was articulate. That doesn't get us very far. But both are/were divisive.
The real American hero?
Trump said it best:
"I always wanted to get the Purple Heart..."
Trump said it best:
"I always wanted to get the Purple Heart..."
1
The men and women of the Greatest Generation defeated Nazism in Europe only to see their children and grandchildren allow it to grow and thrive in America due to our collective self-indulgences and self-pitying. We have all failed to live up to their sacrifice and we should all be shamed by it.
2
My husband, spent years of his life battling the very real armaments of a military force that counted him and many others as disposable trash. He came back alive but was never the same having looked fanaticism coupled with terrorism in the eye. He died two days ago at the age of 99. Thank God he didn't live to see or hear what naive, pompous people propose in the name of "free speech." Sure, anyone can say what they wish - even print it - but the First Amendment doesn't mean that we have to offer them a platform. Speaking as one who was once a minority, I can tell you that names and slogans do hurt - and lead to physical hurt.
4
Tim, thanks for writing this. I was sickened by the sight of people waving Nazi and Confederate flags, brandishing assault weapons, wearing helmets and goggles while carrying shields embellished with swastikas and other Nazi and Confederate symbols of hate. It was even more sickening to hear the equivocating of the person who is supposed to be our President. In two of our country's most horrible wars, the Civil War and WWII, Americans fought against these ideologies. Trump is a disgrace. He has done a horrible dishonor to our country and to those of the Greatest Generation you have written about.
2
Since Times opened up these comment sections to more people by keeping them up longer, a lot of really stupid stuff has popped up. That's not to say that all of what has been added fits in that category, but a lot does. I don't want to sound arrogant (I will risk it), but a great many people need to study American history more and dig some nuances out from the big picture. The fundamental human problem, especially in political matters which we all take personally, is that we get opinions BEFORE we get facts, then we go looking for facts to prove ourselves correct. It should be the other way around, ya think?
There have been assertions that Gen. Lee was not a traitor. If he was not one in fighting and killing fellow Americans, how about the fact that the south made alliances with foreign nations to try to destroy America? Does that fit within everyone's definition? That's traitorous
A person calling himself Princeton2015 opined that perhaps the south should have to right to remember its history, keeping the monuments. Duh. Please go back to school. You didn't learn enough. It is not about remembering history, it is in the first case a debate about the use of public lands and public money to honor people who fought to enslave human beings. Take those statues and put them in a farmer's field. Furthermore, when the monuments are gone, as they will be, perhaps the coming generations of southerners can learn the facts of the war, stripped of puffed up, phony nobility.
There have been assertions that Gen. Lee was not a traitor. If he was not one in fighting and killing fellow Americans, how about the fact that the south made alliances with foreign nations to try to destroy America? Does that fit within everyone's definition? That's traitorous
A person calling himself Princeton2015 opined that perhaps the south should have to right to remember its history, keeping the monuments. Duh. Please go back to school. You didn't learn enough. It is not about remembering history, it is in the first case a debate about the use of public lands and public money to honor people who fought to enslave human beings. Take those statues and put them in a farmer's field. Furthermore, when the monuments are gone, as they will be, perhaps the coming generations of southerners can learn the facts of the war, stripped of puffed up, phony nobility.
4
To quote the article's title, "The Real American Heritage" should not be oversimplified or sanitized. Remember the past for what it truly was and what we can be today and tomorrow. Cruel, authoritarian governments and their supporters didn't cease to exist 72 years ago.
www.thewaryouknow.com
www.thewaryouknow.com
1
I suppose it would be fanciful, but I would be delighted to see a statue of Lewis, York, Sacajawea, and Clark, arm in arm, looking triumphant over the success of their expedition.
2
Thank you Mr. Egan for such a well thought out editorial piece. As Americans we should be embarrassed at having this immoral, ignorant man as our president.
When will our other elected officials wake up and exercise the 25th and remove this poor excuse for an American.
When will our other elected officials wake up and exercise the 25th and remove this poor excuse for an American.
1
Mr. Egan,
When you speak of the United States of America
you speak of it in a different sense then who lived before the
Civil War/War Between the States.
Most Americans felt they were citizens of their states
and their states formed the United States of America.
As such, Robert E. Lee felt his duty was to be loyal to his
native State of Virginia. He did not feel the Federal Government
had any authority in the Constitution to revoke the rights the
10th Amendment guaranteed to the States and its Citizens.
Lee, Longstreet, Jackson, Johnston, Stuart were not traitors
and you have slurred some of the greatest generals this country
has ever known.
Lincoln did not treat them as traitors when they surrendered, nor
did Grant or Sherman or Sheridan.
The war was a tragedy, foretold by John Brown on the morning before
he died:
"I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood."
The Treaty of Versailles was too harsh and forced upon an un-defeated Germany. Hitler's rise to power and the Second World War followed because of the Treaty and because Pacifists thought there could never be another war.
The statues put up before the1960's honoured the ancestors of the
Southerners who gave their lives for their native States.
Many of those put up in the 60's were to celebrate the 100 years
since the Civil War, and can be found in memorials to the battles fought by
far braver men than you.
Lincoln forgave why can't you.
When you speak of the United States of America
you speak of it in a different sense then who lived before the
Civil War/War Between the States.
Most Americans felt they were citizens of their states
and their states formed the United States of America.
As such, Robert E. Lee felt his duty was to be loyal to his
native State of Virginia. He did not feel the Federal Government
had any authority in the Constitution to revoke the rights the
10th Amendment guaranteed to the States and its Citizens.
Lee, Longstreet, Jackson, Johnston, Stuart were not traitors
and you have slurred some of the greatest generals this country
has ever known.
Lincoln did not treat them as traitors when they surrendered, nor
did Grant or Sherman or Sheridan.
The war was a tragedy, foretold by John Brown on the morning before
he died:
"I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood."
The Treaty of Versailles was too harsh and forced upon an un-defeated Germany. Hitler's rise to power and the Second World War followed because of the Treaty and because Pacifists thought there could never be another war.
The statues put up before the1960's honoured the ancestors of the
Southerners who gave their lives for their native States.
Many of those put up in the 60's were to celebrate the 100 years
since the Civil War, and can be found in memorials to the battles fought by
far braver men than you.
Lincoln forgave why can't you.
3
Our friends, neighbors, and co-workers voted for this man, while we were somehow vastly more insightful or intelligent which allowed us to see his bigotry, mental illness and ignorance, while they remained blind to it? No. If only it were true there could be some understanding, some forgiveness. But our fellow Americans voted for this abomination with the full knowledge of what they would get. They embraced him fully and joyfully because in him, they saw themselves.
1
Last weekend, I knew exactly what my father, a WWII vet would have said about this horrifying state of affairs. It would not be printable here.
2
My Father served in the US Navy from 1940-1962. He never talked much about his experiences during the war until he was dying of cancer. He was a Patriot and proud of his service. President Trump will never know the Patriotism of the Greatest Generation. We have an ignorant child as President.
Re Robert E Lee being a traitor, there are a couple of points worth considering. First, when the Civil War broke out, this nation was only 72 years old and there were many issues yet to be resolved besides slavery--issues involving the struggle between individual states and the union. Indeed, slavery was the main incitement for the war, but it was first among equals. Second, Hitler never showed signs of redemption; REL did. There are many letters, statements and other signs that he recognized that he had been wrong and his post-war actions and career speak extremely well of him.. Redemption is a key factor in the Christian religion, in case your were unaware of it.
2
Two of my uncles fought in Europe in WWII, one losing a leg and working with the VA for the rest of his career. My father was a First Division Marine in the Pacific, from initial enlistment in January 1942 through Peleliu, where he earned a Silver Star.
Tell the neo-Nazis to go jump in the Gulf.
Tell the neo-Nazis to go jump in the Gulf.
The "Greatest Generation" wasn't at all eager to take on Hitler and Mussolini or, for that matter, Tojo. They did nothing as the Nazis and Fascists and conquered most of Europe and Japan conquered most of Asia. The fought only because Germany, Italy and Japan declared war on the United States. The Greatest Generation was so racist that white Americans refused to serve in units with black Americans. They fought in racially segregated units. And only about 35 percent of those who fought for America during WWII were volunteers; the other 65 percent were draftees. About 70 percent of the Baby Boomers who fought in Vietnam were volunteers.
Men like civutella are true Heroes, part of the greatest generation this country ever produced. They truly saved the World. But doesn't The author notice the irony. The vast majority of these Heroes are "old White men"
a demographic group who is repeatedly disrespected and denigrated by the Left.
They are about the only demographic group who can be freely insulted without repercussion. Not a week goes by that a NY op-ed doesn't reference "old White Men " in a negative way. Why does the author use them to contrast vs Neo Nazis, but never contrast them with the radical (and not so radical ) left. They are heroes pure and simple not just "old White Men " to be marginalized by the Left.
a demographic group who is repeatedly disrespected and denigrated by the Left.
They are about the only demographic group who can be freely insulted without repercussion. Not a week goes by that a NY op-ed doesn't reference "old White Men " in a negative way. Why does the author use them to contrast vs Neo Nazis, but never contrast them with the radical (and not so radical ) left. They are heroes pure and simple not just "old White Men " to be marginalized by the Left.
1
How Soon Until Somebody Gets Lynched?
In this current paroxysm of Establishment-driven hate and fear, how long until a mob of good-thinkers lynches somebody?
I can imagine the subsequent op-eds putting the no-doubt regrettable event into appropriate historical perspective: while the lynching of a suspected racist Nazi white supremacist was unfortunate, we must always remember the thousands of black men (not to mention Leo Frank) who were lynched by, no doubt, blood ancestors of the dead man, so when considering the long sweep of history, this modest erosion of white privilege must be tallied up as, on the whole, part of the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice etc etc
In this current paroxysm of Establishment-driven hate and fear, how long until a mob of good-thinkers lynches somebody?
I can imagine the subsequent op-eds putting the no-doubt regrettable event into appropriate historical perspective: while the lynching of a suspected racist Nazi white supremacist was unfortunate, we must always remember the thousands of black men (not to mention Leo Frank) who were lynched by, no doubt, blood ancestors of the dead man, so when considering the long sweep of history, this modest erosion of white privilege must be tallied up as, on the whole, part of the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice etc etc
Tim is miscast as a political propagandist. I sincerely hope his abilities as a writer survive this hate was on the American President.
Propaganda calls for visceral emotion-based thinking, like 14-year-olds after school. But the professional writer has to aim higher, to the intellect. Can this skill be lost while mentally stomping ants?
Propaganda calls for visceral emotion-based thinking, like 14-year-olds after school. But the professional writer has to aim higher, to the intellect. Can this skill be lost while mentally stomping ants?
It is time for every good person to RISE UP and stare down the evil around us.
1
For the record, Robert E. Lee was not a traitor, he was a separatist. He was not trying to overthrow the government of the United States but to obtain the secession of the Southern states from the national union by military means. Since the new confederacy defended slavery it was a deplorable enterprise. But the concept of a part of a political union attempting to withdraw from the larger union entity is open for discussion. What was awful about the Confederacy was not that it wanted to secede from the union, but that it wanted to secede from the union primarily to maintain a slave economy. Slavery is terrible. Secession is neither here nor there. As a New Yorker whose people came to America after the Civil War I think the preservation of the union was historically advantageous. The Confederacy was doomed because it was founded on the quicksand of evil slavery. But we are looking at the 19th Century from the 21st Century. It is slavery not secession that was evil. So men, whether named Lee or Jackson, Washington or Jefferson should be seen as men of their times and culture and then judged accordingly.
How and why we consent to be governed is the open issue of modern times.
Lee refused to submit to the collective will of the civilized world to end the practice of slavery, and did so in the name of God. These people are vile.
Lee refused to submit to the collective will of the civilized world to end the practice of slavery, and did so in the name of God. These people are vile.
Mr. Egan --- you are one fine writer and one fine patriot.
1
My dad was a veteran of World War I and in his forties with four small kids when World War II began. None of us kids were of an age to serve during that war, but we all have served since then, in war and peace. Every President ought to have some sort of service to the country in his or her resume, whether it be military or civilian, and as an inducement to serve and a way to instill the notion in our culture, everyone who serves should be eligible for a kind of GI Bill program. The myths and lies of the cult of the individual--government is the enemy, "I built it myself"--have all but destroyed the idea of community, our shared values and purpose. Patriotism is not perverted flag-waving, Bible-clutching, blood-and-soil appeals to hatred of our fellow citizens. Patriotism is loyalty to our ideals.
1
America's youth could use some additional World History and Western Civilization courses!
Or they could just be damned to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Or they could just be damned to repeat the mistakes of the past.
1
Perhaps Trump's motive is to generate enough chaos on the streets to declare martial law and end democracy forever.
1
The loss of these men carries an incredible poignance with it. My mother passed away a little less than a year ago---she was 89. Her last and most generous partner in life is now 91, still very intelligent still kind and still very much in control of his own life. As a 19 year old boy he flew off carrier decks and fought lethal fights in the air over the Pacific. Those fights did not scar him.
What troubles his soul to this very day was the crisis Hitler created for the German people. The Soviets sealed off Berlin following the end of the war. He flew in food as part of the air lift. Germany was made miserable by Nazis and the chaos they triggered. He nearly cries when he describes German women and children fighting with dogs for the food dropped from the air. To him that moment captured the toxic legacy of the Nazi movement.
I have been at two Veterans Day events with him. Younger men from the Vietnam era and our engagements in the Middle East approach him and
thank him with intense respect for his service. They do not ask him where he was or what he did, they seem to know in their hearts the depth of his effort and the severity of the evil he flew against.
What troubles his soul to this very day was the crisis Hitler created for the German people. The Soviets sealed off Berlin following the end of the war. He flew in food as part of the air lift. Germany was made miserable by Nazis and the chaos they triggered. He nearly cries when he describes German women and children fighting with dogs for the food dropped from the air. To him that moment captured the toxic legacy of the Nazi movement.
I have been at two Veterans Day events with him. Younger men from the Vietnam era and our engagements in the Middle East approach him and
thank him with intense respect for his service. They do not ask him where he was or what he did, they seem to know in their hearts the depth of his effort and the severity of the evil he flew against.
16
The people who should be reading the Times and the Washington Post are watching Fox News. Trump knew this when he was campaigning. Anyone who ignored the size and enthusiasm of Trump's political rallies doesn't understand that mankind in the most advanced nation in the history of the world is incapable of rational thought in the fields of religion and politics.
3
For the South slaves met their need for labor. If the North had depended on agriculture such as cotton fields, I wonder what their source of labor would been. The survival of the South's economy was at stake. The moral superiority claim for the North is suspect.
There might have been better, if more gradual, ways of freeing slaves and giving them employment for their livelihood. Might such procedures have evolved within States Rights?
The South chose secession from the Union in order to keep its labor force. Lincoln chose war to preserve the Union.
There might have been other ways to accomplish Union and abolition of slavery, but war was decided upon and the hostility effected by that war persists.
We can disagree, but to call Robert E. Lee a traitor is debatable if not shallow.
P.S. The Americans killed in the Civil War were killed by both the Confederacy and the Union forces, Mr. Egan.
There might have been better, if more gradual, ways of freeing slaves and giving them employment for their livelihood. Might such procedures have evolved within States Rights?
The South chose secession from the Union in order to keep its labor force. Lincoln chose war to preserve the Union.
There might have been other ways to accomplish Union and abolition of slavery, but war was decided upon and the hostility effected by that war persists.
We can disagree, but to call Robert E. Lee a traitor is debatable if not shallow.
P.S. The Americans killed in the Civil War were killed by both the Confederacy and the Union forces, Mr. Egan.
We could replace these confederate statues with statues of randomly chosen veterans from the last century. It would be very appropriate. And with civil rights figures too.
My father is 95 and fought in WW2. He remembers watching parades of Civil War veterans as a young boy. And there's no question he views Trump as the worst development in US politics he's ever seen.
My father is 95 and fought in WW2. He remembers watching parades of Civil War veterans as a young boy. And there's no question he views Trump as the worst development in US politics he's ever seen.
1
While I salute the service of Civitella and other WWII veterans, we should avoid hagiography and nostalgia for the Greatest Generation. Cold analysis of voting patterns in the 2016 election suggest that Americans over the age of 65 voted by wide margins for Donald Trump and other Republican candidates.
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/grou...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/08/the-7-charts-t...
We can thank our vets in many ways for their service, either combating fascism or thwarting communism. But the statistics suggest that many voted for a president and a party that are now giving cover for a dangerous rise of white supremacy, anti Semitism and Nazism on our own shores. Just as Egan and other Times columnists have held other voters accountable for their choices, we should hold elderly Americans accountable as well.
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/grou...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/08/the-7-charts-t...
We can thank our vets in many ways for their service, either combating fascism or thwarting communism. But the statistics suggest that many voted for a president and a party that are now giving cover for a dangerous rise of white supremacy, anti Semitism and Nazism on our own shores. Just as Egan and other Times columnists have held other voters accountable for their choices, we should hold elderly Americans accountable as well.
1
"...Donald Trump, a man deficient in honor, wisdom and just simple human kindness.” Painfully true.
3
Thank you, Mr Civitella, and many more happy returns!
1
God bless all those brave men and women of all races, creeds, and backgrounds that rose to serve our country and rid the world of fascism. I pray that their sacrifice, and the lives lost in that most terrible of wars and greatest of atrocities in human histories, were not spent in vain. Those who would not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and all who marched to protest the removal of a rebel and a traitor to this great nation are on the wrong side of history., Mr. Civitella, George H.W. Bush, and all veterans of the greatest military conflict in history are living monuments to what is great and good in this country. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing, and our World War II veterans, both the living and the dead, did very much indeed. Now, with this plague of the alt-right tearing at the inclusiveness and tolerance on which our nation was founded, those in our younger generations must step up and do their part. Not in armed conflict with the armies of hate, but as examples of the principles of respect and brotherly love for all our citizens, for all our brothers and sisters in the human family. Martin Luther King and all our heroes of the civil rights movement showed that love trumps hate, non-violence trumps violence. Let their likenesses replace those of the defenders of bigotry and slavery whose statues are at last coming down. Only those who defended our truest freedoms, and the better angels of our nature, should be so honored.
The problem is, Lee was on a spectrum of slaveholders that did include Washington, Jefferson etc - and the Revolution was, in part, a war to maintain slavery. We cannot rightly deal with neonazism until we come to stark terms with the reality of the nation's origin.
In response to the comment by Karen in the Bay Area about "succession":
The state of California where you live has publicly contemplated succession since President Trump has taken office; so is it alright for current politicians in Sacramento to consider leaving the United States but not alright for the southern states in the 1860's to do the same?
The state of California where you live has publicly contemplated succession since President Trump has taken office; so is it alright for current politicians in Sacramento to consider leaving the United States but not alright for the southern states in the 1860's to do the same?
3
As I posted elsewhere, there's a special hypocritical irony present in suggesting succession in response to taking offense at those who wish to celebrate the traitors of a past attempt at the same.
1
Do not ignore the Civil Rights Movement or the Anti-Viet Nam War Movement. Many put their lives on the line to fight for what is right. Non-violent protest has played a powerful role in our recent history and we must look again to these tools to suppress the rise of fascism in America fostered by Trump. It can happen here.
3
Thank you for reminding us what it means to be a true American hero.
14
One of the many illogical aspects of this nightmare is my mother. I have enjoyed being a "detective" in respect to my family history--which included, to my shock, that my early New Netherland Dutch ancestors had slaves. However, every family has a history that would not be acceptable today, but was an acceptable norm for the times--and I do not hold a grudge against them.
But, we do know better today, and the irony of my mother being a Trump supporter, while her own great great grandfather died fighting in the Union Army in the Civil War, is yet another upside-down world I personally live in now. Like a lot of people who wish to preserve family relations, I've had to put blinders on, much to my sorrow.
But, we do know better today, and the irony of my mother being a Trump supporter, while her own great great grandfather died fighting in the Union Army in the Civil War, is yet another upside-down world I personally live in now. Like a lot of people who wish to preserve family relations, I've had to put blinders on, much to my sorrow.
7
Please do not. Mothers are only people and ones we should be better able to confront than strangers.
4
Will you destroy any family heirlooms or anything your slave owning ancestors may have past down through the years?
I am not being facetious about this matter because the context a person may have originally cast upon a photograph, an heirloom or any other object from an ancestor may have had a positive impact, yet any new light about the ancestor, is not a reflection on current family members, nor should it takeaway any past relevance.
I am not being facetious about this matter because the context a person may have originally cast upon a photograph, an heirloom or any other object from an ancestor may have had a positive impact, yet any new light about the ancestor, is not a reflection on current family members, nor should it takeaway any past relevance.
Your mother in an independent thinker - the very basis of being an American. For you to blather about her decisions demeans both of you.
Those Dutch who had slaves were examples of the prevailing culture of the day. To impugn some evil monstrosities about them because you are trained to only FEEL and never THINK is simply the roadmap of how far your particular family is in danger of falling into mindless progressivism.
But you were created to be so much more, to actually have adult decisions! So don't burn too many bridges in the time it takes you to wake up and get some economic and social reality going in your head.
Step One: read enough economics to see why employment is the top priority.
Those Dutch who had slaves were examples of the prevailing culture of the day. To impugn some evil monstrosities about them because you are trained to only FEEL and never THINK is simply the roadmap of how far your particular family is in danger of falling into mindless progressivism.
But you were created to be so much more, to actually have adult decisions! So don't burn too many bridges in the time it takes you to wake up and get some economic and social reality going in your head.
Step One: read enough economics to see why employment is the top priority.
Right on! I was a child during that time, but I remember the blue stars in many windows - and the gold stars in others. Hundreds of thousands of our service people died to save the rest of us from a hideous scourge. Now many young people cannot tell you when WWII was, much less what it was about. We are witnessing the truth of the adage, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." Hopefully, this dark chapter, personified by Donald Trump, will end soon and then we can rebuild our legacy.
6
Don't forget our own president Trump had to ask, honestly, what the civil war was about?
I think the most tragic omission of earned honor in US history could be the failure of Jefferson to reward the work of York, the slave of Lewis and Clark, whose expedition would have certainly failed without York's steadfast attention to the basic necessities of life and skills of communication with natives through sign language. York died a slave years later.
7
I am a proud Vietnam War veteran! Although I never believed in what that war was about (OIL!) or espoused the misbegotten basis for it I feel good that I stood up and did my duty with a clear head and sense of patriotism. Donald trump DID NOT DO THIS.....instead he was a coward who invented bought and paid for nonexistent physical problems to avoid his duty forever rendering him without honor, honesty, integrity and courage. It was obvious that he was NEVER fit to lead this country and he is even less fit now. It's time for his cabinet to read the 25th Amendment and send him packing to the life of shame he so richly deserves, the life he came from originally.
14
The Vietnam War was about oil? I was there. I know its history. It was about a number of things, but not about oil. Or Donald Trump.
Vietnam became a war so that the dead shall not have died in vain from the first casualty onward.
While it was gratifying to be reminded of the "Greatest Generation" and their bravery and sacrifice to help defeat Nazi Germany in WWII, it was disheartening to see yet another New York Times writer along with the Times editorial board continue the gratuitous demonizing of General Robert E. Lee, There isn't enough space to go into General Lee's career so I will content myself with two quotes from the General and remind those who read this that a West Point barracks is named after him.
"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained."
Robert E. Lee
"There is a terrible war coming, and these young men who have never seen war cannot wait for it to happen, but I tell you, I wish that I owned every slave in the South, for I would free them all to avoid this war."
Robert E. Lee
"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained."
Robert E. Lee
"There is a terrible war coming, and these young men who have never seen war cannot wait for it to happen, but I tell you, I wish that I owned every slave in the South, for I would free them all to avoid this war."
Robert E. Lee
6
Then why did Lee take up arms and lead the Confederacy against the Union? What was he fighting for? Even if he was opposed to slavery, he was still a traitor to the country. Had he been successful, he would have ripped the country apart.
Also, let's not forget these statues were erect long after the Civil War as an attempt to rewrite history and glorify the cause of the South and to perpetuate racism. Even if Robert E. Lee had admirable traits - as you attempt to explain - the people who erected those monuments as symbols did not. And that is why they are objectionable.
Also, let's not forget these statues were erect long after the Civil War as an attempt to rewrite history and glorify the cause of the South and to perpetuate racism. Even if Robert E. Lee had admirable traits - as you attempt to explain - the people who erected those monuments as symbols did not. And that is why they are objectionable.
13
Sadly the educational value that any statue or painting may inspire a child to seek additional information on the person or subject matter may be forever lost when society strips away public references of objects that may offend.
Are some people in today's society this sensitive by "objects" reflecting the past? If so, " safe" spaces that educational institutions have been creating are failing the students they are supposed to educate and not cuddle.
Are some people in today's society this sensitive by "objects" reflecting the past? If so, " safe" spaces that educational institutions have been creating are failing the students they are supposed to educate and not cuddle.
3
You ask important questions and make some good points. However, rather than my imposing my take on this I would hope you begin to do the research on Robert E Lee as well as the tragedies that were inevitable in the enterprise of the American nation. There were no sides of the angels prior to the Civil War, during the Civil War,during the genocide of Native Americans, the abuse of women and children and workers in general in the sweat shops of the North, the Robber Barons of American industry and so on.
1
My dad was a member of the Greatest Generation. They proved their patriotism in a way that self proclaimed White Nationalists never could. The brave men and women who served alongside my father during WW ll were willing to sacrifice their lives to preserve the freedoms and values of this great country by directly facing and standing against the darkest forces of evil. They did so with pride and with guts. My father was awarded the Bronze Star for his meritorious service and heroism, as well as five major Battle Stars. He carried the scars and memories of each one of them throughout his life. Although I deeply miss his presence, I'm almost relieved that he is not here to witness the heinous resurgence of hate groups on American soil...with a wink and a nod from an American President no less! These groups can only be seen as cowardly monsters in contrast to our true American patriots and Greatest Generation. The multitudes who died in battle and all who fought to ensure that white Supremacist's and neo Nazi's and their symbols of hate might never rise again. Not here, not anywhere.
10
There once was an empty-shell-in-chief
Whose tenure it is hoped will be brief
And whose core is empty
Say the cognoscenti
Bringing the country nothing but grief
Whose tenure it is hoped will be brief
And whose core is empty
Say the cognoscenti
Bringing the country nothing but grief
7
If people could smell war, there would never be another.
11
I'm surprised you say "within a generation's time" and not "within a decade." Ten years from now, the still-surviving veterans who were 17 or 18 years old when the war ended will be 100 years old or close.
7
And even in the comments here, some equate Washington's rebellion with Lee's rebellion.
They weren't the same: compare the Declaration of Independence of the US and the Declaration of Secession of Mississippi (passed by the Mississippi legislature as its official reasons for leaving the Union:
"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."
Nice, huh? Now look, if you can stomach it, at the MS declaration:
"In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth."
You can find one of these for most of the CSA states, and slavery is always at the top of the reasons. They weren't ashamed. They wanted you to know their rebellion was to preserve slavery. So KNOW, already.
They weren't the same: compare the Declaration of Independence of the US and the Declaration of Secession of Mississippi (passed by the Mississippi legislature as its official reasons for leaving the Union:
"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."
Nice, huh? Now look, if you can stomach it, at the MS declaration:
"In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth."
You can find one of these for most of the CSA states, and slavery is always at the top of the reasons. They weren't ashamed. They wanted you to know their rebellion was to preserve slavery. So KNOW, already.
24
Yeah: alas, Thomas Jefferson did NOT mean "all men are equal" in the sense of all races, or "mankind" in the sense of "women too" -- he meant white, land-owning males.
So basically they kinda said the same things.
So basically they kinda said the same things.
Well said. *Very* well said.
Thank you.
Thank you.
7
The practice of physics somewhat resembles the peacetime military. The pay is lousy but you get to play with a lot of exotic machinery.
1
“One thing Germany does is the banning of the semiotics of Nazism. There is zero tolerance. That is what a civilized society does. It does not celebrate symbols that celebrate enslavement and genocide.” Harriet Washington, medical ethicist, 2017
16
The Confederacy was not Nazi Germany. Although owning slaves was legal, their owners had no intention of killing their "property." Genocide was practiced by the slaves' liberators in the west after the war. Look it up.
It is rather disgusting that Don the Con makes Bush the Younger actually look competent.
6
A huge segment of the country didn't want to fight in WW II. Its spiritual leaders or antecedents were Lindbergh, Mencken, Ford, Coughlin, and many others. In the end, justice and right prevailed largely through the determination of Franklin D. Roosevelt. While Nazism and Tojo-ism was defeated, it came at a huge cost because the effort was too long delayed in the "low dishonest decade" W.H. Auden chronicled.
In this anti-Trump mania whipped up for months by this paper, values more important than taking down old statutes are being run roughshod, from winking at "antifa" violence (legally no different than neo-Nazi violence) to eliding the cause of increasing Islamist violence around the world, of which Barcelona is the latest sickening example.
"The Real Heritage" of two generations ago, admired as it ought to be, is not relevant to dealing with today's challenges. We need to put our eye, today, on the real threats to civilization.
Amply imperfect as Trump is, this paper focuses obsessively on him and refuses at bottom (IMO) to stand with the values that sent the brave men Egan mentions to do combat.
As to monuments, does Timothy Egan think the song "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" should be banned from the airwaves and download services?
Of course it's a slippery slope. We need to educate and contextualize, not play retrospective censor.
In this anti-Trump mania whipped up for months by this paper, values more important than taking down old statutes are being run roughshod, from winking at "antifa" violence (legally no different than neo-Nazi violence) to eliding the cause of increasing Islamist violence around the world, of which Barcelona is the latest sickening example.
"The Real Heritage" of two generations ago, admired as it ought to be, is not relevant to dealing with today's challenges. We need to put our eye, today, on the real threats to civilization.
Amply imperfect as Trump is, this paper focuses obsessively on him and refuses at bottom (IMO) to stand with the values that sent the brave men Egan mentions to do combat.
As to monuments, does Timothy Egan think the song "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" should be banned from the airwaves and download services?
Of course it's a slippery slope. We need to educate and contextualize, not play retrospective censor.
13
It is not whipped up anti tRumpism, it is real and we are the resistance.
Gerald,
Thank You for calling the NY TImes to Task.
The drumbeat against Trump has become a drone.
Anti-Fa is more totalitarian then the few thousands in
the Alt-Right.
ISIS has shown that it is not going anywhere and refusing to
"Islamaphobic" does not mean they will spare you.
Thank You for calling the NY TImes to Task.
The drumbeat against Trump has become a drone.
Anti-Fa is more totalitarian then the few thousands in
the Alt-Right.
ISIS has shown that it is not going anywhere and refusing to
"Islamaphobic" does not mean they will spare you.
1
A song is not a monument, it expresses a viewpoint. The problem here is people are confusing a memorial and a monument.A memorial is there to remember those who died or were sacrificed, it can remember the horrible cost of the civil war for example and the men who fought it and the civilians who died, and there is nothing wrong with that.
A monument on the other hand, a statue in this case, is about glorifying the person who it remembers and more importantly, what they fought for. Lee, Jackson, Davis, etc fought for the confederacy and for slavery, and if we put up monuments to them we also glorify what they were fighting for. The Germans don't have monuments to the leaders and the military leaders who fought WWII, they don't have statues of Rommel on a tank or Runfeldt or the like, and they certainly don't have monuments to Hitler or Goebbels or Goering or the like. They have memorials to the soldiers who died there (unfortunately, including SS soldiers, my father was livid when Reagan went to bitburg cemetery where Waffen SS soldiers were buried), but the soldiers are seen as victims of the Nazis, it doesn't glorify the war at all.
A monument on the other hand, a statue in this case, is about glorifying the person who it remembers and more importantly, what they fought for. Lee, Jackson, Davis, etc fought for the confederacy and for slavery, and if we put up monuments to them we also glorify what they were fighting for. The Germans don't have monuments to the leaders and the military leaders who fought WWII, they don't have statues of Rommel on a tank or Runfeldt or the like, and they certainly don't have monuments to Hitler or Goebbels or Goering or the like. They have memorials to the soldiers who died there (unfortunately, including SS soldiers, my father was livid when Reagan went to bitburg cemetery where Waffen SS soldiers were buried), but the soldiers are seen as victims of the Nazis, it doesn't glorify the war at all.
My partner's father (and my dear friend) was an eminent anthropologist. He died two years ago, at the age of 92. As a 17 year old Jewish boy his parents sent him to England, with a younger brother in tow ( neither speaking a word of English) to escape Nazi terror in Cologne, Germany.
This same 17 year old was later a reporter for "Stars and Stripes" and one of the first reporters at the liberation of Dachau along with the great war correspondent, Marguerite Higgins.
Just two days before these two correspondents reached Dachau together by jeep; they came across boxcars filled with rotting corpses, none of them weighed more than sixty or seventy pounds. They realized that it was the 'lucky ones' who had been shot. The remainder had had their brains beaten out.
It's scenes of horror such as these that makes a person wonder how is it possible that the world can so soon forget who the Nazi's were and what they did. I'm mortified to have thought, more than once, over the last year; I'm glad my dear friend is not here.
To have such a great man and the other great men of the WW11 generation be witness to the resurgence of White-Nationalism and Neo-Nazi movements here in America after all they sacrificed for us is incomprehensible. To have these same movements being given a 'wink and a nod' by an american president is horrifying.
This same 17 year old was later a reporter for "Stars and Stripes" and one of the first reporters at the liberation of Dachau along with the great war correspondent, Marguerite Higgins.
Just two days before these two correspondents reached Dachau together by jeep; they came across boxcars filled with rotting corpses, none of them weighed more than sixty or seventy pounds. They realized that it was the 'lucky ones' who had been shot. The remainder had had their brains beaten out.
It's scenes of horror such as these that makes a person wonder how is it possible that the world can so soon forget who the Nazi's were and what they did. I'm mortified to have thought, more than once, over the last year; I'm glad my dear friend is not here.
To have such a great man and the other great men of the WW11 generation be witness to the resurgence of White-Nationalism and Neo-Nazi movements here in America after all they sacrificed for us is incomprehensible. To have these same movements being given a 'wink and a nod' by an american president is horrifying.
21
Gee, I guess my great great great grandfather who fought for the Confederacy would be surprised to find out that his grandson who died fighting the Nazis in France now has a Nazi for a grandfather. Hopefully, Heaven will get this important message from the deft pen of Mr.Egan.
Here's a suggestion, Mr. Egan: How about we turn off the Nazification machine for a minute or two and contemplate that the American Civil War was fought between two competing governments: one in the North and one in the South, both held many humans in a state of slavery (about 500,000 on the Northern side) about 3 million on the Southern side. Lincoln even proposed to enshrine slavery in the constitution in March 1861 with the "original" thirteenth amendment, slaves were working in Washington DC throughout the first year of the war, and the Emancipation Proclamation did nothing to alter the enslaved status of slaves held behind Union lines. If one were a Confederate soldier how could one have guessed that the Northern states would eventually decide to abolish slavery and set THEIR final slaves free in December 1865. That was eight months after the war ended. The sad truth of the matter is that the civil war was fought between two slave-holding entities and our future black citizens were caught between them. It was a god awful tragedy for everyone and your Hitler talk is not helpful.
Here's a suggestion, Mr. Egan: How about we turn off the Nazification machine for a minute or two and contemplate that the American Civil War was fought between two competing governments: one in the North and one in the South, both held many humans in a state of slavery (about 500,000 on the Northern side) about 3 million on the Southern side. Lincoln even proposed to enshrine slavery in the constitution in March 1861 with the "original" thirteenth amendment, slaves were working in Washington DC throughout the first year of the war, and the Emancipation Proclamation did nothing to alter the enslaved status of slaves held behind Union lines. If one were a Confederate soldier how could one have guessed that the Northern states would eventually decide to abolish slavery and set THEIR final slaves free in December 1865. That was eight months after the war ended. The sad truth of the matter is that the civil war was fought between two slave-holding entities and our future black citizens were caught between them. It was a god awful tragedy for everyone and your Hitler talk is not helpful.
14
"Lincoln even proposed to enshrine slavery in the constitution in March 1861 with the "original" thirteenth amendment"
Sorry, this is false. The so-called Corwin Amendment to which you are referring was not "proposed" by Lincoln and he grudgingly agreed to it, writing that "holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable" as a last-ditch effort in early 1861 to dissuade Southern states from seceding.
Sorry, this is false. The so-called Corwin Amendment to which you are referring was not "proposed" by Lincoln and he grudgingly agreed to it, writing that "holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable" as a last-ditch effort in early 1861 to dissuade Southern states from seceding.
2
This was not a war "fought between two competing governments." This statement legitimizes secession, whereas by definition, secession is TREASON. Anyone acting and then fighting for the dissolution of the USA is guilty of treason. The "competing government" was established as an act of treason and a main tenant of this new government was to maintain slavery. And though there were many beliefs/ideals/causes that drove the supporters and military on both sides of the Civil War, it is safe to say that the number of abolitionists fighting on the side of the Rebs, was zero. Zero.
7
Strangely, when apologists talk about whether the war was fought over slavery, they never talk about why the South fought. The seceding states wrote Declarations of the causes of secession, passed them through their state legislatures as official statements, and slavery was always at the top of the list.
E.g., Mississippi: In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
Those states wanted you to know they were leaving the Union over slavery, and their fear that (despite your post asserting that Southerners were surprised by abolition) Lincoln's election was the beginning of the end. It's right there in the Declaration.
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/mississippi_declaration.asp
The states wanted you to know that for them, it was all about slavery. They weren't ashamed. They wanted to lay down a marker.
The Union, of course, could fight for Union and the abolitionists would support that war. Like the South, abolitionists thought that Union would lead to the end of slavery, eventually.
E.g., Mississippi: In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
Those states wanted you to know they were leaving the Union over slavery, and their fear that (despite your post asserting that Southerners were surprised by abolition) Lincoln's election was the beginning of the end. It's right there in the Declaration.
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/mississippi_declaration.asp
The states wanted you to know that for them, it was all about slavery. They weren't ashamed. They wanted to lay down a marker.
The Union, of course, could fight for Union and the abolitionists would support that war. Like the South, abolitionists thought that Union would lead to the end of slavery, eventually.
9
The people who witnessed it firsthand 70 years ago tell us they are seeing it again. Their firm certainty should fortify us now, as we confront the present extraordinary chilling uncertainties.
For his part, Mr. Trump praised the "very fine people" among the neo-Nazis and supremacists at Charlotte. One of the fine people drove his car into a crowd. Many brought semiautomatics. They chanted Nazi slogans.
Yes, Lee was a traitor. He decided to tear the nation apart than relinquish slavery. Mr. Trump and his enablers don't even know what the word traitor means. And they couldn't care less about the Constitution.
For his part, Mr. Trump praised the "very fine people" among the neo-Nazis and supremacists at Charlotte. One of the fine people drove his car into a crowd. Many brought semiautomatics. They chanted Nazi slogans.
Yes, Lee was a traitor. He decided to tear the nation apart than relinquish slavery. Mr. Trump and his enablers don't even know what the word traitor means. And they couldn't care less about the Constitution.
8
My father was also one of the brave Americans who helped rid the world of the Nazi and fascist menace. At age 71 I will do everything in my power to honor that legacy, whatever it takes. Think about it, actual armed Nazis, right here in our own country, complete with the same slogans, salutes and symbols our fathers fought and died to defeat. And the so-called president of our country is egging them on. The shame is overwhelming. But let's not allow it to overwhelm us. Refute, resist, rebuild.
15
And after our forces destroyed the Nazis-killing them by the hundreds of thousands- they put their principal leaders on trial, convicted them, and hanged them.
God Bless the men who fought against fascism. I am heartsick over this blatant insult from the Commander in Chief. You all deserve better from the country you fought to defend.
5
Until this Republican Party's leadership develops some courage and down right patriotism we will flounder under the watchful eye of Vladimir Putin and his minions. There is little question that Russia lies behind the current upsurge of neo nazism and white power. Unfortunately our president appears to be enmeshed in its very core. At present the ball is in the Republican court. Are their any Americans on the floor?
3
My father, a WWII veteran who died too-young at 49 in 1974, saw the effects of Nazism. It wasn't the Wehrmacht, but the multitude of death camps his unit liberated in the closing days of the war and its immediate aftermath. To see a Nazi swastika displayed in the U.S. is an insult to those honorable men and women who fought against tyranny, and the sooner the vermin on the alt-right are gone, the better this country will be ... maybe even with a chance at human progress.
5
Thank you, Mr. Egan. My late father served in WWII, and I served during Vietnam. It makes my blood boil to see armed Nazis marching in the streets of America. I consider those marchers to be traitors. They do not believe in the very first American principal, that all men are created equal. They are NOT Americans, and they should be deported. Let them find a country that shares their racist principals.
8
No more mincing words about the worst and least fit man to ever hold the office.
trumplings are the successors of quislings.
trumplings are the successors of quislings.
3
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out....."
3
While I unequivocally condemn Trump for his inexcusable response to the white supremacist terrorism in Charlottesville, I don't see why anyone is surprised by it. For decades his racism has been on vivid public display from his refusal to rent to black tenants through his call to execute the later exonerated "Central Park Five" to being the Birther-in-Chief and now employing racist talking points to defend Confederate statues. Trump has also shown throughout his campaign and in office that he will not condemn anyone no matter how awful they are who voices support for him including Putin, the murderous Philippine president Duterte and now neo-Nazis. Again detestable, but none of this should come as a surprise. Anyone with their eyes open saw that this is who Donald Trump is.
The real outrage should be directed at those in the Republican party and Trump's other supporters who fail to condemn and isolate him now. There is no room for political calculation in their response to Charlottesville. A woman was murdered in an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by an American Nazi. Anything short of complete condemnation is frankly unAmerican.
The real outrage should be directed at those in the Republican party and Trump's other supporters who fail to condemn and isolate him now. There is no room for political calculation in their response to Charlottesville. A woman was murdered in an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by an American Nazi. Anything short of complete condemnation is frankly unAmerican.
6
The only difference between Trump and Sessions is impulse control. While Trump blurts out vile racism, bigotry and support for those really good people within the neo-Nazi and white nationalists groups, like street hawker pawning phony jewelry, Sessions fulfills the same ideology utilizing more controlled, insidious methods.
Trump’s overt support generates public rebukes and protests while Sessions’ efforts quietly perpetuate an evil legacy that is the fabric of his corrupt, racist dogma.
Trump’s overt support generates public rebukes and protests while Sessions’ efforts quietly perpetuate an evil legacy that is the fabric of his corrupt, racist dogma.
3
A soul-stirring piece, thank you Timothy Egan.
The immense sacrifice and patriotism of "The Greatest Generation" to help defeat Nazi Germany, and its partners in evil, should never be forgotten or dismissed.
The immense sacrifice and patriotism of "The Greatest Generation" to help defeat Nazi Germany, and its partners in evil, should never be forgotten or dismissed.
2
My father, who is Jewish, fought the Nazi regime, including in the Battle of the Bulge, as a member of the United States Army. It is so disheartening to see these ignorant young punks glorifying that cruel and murderous regime.
With regard to the Bushes, let's not overdo the praise for their recent statement. George H.W. Bush ran the infamous Willie Horton commercials in his presidential campaign and George W. Bush concocted and spread false rumors that John McCain had an African-American love child during his first presidential campaign. Both pandered to racism.
With regard to the Bushes, let's not overdo the praise for their recent statement. George H.W. Bush ran the infamous Willie Horton commercials in his presidential campaign and George W. Bush concocted and spread false rumors that John McCain had an African-American love child during his first presidential campaign. Both pandered to racism.
3
What a disgrace this is. In the twilight of their lives, as we try to give final thanks and appreciation to our fast-dwindling number of WW II veterans, we have to witness Neo-Nazis marching in the streets of America.
Their ugly slogans and thuggery are a slap in the face to the brave men who fought for our freedom from Nazism so long ago.
All we can tell the veterans is, "Thank you for defending us, and we promise we will not let this cancer of hate win here and now". We owe this to the survivors of WW II, and to the ones who gave their lives for us.
Their ugly slogans and thuggery are a slap in the face to the brave men who fought for our freedom from Nazism so long ago.
All we can tell the veterans is, "Thank you for defending us, and we promise we will not let this cancer of hate win here and now". We owe this to the survivors of WW II, and to the ones who gave their lives for us.
4
Egan: "His (Robert E. Lee) statue no more belongs on a pedestal than does that of Hitler’s most proficient military man."
Amen! Lee fought to destroy the Union that Washington and Jefferson risked their lives to form and Lincoln gave his life to preserve. Lee betrayed the values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
Amen! Lee fought to destroy the Union that Washington and Jefferson risked their lives to form and Lincoln gave his life to preserve. Lee betrayed the values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.
7
If Trump wants to celebrate Russians, he should be erecting statues celebrating the incredible sacrifices of Russian soldiers and civilians in WWII, fighting the Nazis.
24,000,000 million Soviets died stopping the Nazis from taking over the Soviet Union. I wonder how their descendants feel about Putin working to put a Nazi-lover into office in the US, and that Nazi lover encouraging more Nazis to rise up? I imagine that some Russians approve of Nazis. But Russians in general are even prouder of what their ancestors did in WWII than we in the US are.
The US suffered fewer than half a million casualties, by comparison.
Celebrate the Real Russian Heritage, as well as the Real American Heritage.
That may have some interesting strategic and tactical consequences, politically, both domestically and internationally.
That would require someone with a brain, with vision, with principles, with honor, with courage. But our President is Trump.
24,000,000 million Soviets died stopping the Nazis from taking over the Soviet Union. I wonder how their descendants feel about Putin working to put a Nazi-lover into office in the US, and that Nazi lover encouraging more Nazis to rise up? I imagine that some Russians approve of Nazis. But Russians in general are even prouder of what their ancestors did in WWII than we in the US are.
The US suffered fewer than half a million casualties, by comparison.
Celebrate the Real Russian Heritage, as well as the Real American Heritage.
That may have some interesting strategic and tactical consequences, politically, both domestically and internationally.
That would require someone with a brain, with vision, with principles, with honor, with courage. But our President is Trump.
1
A very sentimental and reductive piece. I'd love to believe that opposition to bigotry was an "American" value, but U.S. history pre-begins with the expropriation and genocide of Natives. Slavery is a major part of our history -- a shameful part -- and the KKK has continued unabated even though it is clearly a terrorist group with roots in torture and lynching. Americans elected the Groper in Chief and Republicans prepared the way by dog whistling quasi-illiterate white supremacists egged on by Fox News. The law has always protected the "free speech" of domestic terrorists such as the neo-Nazis and the KKK, while hyper policing those who deign to protest actual injustice. Martin Luther King tried to reorient American values by reminding his audience that racism contradicts Christian morals. He was somewhat successful, but how do you reorient a society governed by "free market" social Darwinism?
2
White males over age 60 overwhelmingly voted for Trump (about 80 percent). They were his strongest constituency.
Sadly, most WW2 vets certainly did.
Sadly, most WW2 vets certainly did.
7
Great point. And many of them did so in part because as they proudly admited "I will never vote for a woman for president." Let's not go overboard in our glorification of a generation. Some were the greatest, no doubt. Some certainly were not. All were flawed humans-- as we all are.
5
By the way, my father is 97 and voted for Hillary Clinton. Please don't assume.
1
Not true. First if all, most are dead. Others (including my father who is 97 and still living) are not Trump people. They are grateful for the social security and GI Bill. Like my dad, these people were children during the depression and are democrats in the spirit of FDR.
6
Terrific article. Exploding with truth. Please indulge me with my father's story. He enlisted in 1939 at the age of 29. As a Jew from the Bronx, many wondered why. He asked for assignment to Airborne. He admits it was to get extra pay. He was sent to Fort Bragg and completed his training there. He knew from letters his mother was getting, that his extended family could not escape Nazis in Poland. Today they are all dead. Murdered. The Army told my father he could not "jump" with the 82nd, but to stay attached he could become a medic. He agreed. He was in the first landing in North Africa and subsequent Tunisian and Italian campaigns. The Army tells us that he saved many lives. Upon his return home in 1944 he was decorated with a Bronze Star and today his grave marker is marked with it and the Star of David. As a boy, my father "explained" why it was so important to defeat the Nazis. He simply said: "There are some things worse than dying."
16
The trouble is, there are no medals for preventing such disasters.
1
My father fought in the Mariana Islands. My grandfather was on a sub chaser in the North Atlantic in WWI. I served in Vietnam in 1967-68. I have two cousins on the Vietnam wall; they all died in country when I was there. I heard about them in letters from home. And that's just a fraction of those of my family who served. But, then again, we're Southerners from North Carolina and Louisiana, and Southerners have made military service almost a tradition. It might have something to do with the Civil War, fighting in a massive rebellion, fighting hard, getting beat, being occupied and reconstructed, and regaining U.S. citizenship. It's sort of a way licking our wounds and proving that we were never cowards, that we hold love of country dear, and that we will not be told what to do. My ancestors suffered greatly because of the unwise and reckless rebellion, and I've never heard differently from the old folks who actually knew those who lived through it.
But I guess all the events in Charlottesville and the ensuing debate makes me and my kind racists and Nazis --- and worse, "traitors," like my great grandfather sneaked around and sold out his country for money or position. I'm sorry, but they stood up and rebelled and let the world know it. But I'm now supposed to be ashamed of them and myself for remembering them. Our towns do not have the right, like Northern towns, to honor their war dead.
But I guess all the events in Charlottesville and the ensuing debate makes me and my kind racists and Nazis --- and worse, "traitors," like my great grandfather sneaked around and sold out his country for money or position. I'm sorry, but they stood up and rebelled and let the world know it. But I'm now supposed to be ashamed of them and myself for remembering them. Our towns do not have the right, like Northern towns, to honor their war dead.
4
You have every right to honor those who died FOR the United States.
2
Most of the statues being torn down - around the country - were erected starting after the WWII. They were part of an attempt to reassert and assure continuing white dominance over blacks. They were about keeping people in their place. They were about Jim Crow.
If you want to erect a statue of Lee or some other courageous Confederate, feel free to do it on private land.
The public domain belongs to everyone. A statue of Lee is a middle finger raised to remind blacks how their ancestors suffered - and how they continue to suffer bigotry and violence today.
So the events in Charlottesville do make you a racist if you still respect your grandfather for fighting for slavery. You called it an "unwise and reckless rebellion". Why celebrate it's leaders? - especially when it is common knowledge that the cause was the preservation of a brutal and evil subjugation of fellow human beings. May I suggest you replace blind pride with humble shame? That would be real courage.
If you want to erect a statue of Lee or some other courageous Confederate, feel free to do it on private land.
The public domain belongs to everyone. A statue of Lee is a middle finger raised to remind blacks how their ancestors suffered - and how they continue to suffer bigotry and violence today.
So the events in Charlottesville do make you a racist if you still respect your grandfather for fighting for slavery. You called it an "unwise and reckless rebellion". Why celebrate it's leaders? - especially when it is common knowledge that the cause was the preservation of a brutal and evil subjugation of fellow human beings. May I suggest you replace blind pride with humble shame? That would be real courage.
3
Respectfully sir, I too am a Southerner, and intensely proud of my heritage. I've never been a fan of flying the Rebel flag, as I feel it glorifies an ugly event in our past, and has been largely coopted by people who are very vocally racists. Robert E. Lee was one of my greatest heroes growing up, and still is, when I think of his words, his caring for his men, and the way he lived his life. Unfortunately, the cause he is most remembered for was the wrong cause. He is not the first soldier to fight for the wrong cause, nor will he be the last. Since the dawn of humanity, the rich and powerful have been convincing us to fight wars for them, giving us mis-information to sway us to their side, so I can't fault all that fought in unjust wars. There is a Confederate soldiers monument in my town, to honor the men who died. In my mind, I want to keep this monument, because these men did what they thought was their duty. However, at the end of the day, they were fooled, like all of us are from time to time.
I encourage you to search your soul like I have, and grow from it. This does not make me hate Texas or the South, but it makes me look at it honestly.
There are men who have stated this better than me. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu's speech on the statues: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j81MkNgnXuY)
And even better, Robert E. Lee's comments on Confederate monuments:
http://leefamilyarchive.org/papers/letters/transcripts-UVA/v076.html
I encourage you to search your soul like I have, and grow from it. This does not make me hate Texas or the South, but it makes me look at it honestly.
There are men who have stated this better than me. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu's speech on the statues: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j81MkNgnXuY)
And even better, Robert E. Lee's comments on Confederate monuments:
http://leefamilyarchive.org/papers/letters/transcripts-UVA/v076.html
2
Caesar Civitella represents the concept of E pluribus unum: "out of many, one." It's the motto of the United States of America. Apparently Donald Trump never learned that when he was skipping school and his father had enough money to pay instructors and administrators to pass his boy on through. Nowhere in his history is there evidence that the 45th president ever excelled in any academic institution. The poverty of his language, his thoughts become pronouncements all betray him as one hostile to learning, given only to life's pleasures. Bone spurs in a heel (both?) prevented him from strapping on a rifle or signing up for "jump school" during our soul-destroying Vietnam War. Yet he could, with a straight face, compare the dodging of venereal diseases to some kind of badge of honor. I can't believe he ever gave a thought to any American soldier who returned from the holocaust of Southeast Asia blind, lame, wheelchair bound, emotionally devastated and rendered otherwise socially incompetent. Or dead.
Mr. Civitella is the quintessential American: unknown, unheralded, volunteering to do a dangerous job so that others can keep watch over their modest gardens and lawns, an anonymous kind of heroism that insures that schoolchildren can cross the street on their way to school.
America's election of Donald Trump was much like the self-blinding of Oedipus. America allowed this monster to slide into its bed. But unlike Jocasta, America knew exactly who Trump was.
And did it anyway.
Mr. Civitella is the quintessential American: unknown, unheralded, volunteering to do a dangerous job so that others can keep watch over their modest gardens and lawns, an anonymous kind of heroism that insures that schoolchildren can cross the street on their way to school.
America's election of Donald Trump was much like the self-blinding of Oedipus. America allowed this monster to slide into its bed. But unlike Jocasta, America knew exactly who Trump was.
And did it anyway.
6
Of course WWII veterans would be appalled at the reappearance of Nazi symbols. But there is something exploitative about drafting them into the larger anti-Trump cause for the purposes of a column. We would need a competent survey (rather rare these days) to know for sure, but I suspect that a substantial proportion of this group are Trump supporters; the two who have been quoted were carefully selected. I wonder how the rest of them would feel about their having been used in this way?
2
As a retired professor of American military history, I am so glad to see that Robert E. Lee is called a traitor. That sums it up exactly.
The South started a war over slavery, read the Confederate Constitution of March 11, 1861. Then in the 1880's the started the Lost Cause explanation of states rights to cover up their treason. Then they turned on the African-Americans and terrorized them for another eighty years.
Liars, traitors, and white supremacists.
The South started a war over slavery, read the Confederate Constitution of March 11, 1861. Then in the 1880's the started the Lost Cause explanation of states rights to cover up their treason. Then they turned on the African-Americans and terrorized them for another eighty years.
Liars, traitors, and white supremacists.
12
In the late nineteen thirties millions of Americans supported the America First committee, but after Pearl Harbor the country became united. What will it take to unite us now?
1
My mother is ill with Alzheimer's. As dementia took a grip over her, the confusion and sheer fear evoked by it transported her psychically back to her imprisonment in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. I watched her re-live the nightmare of the Nazi Terror. At this point in the progression of her disease, she is too far gone to know who is our president and the Nazi and white supremacist hatred he has stirred up. Ironically, the devastation of Alzheimer's has spared her the resurgence of the nightmare that was her youth under the Nazi Terror.
8
I pray that your Mother can somehow be comforted in the midst of her illness. What a devastation to relive the horrors of her youth. I am glad she does not know the current nightmare we are experiencing.
Of course WWII veterans would be appalled at the reappearance of Nazi symbols. But there is something exploitative about drafting them into the larger anti-Trump cause for the purposes of a column. We would need a competent survey (rather rare these days) to know for sure, but I suspect that a substantial proportion of this group are Trump supporters; the two who have been quoted were carefully selected. I wonder how the rest of them would feel about their having been used in this way?
I think you are incorrect. My father, who is a 97-year-old WWII veteran, is not a supporter of Trump. He thought Bush should be impeached because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
People who lived through a war and lost arms and legs and friends are not the war mongers. It is those who don't know what it means to serve -- and those who have sacrificed nothing and no one -- who are always ready to summon the troops.
People who lived through a war and lost arms and legs and friends are not the war mongers. It is those who don't know what it means to serve -- and those who have sacrificed nothing and no one -- who are always ready to summon the troops.
3
My father, a WWII vet of the 57th field hospital, has never voted republican, much less Trump. The sense of decency that compelled him to sign up, even though earlier on he was rejected in the draft, did not leave him on his return. That war made him a pacifist, a defender of all who needed it, an admirer of all cultures and creeds. He is not alone in his outlook.
4
Go find a WWII vet and ask the question. Do you think your opinion of exploiting their memories is worse than ignoring the cries of "seig heil" outside of a synagogue just last week?.
Tim Egan's eloquent encomium to Caesar Civitella and the generation that crushed Naziism, is in stunning contrast to the brutish, squalid,torch bearing thugs that marched on Friday night in Charlottesville, and the contemptible, loathsome, equivocations of Donald Trump. Every statue of Jefferson Davis or a Southern general trivializes the "heritage"of the millions of African Americans, whose slave ancestors endured the "heritage" of brutality and unimaginable suffering, endemic to slavery.
3
Thank you, Mr. Egan, for a timely, personally powerful column today. Veterans Day will be celebrated on November 11th this year. I hope that the organizers of events across America paying tribute, include in their programs loud and emphatic rejections of this dangerous and despicable neo-Nazi movement which has emerged from the shadows to threaten our civil peace and dishonor the sacrifices of true patriots like Mr. Civitella, and unmentioned millions living and dead. Let past and present be thus linked for a country-wide teachable exercise. Like Hitler's thugs, these contemporary reincarnations must be resoundingly vanquished, also.
3
My father was one of the estimated 4% of American soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day and fought their way through Germany till the end of war.
I assure you, there was not any talk of any Nazis being "good people" in our house when I was growing up.
I assure you, there was not any talk of any Nazis being "good people" in our house when I was growing up.
5
"His {Robert E. Lee} statue no more belongs on a pedestal than does that of Hitler’s most proficient military man." In fact, Lee's statue has much less right to be on a pedestal.
German soldiers fought in the army of their country. While one can certainly debate the morality of German military leaders, not all of them committed crimes against humanity and none of them were traitors to their country.
Lee was a US citizen who committed treason against his country. He joined the Confederate cause to perpetuate slavery, which is definitely a crime against humanity. To honor Lee is to honor treason and inhumanity.
German soldiers fought in the army of their country. While one can certainly debate the morality of German military leaders, not all of them committed crimes against humanity and none of them were traitors to their country.
Lee was a US citizen who committed treason against his country. He joined the Confederate cause to perpetuate slavery, which is definitely a crime against humanity. To honor Lee is to honor treason and inhumanity.
5
And Washington was a traitor to HIS country, which was Great Britain. The US did not even exist at the time he rebelled, so he was not representing any actual country. However Washington is a hero to us; why? his side won!
The Brits would have every right to be as angry as the North during the Civil War about "treason" and "traitors" .... but in fact, they forgave us. There is a statue of Washington in London! And the Brits are our closest allies.
If they can forgive, why is it that American liberals in the North cannot make peace with the South after ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS?
The Brits would have every right to be as angry as the North during the Civil War about "treason" and "traitors" .... but in fact, they forgave us. There is a statue of Washington in London! And the Brits are our closest allies.
If they can forgive, why is it that American liberals in the North cannot make peace with the South after ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS?
My father served in the US Army Corps of Engineers during WWll. Sadly, I say this, I'm glad he is dead and did not live to see this.
4
"It doesn’t take much to find the sources of the best American culture and history. You won’t find them in the “beautiful statues and monuments” — Trump’s words this week — of slaveholders and traitors. Look instead to those like Civitella, who are not yet cast in bronze but deserve to be — the living memory."
Erect a statue to Heather Heyer in Charlottesville. Standing with the veterans of WWII. There's some culture and history to celebrate.
Erect a statue to Heather Heyer in Charlottesville. Standing with the veterans of WWII. There's some culture and history to celebrate.
3
My father, who is 97, served in the navy during WWII. When he returned, he vowed never to leave his hometown again. He never wanted to see even the best WWII movies because he said it wasn't "interesting" -- it was reliving a nightmare.
I have not -- and will not -- tell him about last weekend's horror of american citizens proudly marching with Nazi flags, symbols, and slogans.
He has already served his country and risked his life -- just as most of his generation served -- to fight Nazis. It is our responsibility to stand up and defend this country against the horrors of Nazism and other hate groups.
I personally think that this country should do what Germany has done. Nazi symbols and ideology should be illegal in this country - just like child pornography and pedophilia.
I'm all for freedom of speech but certain things should simply be illegal.
I have not -- and will not -- tell him about last weekend's horror of american citizens proudly marching with Nazi flags, symbols, and slogans.
He has already served his country and risked his life -- just as most of his generation served -- to fight Nazis. It is our responsibility to stand up and defend this country against the horrors of Nazism and other hate groups.
I personally think that this country should do what Germany has done. Nazi symbols and ideology should be illegal in this country - just like child pornography and pedophilia.
I'm all for freedom of speech but certain things should simply be illegal.
7
Sad thought it comes down to this, but even Bruni's recollection of WWII misses something that is relevant to today. What he is leaving out is that the isolationist/America first movement of the 1930's was heavily tinged with the same kind of white nationalism and pro Nazi'ism, many of the people who fought to keep America out of WWII were motivated by beliefs that England was the enemy and Hitler represented the world they wanted. To their credit, many of these people woke up after December 7th, but they kept America from acting early that may very well have forced hitler out of power, and it prevented the US from helping England when she stood alone.
1
We are grateful for Mr. Egan's elegant and insightful columns which illuminate important topics like this one.
Pretending to ignore these despicable people is part of Trump's stock in trade. Why would he? He's got a great deal in common with them, that's why.
Only by shining the light of day on them and showing them for who they are will we move past them and assign their ilk to history's dustbin, where they belong.
While this country has a shameful history of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and now the incarceration of over a million African Americas - most of them male of course, it still moves forward, if grudgingly, away from those times and ideas.
Good people must stand up and be counted as they did in Charlottesville. They are of course the real patriots in this situation.
We stand with them. And against all the enablers - especially this current two bit draft dodger of a President.
We do not and will not ever forget the millions who died at the hands of the Nazis.
Pretending to ignore these despicable people is part of Trump's stock in trade. Why would he? He's got a great deal in common with them, that's why.
Only by shining the light of day on them and showing them for who they are will we move past them and assign their ilk to history's dustbin, where they belong.
While this country has a shameful history of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and now the incarceration of over a million African Americas - most of them male of course, it still moves forward, if grudgingly, away from those times and ideas.
Good people must stand up and be counted as they did in Charlottesville. They are of course the real patriots in this situation.
We stand with them. And against all the enablers - especially this current two bit draft dodger of a President.
We do not and will not ever forget the millions who died at the hands of the Nazis.
3
Mr. Egan--Thank you for your sobering reflection. The passing of "the greatest generation" is a major loss to the nation.
What percentage of Trump's supporters and enablers understand that the rule of law, and not rule by the will of any majority, is the essential note of a democratic republic?
Our democratic institutions, under the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, are designed to protect individuals against the dangers inherent to both dictatorial authoritarianism and majoritarian "populism": bias against and scapegoating of religious, racial and ethnic minorities; neglect of the vulnerable; rank political opportunism; consolidation of anti-democratic power; restrictions on and control over the free press; xenophobia; jingoism; abuse of power by governmental and economic elites; and conflicts of interest on the part of elected officials.
How many Americans actually endorse the above notion of authentic democracy? How many would label them the rantings of some pinko Socialist?
President Trump is a kleptocratic authoritarian. Mr. Trump, his enablers and supporters obviously reject this democratic vision.
What percentage of Trump's supporters and enablers understand that the rule of law, and not rule by the will of any majority, is the essential note of a democratic republic?
Our democratic institutions, under the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, are designed to protect individuals against the dangers inherent to both dictatorial authoritarianism and majoritarian "populism": bias against and scapegoating of religious, racial and ethnic minorities; neglect of the vulnerable; rank political opportunism; consolidation of anti-democratic power; restrictions on and control over the free press; xenophobia; jingoism; abuse of power by governmental and economic elites; and conflicts of interest on the part of elected officials.
How many Americans actually endorse the above notion of authentic democracy? How many would label them the rantings of some pinko Socialist?
President Trump is a kleptocratic authoritarian. Mr. Trump, his enablers and supporters obviously reject this democratic vision.
2
Let's face it--the majority of people are good and decent, but throughout history, a small minority is hate-filled, anti-Semitic, racist and just plain bad-people. The germ, the seed, the DNA of hate has the potential of residing in enough of us to make life miserable for all of us. Society's work involves redirecting one's natural inclination to do bad into doing good. A challenge for all time and one that may eventually overcome civilization.
20
This past Tuesday was my father's 95th birthday. My dad, David C. Lustig, Jr. (USAFR), served in air combat on a B-17 over Europe in WW2 with the 8th Air Force, 384th Bomb Group (Heavy), and was just awarded the French Legion of Merit for heroic service over France. He fought for America and its ideals. Unlike many his fellow Jewish fliers, he did not hammer out the "H" on his dog tags that stood for Hebrew. Many did, for obvious reasons, in case they were shot down over German occupied land.
I see in my father's still clear eyes, the quiet pride of knowing that he, and many of his friends who did not return, did their patriotic duty to fight world domination by Adolph Hitler and international fascism. And I now see bewildered sadness in those same eyes at the resurgence of that same scourge in his own country, emboldened by the president of the United States, that his generation fought so selflessly and bravely to eradicate once and for all.
I see in my father's still clear eyes, the quiet pride of knowing that he, and many of his friends who did not return, did their patriotic duty to fight world domination by Adolph Hitler and international fascism. And I now see bewildered sadness in those same eyes at the resurgence of that same scourge in his own country, emboldened by the president of the United States, that his generation fought so selflessly and bravely to eradicate once and for all.
9
My father served in the Navy in WWII. His experience was so compelling that he became career military. The war defined that generation, with their selfless acts of heroism on behalf of our allies, largely, but also on behalf of Americans under threat from the west. In addition, we have the shameful lesson of having interned thousands of Americans in camps, simply because they had Japanese heritage. A complex instruction--what was noble, what was not. It produced in the subsequent generation a deep desire for loving kindness, for awareness of how we treat each other and the earth itself. Powerful lessons.
Now we are looking at the vestige of a long standing poison in our culture. Not elected by a majority, but supported by a majority of cowards who still refuse to do the right thing for America, the leader of this noxious terrorism must be brought to account. It is time for all of us with a conscience--the true majority of Americans--to ensure this vile thread in our society is once and for all laid down.
Mr. Civitella, Mr. Smith, thank you for your insights and statements. Truly, our nation will be defined as a nation for all the people, and not a nation steeped in hatred. In order to honor your service, we now must step up to the fight.
Now we are looking at the vestige of a long standing poison in our culture. Not elected by a majority, but supported by a majority of cowards who still refuse to do the right thing for America, the leader of this noxious terrorism must be brought to account. It is time for all of us with a conscience--the true majority of Americans--to ensure this vile thread in our society is once and for all laid down.
Mr. Civitella, Mr. Smith, thank you for your insights and statements. Truly, our nation will be defined as a nation for all the people, and not a nation steeped in hatred. In order to honor your service, we now must step up to the fight.
5
A lovely article as it uses the humanity of a single 94 year old to illustrate the emptiness of our president and those who would defend monuments to men, who although brilliant and courageous, defended an idea that was inhumane and vicious--and turned traitor to the United States to do so. Me--along w JC and all heavens--will be wishing Mr. Caesar a heartfelt happy b-day on Monday.
3
George H.S. Bush, really? Does the name Willy Horton ring a bell with anyone?
There is not one Republican whose hands are clean in any of this. Donald Trump isn't off the Republican reservation; his campaign used the same tactics and messages the Party has run on since the late 1960s absent the smokescreen provided their PR department.
There is not one Republican whose hands are clean in any of this. Donald Trump isn't off the Republican reservation; his campaign used the same tactics and messages the Party has run on since the late 1960s absent the smokescreen provided their PR department.
3
I don't know what it is about the vets that make them want vote for someone as crude and uncaring as Trump. A man who bragged about getting out of serving in the army, who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and, it was apparent before the election, a friend of Putins. He ran as the candidate from a party that has undermined voting rights for millions of people and continues to try to keep people from the ballot box. He seems to embody not one of the American values for which we are told, they fought. Yet that base of the the republican party is filled with vets who still refuse to recognize that this man is a danger to this country. As most vets were drafted into service is it too much of a load to blame them for being just people like the rest of us? Serving in the military gives you a special insight into life and death but from what I've seen they don't seem to have any more insight into politics in this country than anyone else.
2
On behalf of my four uncles, my father, and their buddies from the old neighborhood in Brooklyn, all of whom have now passed away, thank you for pointing so clearly to what it was they were willing to give their lives for. It was my father who first took me to a Memorial Day parade and held my on his shoulders so that I could see it all. He showed me how to salute the flag as it was carried past us by the marchers, and he pointed out one group in particular as "the real heroes" -- the old soldiers of the First World War. Then he told me about the Decoration Day parade Grandpa had taken him to see when he was a little kid like me, when the last of the men who had fought in the Civil War marched. "I want you to remember these men. They are the real heroes and they won't be with us much longer. Pretty soon there will be no heroes left, just ordinary guys like me." I miss him terribly, but I'm glad neither he, nor those veterans of the Civil War he remembered from his youth ever had to watch a President of the United States of America say the things Donald J. Trump said in New York City on Tuesday.
5
Thank you for writing this. My grandfather is a WWII vet still living. He fought his battle in the Pacific against the Japanese but he too has no tolerance for facism. I've always been proud that he lied about his age to serve his country and his stories about the war have always demonstrated why we called his generation "the greatest generation."
How very sad that they have lived long enough to see their country becoming what they fought against. I hope that we inherited enough of their strength to prevent this ugliness from taking hold. What happened in Charlottesville is a warning.
How very sad that they have lived long enough to see their country becoming what they fought against. I hope that we inherited enough of their strength to prevent this ugliness from taking hold. What happened in Charlottesville is a warning.
3
This is such a moving commentary on the events of this past week. My father enlisted to fight in WWII when he was 17. He was in the Army Air Corps and fought in many campaigns in Europe. I sometimes look at his box with his Air Medal and other medals and ribbons. He rarely talked about his WWII experiences but he enjoyed a measure of satisfaction, as a Jew, being a member of a crew flying some high ranking Nazis to Nuremberg to stand trial. So when I got home from work 2 days I felt sad and angry when my son asked me if it was still safe to be a Jew in America.
4
Not all members of the greatest generation were drafted as kids. My own father and one of his brothers were at the opposite end of the age range fighting Facism. Both were unmarried, living and working in rural Norman County, Minnesota. My father was drafted in his early thirties. He ended up as a medic attached to the Marines fighting in the Pacific. My uncle was in his late thirties - drafted to drive an ambulance in Italy; he served at Monte Cassino.
The war ruined my father's health. After the war, he was too tired, weak and old (or so he felt) for the GI bill. He returned to his former small town job, married my mother and raised my brother and me. My uncle had PTSD but it was not called such. He went home to return to farming. He participated in family gatherings but I do not recall ever hearing him speak.
My father's and uncle's sacrifices and those of other soldiers are belittled and mocked by these current neoNazis. It's as if a great structure was completed with huge suffering and sacrifice and now neoNazis want to burn it down. When the Greatest Generation is gone, those of us who knew and loved them, need to speak out against neoNazis for them. Their sacrifices meant something.
The war ruined my father's health. After the war, he was too tired, weak and old (or so he felt) for the GI bill. He returned to his former small town job, married my mother and raised my brother and me. My uncle had PTSD but it was not called such. He went home to return to farming. He participated in family gatherings but I do not recall ever hearing him speak.
My father's and uncle's sacrifices and those of other soldiers are belittled and mocked by these current neoNazis. It's as if a great structure was completed with huge suffering and sacrifice and now neoNazis want to burn it down. When the Greatest Generation is gone, those of us who knew and loved them, need to speak out against neoNazis for them. Their sacrifices meant something.
4
My father, a WW II Veteran never talked of his experiences in the South Pacific. ever, not even when we three kids pressed him. He would talk a tad, but only the facts! He was an attorney by education. He died in 2007. I miss him. But to some degree I am glad that he is gone. He loathed George Bush, so I can only fantasize about his thought on Donald Trump. It makes me smile to think about.
2
Mr. Egan, I wish you could hear me applauding. This column is spot on. Thank you for writing this.
1
We are really twisting ourselves into knots now. We are meant to look at Washington's and Jefferson's armed insurrection against the government as noble, while Lee's was a horrific act of treason (comparable to the horrors of the Nazis according to this article, which is a quite a step further than I've seen elsewhere).
Washington and Jefferson fought to preserve slavery too, and succeeded. The 44-year-old Jefferson kept a 14-year-old black girl as a sex slave, and wrote that if slavery ended, all members of the inferior race should be deported. Jefferson had a man whipped in front of others to humiliate him for his attempted escape. But, according to this article, all these are merely "flaws."
When I see this kind of delusion about and romanticizing of our history, I am filled with despair that we will ever even begin to deal with the evils of racism in this country. We want to pull down statues of the losers, but we don't want to touch the historical myths that we have come to rely upon for our identity as good people. Tearing down Confederate statues and patting ourselves on the back for the act is easy. Digging deeper into our history, identify, and reality is hard. And our resistance to beginning this real work is painful to watch.
Washington and Jefferson fought to preserve slavery too, and succeeded. The 44-year-old Jefferson kept a 14-year-old black girl as a sex slave, and wrote that if slavery ended, all members of the inferior race should be deported. Jefferson had a man whipped in front of others to humiliate him for his attempted escape. But, according to this article, all these are merely "flaws."
When I see this kind of delusion about and romanticizing of our history, I am filled with despair that we will ever even begin to deal with the evils of racism in this country. We want to pull down statues of the losers, but we don't want to touch the historical myths that we have come to rely upon for our identity as good people. Tearing down Confederate statues and patting ourselves on the back for the act is easy. Digging deeper into our history, identify, and reality is hard. And our resistance to beginning this real work is painful to watch.
47
I don't see much difference between this sort of moral absolutism and moral relativism: in both instances, people are unable to find any lessons in the past to guide us today. The absolutism isn't digging deeper, it's just a different form of shallow.
To write Jefferson off with the CSA means that we miss his ambitious ideals as stated in the Declaration of Independence and put them on the same level as the Declaration of causes of secession of Mississippi, which stated:
"In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth."
Jefferson's ideals, even if he didn't practice them or even understand their full implication, were a light to the world. Mississippi's ideals would have plunged it into the permanent darkness of a damnable institution that most of the world had condemned at the time. And MS killed to bring that about.
If you cant' see that distinction, then you've moved from finding monuments that have wholesome meaning to a mindless iconoclasm.
To write Jefferson off with the CSA means that we miss his ambitious ideals as stated in the Declaration of Independence and put them on the same level as the Declaration of causes of secession of Mississippi, which stated:
"In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth."
Jefferson's ideals, even if he didn't practice them or even understand their full implication, were a light to the world. Mississippi's ideals would have plunged it into the permanent darkness of a damnable institution that most of the world had condemned at the time. And MS killed to bring that about.
If you cant' see that distinction, then you've moved from finding monuments that have wholesome meaning to a mindless iconoclasm.
4
Your view of history is distorted. The American Revolution was fought for a number of reasons (preserving slavery was not one of them), and the founders were flawed human beings, who had conflicts with slavery (Jefferson admitted he hated the practice, but because of his debts, could not afford to free his slaves; washington admitted that having slaves cost him money in running Mt. Vernon and came to hate the institution, but only freed his own slaves on death, he would't/coudln't free those that had been his wives). More importantly, Jefferson and Washington, as flawed as they were, laid down a foundation that would allow these ills to be adressed, while Lee and Jacson and the rest were fighting to maintain oppression, pure and simple.
Put it this way, British historians in the end found something noble in the American Revolution and Churchill, a proud monarchist, admired what the revolutionaries did and created, whereas British historians hold only scorn for the confederacy, the aristocracy in England might have felt kinship with the southern Blue Bloods, the British people did not.
Not to mention that the south were revolting against their own country, the constitution, unlike the articles of confederation, that were approved by southern states, did not see the US as a loose confederation of individual nations, the federal government was given real power in it and that alone tells the story.
Put it this way, British historians in the end found something noble in the American Revolution and Churchill, a proud monarchist, admired what the revolutionaries did and created, whereas British historians hold only scorn for the confederacy, the aristocracy in England might have felt kinship with the southern Blue Bloods, the British people did not.
Not to mention that the south were revolting against their own country, the constitution, unlike the articles of confederation, that were approved by southern states, did not see the US as a loose confederation of individual nations, the federal government was given real power in it and that alone tells the story.
2
lainnj,
Thank you.
The removal of the statues mean next to nothing if the
African Americans and Native Americans remain, on the whole,
at the bottom of the Economic pyramid of American Society.
Thank you.
The removal of the statues mean next to nothing if the
African Americans and Native Americans remain, on the whole,
at the bottom of the Economic pyramid of American Society.
2
I thought that almost all people of this age were already dead because those in my family and circle of acquaintance all are. Surprising that one could find so many to interview.
2
There are fewer every day. Do the math. You had to be 17 to enlist or 18 to be drafted. The war ran from early 1942 to mid 1945. The very latest enlistee were born in 1928, and they would have only served a few months.
If you were born in 1928, you are today about 89. Of course, most soldiers were older -- the average age was 26!
My dad was born in 1926; he enlisted in 1944 before he even graduated high school. My grandpa forced him to graduate. Dad went to bootcamp in the summer of '44 and shipped out to Europe (Belgium) in November 1944. Germany surrendered in May 1945 -- that's roughly six months.
So anyone YOUNGER than my father, could have just barely served at all. If alive today, my dad would be 91. The average life expectancy of men born in the 1920s is about 75.
DO THE MATH.
If you were born in 1928, you are today about 89. Of course, most soldiers were older -- the average age was 26!
My dad was born in 1926; he enlisted in 1944 before he even graduated high school. My grandpa forced him to graduate. Dad went to bootcamp in the summer of '44 and shipped out to Europe (Belgium) in November 1944. Germany surrendered in May 1945 -- that's roughly six months.
So anyone YOUNGER than my father, could have just barely served at all. If alive today, my dad would be 91. The average life expectancy of men born in the 1920s is about 75.
DO THE MATH.
My father, a 91- year old WWII vet, died in April. I knew my dad didn't like Trump so I intinctively cringed during his military funeral honors when the honor guard handed my mother the flag because it was given along with the words "on behalf of the President of the United States".
Now, On behalf of the President of the Unites States, my father and other vets have been spit on.
Now, On behalf of the President of the Unites States, my father and other vets have been spit on.
1
Naziism will always exist. There has always been hate and there will always be hate. Therefore, Naziism, as a defined outlet for hate, will always be with us. What Mr. Civitella and the rest of the World War II veterans did was prevent Naziism from ever again becoming a predominant force in the world. I have a little to fear from Naziism, but not nearly as much now as they had to fear in the late 1930s and 1940s. They made the world much better for all time and their sacrifice was certainly not in vain. Even they couldn't put the genie totally back in the bottle. In addition to the people honored in this article and in readers' comments, I would like to honor my father, Paul Carrington Cabell (1920-2007), USNR, and his three younger brothers, William Wirt Cabell (1921-1983), USAAF, Guy Cabell (1923-1959), USN, and Henry Rose Cabell (1926-1983), USNR, all veterans of World War II.
1
I can't focus on anything political or legislative except one thing, getting that abomination out of the white house. Nothing is as urgent or important.
If those spineless, complicit republicans don't have the courage and patriotism to do so then I pray for natural causes to take him out.
If those spineless, complicit republicans don't have the courage and patriotism to do so then I pray for natural causes to take him out.
1
Beautiful column. And historically, if you look when most of those confederate statues were built (early 1900's) it is no coincidence that, by then, the last of the Civil Ware veterans were dying out. The fascists always know when to reemerge from the rocks into which brave men like our Civil War and WWII veterans push them. They reemerge when there are no longer people left to remember the reasons why they had to be fought, and stopped, the last time. Then they start the long slow process of taking advantage of mans ultimate doom - the fact that we forget. But so long as we have living WWII veterans and people of that generation who were the last to fight the fascists and shove them back into the rocks, we will not forget.
1
>
Here is what I know as to any heritage discourse and/or falling statues. In this country, it's a loser for Democrats and they'd be wise to avoid it like the plague.
Bannon and Trump want to frame the 2020 debate as some concocted brew of postmodern culturalism (a dubious concept to begin with) vs economic nationalism.
Senator Schumer seems to realize this. The only question is will he be able to herd that cats. I doubt it.
This does not mean I'm an economic nationalist. I'm a true pessimist, therefore, I'm a disinterested sideliner in History's fever dream, and therefore, more objective.
"As Gnostics see them, humans are ill-designed and badly made creatures, gifted or cursed with flickering insight into their actual condition. Once they eat of the Tree of Knowledge, they discover they are strangers in the universe. From that point onwards, they live at war with themselves and the world"
John N. Gray
Here is what I know as to any heritage discourse and/or falling statues. In this country, it's a loser for Democrats and they'd be wise to avoid it like the plague.
Bannon and Trump want to frame the 2020 debate as some concocted brew of postmodern culturalism (a dubious concept to begin with) vs economic nationalism.
Senator Schumer seems to realize this. The only question is will he be able to herd that cats. I doubt it.
This does not mean I'm an economic nationalist. I'm a true pessimist, therefore, I'm a disinterested sideliner in History's fever dream, and therefore, more objective.
"As Gnostics see them, humans are ill-designed and badly made creatures, gifted or cursed with flickering insight into their actual condition. Once they eat of the Tree of Knowledge, they discover they are strangers in the universe. From that point onwards, they live at war with themselves and the world"
John N. Gray
Do modern Americans even know what fascism means? Coined in Italy and used by Mussolini, as I understand what it meant back then, it had nothing whatsoever to do with racism and focused on destroying liberal democracy. It was against "liberty", as liberty was understood in the 1930s.
Americans were fighting the war to preserve Liberty, not for some anti-racist ideology.
I seriously doubt if the majority of current Neo-Nazis have the faintest idea of what fascism really is and are motivated by racism.
As to Southerners being traitors, the name of the country was and is The United States of America. At the time of the war, the states considered themselves "sovereigns", much as European Union countries today still consider themselves sovereigns. Unlike the EU treaty, the Constitution did not provide a means for dissolving the attachment to the Constitution.
The Southern States, for the preservation of slavery and the economic base of their society, thought that they, as sovereigns, had the power to remove themselves from the rest of the states that formed the United States. They acted on this belief, and the War resulted. They lost, and the principle that secession was not to be allowed was firmly established. Until then, whether secession was permissible was in question.
General Lee and the rest of the Southern Armies were fighting for their sovereign--their state. To call them "traitors" shows a distinct disregard for the nuances of history.
Americans were fighting the war to preserve Liberty, not for some anti-racist ideology.
I seriously doubt if the majority of current Neo-Nazis have the faintest idea of what fascism really is and are motivated by racism.
As to Southerners being traitors, the name of the country was and is The United States of America. At the time of the war, the states considered themselves "sovereigns", much as European Union countries today still consider themselves sovereigns. Unlike the EU treaty, the Constitution did not provide a means for dissolving the attachment to the Constitution.
The Southern States, for the preservation of slavery and the economic base of their society, thought that they, as sovereigns, had the power to remove themselves from the rest of the states that formed the United States. They acted on this belief, and the War resulted. They lost, and the principle that secession was not to be allowed was firmly established. Until then, whether secession was permissible was in question.
General Lee and the rest of the Southern Armies were fighting for their sovereign--their state. To call them "traitors" shows a distinct disregard for the nuances of history.
1
vineyridge: thanks for the balanced commentary.
A lot of raging lefties here want to call the South of the 1860s "traitors" and "treasonous" but in 1861, it was not clear AT ALL that the Constitution compelled states to REMAIN in the USA -- the Constitution did not cover that eventuality AT ALL. It was neither legal nor illegal, since the nation was only 70 years old and nobody had ever contemplated such a thing.
Lincoln could have just let them go, but he believed passionately in keeping the union and that was worth the horrific loss of life that came from a Civil War. His concerns about slavery ran a poor third; he said several times that he was willing to let slavery be, if the union could be maintained.
My guess was that he saw a nation "divided" as weak, and likely to end up broken and in the end, perhaps taken over by other largest nations. Remember, we were not remotely a world power at the time, but a agricultural backwater far from Europe. The Brits were very eager to ally themselves with the South, and all their agricultural riches (and happy to overlook slavery that they themselves had banned). Their textile mills were very eager to get American cotton! That would have put the North in a very bad place, as we needed that cotton too.
It was a complex issue, involving economics that we in the early 21st century have forgotten if we ever knew about them. Only the most simplistic thinkers believe the war was entirely fought over slavery.
A lot of raging lefties here want to call the South of the 1860s "traitors" and "treasonous" but in 1861, it was not clear AT ALL that the Constitution compelled states to REMAIN in the USA -- the Constitution did not cover that eventuality AT ALL. It was neither legal nor illegal, since the nation was only 70 years old and nobody had ever contemplated such a thing.
Lincoln could have just let them go, but he believed passionately in keeping the union and that was worth the horrific loss of life that came from a Civil War. His concerns about slavery ran a poor third; he said several times that he was willing to let slavery be, if the union could be maintained.
My guess was that he saw a nation "divided" as weak, and likely to end up broken and in the end, perhaps taken over by other largest nations. Remember, we were not remotely a world power at the time, but a agricultural backwater far from Europe. The Brits were very eager to ally themselves with the South, and all their agricultural riches (and happy to overlook slavery that they themselves had banned). Their textile mills were very eager to get American cotton! That would have put the North in a very bad place, as we needed that cotton too.
It was a complex issue, involving economics that we in the early 21st century have forgotten if we ever knew about them. Only the most simplistic thinkers believe the war was entirely fought over slavery.
By this point I believe everyone knows trump is unqualified both morally and intellectually to be president. Some people still will not admit it while others use him to legalize their bigotry. My question is where is the GOP? How long can they sit and allow him to harm the American people and the world? Have not all of them taken a oath to uphold the constitution of the US? Its time they worked with the DEMs to keep the country running while trump watches TV, plays golf and send out mean less twitters.
1
Someone tell Trump that the loss of beautiful statues he bemoans are being replaced by bronze Santa Claus ones. I bet he likes the rosy-checked Santa depicted on Coca-Cola ads over the years. Real MAGA.
My wife and I lost both of our fathers over the past few years. One fought in the Battle of the Bulge; the other as a medic in Patton's army. When we heard Trump's spirited defense of neo-Nazis this week, we turned to each other in horror and expressed gratitude that our fathers had not lived to see this day when an American president mocked their sacrifice in such a profound way.
We are equally horrified that our children and grandchildren are destined to live in a country where Donald Trump will forever be a looming stain on it's history. We are truly witnessing an unraveling of this great republic. The appalling apathy and small-mindedness of Congressional Republicans that has led them to ignore this crisis for the republic will be written about for generations. No heroes in this story!
We are equally horrified that our children and grandchildren are destined to live in a country where Donald Trump will forever be a looming stain on it's history. We are truly witnessing an unraveling of this great republic. The appalling apathy and small-mindedness of Congressional Republicans that has led them to ignore this crisis for the republic will be written about for generations. No heroes in this story!
1
If you want to deter war, you had better stop calling soldiers "warriors". There is no romance or glory to technological warfare.
My recently deceased father was a veteran of WWII (100th Infantry Division - The Bastards of Bitche). He was 125 lbs soaking wet, with bad feet. He never spoke of the war and we only found out about his Purple Heart when I found a box of old letters he sent to his parents. He caught shrapnel in the rear-end when the soldier behind him stepped on a mine, which he had just stepped over. Had to hike to an aid station miles away. Never said a thing. He was also of German decent (parents immigrated in the 1880s). He would have thrown a shoe at the TV had he seen the events from last Saturday in Charlottesville. Trump and his white supremacist neo-Nazi followers are scum and impugn the honor of those who fought them - in the Civil War and WWII.
1
When I came on active duty in 1958 for a 22 year in the Air Force, there were scads of WW2 vets still serving. I love war stories and I heard many of them. Many had been POWs. The Germans were signatories of the Geneva Pact and generally treated Yanks and Brits well,but Russian POWs were allowed to starve to death. The death rate of American POWs was about 1% compared to 35% for Americans held by the Japanese. The Japanese hardly ever surrendered and treated American POWs with extreme contempt.
War is horrible and of course often produces horrible behavior. I learned that Americans often took Japanese scalps in New Guinea. I had the great honor to be a guest speaker at a banquet of the Seattle chapter of Tuskegee Airmen and their families. They told how they had to fight for the right to fight for their country. Incredible bravery!
I discovered that friends made in the Military become family for life. My oldest daughter is also a retired colonel, and my son served 27 months in Iraq as an Army captain. I served in Vietnam but my service as a techno-geek was not fraught with peril. I was a weather satellite specialist. Now, even the Vietnam vets are facing old age. I loved serving in the Military. Bring back the draft.
War is horrible and of course often produces horrible behavior. I learned that Americans often took Japanese scalps in New Guinea. I had the great honor to be a guest speaker at a banquet of the Seattle chapter of Tuskegee Airmen and their families. They told how they had to fight for the right to fight for their country. Incredible bravery!
I discovered that friends made in the Military become family for life. My oldest daughter is also a retired colonel, and my son served 27 months in Iraq as an Army captain. I served in Vietnam but my service as a techno-geek was not fraught with peril. I was a weather satellite specialist. Now, even the Vietnam vets are facing old age. I loved serving in the Military. Bring back the draft.
The rest of the world will probably quake in fear of American dreams of global conquest if the US restores universal conscription.
I mean the draft in the larger sense in that every 18 year old should give Uncle Sam at least 2 years of service. They can be in the Peace Corps, Forest Service, whatever. I would only stipulate that serve at least a thousand miles from home, so they can learn more about American culture.
My father was too young for WW1 and too old for WW2, but his father, my grandfather, shared three battlefields with Winston Churchill, two in the Sudan, 1898, followed by the Boer War in South Africa. I wonder how many Americans know that Churchill's mother was born in Rochester, NY. My grandfather was a private and rifleman in the 1st Lincolns.
My father was too young for WW1 and too old for WW2, but his father, my grandfather, shared three battlefields with Winston Churchill, two in the Sudan, 1898, followed by the Boer War in South Africa. I wonder how many Americans know that Churchill's mother was born in Rochester, NY. My grandfather was a private and rifleman in the 1st Lincolns.
Over the past twenty years I have had the honor and privilege of meeting and interviewing almost two hundred World War Two Combat Veterans.
They are truly a remarkable generation - The Greatest. Born and raised during the Great Depression, they learned as children there was no Me-Me -Me but rather a shared sense of sacrifice of We - We - We.
It was this commitment to others - family, friends, neighbors and by extension, country that prepared them to go forward and sacrifice in the way they did that bought and paid for the freedom so many of us take for granted today.
They literally saved the world and for that we need to be eternally grateful. Ideally, a Commander-in-Chief would mirror those same values and character.
They are truly a remarkable generation - The Greatest. Born and raised during the Great Depression, they learned as children there was no Me-Me -Me but rather a shared sense of sacrifice of We - We - We.
It was this commitment to others - family, friends, neighbors and by extension, country that prepared them to go forward and sacrifice in the way they did that bought and paid for the freedom so many of us take for granted today.
They literally saved the world and for that we need to be eternally grateful. Ideally, a Commander-in-Chief would mirror those same values and character.
2
The generation of Americans who fought World War II, also endured the Great Depression, and they ended Jim Crow and enacted the Civil Rights laws of the 1960's. They were the last generation who grew up in a country that presumed that whites were more equal that all other racial groups and against that background decided everyone had a right to an equal chance in life. They were also most of the people who abandoned the Democratic Party over Civil Rights. They were not perfect but they had a definite moral sense that guided them.
1
And they sent their children to Vietnam year after year without the slightest protest. Generations are not great; individuals sometimes are.
Trump and the Vile Right are of a piece.
Completely unconscious of any history other than the comic book fictions that drive their daily activity. Oblivious to beauty or humanity or anything other than their repulsive selves.
Aggrieved in the extreme over what they cannot articulate, but happy to project their personal pathology onto any identifiable group.
Humorous, in their own sick way, when they claim to speak for all of "Europe" or "the white race" which largely holds them in contempt.
Were it not for our despicable gun laws, these people would be one step below a Shriner's parade.
A cos-play troupe with matching Hitler pajamas, funny tattoos, flags of movements their parents and grandparents sacrificed everything to defeat. And automatic weapons.
The chronic losers on the street may be forgiven, I suppose, for their ignorance. But Trump? The man who was given more than everything and still felt unloved?
The man who refuses any council but his own until things go wrong, and then he blames people he should have been listening to all along. The man who has built a family as reckless, perverse, and heedless as he is.
He represents nothing relevant to America. Yet he is slavishly propped up by a Congress just as heedless and perverse because they share the single God that unites them all: cash.
Completely unconscious of any history other than the comic book fictions that drive their daily activity. Oblivious to beauty or humanity or anything other than their repulsive selves.
Aggrieved in the extreme over what they cannot articulate, but happy to project their personal pathology onto any identifiable group.
Humorous, in their own sick way, when they claim to speak for all of "Europe" or "the white race" which largely holds them in contempt.
Were it not for our despicable gun laws, these people would be one step below a Shriner's parade.
A cos-play troupe with matching Hitler pajamas, funny tattoos, flags of movements their parents and grandparents sacrificed everything to defeat. And automatic weapons.
The chronic losers on the street may be forgiven, I suppose, for their ignorance. But Trump? The man who was given more than everything and still felt unloved?
The man who refuses any council but his own until things go wrong, and then he blames people he should have been listening to all along. The man who has built a family as reckless, perverse, and heedless as he is.
He represents nothing relevant to America. Yet he is slavishly propped up by a Congress just as heedless and perverse because they share the single God that unites them all: cash.
6
It looks to me that we are doomed to another round of history repeating itself.
The generals who commanded the forces who fought in the civil war included great captains like Lee and Grant and some really sleazy cranks as well. The difference between the North and the South in terms of racial attitudes was not so different, most whites were biased against non-whites and were reluctant to consider them as equals. The difference was about the importance to the country of a solid union rather than loosely affiliated states and of whether slavery was an institution worth sustaining. Slavery was an evil practice which needed to be ended. But even with the end of slavery most whites, northerners and southerners were not ready to allow African Americans equal status. We may object to these monuments to racism but we should be careful about characterizing the individuals depicted.
2
Robert E. Lee was an especially cruel slave master. Read your history. We don't need to glorify him.
If England had won the Revolutionary War, slavery would have ended sooner in the colonies.
1
New York mobs lynched numerous African Americans and burned down an orphanage for African American children during the draft riots of 1863. Slavery practiced in the South was very cruel. In any case, even if Lee had been an unusually kind master, keeping slaves was a bad act and made his side's cause a bad one. But his behavior as a commander in battle was extraordinarily great, which was why he has been so famous.
Wouldn't it be a grand gesture for these WWII vets to show up as a group, whether in wheel chairs, using canes, or on their two feet, at the next march by the neo-Nazis (with police protection around them, of course), peacefully to highlight what is going on? Then let Trump call it an equivalence!
5
Actually, instead of canes, how about we give 'em M1 Garands and Thompson SMGs? Unfinished business, I'd say....and no police protection needed, I suspect.
1
"He must have missed the chants of “Jews will not replace us!” and “blood and soil,” a favorite of Hitler’s murderous legions. Or he must have overlooked the thugs brandishing semiautomatic rifles and chanting “sieg heil” outside the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Charlottesville".
No, Mr. Egan, the president missed none of the above. He claimed that he had more information about the events last weekend than the reporters who questioned him and that watched the sickening video clips that told the horror story more closely than anybody else in the media. Apology and retreat from untenable public statements are not coming from this president. And for that, he has the solid backing of his party and his base. To him, nothing else matters.
No, Mr. Egan, the president missed none of the above. He claimed that he had more information about the events last weekend than the reporters who questioned him and that watched the sickening video clips that told the horror story more closely than anybody else in the media. Apology and retreat from untenable public statements are not coming from this president. And for that, he has the solid backing of his party and his base. To him, nothing else matters.
57
Mr. Egan was being sarcastic. He knows.
Mr. Egan....like so many Americans, is lost in reverie for an America that has only existed since about 1930.....maybe 70 years or so. As if America didnt exist before "tired, hungry masses yearning to be free" jumped off the boat at Ellis Island.
Everything in popular culture these days uses the Great Depression/WW2 as the touchstone on which to start the narrative.
All our propaganda movies are based on WW2 comic book characters. Every tale about modern times must contain a comparison to "hitler" or "auschwitz" or "FDR" or "soviet russia" or "New Deal".......The Neo-Nazis, La Raza, the New Black Panthers.....the Women's Movement, Obama, Hillary, Bernie, TRUMP.....all of 'em......are looking BACKWARDS into the past. Not a single American is looking forward into a NEW future...Change.
America FEARS Change.
Going backwards beyond the narrow Ellis Island Mythology.....we used to teach ourselves(including the Ellis Islanders) FOUR character traits of real Americans:
1. Judeo=Christian Work Ethic....not that one has to be jew or christian....just appreciate that hard work and perserverence is rewarded.
2. Pioneer Spirit....Americans do not fear the unknown and actually press forward into it...carrying with them a set of standards and laws that apply to us all.
3. Rugged Indivdualism....we will do it on our own....no cultural restrictions.
4. Yankee Pragmatism.....if it works we use it....if it dont....we drop it like a bad habit.
Everything in popular culture these days uses the Great Depression/WW2 as the touchstone on which to start the narrative.
All our propaganda movies are based on WW2 comic book characters. Every tale about modern times must contain a comparison to "hitler" or "auschwitz" or "FDR" or "soviet russia" or "New Deal".......The Neo-Nazis, La Raza, the New Black Panthers.....the Women's Movement, Obama, Hillary, Bernie, TRUMP.....all of 'em......are looking BACKWARDS into the past. Not a single American is looking forward into a NEW future...Change.
America FEARS Change.
Going backwards beyond the narrow Ellis Island Mythology.....we used to teach ourselves(including the Ellis Islanders) FOUR character traits of real Americans:
1. Judeo=Christian Work Ethic....not that one has to be jew or christian....just appreciate that hard work and perserverence is rewarded.
2. Pioneer Spirit....Americans do not fear the unknown and actually press forward into it...carrying with them a set of standards and laws that apply to us all.
3. Rugged Indivdualism....we will do it on our own....no cultural restrictions.
4. Yankee Pragmatism.....if it works we use it....if it dont....we drop it like a bad habit.
1
The Great Depression was a massive failure of capitalism.
Thank you Mr. Egan and thank you Mr Civitella.
On May 7, 1945 then OSS Major Richard Helms retrieved a piece of Hitler’s stationary from the ruins of his Berlin Bunker. He wrote this letter to his young son:
“Dear Dennis, The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe—three short years ago when you were born. Today he is dead, his memory despised, his country in ruins. He had a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty. He was a force for evil in the world. His passing, his defeat—a boon to mankind. But thousands died that it might be so. The price for ridding society of bad is always high.”
On May 7, 1945 then OSS Major Richard Helms retrieved a piece of Hitler’s stationary from the ruins of his Berlin Bunker. He wrote this letter to his young son:
“Dear Dennis, The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe—three short years ago when you were born. Today he is dead, his memory despised, his country in ruins. He had a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty. He was a force for evil in the world. His passing, his defeat—a boon to mankind. But thousands died that it might be so. The price for ridding society of bad is always high.”
2
The bad inevitably drives the good out of every human pursuit that fails to enforce minimum standards of conduct.
(Gresham's Law)
(Gresham's Law)
This doesn't really say much, Egan. Some of these World War II veterans might also remember how the left-wing in America spit on and vilified soldiers returning from Vietnam. And how quickly sniveling left-wing writers like you piled on the abuse. Liberals trying to shame people for NOT being patriotic enough? Idiocy. You are the first ones to change their opinions when it suits you. And now the words are "slaveholders and traitors", Egan? It was "baby-killers and murders" during Vietnam, though I am sure you would deny writing something like that now and tell us how deeply you feel for Vietnam Vets also. And Americans are supposed to entrust rewriting US history to a condescending hypocrite like you?
This is one of the best pieces that I have seen from you, Tim! Indeed, it would be much better to erect statues to WWII heroes who kept our country safe from Nazis and other fascists than to see the violence that has erupted over taking down these monuments to white supremacy and insurrection.
When a friend in Louisiana mentioned her disdain for the removal of these statues in NOLA, I really knew little about it. Then, I listened to Mayor Mitch Landrieu's heartfelt speech concerning NOLA's decision to remove these bastions to slavery, and I knew where my heart was! Until we can remove EVERY LAST monument to slavery and white supremacy, our country will never be made whole again from what Secretary Condoleeza Ruce referred to as this country's "birth defect" of slavery.
When a friend in Louisiana mentioned her disdain for the removal of these statues in NOLA, I really knew little about it. Then, I listened to Mayor Mitch Landrieu's heartfelt speech concerning NOLA's decision to remove these bastions to slavery, and I knew where my heart was! Until we can remove EVERY LAST monument to slavery and white supremacy, our country will never be made whole again from what Secretary Condoleeza Ruce referred to as this country's "birth defect" of slavery.
7
It is unfortunate to have the photo of Jerry Wolf, a WWII veteran, wearing a Vietnam POW-MIA hat. The POW-MIA hat wearers and flag with the same flying on state capitols are right wingers not admitting Vietnam was a wrong cause, They have a mindset of the movie nonsense of Rocky Balbao (sp?) that somehow there are many Americans soldiers being held by the Vietnam in some jungle setting. A fantasy that wont go away.
Jerry Wolf has a right to show his purple heart and I appreciate his service for the country but please don't show me that hat it makes my blood boil. PS. I served in the Navy during the Korean War.
Jerry Wolf has a right to show his purple heart and I appreciate his service for the country but please don't show me that hat it makes my blood boil. PS. I served in the Navy during the Korean War.
2
Yeah, always thought that was our version of the "Stab in the Back."
Donald Trump did not miss those chants, he was behind them. Donald and many of his Republican supporters. These cowardly clowns know exactly what they are doing. That is why Republicans are not calling Trump a bigot to his face. They are bigots too. They believe this stuff. They believe they are superior to other Americans, that they deserve more than others do.
It is not just Trump. It is the 30% who support him and the Republican majority in Congress who are destroying our country from within.
It is not just Trump. It is the 30% who support him and the Republican majority in Congress who are destroying our country from within.
2
The alt-right in alphabetical order:
anti-semites, islamophobes, kkk, neo-nazis, republican party, white supremacists.
No capitalizing these groups.
anti-semites, islamophobes, kkk, neo-nazis, republican party, white supremacists.
No capitalizing these groups.
4
If you're marching in the street and there's a Nazi to your right, a Nazi to your left, a Nazi in front and a Nazi behind, you are not a good citizen, no matter what the president says.
10
Dad is in a nursing home now and I can't ask him about his reaction to Nazi's and other fascists parading down the streets of an American college town. But I think what he would say, having spent his youth in the Marines in WW2, is "Why did you let these rats back in the house?".
6
Thanks, Tim. Great column today.
My suggestion for the disposition of the "beautiful statues and monuments" (there is one standing on the county courthouse square less than 10 miles from my house) is to establish not one but two national "monument grounds" with one located in the traditional Confederacy and the other in the Union of the time. The statues and steles would be protected while at the same time the events that brought them into being would be explicitly displayed as well, putting them into true historical perspective while still allowing the racists to worship at their bases.
I seriously doubt that many of the protesters draped in Nazi regalia have any physical bloodline connection to the hunks of granite and bronze scattered across the south. If that were a requirement for participation, the protest could have been held in a phone booth (for those under 30, ask your parents). Trump has no moral standing to continue in his job. The fact that these "protesters" love him is prima facie proof. My dad (he would be 92 today) spent the war in the Pacific Ocean aboard the USS Portland. He was as conservative as any person I've ever known. I would love to ask him his opinion of the swastika wearing traitors in Charlottesville. You wouldn't be able to print it. That I know.
Again, Tim, thanks.
My suggestion for the disposition of the "beautiful statues and monuments" (there is one standing on the county courthouse square less than 10 miles from my house) is to establish not one but two national "monument grounds" with one located in the traditional Confederacy and the other in the Union of the time. The statues and steles would be protected while at the same time the events that brought them into being would be explicitly displayed as well, putting them into true historical perspective while still allowing the racists to worship at their bases.
I seriously doubt that many of the protesters draped in Nazi regalia have any physical bloodline connection to the hunks of granite and bronze scattered across the south. If that were a requirement for participation, the protest could have been held in a phone booth (for those under 30, ask your parents). Trump has no moral standing to continue in his job. The fact that these "protesters" love him is prima facie proof. My dad (he would be 92 today) spent the war in the Pacific Ocean aboard the USS Portland. He was as conservative as any person I've ever known. I would love to ask him his opinion of the swastika wearing traitors in Charlottesville. You wouldn't be able to print it. That I know.
Again, Tim, thanks.
1
Trump and his Republican Party need these racists and white nationalists and nazis to stay in power. It's not that the party is totally of this group, just enough, let's say 20% hardcore to swing the gerrymandered districts all over the country in elections. Without these white power voters Republicans lose, or a the very least return to some kind of more equal balance across the country.
So, the McConnells and the Ryans and the Pences of the Republicans, and yes going back to the Nixons and the Bushes and the Reagans, yes, saintly Reagan, they are all more than ready to whisper sweet nothings of white supremacy into the ears of ignorant, frightened and insecure people to get their precious votes.
And when they are safely in power they go back to ignoring the rabble and tisk-tisking when one of them murders an abortion doctor or a gay person or a black teenager. How nobly American they pretend to be.
So, the McConnells and the Ryans and the Pences of the Republicans, and yes going back to the Nixons and the Bushes and the Reagans, yes, saintly Reagan, they are all more than ready to whisper sweet nothings of white supremacy into the ears of ignorant, frightened and insecure people to get their precious votes.
And when they are safely in power they go back to ignoring the rabble and tisk-tisking when one of them murders an abortion doctor or a gay person or a black teenager. How nobly American they pretend to be.
2
My sole uncle died at age twenty while serving in WW 11. The only son of Italian immigrants to this country.
It brings tears to my eyes to have our President defend nazis on American soil.
It brings tears to my eyes to have our President defend nazis on American soil.
6
The marcher's anti-Gay chants can't be printed here, but they should not be forgotten.
2
Mr Egan, You as most of us have assimilated some of the Lost Cause History of the USA, in this case by invoking Lee as the "greatest general". The leadership of Generals Sherman and Grant should help you reconsider, right? Lee was the general who was clever enough to keep the war going long after it has become a grand killing field the conclusion of which was evident after July 1863.
And what's with the romanticization of George H W Bush of Willie Horton fame? And war hero? Because every soldier, sailor, and marine who fought in WWII is a hero, or because of some individual meritorious bravery in battle? His "heroism" is another brand of revisionist history. When a pilot bails out, the rest of the crew takes the dive.
And what's with the romanticization of George H W Bush of Willie Horton fame? And war hero? Because every soldier, sailor, and marine who fought in WWII is a hero, or because of some individual meritorious bravery in battle? His "heroism" is another brand of revisionist history. When a pilot bails out, the rest of the crew takes the dive.
What is happening? Why are we pretending the right-wing lunatic fringe is a new thing, a new threat? Why are we paying any attention to them whatsoever? Give them what we've always given them and what they hate the most, that is: nothing but police protection. Instead, by focusing cameras and dramatic editorials on these loose screws, we elevate their cause. If you must attend, literally or otherwise, by all means follow Velasquez-Manoff' excellent advice on this page. But just because that boob Trump opposes the violent antifas doesn't mean he's wrong in this instance. Fighting Neo-Nazis hand-to-hand is their dream come true.
On a macro level the whole Country was "antifa" in WWII. It is even today unpatriotic to not be against fascism today. But the "antifa" movement today and its history is a micro level "vigilante" organization with many self proclaimed "anarchists".
We must give our local governments the respect to protect us from the guns and violence of the neo fascist's and white supremacist's hate and bigotry. The rule of law and our police departments must not get caught up in the claims of "both sides are violent". The resistance to hate and bigotry is a patriotic movement, but on a micro level, to the extent possible, let the movement be non-violent.
We must give our local governments the respect to protect us from the guns and violence of the neo fascist's and white supremacist's hate and bigotry. The rule of law and our police departments must not get caught up in the claims of "both sides are violent". The resistance to hate and bigotry is a patriotic movement, but on a micro level, to the extent possible, let the movement be non-violent.
1
Thank you, Mr. Egan, for this piece. I have long been a fan of your op-eds, which invariably put into eloquent words my own less-than-eloquent opinions. I have spent the past week thinking a lot about my Grandfather and Great Uncle who, like the men you quoted, risked their own lives to defend the U.S. and the rest of the world against the threat of Nazism. I am relieved that neither one of them lived to see the Nazi sympathizer in the White House.
I'm tired of reading the words of "outrage" tweeted from the same Republicans who cynically cultivated the "real American" nativist narrative which, once fully in bloom, ushered Trump into office. You, Republicans, put him there. You, Republicans, with the majority of the House and Senate, have in your power to impeach him. If you're really, truly outraged...prove it. Do something about it. Otherwise your tweets of outrage are worth about as much as the paper they're printed on.
I'm tired of reading the words of "outrage" tweeted from the same Republicans who cynically cultivated the "real American" nativist narrative which, once fully in bloom, ushered Trump into office. You, Republicans, put him there. You, Republicans, with the majority of the House and Senate, have in your power to impeach him. If you're really, truly outraged...prove it. Do something about it. Otherwise your tweets of outrage are worth about as much as the paper they're printed on.
1
"The founders, flawed but brilliant men, put their lives at risk to create a nation built on principles that took a long time to realize." Flawed but decent? You're talking about enslavers. Have you no decency?
"Robert E. Lee was a traitor, the best general of a war that killed more Americans than any other." That was Abe Lincoln's war, not Lee's, and Dishonest Abe didn't go to war to end slavery. Our intrepid Abolitionists forced his hand on that. More than anyone, Lincoln was responsible for killing those 600,000+ Americans. He also suspended the great writ of right, Habeas Corpus, and silenced those who opposed his war. The reason the vastly outnumbered Confederate soldiers routinely defeated their Union counterparts, until they essentially ran out of ammunition, was because they were defending their homeland against an invading army. And the troops in the invading army behaved as invading forces often do in war, pillaging, murdering, raping and robbing civilian inhabitants Johnny Reb didn't call it the "War of Northern Aggression" without cause.
Shall we take down all the statues of W.T. Sherman, the butcher of Georgia? Or shall we merely add an inscription? “The unprecedented measure you propose transcends, in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark history of war,” Hood wrote Sherman.
"Robert E. Lee was a traitor, the best general of a war that killed more Americans than any other." That was Abe Lincoln's war, not Lee's, and Dishonest Abe didn't go to war to end slavery. Our intrepid Abolitionists forced his hand on that. More than anyone, Lincoln was responsible for killing those 600,000+ Americans. He also suspended the great writ of right, Habeas Corpus, and silenced those who opposed his war. The reason the vastly outnumbered Confederate soldiers routinely defeated their Union counterparts, until they essentially ran out of ammunition, was because they were defending their homeland against an invading army. And the troops in the invading army behaved as invading forces often do in war, pillaging, murdering, raping and robbing civilian inhabitants Johnny Reb didn't call it the "War of Northern Aggression" without cause.
Shall we take down all the statues of W.T. Sherman, the butcher of Georgia? Or shall we merely add an inscription? “The unprecedented measure you propose transcends, in studied and ingenious cruelty, all acts ever before brought to my attention in the dark history of war,” Hood wrote Sherman.
1
George Washington with his rag-tag under-provisioned army fought against incredible odds to free us from the rule of George III.
Thomas Jefferson provided us the philosophical basis for our self government--government by the people and for the people. He wrote those principles into a document that, to this day, protects our freedom.
How dare a sitting president compare these men to the traitors that sought to tear the nation asunder to protect the institution of slavery? How dare he?
And at the time when the last veterans of WWII (including my father, stepfather and uncles) are dying, how dare he sully the memory of their victory by defending Nazis? The same people that would have pushed his son in law and grandchildren into a gas chamber. How dare he use their catch phrases?
Why would any patriotic senator or representative countenance this for even one minute?
Thomas Jefferson provided us the philosophical basis for our self government--government by the people and for the people. He wrote those principles into a document that, to this day, protects our freedom.
How dare a sitting president compare these men to the traitors that sought to tear the nation asunder to protect the institution of slavery? How dare he?
And at the time when the last veterans of WWII (including my father, stepfather and uncles) are dying, how dare he sully the memory of their victory by defending Nazis? The same people that would have pushed his son in law and grandchildren into a gas chamber. How dare he use their catch phrases?
Why would any patriotic senator or representative countenance this for even one minute?
1
Caesar Civitella jumped into a hotbed of Nazis and attacked them. Killed them. D.Trump would have us know that he, along with all the allied forces, did this without a permit. No permits were issued for the Battle of the Bulge, the Normandy Invasion or D-Day, or for those who tore off the locks of the cells in the death camps.
As Civitella and his generation know, the permit they carried was made not of paper but of justice, courage, and right, signed in blood by lovers of a free humanity, stamped by the God of righteousness and truth.
As Civitella and his generation know, the permit they carried was made not of paper but of justice, courage, and right, signed in blood by lovers of a free humanity, stamped by the God of righteousness and truth.
Yes, there were permits: The war was authorized by the duly elected Congress and president. The U.S. war effort was carried out lawfully under the command of the U.S. military. The laws of war applied and were enforced.
1
One would think that, considering the bloody history of Nazism, the KKK and white nationalism, it wouldn't be hard to condemn these groups. Why virtually an entire party can't seem to do so without stumbling, ambiguity and equivocating just baffles me. https://madsociologistblog.com/2017/08/16/how-hard-is-it-to-condemn-nazis/
Trump bad. Anti-Nazi war heroes good. Got it. Who will argue with this? But is it worth a column in the New York Times?
1
Where were our veterans, and decent Republicans, when Trump was running for office? Remember that time Trump couldn't bring himself to denounce David Duke, a vile neo-Nazi Klan dragon?
The Republican party has been courting racist voters since the Southern Strategy. Trump, the most prominent birther, was very clearly romancing hate and bigotry.
Where were our heroes during Trump's campaign?
Because everything that Trump has done, and failed to do, since the beginning of his disaster of a Presidency was absolutely foreseeable. Most of us saw the neo-Nazis coming with Steve Bannon. Where were the heroes to prevent his election?
The Republican party has been courting racist voters since the Southern Strategy. Trump, the most prominent birther, was very clearly romancing hate and bigotry.
Where were our heroes during Trump's campaign?
Because everything that Trump has done, and failed to do, since the beginning of his disaster of a Presidency was absolutely foreseeable. Most of us saw the neo-Nazis coming with Steve Bannon. Where were the heroes to prevent his election?
4
A little history goes a long way to preventing future mistakes. Allowing Hitler to come to power was a mistake, wasn't it?
The vast majority of Americans must be forgetting what Hitlers invasion of most of the countries of Europe meant. Perhaps it's time that Netflix and Hollywood resurrected some more WWII themes. Because it seems that the citizenry is too busy watching TV or their phones to truly react to the Neo-Nazis.
Part of me says that the "antifas" are correct. The alt-right monsters must be confronted physically. That's the anger. That is my fury speaking.
But then I remember that for every action is a reaction and the antifa movement is really just gasoline on the fire. The answer is education. There needs to be a powerful and well crafted series or series of films that shows again the horrors of the German genocide - the brutality, the insanity. The unspeakable must be said visually. And if that does not work...
It is in fact not the responsibility of the a few anarchists to shut down a movement that flies a Nazi flag. It is the governments job. That's what governments do when their citizens are threatened.
Don't throw the free speech idea at me. What good is free speech if we are dead? Anyone with a shred of common sense and decency knows that Nazis and their ilk (KKK) are dangerously evil.
The Neo-Nazis are declaring war on America. It may be time for the Army to do their job again. If education does not work, then the obvious must be employed.
The vast majority of Americans must be forgetting what Hitlers invasion of most of the countries of Europe meant. Perhaps it's time that Netflix and Hollywood resurrected some more WWII themes. Because it seems that the citizenry is too busy watching TV or their phones to truly react to the Neo-Nazis.
Part of me says that the "antifas" are correct. The alt-right monsters must be confronted physically. That's the anger. That is my fury speaking.
But then I remember that for every action is a reaction and the antifa movement is really just gasoline on the fire. The answer is education. There needs to be a powerful and well crafted series or series of films that shows again the horrors of the German genocide - the brutality, the insanity. The unspeakable must be said visually. And if that does not work...
It is in fact not the responsibility of the a few anarchists to shut down a movement that flies a Nazi flag. It is the governments job. That's what governments do when their citizens are threatened.
Don't throw the free speech idea at me. What good is free speech if we are dead? Anyone with a shred of common sense and decency knows that Nazis and their ilk (KKK) are dangerously evil.
The Neo-Nazis are declaring war on America. It may be time for the Army to do their job again. If education does not work, then the obvious must be employed.
My dad was a member of the greatest generation . They proved their patriotism in a way that these self proclaimed white nationalists never could. Instead, my father and the men and women who served with him during WW ll, was willing to sacrifice his life to preserve the freedoms and values of our country by directly facing and standing against and the darkest forces of evil. He did so with pride and with guts, and was awarded 5 major battle stars and the bronze star for his heroic service. Although I deeply miss his presence, I'm almost relieved that he is not here to witness the heinous re-surgence of hate groups on American soil... with a wink and a nod from an American President no less! These groups are nothing but cowardly by contrast and an insult to all true American patriots, but especially to those who, like my dad, sacrificed their youth and their lives to ensure they might never rise again.
2
Nothing against Mr. Civitella, who was wise enough to avoid combat, but I am suffering from Greatest Generation fatigue.
So 16 million "served" in WWII -- 12+ million because they were threatened with prison if they didn't and most of the remainder in the hopes of getting rear echelon non-combat jobs. How many saw serious combat? One million? And of those how many were killed or wounded? The majority!
Tears and more tears for them. For those who survived? Well -- they survived.
So 16 million "served" in WWII -- 12+ million because they were threatened with prison if they didn't and most of the remainder in the hopes of getting rear echelon non-combat jobs. How many saw serious combat? One million? And of those how many were killed or wounded? The majority!
Tears and more tears for them. For those who survived? Well -- they survived.
1
As I have watched The President make fascisim fashionable over the last couple of years, I would use as motivation my father who was shot down in a B-17 over Germany in 1943 and spent a year and a half in a P.O.W. camp. I tell people when I am canvassing for democrats or making phone calls " My father and his generation didn't fight W.W.-2 to have me stand by while America elect. Haters like Trump and his crowd.
Just when you think humanity is ready to move on to greater unity, someone comes along as a test and a reminder that we still have homework to do. In a perverse way, it is a gift. History is watching to see what WE do with this gift.
No, I am not willing to accept as normal that: one person's Nazi is another person's "fine person".
Just when you think humanity is ready to move on to greater unity, someone comes along as a test and a reminder that we still have homework to do. In a perverse way, it is a gift. History is watching to see what WE do with this gift.
No, I am not willing to accept as normal that: one person's Nazi is another person's "fine person".
1
What would WWII vets think of this recent violence? From the many I have known, they would collectively ask, "How and why have we fallen so far as a nation since the immense worldwide suffering and death of WWII?" Even ending up with a pair like Hillary and Trump in the Nov. 2016 election would make them shake their heads and ponder, "How did we sink this low? How did we fall so far?" At the end of WWII, the U.S. carried the moral high ground in the world, and now the nation has squandered it all in a morass of Trumps and Hillarys.
Confederates, Nazis, Communists, Islamists, whatever you got—America can handle it.
What so many miss about the greatness of America is that the people have forced the nation to live up to it's stated ideals, first put on paper by the conflicted slaveholder Thomas Jefferson.
At first, only White Men who were land owners were allowed to vote - no others need apply. At various times of great immigration it was not good to be a (fill in the blank) from (fill in the blank), but as they assimilated into our nation and culture they melded their family story with the American one. The fact that people largely describe Americans of European heritage as "White" rather than Polish, Irish, German or Danish is testimony to that assimilation.
The problem is that the First Peoples and the African-Americans who have been here as long or longer than anyone else are still not fully integrated into our society. Do not whitewash the World War II Generation as there were race riots here at home during the "Good War"- Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, and New York City all saw race riots.
The NYT Times Machine shows this 1943 editorial that opens:
"Whatever description may eventually be affixed to the riots that flared in Harlem last Sunday and Monday, they did one thing for certain. They helped further to uncover one of the most embarrassing and most dangerous conditions in the United States today. It is the situation, growing tenser by the week, between the Negro and white races."
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F0DE3D91738E33BBC4053...
At first, only White Men who were land owners were allowed to vote - no others need apply. At various times of great immigration it was not good to be a (fill in the blank) from (fill in the blank), but as they assimilated into our nation and culture they melded their family story with the American one. The fact that people largely describe Americans of European heritage as "White" rather than Polish, Irish, German or Danish is testimony to that assimilation.
The problem is that the First Peoples and the African-Americans who have been here as long or longer than anyone else are still not fully integrated into our society. Do not whitewash the World War II Generation as there were race riots here at home during the "Good War"- Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, and New York City all saw race riots.
The NYT Times Machine shows this 1943 editorial that opens:
"Whatever description may eventually be affixed to the riots that flared in Harlem last Sunday and Monday, they did one thing for certain. They helped further to uncover one of the most embarrassing and most dangerous conditions in the United States today. It is the situation, growing tenser by the week, between the Negro and white races."
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F0DE3D91738E33BBC4053...
44
Great tribute and so critical to remember those who fought against fascism and hatred so many years ago. The whole of my Mom's family, and her whole world and childhood were wiped out by the evil of the Third Reich. She was the only one to escape her home in Romania and while escaping was tortured and subjected to other horrors which haunted her throughout her life. This is not something we should ever every allow our children or our country to forget. How anyone in a free and strong America can stand with or beside a Nazi flag is beyond me.
4
It must be much easier for a president that got out of serving his country (due to a "bone spur" in his foot ) to be sympathetic with neo nazi's (what's so "neo" about them) than for a person who risked, and often gave, his life to stop the terror in Europe before it reached our shores (or so we thought).
1
Laser sharp article Mr. Egan to shine a light on our disappearing WWII vets who are the true Americans. Thank you.
"Donald Trump, a man who once said his own personal Vietnam was avoiding sexually transmitted diseases in the wilds of Manhattan." We certainly don't have a President that we can called a true American.
"Donald Trump, a man who once said his own personal Vietnam was avoiding sexually transmitted diseases in the wilds of Manhattan." We certainly don't have a President that we can called a true American.
2
Benedict donald is dividing and attacking our country at the behest of Vladimir. He will not stop, he is in repayment mode for all the Russian lucre he has accumulated over these many years of "business".
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
2
Bravo, Mr. Egan! This column is the best yet in describing the sights and sounds that caused Jews alive in the time of the Holocaust, who experienced home-front antisemitism, to tremble in anger at Trump's echoes of neo-Nazism, right from the beginning of his malevolent campaign. Now the iron-cross troops who came to shake up Charlottesville, and Mr. Trump's directing his nastiness in fellowship with theirs, have at last made his underlife all too clear.
If you want a little more, scrawl down from Trump's tweetings, and before too many pages you will find yourself in feotid swampland, where Trumpeteers make vile threats against those unlike themselves, quack of fearsome conspiracies, and genuflect to Trump, convinced they read his signals clearly...in a realm ruled by a sneering green frog.
If you want a little more, scrawl down from Trump's tweetings, and before too many pages you will find yourself in feotid swampland, where Trumpeteers make vile threats against those unlike themselves, quack of fearsome conspiracies, and genuflect to Trump, convinced they read his signals clearly...in a realm ruled by a sneering green frog.
2
Suggested reading: President Lincoln's 2nd inaugural address - "with malice toward none - with charity to all".
Lincoln would be appalled by today's discourse re Confederate monuments. He was an amazing person - though he was a Republican he reached out to the pro-slavery Democrats to seek E Pluribus Unim, Liberty, and Trust in G-d as the ultimate American faith and road to unity, harmony and happiness. We lost him and perhaps his dream when he was assassinated by an actor and his cohorts, all b.t.w. staunch Democrats/Dixiecrats/whatever.
BUT, it is never to late. Make Abe Lincoln's dream live again!
Lincoln would be appalled by today's discourse re Confederate monuments. He was an amazing person - though he was a Republican he reached out to the pro-slavery Democrats to seek E Pluribus Unim, Liberty, and Trust in G-d as the ultimate American faith and road to unity, harmony and happiness. We lost him and perhaps his dream when he was assassinated by an actor and his cohorts, all b.t.w. staunch Democrats/Dixiecrats/whatever.
BUT, it is never to late. Make Abe Lincoln's dream live again!
Lincoln had no illusions about nature actually caring about human affairs. Neither did Washington.
My father volunteered for service in the US Army in WW II. He was told to remove his glasses and walk towards the wall with the big E. He kept walking until he crashed into the wall. The recruiter suggested that he work in the defence industry.
He was a Republican then. He wouldn't be one now.
He was a Republican then. He wouldn't be one now.
No more. No more needs to be said about this complete "disaster" in the White House and in Congress.
The current Republican party has --- no guts -- no honor -- no dignity -- no respect -- no practical heart -- plus -- all other appropriate verbiage that applies, including: ---- Everyone in Washington now knows that we have a president who never meant it when he swore to defend the Constitution. He violates that oath just about every day and is never going to get any better.
"It's time to roll" folks. The time is now. Mattis knows it. McMaster knows it. And General Kelly certainly knows it.
The current Republican party has --- no guts -- no honor -- no dignity -- no respect -- no practical heart -- plus -- all other appropriate verbiage that applies, including: ---- Everyone in Washington now knows that we have a president who never meant it when he swore to defend the Constitution. He violates that oath just about every day and is never going to get any better.
"It's time to roll" folks. The time is now. Mattis knows it. McMaster knows it. And General Kelly certainly knows it.
2
You know all those young men (and white women) chanting "Jews will not replace us" and "blood and soil", one wonders how did they get brainwashed? Young men and women all over the world are vulnerable to becoming brainwashed, by ideology, cult, fads, name it. If these same men and women had a good education, good jobs, sound health care, bright future, they would not fall prey to extreme ideology. This is true for America as it is for the rest of the world. During the last elections, it was ONLY Bernie who provided a vision for our millennials of an America that would work for them. Denied that vision, its possible these young men and women marched towards new Nazis and what not and allowed themselves to be sucked into indoctrination. Should these young men and women be serious, they should get their DNA tested and they will likely be APPALLED to find out their "whiteness" is superficial, only skin deep. Underneath they have a history of layers and layers of human migrations.
Each of those who marched should be REQUIRED to go to the National Museum of African American History and culture. Absolutely required to study human history. First in the line should be Donald Trump, he might be too old to read, but he is visual, he can see the images with his own eyes.
Each of those who marched should be REQUIRED to go to the National Museum of African American History and culture. Absolutely required to study human history. First in the line should be Donald Trump, he might be too old to read, but he is visual, he can see the images with his own eyes.
3
The insertion of the phrase "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance should go down as one of the most underestimated instances of brainwashing in history.
2
After the ridiculous response to Charlottesville by Trump I posted this on my facebook page and then decided to send it directly to the President:
"My mother and her two brothers were taken by Nazis from Warsaw, Poland in the Spring of 1940, for slave labor. Her younger brother died during the war, she never saw her father again, and it wasn't until the 1970's that she finally got to see her two sisters. My father fought in the US Army 88th Infantry Division in the Italian campaign and survived the bloody fighting up the "soft underbelly of the Axis."
Now we have to fight against the same mindset of prejudice, bigotry and intolerance based on a dogma of racial superiority all over again, and the one person in this country who has the bully pulpit to put these scum back into the slime from which they crawled doesn't have the moral certitude to do so.
Well, Mr. President, we'll just do it without you, you morally bankrupt excuse of a human being."
This whole thing sickens me. As a nation we need to stand up against this resurgence of an ideology that these men and women fought and sacrificed their lives to defeat. That it is given any sort of credence by the President is totally repulsive to me and I will not sit idly by.
"My mother and her two brothers were taken by Nazis from Warsaw, Poland in the Spring of 1940, for slave labor. Her younger brother died during the war, she never saw her father again, and it wasn't until the 1970's that she finally got to see her two sisters. My father fought in the US Army 88th Infantry Division in the Italian campaign and survived the bloody fighting up the "soft underbelly of the Axis."
Now we have to fight against the same mindset of prejudice, bigotry and intolerance based on a dogma of racial superiority all over again, and the one person in this country who has the bully pulpit to put these scum back into the slime from which they crawled doesn't have the moral certitude to do so.
Well, Mr. President, we'll just do it without you, you morally bankrupt excuse of a human being."
This whole thing sickens me. As a nation we need to stand up against this resurgence of an ideology that these men and women fought and sacrificed their lives to defeat. That it is given any sort of credence by the President is totally repulsive to me and I will not sit idly by.
4
He achieved the Presidency without securing the votes of a majority of the American people. He dodged the draft and his taxes. He bankrupted himself repeatedly, swindled Atlantic City and filed lawsuits by the scores. He laid hands on women without their approval. He specialized in selling phoney university courses and cheap neckties made in China. And is now defending Nazis. This good and great man a huckster and a fraud? I simply can’t believe it.
3
He achieved the Presidency without securing the votes of a majority of the American people. He dodged the draft and his taxes. He bankrupted himself repeatedly, swindled Atlantic City and filed lawsuits by the scores. He laid hands on women without their approval. He specialized in selling phoney university courses and cheap neckties made in China. And is now defending Nazis. This good and great man a huckster and a fraud? I simply can’t believe it.
2
Good to know not all veterans are knee-jerk Republicans who blindly support the sociopath in chief. I'd like to hear what Louis Dorfman, the vet who gifted his purple heart to Trump, has to say for himself now. I'm the daughter of a WW II sailor, who became a history teacher. My late dad is surely turning over in his grave.
5
"Good to know"? Seriously. Is your worldview both so narrow and distorted that this is somehow a surprise to you?
Wow. Typical of the "jump down the commenters throat because I need to lash out at SOMEBODY" replies seen on many FB threads. If I find it a positive to see veterans speaking out against the monster in the White House, after seeing too many of them supporting him in news stories, it means my "worldview" is "narrow and distorted". Uh, okay.
Steve Bannon and drump want to use the shocking and hateful images of neo-nazis as a distraction form their other agenda on America, gerrymandering, fake voter fraud, destruction of our government. They think they will manipulate the neo-nazis activities to divert attention from their coup of the existing Republican Party.
The specter of the bekhakied polo shirted young men is a branding of this modern Nazi menance. But these people are real, understand the murder of Jews and others, homosexuals, disabled, mentally ill and retarded that took place in WW2.
We need to hear more from the generation who fought against this menace in Europe and Africa, 1939-1945, the year I was born. And we need to have the public educated about Hitlers "Final Solution" and how it seeped through German society, and the years of appeasement leading up to Hitlers rise to power. It will be a lesson for us all to digest and plan action for it not to happen again.
Trump and Bannon are promoters of this despicable hate America 2017
The specter of the bekhakied polo shirted young men is a branding of this modern Nazi menance. But these people are real, understand the murder of Jews and others, homosexuals, disabled, mentally ill and retarded that took place in WW2.
We need to hear more from the generation who fought against this menace in Europe and Africa, 1939-1945, the year I was born. And we need to have the public educated about Hitlers "Final Solution" and how it seeped through German society, and the years of appeasement leading up to Hitlers rise to power. It will be a lesson for us all to digest and plan action for it not to happen again.
Trump and Bannon are promoters of this despicable hate America 2017
2
Maybe these Nazi groups form because they don't feel that they are getting the same opportunities or help that other groups such as black people get. Seems to me these days everything is about being black and if you're poor and white then you don't exist.
I think it's more to do with lack of opportunities for families whether white or black as you have both black and white supremacist groups. You should be dealing with the underlying problem that produces Nazi groups; such as pay inequity and lack of opportunity. Low wages and exploitation of the poor by wealthy groups produce extremism.
Hitler youth formed because there was extreme wealth held by Jews and the rest of the country felt downtrodden and couldn't get ahead. Hitler youth was born out of a lack of opportunites for poor white people while the Jews were the ones owning everything and getting all the opportunites and getting ahead. These groups form because of a lack of hope. Today in Germany its refugees that get everything free and the locals in Germany get down trodden and ignored. I expect to see Nazism on the rise again in Germany in the future even though they got rid of all their history to do with nazism. It's about EQUAL OPPORTUNITES for everyone in the nation without masses of debt, just like refugees get with a free university education and help from everyone. Problem with society is that governments of their own nations won't help ALL citizens and just give special privileges to the black citizens.
I think it's more to do with lack of opportunities for families whether white or black as you have both black and white supremacist groups. You should be dealing with the underlying problem that produces Nazi groups; such as pay inequity and lack of opportunity. Low wages and exploitation of the poor by wealthy groups produce extremism.
Hitler youth formed because there was extreme wealth held by Jews and the rest of the country felt downtrodden and couldn't get ahead. Hitler youth was born out of a lack of opportunites for poor white people while the Jews were the ones owning everything and getting all the opportunites and getting ahead. These groups form because of a lack of hope. Today in Germany its refugees that get everything free and the locals in Germany get down trodden and ignored. I expect to see Nazism on the rise again in Germany in the future even though they got rid of all their history to do with nazism. It's about EQUAL OPPORTUNITES for everyone in the nation without masses of debt, just like refugees get with a free university education and help from everyone. Problem with society is that governments of their own nations won't help ALL citizens and just give special privileges to the black citizens.
1
That's what Bernie was saying it's not cultural or religious wars, it is all about inequality and how the system is rigged for the wealthy. The wealth concentration leaves out the middle class who keep working hard but are not able to achieve "dignity" as they are left far far behind.
1
I don't know about any meaningful "black supremacist" population, but there are various flavors of black separatists. They're not a big segment and are basically uncovered by the media, but if you go way down the dial to the Pacifica Radio stations, they'll cover that sort of thing sometimes.
1
"To those grave deficiencies, you can add one more: historical illiteracy."
This is a common phenomenon. Over 20 years ago I spent a year in the UK and I remember during the Remembrance Poppy wearing season how everyone was so upset that so many secondary school students had no idea who Winston Churchill was. Probably fewer know today.
So the question is what is being taught in history classes? Or is anything being taught?
Here's one example of a NY school. Let's be fair and know how to argue. Argue in favor of the Holocaust (sic!)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/ny-bans-school-project-asking-students-to-a...
And this type of thing is apparently not a one-time occurrence.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/12/us/new-york-nazi-assignment/index.html
So history teachers, you have your work cut out for you, but you may have to re-vamp your overly politically correct curricula.
This is a common phenomenon. Over 20 years ago I spent a year in the UK and I remember during the Remembrance Poppy wearing season how everyone was so upset that so many secondary school students had no idea who Winston Churchill was. Probably fewer know today.
So the question is what is being taught in history classes? Or is anything being taught?
Here's one example of a NY school. Let's be fair and know how to argue. Argue in favor of the Holocaust (sic!)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/ny-bans-school-project-asking-students-to-a...
And this type of thing is apparently not a one-time occurrence.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/12/us/new-york-nazi-assignment/index.html
So history teachers, you have your work cut out for you, but you may have to re-vamp your overly politically correct curricula.
2
Son of a WWII vet, a Vet of the Vietnam Era, how could our country devolved to quickly as to elect a blithering idiot and racist as Donald Trump. It boggles the mind.
3
About 5 1/2 when Mom took me to a movie show, I sat wordless as the newsreel showed soldiers liberating a concentration camp, a documentary that scares me even today when I see it online. White, white bodies by the thousands, a Brit soldier, helmeted, bulldozing the myriad dead into common graves, the starving, soon-to-die "survivors", the plump women and men guards, kids with numbers on their little arms. I did not cry. She did not speak. We saw the movie, about a Roman sacrificing his life to the arena lions to show solidarity with his Christian lover. Her heart had broken.
My thoughts remain clear. Solidarity means sacrifice: could I have that? Isn't it easy to be unhuman to bully the weak? To be the oppressor? To be plump while others starve? Am I more likely to be the starved or the starver?
We walked home side by side, not touching. She was a Catholic convert to Judaism and never once had she or Dad mentioned anti-Semitism. I already had learned it - when kids from the nearest R.C. school had surrounded me, yelling "Kill the dirty little Jew". What about the Nazis, brotherhood, and morality have Trump, his son-in-law, his convert daughter, Bannon, the alt.right, and thousands not learned?
I have known Survivors, talked with WWII vets about horrors they saw, and held a friend while he wept for having joined the Hitler Youth. What has Trump never pondered that makes people weep so long as they live?
My thoughts remain clear. Solidarity means sacrifice: could I have that? Isn't it easy to be unhuman to bully the weak? To be the oppressor? To be plump while others starve? Am I more likely to be the starved or the starver?
We walked home side by side, not touching. She was a Catholic convert to Judaism and never once had she or Dad mentioned anti-Semitism. I already had learned it - when kids from the nearest R.C. school had surrounded me, yelling "Kill the dirty little Jew". What about the Nazis, brotherhood, and morality have Trump, his son-in-law, his convert daughter, Bannon, the alt.right, and thousands not learned?
I have known Survivors, talked with WWII vets about horrors they saw, and held a friend while he wept for having joined the Hitler Youth. What has Trump never pondered that makes people weep so long as they live?
7
This wonderful piece immediately prompted me to alert any and all who are interested to the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress. If you know and love a WWII vet (or any vet for that matter), you may record their story and place their oral history (along with images) in perpetuity at the LoC. I did this with my uncle, Albert Almy Young, Jr., who commanded PT Boat 143 and received a Bronze Star with Combat V. I believe the project was initiated by Ken Burns.
https://www.loc.gov/vets/kit.html
https://www.loc.gov/vets/kit.html
2
Beautiful Tim. For the hate mongers of the "other side" a pox on your soul and that of your progeny for centuries to come. For those of us not lucky enough to have our dads and moms live to see this, what they would have said? I don't think it would have been a shrug. It is sardonically humorous in one respect. The man who claims to be such a winner was elected by those who backed two of the biggest losing causes in memory. Another bankruptcy for the Dumpster.
2
Trump is not an enigma. We understand exactly what he has been and remains as.
We know less about the GOP and why it has lost all semblance of responsibility. The simple answer is venality; following the instructions of wealthy backers. The deeper question is then: What is wrong with these backers? Why are they happy to let the country go down the drain?
One answer is that they are nuts, We are seeing a government run by crazy rich coots.
We know less about the GOP and why it has lost all semblance of responsibility. The simple answer is venality; following the instructions of wealthy backers. The deeper question is then: What is wrong with these backers? Why are they happy to let the country go down the drain?
One answer is that they are nuts, We are seeing a government run by crazy rich coots.
3
Lee, David, Hood, Stuart, were all traitors. And for what? To allow prople and their descendants, who were kidnapped and enslaved, to remain enslaved. If your daughter or son was kidnapped and enslaved would you be so blasé about the glory of the confederacy? If so, you are as craven as Trump.
3
I lost my WWII hero two years ago - my "greatest generation" husband, aged 93.
He was one of those in medical school in 1943 and joined the Navy instead of being drafted into the Army. The U.S. Government paid for the rest of his medical school training, after which he went into active duty and served as a doctor on board ship until 1948.
He was one of those in medical school in 1943 and joined the Navy instead of being drafted into the Army. The U.S. Government paid for the rest of his medical school training, after which he went into active duty and served as a doctor on board ship until 1948.
8
General Grant had the measure of Lee. General Grant knew this and so did Robert Lee. Grant was a pawn ahead and pursued Lee relentlessly with no quarter asked or given until the army of the South was a starving shell of its former self.
Then, President Lincoln and General Grant were very generous in their terms of surrender and America was better for it.
Then, President Lincoln and General Grant were very generous in their terms of surrender and America was better for it.
4
There was only so much the superior marksmanship of southern soldiers could do to defeat the overwhelming advantages of the North in arms and population.
1
Everything that has been written is true, and as a Vietnam Veteran, we support all "Real Veterans" whom oppose the Hatred and Ignorance demonstrated in VA. It is a slap in the face when we hear of these things and remember all those left on the battlefield. The younger generation that lives by the Nazi code makes us wonder if all the hardships were endured were for nothing! All good people must STAND UP and KEEP OUR COUNTRY GREAT regardless of what is in Washington.
22
America is diminished with their passing, at a time in history when we are going to need, more than ever, that special something that seemed inherent in the character of the men and women of all races, creeds, and colors from that particular generation.
A beautiful piece, but unfortunately the author's credibility is undermined by the reference to George H.W. Bush, which ignores the outrageous Lee Atwater election strategy concerning Willie Horton.
And W, which ignores the whole Hurricane Katrina thing.
Neither has any credibility, whatsoever, in denouncing "the toxicity of racial hatred".
Talk about "whitewashing" history, no pun intended.
Also, I'm assuming Egan's next column will give support to the efforts to have all Confederate statues removed from the Capitol, including those of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.
A beautiful piece, but unfortunately the author's credibility is undermined by the reference to George H.W. Bush, which ignores the outrageous Lee Atwater election strategy concerning Willie Horton.
And W, which ignores the whole Hurricane Katrina thing.
Neither has any credibility, whatsoever, in denouncing "the toxicity of racial hatred".
Talk about "whitewashing" history, no pun intended.
Also, I'm assuming Egan's next column will give support to the efforts to have all Confederate statues removed from the Capitol, including those of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.
3
I agree. Where was George HW Bush's moral indignation when the Willie Horton disgrace was used to fear monger. Uh-uh. Doesn't wash.
1
'They have nothing to do with American values."
That's probably true. But White Supremeacy has a great deal to do with American history and the formation of our government, our politics, and our culture. YES, we are MORE than that, but our VALUES compel us to face up to our reality - and even that will guarantee nothing.
That's probably true. But White Supremeacy has a great deal to do with American history and the formation of our government, our politics, and our culture. YES, we are MORE than that, but our VALUES compel us to face up to our reality - and even that will guarantee nothing.
1
We need an American Museum Of Shameful History to house any statues, art, artifacts and documents that represent and/or perpetuate hatred and bigotry.
7
Leaving statues honoring Confederate heroes in public spaces is akin to having churches include statues honoring Lucifer, once among the highest rank of angels. Our public spaces are the places of worship of our country; D.C. a secular Vatican City or Mecca or Salt Lake City or Jerusalem, etc. People assemble as Americans whether they are there just to throw bread at pigeons, meet a significant other, or take their weight off their feet for five minutes. I realize Lucifer is sometimes depicted in religious artwork found in churches, but I don't believe he is ever glorified. I can imagine the reaction of the faithful of the Abrahamic faiths should they someday find Satan honored in their house of worship. I feel for those faithful who fought the ultimate evil in World War II seeing their Satan parading through our public places encouraged by the man sworn to protect all we hold holy.
2
We should all pray that the Republicans in Congress will remember that they are sworn to serve the constitution and America and will have the courage to repudiate with specific actions the use of bigotry for political gain and find a way to remove Mr, Trump from the office he has degraded and for which he is intellectually, morally, and ethically unfit. It is not enough, by a long way, to simply make comments or to hide in their offices. They could begin with a resolution of censure and condemnation of Mr. Trump's behavior, hand delivered to Mr. Trump with the clear statement that this behavior must stop or all support will be withdrawn. Now is the moment for courage and for action to restore the government. Republicans must finally grasp the moment and act. Enough is enough!
2
In one of life's oddities, George W. Bush's popularity is being rehabilitated simply by comparison to Trump.
10
We honor those that defended the freedom, the morality and the culture of our entire nation not those that chose to enslave some of us. Thank you for your sacrifices Mr. Civitella, you are an inspiration and a reminder as to what a true American is.
7
It is obvious to me that the author of this article has no understanding of the motivation for patriotic acts. The men who defended the Confederacy were motivated not by mere 'racism' but an honest attempt to guard against an invasion of their homeland. This attempt to diminish this truth will be another brick in the wall of our self-destruction.
8
"The Confederacy, was a self-proclaimed nation of 11 secessionist slave-holding states of the United States, existing from 1861 to 1865. The Confederacy was originally formed by seven states – South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas – in the Lower South region of the United States whose regional economy was mostly dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America
Classic conservative greed and self-interest perpetrated against those least able to resist it, dressed up a patriotism by a succession of PR flacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America
Classic conservative greed and self-interest perpetrated against those least able to resist it, dressed up a patriotism by a succession of PR flacks.
2
They wanted to keep their slaves. They tried to secede from the United States to keep their slaves. They raised armies to fight to keep their slaves. Their leaders wrote eloquent screeds stating explicitly that their motivation for going to war was to keep their slaves. Read them and tell me again that they were only defending themselves from invasion.
5
No, not an invasion of their homeland, the destruction of their way of life. They knew they could not run the plantations without the slaves, and they were not about to give them up without a fight. Hence the confederacy. The whitewashed version of the history says states rights, the truth is defending slavery!
5
My father-in-law, a WWII navy enlistee, died this week at the age of 90. His older brother died valiantly in 1945 as the navigator of a navy plane that went down over the English Channel. My English mother lived through the bombing of her home country during the Blitz. My 96 year old Polish Catholic father spent 3 years in a Nazi labor camp and served in the Polish forces after being liberated. All of these people sacrificed and fought fascism in their own ways, but they were not labeled antifa. Back then they were called soldiers, sailors, airmen, and citizens. The neo-Nazis and white supremacists making noise today are an affront to the memories of that brave generation. It is especially insulting that their spiritual leader is the President of the United States, a person whose family has no history of fighting fascism during those times or these.
19
Trump is playing the devious game which served him so well during his Presidential campaign. The wink and nod to white racist that still exists in our society today. In a hopeful sign, business leaders, the military, and certain members of his own Party were having none of it. Notice how Trump skillfully moves off his revealing words into other areas such as these statues were stately things of beauty in a park setting or the mind flipping analogy of comparing Washington and Jefferson with southern generals who fought for slavery. Trump never runs out of people to slander. He is now reaching back into our history to defame our founders. Seven months in and Trumps's capacity to demean our democracy seems endless.
42
America is too diverse to have a real heritage. It should follow the concept of heritage in India, divided by regions and historical backgrounds. It would be more accurate to say Italian-American heritage, or African-American heritage, and so on.
Besides, the average "Nazi-killer" overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Most of the men who fought WW2 would be on the side of "far-right nativists" today, even if they condemn Nazis. Congrats on finding one guy though.
Besides, the average "Nazi-killer" overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Most of the men who fought WW2 would be on the side of "far-right nativists" today, even if they condemn Nazis. Congrats on finding one guy though.
2
My father, who was a WWII veteran and survivor of the Ardennes Offensive would definitely not have voted for the current President. He had a very low opinion of all politicians who look forward to starting more wars, and he had nothing but contempt for draft-dodging cowards.
1
You make the claim that "the average "Nazi-killer" overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Most of the men who fought WW2 would be on the side of "far-right nativists" today". Sounds like typical banker bluster with nothing to back it up.
This sounds like something you "know" but has no data to back it up. Let's see... Nearly all of the U.S. soldiers in WWII were between 20 and 40. So, spanning from 1940 to 1945, we get people that in 2016 were between 91 and 116. So show me any kind of statistically significant data covering that group. I didn't think so.
Of course we have data that shows that 53% of those 65 and older voted for Trump (*). Presumably that number would rise if we were able to look at only white, males. Maybe get to 60%. But does that represent WWII vets? Nobody that is statistically literate would argue that it does.
I guess you could say that "overwhelmingly" could mean anything over 50%. Then wave your hands and lash out at everyone as a racist. Disingenuous, but par for the course these days.
This sounds like something you "know" but has no data to back it up. Let's see... Nearly all of the U.S. soldiers in WWII were between 20 and 40. So, spanning from 1940 to 1945, we get people that in 2016 were between 91 and 116. So show me any kind of statistically significant data covering that group. I didn't think so.
Of course we have data that shows that 53% of those 65 and older voted for Trump (*). Presumably that number would rise if we were able to look at only white, males. Maybe get to 60%. But does that represent WWII vets? Nobody that is statistically literate would argue that it does.
I guess you could say that "overwhelmingly" could mean anything over 50%. Then wave your hands and lash out at everyone as a racist. Disingenuous, but par for the course these days.
1
Since the horrible events in Charlottesville,VA and the responses dribbling out of this repulsive man we are forced to accept as our president, many voices have expressed horror and revulsion towards him. I read that while some of his aides are discouraged that he is an uncontrollable loose cannon ( how could they not know?), he is described as in high spirits since he was able to be himself and speak out according to his true feelings. So he does not care what we think of him.
There has to be a more effective way to let let him know of the country's disapproval. What seems to get his attention involve money and exposure of his financial entanglements. Affecting the profits of his and his family businesses as well those of wealthy supporters would be a way but would require discipline and organization. The rest is up to Mr Meuller and congressional investigators.
There has to be a more effective way to let let him know of the country's disapproval. What seems to get his attention involve money and exposure of his financial entanglements. Affecting the profits of his and his family businesses as well those of wealthy supporters would be a way but would require discipline and organization. The rest is up to Mr Meuller and congressional investigators.
1
Perhaps one of the things most painful to those who have no use for Mr Trump is that he is so painfully American. There are few heroes among us and most all of those cited are heroes of a war in which as the Mr Civitella states "he killed his share of Nazis".
Bone spurs, however specious, may have been a defense of a man who would not leave the good life and rather than fleeing to Canada simply came up with an acceptable excuse. He may also have shied away from killing as a means to solve differences or dying to make a point our leaders at that time deemed important enough to force others into an early grave.
Mr Trump like all of us is flawed, perhaps more than most, but he is also a reflection which at some level we deny.
I am no fan of Mr Trump, but I am less a fan of those who resort to killing.
Bone spurs, however specious, may have been a defense of a man who would not leave the good life and rather than fleeing to Canada simply came up with an acceptable excuse. He may also have shied away from killing as a means to solve differences or dying to make a point our leaders at that time deemed important enough to force others into an early grave.
Mr Trump like all of us is flawed, perhaps more than most, but he is also a reflection which at some level we deny.
I am no fan of Mr Trump, but I am less a fan of those who resort to killing.
1
Well done sir.
1
I did not expect much better from Donald Trump, but I do expect more from my fellow citizens and from members of Congress. Sad!
4
TRUMP-PIGULA And his Nazi, KKK and White Supremacist Thugocracy defile the memory of all those who served in all the US wars, among whom are many who made the ultimate sacrifice of giving their lives so that, to quote Lincoln at Gettusburg, The government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the Earth. Robert E. Lee, by the way, in 1866, soon after the Civil War, declined memorials and status of himself, saying that the focus should be on national healing. Most of the Civil War monuments were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, during the era of Jim Crow and repression of African Americans who, freed from slavery, found themselves once again oppressed and abused. During his presidential campaign, Trump saw supporters beating up protesters and said, What I see is patriotic Americans showing their love for their country. I wish that video had gone viral like the 37% tape of Romney. Trump is a psychopath, devoid of empathy, remorse, shame, decency, civility and respect. He is also demented--medically incapable of performing his official duties. The 25th Amendment MUST be invoked immediately. No that Pence will last long, since he supported Trump's press conference supporting the KKK, Nazis and White Supremacists.
3
Trump's chief defect stems less from his ignorance of history than from his disrespect for the past. His disdain appears clearly in his willful distortion of key facts. The defense of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and the Confederate flag as symbols of Southern heritage, for example, intentionally ignores the reality that slavery defines that heritage. His muted response to the presence of Nazi symbols in the Charlottesville rally, moreover, exposes a moral insensitivity to the monstrous evil represented by the swastika.
Ignorance of history, unfortunately, does not make Trump unique in this country. But his indifference to his lack of knowledge, his contempt for the past, does set him apart, especially among elected leaders. That disdain, furthermore, arises from his narrow focus on himself as the center of his universe. If he conceives of other people as tools to achieve his ends, then the sole purpose of earlier generations would have to focus on creating the conditions for his success.
Disdain for the past distorts the present. Slaveowners, for example, partially justified their institution by claiming that Africa spawned only barbarians, devoid of culture or achievement. Even in the 18th century, however, Europeans had available evidence of the great civilizations that had thrived in Africa over many centuries. But acknowledgement of these facts would have challenged the racism that supported slavery.
Trump's scorn for the past renders him unfit to govern.
Ignorance of history, unfortunately, does not make Trump unique in this country. But his indifference to his lack of knowledge, his contempt for the past, does set him apart, especially among elected leaders. That disdain, furthermore, arises from his narrow focus on himself as the center of his universe. If he conceives of other people as tools to achieve his ends, then the sole purpose of earlier generations would have to focus on creating the conditions for his success.
Disdain for the past distorts the present. Slaveowners, for example, partially justified their institution by claiming that Africa spawned only barbarians, devoid of culture or achievement. Even in the 18th century, however, Europeans had available evidence of the great civilizations that had thrived in Africa over many centuries. But acknowledgement of these facts would have challenged the racism that supported slavery.
Trump's scorn for the past renders him unfit to govern.
7
The Greatest Generation was racist. World War II soldiers, sailors and airmen served in all-black or all-white units because the military thought whites would refuse to serve with blacks. The Greatest Generation didn’t rush to confront Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. They clung to isolationism as Germany invaded, conquered and occupied most of Europe, including Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece. They did nothing as Japan invade and occupied China, Soviet Union, Mongolia, French Indochina, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. They went to war only after Japan and Germany declared war on the United States. However, the Greatest Generation thought nothing of sending younger generations to fight in North Korea and North Vietnam, although these countries posed no threat to the United States. Only 38.8 percent of Americans who fought in World War II were volunteers; the other 61.2 percent were draftees. In Vietnam, 61.2 percent were volunteers and 38.8 were draftees.
47
WW2 veterans may have had racists in their ranks. But they did their duty and put an end to the ambitions of a monster, Hitler. Now Trump defends people who want to emulate Hitler. Trump has no honor.
3
Many of us have asked ourselves how low this president and his supporters will go in order to defend the indefensible. William Case has given us a remarkable example. His comment speaks for itself.
William Case wrote:
"The Greatest Generation was racist. World War II soldiers, sailors and airmen served in all-black or all-white units because the military thought whites would refuse to serve with blacks. The Greatest Generation didn’t rush to confront Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. They clung to isolationism as Germany invaded, conquered and occupied most of Europe, including Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece. They did nothing as Japan invade and occupied China, Soviet Union, Mongolia, French Indochina, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. They went to war only after Japan and Germany declared war on the United States. However, the Greatest Generation thought nothing of sending younger generations to fight in North Korea and North Vietnam, although these countries posed no threat to the United States. Only 38.8 percent of Americans who fought in World War II were volunteers; the other 61.2 percent were draftees. In Vietnam, 61.2 percent were volunteers and 38.8 were draftees."
William Case wrote:
"The Greatest Generation was racist. World War II soldiers, sailors and airmen served in all-black or all-white units because the military thought whites would refuse to serve with blacks. The Greatest Generation didn’t rush to confront Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. They clung to isolationism as Germany invaded, conquered and occupied most of Europe, including Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece. They did nothing as Japan invade and occupied China, Soviet Union, Mongolia, French Indochina, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. They went to war only after Japan and Germany declared war on the United States. However, the Greatest Generation thought nothing of sending younger generations to fight in North Korea and North Vietnam, although these countries posed no threat to the United States. Only 38.8 percent of Americans who fought in World War II were volunteers; the other 61.2 percent were draftees. In Vietnam, 61.2 percent were volunteers and 38.8 were draftees."
1
@William Case, being a black man with no love for any kind of segregation, the first thing that comes to my mend looking at an allied WWII veteran is "thank you."
1
Yes Mr. Egan, "Robert E. Lee was a traitor." So were every single Confederate soldier, sympathizer and enabler. Seceding from the United States of America was treasonous; firing the first shot at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 was an act of terrorism not just a declaration of war on this country. The Confederacy should be repudiated by all patriotic Americans.
7
My father and uncles fought in WWII and were part of the greatest generation: the one that survived the Great Depression and the greatest world war. Another one of my uncles fought in the Korean War and ultimately died as result of his wounds received there. I myself am a Vietnam War veteran.
Our war veterans believe in America, the country that they fought for, and in many cases, died for. The history of America is not a pretty one. It is the tale of a people who committed grievous wrongs like slavery and genocide and paid an enormous price for them. Yet despite a checkered past, our forefathers created a great nation, built on an ever expanding concept of freedom, and an altruism that saved the world.
Where would the world be today if America did not exist and was not ready to save Europe during World Wars I & II? American has been the only country that could have prevented a Russian conquest of Europe and that fostered democratic governments there.
Yes, we have had haters, racists and anti-Semites in our country since its founding. But freedom allows others to believe as they want to believe and not as we would want them to believe. A fair appraisal of American history must conclude that, over all, the world has been a better place because America exists in it. And, over all, America is much greater than the sum of its faults; its virtues greatly outweigh any past or present faults that existed or now exist.
Our war veterans believe in America, the country that they fought for, and in many cases, died for. The history of America is not a pretty one. It is the tale of a people who committed grievous wrongs like slavery and genocide and paid an enormous price for them. Yet despite a checkered past, our forefathers created a great nation, built on an ever expanding concept of freedom, and an altruism that saved the world.
Where would the world be today if America did not exist and was not ready to save Europe during World Wars I & II? American has been the only country that could have prevented a Russian conquest of Europe and that fostered democratic governments there.
Yes, we have had haters, racists and anti-Semites in our country since its founding. But freedom allows others to believe as they want to believe and not as we would want them to believe. A fair appraisal of American history must conclude that, over all, the world has been a better place because America exists in it. And, over all, America is much greater than the sum of its faults; its virtues greatly outweigh any past or present faults that existed or now exist.
5
Thank you and your family for your service and for a we'll written response. Right on!
1
Congratulation!
A really excellent journalism!
A really excellent journalism!
1
Last Christmas time my dear old friend passed. He was 92, veteran of the Merchant Marines, whose lungs were permanently damaged during the Battle of the China Sea.
The day after the election I visited him in hospital and we both lamented that we had just become a fascist nation.
And he called himself a conservative.
To all WWII Vets who may read this: Blessings and Love to You.
And Thanks.
The day after the election I visited him in hospital and we both lamented that we had just become a fascist nation.
And he called himself a conservative.
To all WWII Vets who may read this: Blessings and Love to You.
And Thanks.
3
Thank heaven for your piece, beautifully written, and most importantly, easy to understand for the 34 percent who support Dear Leader
3
People who become so enamored of their myopic worldview become jaded to the reality around them.
Their "harden not your heart" moments falter and fade so that their views become a millstone that weighs down the commonweal.
We can be better than this. I believe.
Their "harden not your heart" moments falter and fade so that their views become a millstone that weighs down the commonweal.
We can be better than this. I believe.
Thank you Mr. Egan for your great article and thanks to Caesar Civitella, Real American Heritage, which we Italians too can be proud of.
I can't understand the support shown to Trump by veteran's groups, and the numbers of vets involved with today's Nazi groups. Clearly, the numbers of vets who actually fought against Nazis and facism are small in number. Otherwise, I can't imagine very many would support a president who believes Nazis are "fine people." Thanks for this article and the interview with Mr. Civitella. That more vets don't seem to grasp the importance of standing against the forces Mr. Civitella fought is very disheartening.
3
All the talk about statues makes me wonder if perhaps we've used statues as a lazy way of memorializing -- and even romanticizing -- the past, rather than teaching our children how and why things happened.
1
In rural Kansas you see more confederate flags these days. I saw one at a county fair parade flown right next to an American flag leading the parade. I have students who put confederate flag license plates on the front of their pickups. Trump and his minions have emboldened this behavior. Trump must be removed from office now.
7
Once again too many of our fellow citizens allow themselves to become aligned with the worst our country has to offer. They do it willingly and with fervor. At what point does it become obvious that these people themselves are the worst our country has to offer?
3
My 93 year old paternal uncle had the misfortune of being black African American while wearing an American military uniform in the Pacific including Iwo Jima during World War II. He returned to American Jim Crow and it's malignant bigoted colored lingering post-civil rights era legacy.
There is a real separate and unequally colored American heritage hidden behind the white supremacist myth of a land of the free and home of the brave where all persons are divinely naturally created equal with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Fighting in every American war from the Revolution to Iraq/Afghanistan never made any of my black African American ancestors and family white European American.
No member of the House of Trump has ever worn an American military uniform.
There is a real separate and unequally colored American heritage hidden behind the white supremacist myth of a land of the free and home of the brave where all persons are divinely naturally created equal with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Fighting in every American war from the Revolution to Iraq/Afghanistan never made any of my black African American ancestors and family white European American.
No member of the House of Trump has ever worn an American military uniform.
10
Caesar Civitella is so right, “These people have nothing to do with American values.” We should be building more monuments to the brave citizens who fought against fascism and for democracy and American freedom to live as "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
1
You know, this is how it all starts.
Well, actually, it all started when the right-wing politicians and ceo's began seriously extracting our wealth in the 1980's, accomplishing the feat in large part by driving social wedges between Americans to get us to blame each other for the disappearing money that the bosses were vacuuming up from us.
Now we're each seeing the other as un-American, we're relatively poorer than we were 40 years ago and our anger and rage has increased to the point that someone like Trump could get elected. So here we are with the beginning of fascism.
Well, actually, it all started when the right-wing politicians and ceo's began seriously extracting our wealth in the 1980's, accomplishing the feat in large part by driving social wedges between Americans to get us to blame each other for the disappearing money that the bosses were vacuuming up from us.
Now we're each seeing the other as un-American, we're relatively poorer than we were 40 years ago and our anger and rage has increased to the point that someone like Trump could get elected. So here we are with the beginning of fascism.
6
By now one has to guess that the majority of the country understands that our President is a witless bigot. The question remains what to do about him? I have no ideas that makes sense. He was elected to a four year term and we may well be stuck with him. To expect congress to act is like expecting Trump to become a sensible, compassionate human being who has the best interest of his country at heart. Despite our frailties, I thought we were the good guys! With Trump at the helm, that's a difficult claim to make.
1
Every man in my family, and every man my family knew, enlisted in the military after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Our Canadian cousins signed up earlier, of course.
Those men served in Alaska, in the South Pacific, in the Middle East, in Italy, in France. Little could they have imagined that the evil they fought then would be exalted today by a president of the United States.
Their mothers and sisters worried and wept for them, and did whatever they could for the war effort.
What is Mr. Trump? And who are the people who voted for him?
My father would be appalled. If only he and his comrades could rise up now and confront this criminal morass of a man.
Those men served in Alaska, in the South Pacific, in the Middle East, in Italy, in France. Little could they have imagined that the evil they fought then would be exalted today by a president of the United States.
Their mothers and sisters worried and wept for them, and did whatever they could for the war effort.
What is Mr. Trump? And who are the people who voted for him?
My father would be appalled. If only he and his comrades could rise up now and confront this criminal morass of a man.
2
Yet recent polling shows that 67% of Republicans support trump's statements about Charlottesville-amd I believe those are the comments made on Tuesday, not Monday. I am bereft of understanding.
4
Thank you all ( that are left ) for your service. Indeed, we owe many thanks to all that put their lives on the line to stop pure evil.
However, how many of that 16 million voted for this abomination of a republican administration in the first place ? ( blindly voting for the ''r'' )
How many continue to vote based on single or double issues, instead of the mass amounts of problems that need to be addressed ?
How many continue to vote literally against themselves, whereupon they do not put the country first ( like they did long ago ) but rather threaten it via their vote ?
Again, thank you for your service, and may your last days be plentiful .
However, how many of that 16 million voted for this abomination of a republican administration in the first place ? ( blindly voting for the ''r'' )
How many continue to vote based on single or double issues, instead of the mass amounts of problems that need to be addressed ?
How many continue to vote literally against themselves, whereupon they do not put the country first ( like they did long ago ) but rather threaten it via their vote ?
Again, thank you for your service, and may your last days be plentiful .
3
I hear you Timothy but many from the Greatest Generation voted for Trump. The military went overwhelmingly in his favor. Many Generals are working in this abhorrent administration. If they want to be truly great, they should march for his removal now before too much damage is done.
2
Absolutely brilliant column. As the daughter of a man with immigrant parents who fought against the Nazis in Europe with Patton's Army in WWII, I thank you. My dad would have agreed with you.
1
Exactly my sentiments. My father and his brothers, my mother's brothers and her cousins all fought in World War II, in Europe and in the Pacific. My mother-in-law built bomb sights for the war effort and her husband fought in North Africa.
The utter abandon of long-held and hard-won American values by the President and his fascist base is such an insult -- a waste of all the best instincts of the greatest generation and a dismantling of our solemn commitment to honor those who sacrificed.
The utter abandon of long-held and hard-won American values by the President and his fascist base is such an insult -- a waste of all the best instincts of the greatest generation and a dismantling of our solemn commitment to honor those who sacrificed.
2
So, George H.W. Bush "released a simple, decent statement on the toxicity of racial hatred." did he? Is that the same George H.W. Bush who won the Presidency by fomenting racial fear/hatred by invoking the image of Willie Horton?
3
Great writing and message. How shocking it must be for the Greatest Generation to see the very Nazi flag they risked their lives to expunge from the earth paraded down the streets of our country--and our draft dodger president makes clear that, since it is carried by a portion of his base of supporters, he does not speak out against them and their disgusting, hateful message.
This also ties into the Confederate monument debate. I would quote a common theme often heard from the Religious Right, who unwaveringly supports our president: "Hate the sin but love the sinner." The South can remember and mourn the ancestors who fought in the Civil War in their own personal ways, without public monuments celebrating a cause that history has proven to be morally repugnant and which nearly destroyed our nation. The cause was wrong 150 years ago and it is wrong now. Study and understand it as a piece of history, but it should not be celebrated.
Interestingly, in the North one doesn't see throngs of monuments celebrating the fact that the Union Army beat back the traitorous slaveholders from the South. I guess to some in the South, 150 years later, the war never really ended and they never really lost. Lincoln set a great example when he focused on healing the nation rather than extracting reparations or revenge on the South. But that doesn't mean the rest of us want to celebrate the apparent wish of some that the war would have come out the other way.
This also ties into the Confederate monument debate. I would quote a common theme often heard from the Religious Right, who unwaveringly supports our president: "Hate the sin but love the sinner." The South can remember and mourn the ancestors who fought in the Civil War in their own personal ways, without public monuments celebrating a cause that history has proven to be morally repugnant and which nearly destroyed our nation. The cause was wrong 150 years ago and it is wrong now. Study and understand it as a piece of history, but it should not be celebrated.
Interestingly, in the North one doesn't see throngs of monuments celebrating the fact that the Union Army beat back the traitorous slaveholders from the South. I guess to some in the South, 150 years later, the war never really ended and they never really lost. Lincoln set a great example when he focused on healing the nation rather than extracting reparations or revenge on the South. But that doesn't mean the rest of us want to celebrate the apparent wish of some that the war would have come out the other way.
This article should be required reading for Trump, not that it would probably help him correct his warped view of history, but just to give him a perspective that he never had: that of a soldier fighting evil.
I find it fascinating that this incident, and these remarks by Trump, are what seem to galvanize the country--or a larger part of it--finally against him.
His pre-election comments about Mexicans--from laborers to judges--and his dishonorable comments about veterans--from gold star families to Senator McCain--made it clear as day to me that he supported racists and didn't care at all about people who served our country.
His remarks this past weekend seem, unfortunately, nothing new or surprising, really.
More than Trump, I've come to fear my fellow citizens who were unable, or unwilling, to look closely at this candidate's values, or critically discern how ill-suited he was to be president.
I accept that the country has a wide range of political beliefs, but I'm saddened that there were not more Republicans like my father, who though a die-hard conservative, knew enough to refuse to vote for Trump.
Trump will one day be out of office--hopefully soon. But the people who uncritically voted for him remain our neighbors.
His pre-election comments about Mexicans--from laborers to judges--and his dishonorable comments about veterans--from gold star families to Senator McCain--made it clear as day to me that he supported racists and didn't care at all about people who served our country.
His remarks this past weekend seem, unfortunately, nothing new or surprising, really.
More than Trump, I've come to fear my fellow citizens who were unable, or unwilling, to look closely at this candidate's values, or critically discern how ill-suited he was to be president.
I accept that the country has a wide range of political beliefs, but I'm saddened that there were not more Republicans like my father, who though a die-hard conservative, knew enough to refuse to vote for Trump.
Trump will one day be out of office--hopefully soon. But the people who uncritically voted for him remain our neighbors.
2
The Klan is fine with most Republicans. The Nazis are not.
Mr. Egan....consider this:
1. REAL America:
1.1st Republic...1788-1860. Approx 70 years. Agrarrian mercantile economy. Loosely unified system of states, National govt of very limited power. Radical change occurs with Civil War fought to preserve the old economic system....slavery.
2. 2nd Republic....1860-1930. Approx 70 years. Stronger Federal govt used to guide westward expansion and growth of corporate industrial economic strength. Limited regulatory powers. Laissez Faire. Radical changes caused by collapse of system with a World-wide Great Depression.
3. 3rd Republic....1930-2000. Establishes USA as the dominant nation in a hieracrchicall economic order....based on centralized govt controls/regulations of all aspects of society. Keynsian Economics the order of the day....Federal Govt taxation and subsidy of private business....Military/Industrial/Congressional Complex.
4. 9 11, 2001.......Are we building a 4th Republic? or have we become so fearful of the future that we Invite Big Brother to continue expanding control? We simply abandon the concept of an American Republic.....??? Undeclared Endless Televised War, Spying on the people, Mass Crowd Propaganda Indoctrinations, Job "Creation", Contrived Enemies to pre-occupy the idle masses...........??? No more Frontiers.....build giant walls to keep us IN.
1. REAL America:
1.1st Republic...1788-1860. Approx 70 years. Agrarrian mercantile economy. Loosely unified system of states, National govt of very limited power. Radical change occurs with Civil War fought to preserve the old economic system....slavery.
2. 2nd Republic....1860-1930. Approx 70 years. Stronger Federal govt used to guide westward expansion and growth of corporate industrial economic strength. Limited regulatory powers. Laissez Faire. Radical changes caused by collapse of system with a World-wide Great Depression.
3. 3rd Republic....1930-2000. Establishes USA as the dominant nation in a hieracrchicall economic order....based on centralized govt controls/regulations of all aspects of society. Keynsian Economics the order of the day....Federal Govt taxation and subsidy of private business....Military/Industrial/Congressional Complex.
4. 9 11, 2001.......Are we building a 4th Republic? or have we become so fearful of the future that we Invite Big Brother to continue expanding control? We simply abandon the concept of an American Republic.....??? Undeclared Endless Televised War, Spying on the people, Mass Crowd Propaganda Indoctrinations, Job "Creation", Contrived Enemies to pre-occupy the idle masses...........??? No more Frontiers.....build giant walls to keep us IN.
1
Thank you all ( that are left ) for your service. Indeed, we owe many thanks to all that put their lives on the line to stop pure evil.
However, how many of that 16 million voted for this abomination of a republican administration in the first place ? ( blindly voting for the ''r'' )
How many continue to vote based on single or double issues, instead of the mass amounts of problems that need to be addressed ?
How many continue to vote literally against themselves, whereupon they do not put the country first ( like they did long ago ) but rather threaten it via their vote ?
Again, thank you for your service, and may your last days be plentiful .
However, how many of that 16 million voted for this abomination of a republican administration in the first place ? ( blindly voting for the ''r'' )
How many continue to vote based on single or double issues, instead of the mass amounts of problems that need to be addressed ?
How many continue to vote literally against themselves, whereupon they do not put the country first ( like they did long ago ) but rather threaten it via their vote ?
Again, thank you for your service, and may your last days be plentiful .
2
This hurts my soul. I am dumbfounded and infuriated. Never in my entire Life have I wished for a specific person to just drop dead. That has changed. Some people are beyond contempt, and redemption.
2
Why can't Congress simply make it a criminal offense to wave a Nazi or Confederate flag? Waving a flag is not "speech", so it's not covered by any Constitutional right. Instead the government just wrings their hands and make heroes like the one in the article feel like their service was in vain.
It's good to see someone call Robert E. Lee what he was, a traitor. As an officer in the United States Army, he swore an oath to defend the Constitution. He should be vilified for the traitor that he was.
1
I've been wondering what folks like Mr. Civitella, Mr. Smith, and holocaust survivors must be thinking as they viewed the current news reels. Fortunately, we still have a still have some WWII vets and holocaust survivors still with us. Unfortunately, all of the U.S. civil war soldiers and former slaves are long gone. So, we must speak up for them. Best.
Well spoken. Calm. To the point. Accurate.
Absolutely wonderful column by Tim Egan, who perfectly summed up the character of Donald Trump by employing the term "empty shell." Writers like Egan and Gail Collins are shining lights in the darkness that has enveloped the America of Donald Trump.
What we Americans need to finally admit is that Trump has a raging Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He will not change because he doesn't want to change. At this point barring divine intervention, this is who he is: totally self-absorbed, greedy, completely non-empathetic, mean, petty, and pathologically lecherous.
Trump needs to be censored tomorrow by U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. That will send the message that he is one step away from being impeached. Will those profiles in courage Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan go for this?
Ya, fat chance.
Trump would, of course, react with rage and incredible self-pity -- and then hold a campaign rally in Buzzards Breath, Wyoming.
Which will leave only one more option -- box Trump in politically, economically, legislatively, every way possible. Make him what he deserves to be after the life he has chosen to lead:
Irrelevant.
What we Americans need to finally admit is that Trump has a raging Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He will not change because he doesn't want to change. At this point barring divine intervention, this is who he is: totally self-absorbed, greedy, completely non-empathetic, mean, petty, and pathologically lecherous.
Trump needs to be censored tomorrow by U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. That will send the message that he is one step away from being impeached. Will those profiles in courage Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan go for this?
Ya, fat chance.
Trump would, of course, react with rage and incredible self-pity -- and then hold a campaign rally in Buzzards Breath, Wyoming.
Which will leave only one more option -- box Trump in politically, economically, legislatively, every way possible. Make him what he deserves to be after the life he has chosen to lead:
Irrelevant.
1
This is lovely but would be lost on the stooges who showed up in Charlottesville last week. They no more understand history than they do string theory. They are simply unable connect the dots between the sacrifices of millions of Americans in WWII with the freedoms they currently have. Children and fools. Nor, of course, will they read this article. Thank you for writing it for the rest of us though. It shines such a bright light on the evil and downright stupidity of their positions that it leaves them cowering and naked. They just don't know it.
2
Great article. On my desk there are a few medals and a book I treasure, The Fighting 36th. They are from my father who landed in Oran, Africa in April of 1943 and who fought the Nazis in Italy and France. As a member of the 36th Infantry Division, he carried a light machine gun. Like others who fought bravely, he told few stories. Rarely a day goes by when I don’t think about my dad. But the past few days I have been thinking of him often as I listen to the President’s remarks and read about the neo-Nazis marching in America. I am not sure my dad would have much to say about Trump's comments. But I think he would look down and shake his head.
1
The issue of "Southern Heritage" should revolve around the question of "whose heritage"? In 1860 the majority of people in Mississippi and South Carolina were slaves. Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana had slave populations nearly equal to that of whites. In North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia slaves accounted for about 1/3 of the total population. The idea that "Southern heritage" is the sole province of whites is an inherently racist concept and a tacit embrace of racism. Southern whites must embrace all aspects of their "heritage", including the brutality of slavery, which Ta-Nehisi Coates branded as " eternal damnation ", for those who suffered under the coffels and whips.
167
Thank you for pointing out the percentage of black residents in the states you mentioned. Your question of whose heritage are we celebrating is spot on. Thanks again for this new way--at least for me-to look at this issue. I have neighbors and even family members who feel robbed of their heritage when the statues come down. I find the whole thing baffling. One family member says he's against racism and fascism but he calls the antifa "loathsome". I just cannot understand this. I listened to the man who founded life after hate and I can see that what he says has merit but are all these people so broken that they cannot let go of their racism? Again, I'm baffled.
Even an evil as monstrous as slavery can have some good consequences. Think about all of the contributions made to America by African-Americans. Does anyone really think that race relations are worse in this country now than they were 50, 100, 150 years ago? Or that so many people of color have migrated into the middle class and higher? Or that black-owned businesses and corporate executives are more numerous than ever before. Does any African-American living in America today want to relocate to a country in Africa? We simply cannot overlook the progress made in race relations since the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
2
Not to mention that the ancestors of much of those who revere Lee and Jackson and so forth, were not members of the planter class and were likely poor dirt farmers whose poverty was the direct result of slavery. The hoi polloi down south fought and died to maintain slavery, when their lot in life was due to the slave system that bouyed up the planter class, yet they will all claim that their family were noble sons of the south, all sitting on the veranda sipping Juleps, rather than the reality that slavery benefitted the top 2% and the other 98% were pretty much dirt poor.
Thank you Mr. Egan. I believe it might help if every reader emailed a copy of this article to every Trump supporter they personally know. I have done this.
7
A modest proposal: Consider for a moment how you would feel if, instead of homages everywhere to Robert E. Lee, the fabled Confederate Commander, you encountered tributes to Nat Turner, the slave who led a grisly rebellion in Virginia decades before the Civil War? What if instead of seeing statues, memorials, highways, and high schools adorned by Lee’s name, they instead were dedicated to Turner? After all, a credible case could be made that Turner, like Lee, was a Virginian. He was a man of God, and his religion led him to pursue his cause with zeal and belief in his convictions. His fidelity to family was a motivator and he could credibly be called a freedom fighter, one who risked his life to shake off the yoke of an oppressive force that threatened his physical safety and personal liberty.
Feel ill at ease with honoring the legacy of one whose actions left death and destruction in its wake? Wonder the message it would send your kids to go to a high school named after a violent rebel? If you can concede your discomfort at the questions above, perhaps you can understand how many of your countrymen feel about Lee. Look, you can’t change history. Any reasonable understanding of history would not gloss over Turner OR Lee. Both men profoundly changed the trajectory of our history. The question, then, is not whether we are changing history—but whether we should consider who and what we deify, realizing that the choices we make (or don’t) have profound consequences.
Feel ill at ease with honoring the legacy of one whose actions left death and destruction in its wake? Wonder the message it would send your kids to go to a high school named after a violent rebel? If you can concede your discomfort at the questions above, perhaps you can understand how many of your countrymen feel about Lee. Look, you can’t change history. Any reasonable understanding of history would not gloss over Turner OR Lee. Both men profoundly changed the trajectory of our history. The question, then, is not whether we are changing history—but whether we should consider who and what we deify, realizing that the choices we make (or don’t) have profound consequences.
1
My dad served in the 82 Airborne during WWII - he was part of the 82nd 1st battle and its last. Like many of his comrades he died young from untreated PTSD.
He never said much about the war; however, his actions with regard to how he respected others spoke volumes. I learned this just before leaving for military in 1966, when I worked construction with him for a short while, he respected hard work and the people who did it. Race, ethnicity or religion never mattered to him, I never heard him laugh at an ethnic joke unless it was about his ethnic group the Italians. As I recall the only people he generally showed disdain for were politicians.
Nothing that has happened to me, or that I have observed, over the years has changed my full agreement with his views of people and politicians.
He never said much about the war; however, his actions with regard to how he respected others spoke volumes. I learned this just before leaving for military in 1966, when I worked construction with him for a short while, he respected hard work and the people who did it. Race, ethnicity or religion never mattered to him, I never heard him laugh at an ethnic joke unless it was about his ethnic group the Italians. As I recall the only people he generally showed disdain for were politicians.
Nothing that has happened to me, or that I have observed, over the years has changed my full agreement with his views of people and politicians.
5
My father was born on August 18, 1911, and if he were still living, he would be turning 107 today. He was an officer during WWII, and participated in the invasions of; North Africa, Sicily and Normandy. My father was Jewish.
It is so very disconcerting for me, to be witness to this revival of racist, ethnic, and religious hatred. I won't accept it, and I will become active on behalf those entities nonviolently opposing it.
There are multiple causes for the alienation which precedes attraction to such hateful expressions, as we are witnessing now. Looking beyond the "fruit not falling far from the tree" aspect, I'd place the growth of economic inequality at the top of the list. Much writing, currently, suggests that this trend will increase in direct proportion to rapid growth of technological innovation, in concert with the ever increasing economic barrier to higher education. This paradigm will be very difficult to change, because it requires an acknowledgement of the need for individual constraint.
Alas, I fear that much suffering will be the necessary impetus for requisite growth and transformation.
It is so very disconcerting for me, to be witness to this revival of racist, ethnic, and religious hatred. I won't accept it, and I will become active on behalf those entities nonviolently opposing it.
There are multiple causes for the alienation which precedes attraction to such hateful expressions, as we are witnessing now. Looking beyond the "fruit not falling far from the tree" aspect, I'd place the growth of economic inequality at the top of the list. Much writing, currently, suggests that this trend will increase in direct proportion to rapid growth of technological innovation, in concert with the ever increasing economic barrier to higher education. This paradigm will be very difficult to change, because it requires an acknowledgement of the need for individual constraint.
Alas, I fear that much suffering will be the necessary impetus for requisite growth and transformation.
7
I'd check that math again.
Very well written. The only point where I find myself concerned is when describing Robert E. Lee as a traitor. Would Mr. Egan characterize all grey soldiers as traitors? I think we over simplify.
Benedict Arnold was a traitor because he actively conspired with a foreign nation to undermine the security of our fledgling union. I'm not sure you can make the same argument about combatants in the Confederate Army. Remember, the generals on both sides were generally friends and fellow veterans. However, some pledged their loyalty to their state over the federal government. A position that was not entirely uncommon at the time. Remember, the Articles of Confederation were still a recent memory at that point. You might more accurately label the Confederate generals as deserters. Technically speaking, the Confederate generals were never guilty of conspiring with a foreign power as the CSA was never a recognized nation.
Even if we take the accusation of treason as true, the argument is counter productive. The north-south divide is still most poignantly felt when characterizing one side against the other. You don't heal the wound in our unity by disparaging and diminishing the opponent. And in any event, that's not what the statues are really about anyway. As correctly mentioned, the symbol of Lee has been appropriated to celebrate a purpose that is wholly un-American by design. We're talking about white supremacists here. Not the historical legacy of Robert E. Lee. Just saying.
Benedict Arnold was a traitor because he actively conspired with a foreign nation to undermine the security of our fledgling union. I'm not sure you can make the same argument about combatants in the Confederate Army. Remember, the generals on both sides were generally friends and fellow veterans. However, some pledged their loyalty to their state over the federal government. A position that was not entirely uncommon at the time. Remember, the Articles of Confederation were still a recent memory at that point. You might more accurately label the Confederate generals as deserters. Technically speaking, the Confederate generals were never guilty of conspiring with a foreign power as the CSA was never a recognized nation.
Even if we take the accusation of treason as true, the argument is counter productive. The north-south divide is still most poignantly felt when characterizing one side against the other. You don't heal the wound in our unity by disparaging and diminishing the opponent. And in any event, that's not what the statues are really about anyway. As correctly mentioned, the symbol of Lee has been appropriated to celebrate a purpose that is wholly un-American by design. We're talking about white supremacists here. Not the historical legacy of Robert E. Lee. Just saying.
3
Notwithstanding that Gen. Lee broke his oath to serve the United States and in fact fought against it. (as for the individual soldiers,that would be a more questionable case), the CSA actively pursued the intervention of foreign powers (Great Britain) throughout the course of the Civil War, which, qualifies as conspiring with a foreign power to overthrow the laws of our country and therefore constitutes treason.
6
Veterans are our living past. Children and young people under the age of 24 are our hoped-for future. Both deserve respect and privilege.
The Civil War is a major part of our past, and should not be whitewashed or re-interpreted to fit modern notions. It was precipitated by politicians who couldn’t agree and wouldn‘t seek accommodation. The men who fought the Civil War were defending their homes and families, not imposing or expunging ideals. The struggle was a conflict between an agrarian way of life that depended on slavery and a British-style industrial revolution that exploited free men.
People who lived in past centuries are not responsible for present-day prejudices against African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and American Jews and Muslims. Politicians, preachers, media propgandists, and some parents are.
Massive works of outdoor art depicting historic figures on horseback are part of the American landscape. Pulling them down to thwart extremists leaves a void that is not likely to be filled by statues of recent politicans mounted on noble steeds, or Harriet Tubman or Nancy Pelosi in side-saddle.
Did you know? African-Americans did not gain equal legal rights as citizens until 1964. The Confederate Secretary of War and Secretary of State was a slave-owning Jew. Atlanta today is a living demonstration of reconciliation between the factions of our Civil War 150+ years ago.
The Civil War is a major part of our past, and should not be whitewashed or re-interpreted to fit modern notions. It was precipitated by politicians who couldn’t agree and wouldn‘t seek accommodation. The men who fought the Civil War were defending their homes and families, not imposing or expunging ideals. The struggle was a conflict between an agrarian way of life that depended on slavery and a British-style industrial revolution that exploited free men.
People who lived in past centuries are not responsible for present-day prejudices against African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and American Jews and Muslims. Politicians, preachers, media propgandists, and some parents are.
Massive works of outdoor art depicting historic figures on horseback are part of the American landscape. Pulling them down to thwart extremists leaves a void that is not likely to be filled by statues of recent politicans mounted on noble steeds, or Harriet Tubman or Nancy Pelosi in side-saddle.
Did you know? African-Americans did not gain equal legal rights as citizens until 1964. The Confederate Secretary of War and Secretary of State was a slave-owning Jew. Atlanta today is a living demonstration of reconciliation between the factions of our Civil War 150+ years ago.
1
@aynrant:
What you of course leave out is that the Civil War boiled down to slavery. Many of those who fought for Nazi Germany in WWII did so because they thought they were fighting for their country, too, but that doesn't mean that the cause they really fought for as worth of monuments. The Civil war boiled down to slavery in the end, the 'states rights' argument was bogus (one of the big ones was that somehow slavery was about agriculture, what it was about was the expansion of slavery, since the old south made more money in selling slaves into new areas then the crops they grew).
More importantly, those 'statues on horseback' commemorating Lee, Jackson, Davis and the like were put up more to support the segregation and inhumanity of Jim Crow then celebrating the men they were (or weren't), they were put up when Jim Crow flared up around the turn of the 20th century, and others, along with the confederate flag, were put up in the civil rights era to show defiance to the end of Jim Crow. Claiming these are art (which they are) doesn't excuse the real reason for these, they are in reality about racists and segregationists proudly proclaiming that this should be the way of the land, and the fact that all the men commemorated were doing so to maintain slavery lends more power to them as symbols of bias and discrimination.
What you of course leave out is that the Civil War boiled down to slavery. Many of those who fought for Nazi Germany in WWII did so because they thought they were fighting for their country, too, but that doesn't mean that the cause they really fought for as worth of monuments. The Civil war boiled down to slavery in the end, the 'states rights' argument was bogus (one of the big ones was that somehow slavery was about agriculture, what it was about was the expansion of slavery, since the old south made more money in selling slaves into new areas then the crops they grew).
More importantly, those 'statues on horseback' commemorating Lee, Jackson, Davis and the like were put up more to support the segregation and inhumanity of Jim Crow then celebrating the men they were (or weren't), they were put up when Jim Crow flared up around the turn of the 20th century, and others, along with the confederate flag, were put up in the civil rights era to show defiance to the end of Jim Crow. Claiming these are art (which they are) doesn't excuse the real reason for these, they are in reality about racists and segregationists proudly proclaiming that this should be the way of the land, and the fact that all the men commemorated were doing so to maintain slavery lends more power to them as symbols of bias and discrimination.
2
Most of the massive works of "art" depicting historic figures that you are referring to were put up in the first part of the 20th century to reinforce Jim Crow laws. Essentially, their purpose was to instill fear in African Americans and remind them of their place in southern society.
They are symbols of hate and should be taken down. Spare us the ridiculous false argument that a statue of Nancy Pelosi will replace it. You clearly missed the point of Egan's article.
They are symbols of hate and should be taken down. Spare us the ridiculous false argument that a statue of Nancy Pelosi will replace it. You clearly missed the point of Egan's article.
3
I am sure that midshipman Jimmy Carter and Lt. George H.W. Bush and the other six President's who served in WWII alongside the 111 other Senators and hundreds of House members know what needs to be done, unfortunately, the majority are dead. There are 102 members of the 115th Congress that have served, or in a conflict of interest as they oversight policy and budget, currently serve in the US military. The majority are Republican. I'm not sure what that says of their integrity that they are not actively seeking to remove Trump from office. If not for the sake of the nation, then for the sake of their Party.
8
@visavixen I'm not sure what it says about the integrity of those who choose not to serve their country via military service, but question the integrity of those who did - merely because they disagree with their political choices. Need I remind you that the French Revolution does not set the tone for political discourse in the USA, the American revolution does. No guillotines for this democratic republic. Intellectual engagement typically ending in compromise is how this country works when it works successfully.
The country stumbles when we abandoned engagement, debate and compromise - as we did for example when Obama shut down debate on the Iran deal that rolled out a red carpet for Iran to eventually get an A Bomb (like Clinton did with N. Korea - tho Clinton claimed total "victory" while Obama claimed only a 10 to 12 year "repreve"). Or like when Obama shut down debate over his economic recovery act of 2009 and obamacare - when he told Republicans that they don't get a voice because he won.
The country stumbles when we abandoned engagement, debate and compromise - as we did for example when Obama shut down debate on the Iran deal that rolled out a red carpet for Iran to eventually get an A Bomb (like Clinton did with N. Korea - tho Clinton claimed total "victory" while Obama claimed only a 10 to 12 year "repreve"). Or like when Obama shut down debate over his economic recovery act of 2009 and obamacare - when he told Republicans that they don't get a voice because he won.
Debate and reason implies reliance on facts and rational thought. You possess neither. Blithe assertions of complex, nuanced issues as weaponized factoids is not intellectual engagement but an emotional irrational scream for attention at best. More likely though the aggressive, assertion of ignorance that republicans and those on the right employ to bully and thwart intellectual engagement to distract from their total failure to advance real world intellectual solutions to issues confronting humanity. Have a nice day stewing in that hate.
When you have a President of the United States praising home-grown fascists, you have a Constitutional crisis. This nation has already learned that one cannot appease fascism, be it at home or abroad. So the only real question on the table is the Republican Party going to be the party of Lincoln or of Trump. I realize all the Dixiecrats who wormed their way in with the passage of the Civil Rights Act prefer the party of Trump. But I think some, like Senators McCain and Graham, march to the drums of Lincoln.
2
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it."
- Santayana
- Santayana
15
My recollection of what I was taught in schools here in Portland was that, while on the Rebel side, Lee was a good, decent, and above all loyal person whom we should respect. Let this be a powerful lesson that our entire facade called American history needs some serious rethinking.
15
The argument is not about what kind of person Robert E. Lee was. It's about the intended meaning of the various statues that were erected during the Jim Crow period in the South. The statues were put in place to celebrate white supremacy. And that is what they still stand for today. They are in insult to African Americans and should come down.
1
Lee's history and his confliction about joining the confederate cause have important historic import, as the story continues...
"Lee was a good, decent, and above all loyal person whom we should respect."
... no matter how many people died to help him serve in the cause of slavery and the degradation of other good, decent, loyal persons.
... no matter how many people died to help him serve in the cause of slavery and the degradation of other good, decent, loyal persons.
DJT: "We cannot change history, but we can learn from it."
What has DNT learned?
What has DNT learned?
12
Lovely tribute to our vets, but the cold statistics are that those who had served in the military were more approving of Trump's job performance in April 2017 (54%) than the general population (39%).
Among vets 50 and older, 58% gave Trump favorable job ratings, compared to 49% of all older adults. And 98% of vets who identified as Republican approved of President Trump; only 10% of vets who identified as Democrats approved of Trump. Also 47% of vets who said they were Independents supported Trump, versus 36% of Independents in the population. Note: 49% of vets identified as Independents.
This was a Pew study, where it was noted that demographics need to be considered in assessing the poll results: 92% of the vets were male; 49% ages 65 and older; 78% were white (65% white in the population). Older white males are a key demographic for Trump. By the way, older adults in general were much more likely to identify as Democrats (32%) than were older vets (22%). Similar percentages of older vets (32%) and older non-vets (30%) identified as Republican.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/26/u-s-veterans-are-general...
Too much information maybe. But perhaps older vets who identify as Democrats (as did my wonderful uncle who served in WWII and died at age 94, and our great Boston-Irish neighbor who fought at Iwo Jima) have very different values than the vets supporting the GOP and Trump.
Just curious: is Mr. Civitella a Democrat?
Among vets 50 and older, 58% gave Trump favorable job ratings, compared to 49% of all older adults. And 98% of vets who identified as Republican approved of President Trump; only 10% of vets who identified as Democrats approved of Trump. Also 47% of vets who said they were Independents supported Trump, versus 36% of Independents in the population. Note: 49% of vets identified as Independents.
This was a Pew study, where it was noted that demographics need to be considered in assessing the poll results: 92% of the vets were male; 49% ages 65 and older; 78% were white (65% white in the population). Older white males are a key demographic for Trump. By the way, older adults in general were much more likely to identify as Democrats (32%) than were older vets (22%). Similar percentages of older vets (32%) and older non-vets (30%) identified as Republican.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/26/u-s-veterans-are-general...
Too much information maybe. But perhaps older vets who identify as Democrats (as did my wonderful uncle who served in WWII and died at age 94, and our great Boston-Irish neighbor who fought at Iwo Jima) have very different values than the vets supporting the GOP and Trump.
Just curious: is Mr. Civitella a Democrat?
22
Our American heritage is a rich tapestry of anguish and dream. Just as we triumphed in WWII on the strength, commitment and heroism of the Greatest Generation, we have it in our power today to get through our current anguish by holding steadfastly true to the enduring ideals of our founding fathers.
22
third cupajoe....as i said in a previous comment. unfortunately, i assume 'we' means americans. you were part of an alliance--and a late arrival into the war. americans didn't win it by themselves. not even close in europe tho you can take most of the credit for japan. the soviet union did more to win ww2 in europe than the other allies combined.
there is an arrogance and ignorance when americans claim that--which is an insult to the other countries who fought just as hard and earlier than the usa.
and your 'greatest generation' was the same as russians, brits, canadians, aussies, kiwis et al who fought the nazis from day one--with the exception of the soviets who were attacked by hitler--their ally at the time.
finally, the ancient greeks had a decent generation or two and i'm sure many other countries whose history you're not aware of......
there is an arrogance and ignorance when americans claim that--which is an insult to the other countries who fought just as hard and earlier than the usa.
and your 'greatest generation' was the same as russians, brits, canadians, aussies, kiwis et al who fought the nazis from day one--with the exception of the soviets who were attacked by hitler--their ally at the time.
finally, the ancient greeks had a decent generation or two and i'm sure many other countries whose history you're not aware of......
How American values, culture over the 21st century will fare projecting from scientific/technological advance and the jockeying of the two major political parties today?
Both political parties are a disaster when faced with current human challenges. It's obvious the human race in general is facing a great challenge handling technology period--everything from WMD to computation to technology affecting human health and the environment. Our two political parties can think of little other than the right wing religion, rampant business, military, and nationalism to point of racialism (white supremacy) course and the disastrous left wing multicultural, multiracial, socialistic, identity politics, everybody equal in mediocrity course.
All this is going to be challenged by technological and scientific advance. As computers, big data, analysis, genetic science, neuroscience continue to advance the human race will zero in on the optimal genetic/environmental course toward increasing human health, I.Q., and morality. This will be a shock to current left and right of today. The right will see religion decline and white racial superiority nonsense wiped out. The left will have all socialistic "every person is as good as any other" nonsense wiped out.
Science will simply plot the best course of human development regardless of racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, nationalistic breakdown toward a highly intelligent, moral humanity able to handle responsibly technological advance.
Both political parties are a disaster when faced with current human challenges. It's obvious the human race in general is facing a great challenge handling technology period--everything from WMD to computation to technology affecting human health and the environment. Our two political parties can think of little other than the right wing religion, rampant business, military, and nationalism to point of racialism (white supremacy) course and the disastrous left wing multicultural, multiracial, socialistic, identity politics, everybody equal in mediocrity course.
All this is going to be challenged by technological and scientific advance. As computers, big data, analysis, genetic science, neuroscience continue to advance the human race will zero in on the optimal genetic/environmental course toward increasing human health, I.Q., and morality. This will be a shock to current left and right of today. The right will see religion decline and white racial superiority nonsense wiped out. The left will have all socialistic "every person is as good as any other" nonsense wiped out.
Science will simply plot the best course of human development regardless of racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, nationalistic breakdown toward a highly intelligent, moral humanity able to handle responsibly technological advance.
4
"Science will simply plot the best course of human development regardless of racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, nationalistic breakdown toward a highly intelligent, moral humanity able to handle responsibly technological advance."
No, "Nature" will.
No, "Nature" will.
4
Wow. All I can say to anybody horrified by this autistic version of progress, is read the last 2 chapters of Iain McGichrist's "The Master and His Emissary."
McGichrist spent 20 years working on that book, spanning the time when he was an English professor at Oxford to his current work as a psychiatrist. It's the best history of Western Civilization I've ever come across, and makes sense of the modern world in a way I've only seen in 2 other books.
McGichrist spent 20 years working on that book, spanning the time when he was an English professor at Oxford to his current work as a psychiatrist. It's the best history of Western Civilization I've ever come across, and makes sense of the modern world in a way I've only seen in 2 other books.
And if anyone is concerned about preserving the history and culture of the South, erect statues of Zora Neal Hurston and William Faulkner and James Brown. The South is the home and birthplace of jazz, the music of Memphis and Nashville, of academic temples like Tulane and Duke, of an unsurpassed culinary tradition, as well as a tradition of hospitality and gloriously quirky characters. Why would we disparage and reduce all of that and more to statues of Confederates, literally traitors to the nation?
89
Right on excellent points
As a white southerner I'm always tempted to laugh when the tratror-worshipers talk about the slaveowners' "heritage". I once read an article about a plantation-owner about which two things were obvious: he was a slave-owner, and he was so illiterate that he couldn't even sign his own will. Why learn to read and write when you can force somebody else to do all your work? The the slaveowners were degenerates who couldn't even spell "heritage", much less have any.
These vets are natural heroes and see right through Trump. They've "been there and done that."
It's too bad so many people are impressed by Trump's words -- his promises. They ignore his actions. Anyone who holds dear American values of equality and fairness can not support Trump. Anyone who holds dear Christian values of compassion and decency can not support Trump.
Unless, of course, they're impressed by his words.
It's too bad so many people are impressed by Trump's words -- his promises. They ignore his actions. Anyone who holds dear American values of equality and fairness can not support Trump. Anyone who holds dear Christian values of compassion and decency can not support Trump.
Unless, of course, they're impressed by his words.
11
Unfortunately for the rest of us, that would be 98% of veterans who describe themselves as Republicans.
2
How can anyone be impressed by Trump's words? He has so few. He has a vocabulary so small that he's forced to endlessly repeat the 2 or 3 hyperbolic phrases he knows. The man's almost illiterate. Look at any speech he's made that someone else didn't write for him. It's incoherent. He can't complete a sentence or even a dependent clause. And he doesn't know anything about anything. He's ignorant about science, history, culture, and our form of government because he never reads a book or pays attention to anything that isn't cheaply gilded or shaped like a golf ball (or a woman he'd like to assault). He believes and passes on only the idiotic lies and conspiracy theories perpetuated by Twitter and The National Enquirer. He's our Ignoramus-in-Chief and should dress accordingly . . . in a clown suit and dunce hat.
August 28th my dad will be 101. He and a friend were alpine skiing east of Seattle on Dec 7 1941 and didn't learn of Pearl Harbor until they stopped to put gas in my dad's Ford Model A and for dinner on their return trip. My dad joined the Navy that week.
My father is no longer capable of knowing that Donald Trump and his supporters won the 2016 election. I can't speak for him but I suspect I know what he'd say. He was a poor Irish kid with mostly multi-ethnic friends. He told stories of "Brown Shirt" meetings and rallies in the pre-World War II years. Seeing their equivalent parading in the U.S. now would surely sadden him.
I suspect that he'd be proud of the fiery reaction. Ya, he was a white boy, but he grew up in a time when being Irish, Italian, Filipino, Black.... when not being an endorsed member of White, Anglo, Protestant America could subject you to racist rage. He knew racism.
I had very little experience with Blacks and other minorities when I served in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. But I was never uncomfortable with them. My dad, and mother, made that happen. These are men who saved me on several occasions, men I will always count friends.
Nelson Mandela is right. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate,..." My dad, and my mother, taught me to love, not to hate.
My father would be sorely disappointed to know he lives in the time of a President who didn't learn that.
My father is no longer capable of knowing that Donald Trump and his supporters won the 2016 election. I can't speak for him but I suspect I know what he'd say. He was a poor Irish kid with mostly multi-ethnic friends. He told stories of "Brown Shirt" meetings and rallies in the pre-World War II years. Seeing their equivalent parading in the U.S. now would surely sadden him.
I suspect that he'd be proud of the fiery reaction. Ya, he was a white boy, but he grew up in a time when being Irish, Italian, Filipino, Black.... when not being an endorsed member of White, Anglo, Protestant America could subject you to racist rage. He knew racism.
I had very little experience with Blacks and other minorities when I served in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. But I was never uncomfortable with them. My dad, and mother, made that happen. These are men who saved me on several occasions, men I will always count friends.
Nelson Mandela is right. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate,..." My dad, and my mother, taught me to love, not to hate.
My father would be sorely disappointed to know he lives in the time of a President who didn't learn that.
146
Beautiful
all true, but i wish americans--who entered ww2 after it was well underway--wouldn't say 'we' won the war and obviously mean 'we' as in alone. the apparent lack of awareness of other countries' part is insulting. during one of my trips to france, in 2014, i met many americans who were boomers visiting for the 70th anniversary of d-day. i asked 10-12 how many beaches there were on normandy. not one said five. all said two. there was, literally, not one who knew the brits also stormed two beaches and canadians one.
31
I think often about how the further we get from the foxholes my father and others' fathers festered in for months in the last awful year of WWII surrounded by carnage and sacrificing their lives or, at least, their late adolescence and sense of safety and well being, while their early adolescence was spent watching the horrors of WWII unfold, the less likely it is that newer generations will experience the visceral knowledge gleaned from the ghosts tbat haunted our parents. Like many, my parents, both vets, talked little of the horrors they witnessed but as time has gone on we, now as older adult children, have come to understand the psychic aftereffects of our parents experience. The research regarding PTSD has been illuminating to understand my father's pingponging between a responsible, congenial father and community member, and rageful explosiveness. Thougb the war widened their understanding of humanity far beyond that which the small town life they left would ever have afforded them the message of the damage done, particularly to my father, not to mention the millions of victims in Europe, was impossible for us to escape, but also an awareness of the depth of their courage in somehow carrying forward into adult life with imperfectly healed wounds and unfortunately singular and silent suffering. How do we impart that visceral knowledge to the generations being born today that have not been personally touched by our subsequent, more limited military involvements?
31
I agree with you. I've even thought that perhaps a virtual reality experience would help.
2
Sadly, "our subsequent, more limited military involvements" have stoked fires of historic hatreds and discontent or have created new trading partners while buying fleeting time and enabling today's pathetic national government adept and creating more problems than solved ~ just like the people who voted it in.
Mr. Egan, I always await your writing with anticipation and joy, but this is your best yet.
As a child, I sat with my family and listened raptly to FDR's Fireside Chats; later, I felt desolate @ the sight of my father, a WWI veteran, weeping openly @ Roosevelt's death.
As a proud member of a Jewish family that hailed from czarist, pogrom-defiled Russia, I was taught that I was called always to stand up for justice. We Jews could do no less.
May the memory of a truly great President propel us to greater acts of justice for all of us-something the empty-suit/empty-soul of a President will never understand nor propose.
As a child, I sat with my family and listened raptly to FDR's Fireside Chats; later, I felt desolate @ the sight of my father, a WWI veteran, weeping openly @ Roosevelt's death.
As a proud member of a Jewish family that hailed from czarist, pogrom-defiled Russia, I was taught that I was called always to stand up for justice. We Jews could do no less.
May the memory of a truly great President propel us to greater acts of justice for all of us-something the empty-suit/empty-soul of a President will never understand nor propose.
116
This brought tears to my eyes, beautifully written and sadly true
8
Speaking of history, might I suggest that the "evangelicals" who are standing so faithfully behind Mr. Trump, do a quick review of the role of the German Lutheran church? Better still, read up on Bonhoeffer or Corrie Ten Boom, and ask what role the current church will be remembered as playing...
90
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's colleague Reinhold NIebuhr
glad you put 'evangelicals' in quotes. these false messengers of Christ were often spoken about in the Bible. I don't know their fate, because i don't know their hearts as Chist does, but i do know that they message is false.
1
Generations have fought Nazis and totalitarians regimes directly or by proxy, now Trump decides Nazis and Putin are to be not only tolerated but also cozied up to, because of his ego, his fortune and his hatred of President Obama. If ordinary people still don't see that... And even Fox's James Murdoch is giving money to ADL, never mind it may be good PR, that really says about how lunatic Trump and Bannon. The rest of their enablers are no excuse
41
Those of who served and still serve are less than 1% of the country.
If I were to tell everyone that we have 800 military bases around the world you might be surprised. There are 1.3 million active duty military and unless you have an immediate family member--NOT Grandpa from WWII or a second cousin going into the Marines most people have no CLUE what it’s like.
I’m not going to praise it. It’s really JUST a job with a lower death rate than found with roofers, electrical lineman from Wichita, fisherman. Police and troops make the front page and are discussed ad nauseum and mostly to push that person’s agenda NOT the military’s agenda.
Otherwise the best gleaming hospital in every mid to large city would be VA hospitals. Vets wouldn’t wait. BUT there are superb docs, nurses, therapists, clerks at VA’s!
Trump could have done one thing right. Build! Take the military budgets and build! “Beautiful, Beautiful hospitals!” Our vets supported him as he LIED.
If your grandfather or father served-Ain’t gonna count. Today our troops fight a war they aren’t ready for. Our MRAP tanks “may” protect troops from IEDs--but. No. Airstrikes/drones despite called surgical rarely are.
Our military officers are out of West Point, Annapolis Navy and Marines, Air Force Academy, USCG academy. My late spouse was West Point and I read all of his books (NOT secret). I only did 2 yrs in 44th Med Battalion VN.
NO ONE teaches desert one-to-one fighting.
If I were to tell everyone that we have 800 military bases around the world you might be surprised. There are 1.3 million active duty military and unless you have an immediate family member--NOT Grandpa from WWII or a second cousin going into the Marines most people have no CLUE what it’s like.
I’m not going to praise it. It’s really JUST a job with a lower death rate than found with roofers, electrical lineman from Wichita, fisherman. Police and troops make the front page and are discussed ad nauseum and mostly to push that person’s agenda NOT the military’s agenda.
Otherwise the best gleaming hospital in every mid to large city would be VA hospitals. Vets wouldn’t wait. BUT there are superb docs, nurses, therapists, clerks at VA’s!
Trump could have done one thing right. Build! Take the military budgets and build! “Beautiful, Beautiful hospitals!” Our vets supported him as he LIED.
If your grandfather or father served-Ain’t gonna count. Today our troops fight a war they aren’t ready for. Our MRAP tanks “may” protect troops from IEDs--but. No. Airstrikes/drones despite called surgical rarely are.
Our military officers are out of West Point, Annapolis Navy and Marines, Air Force Academy, USCG academy. My late spouse was West Point and I read all of his books (NOT secret). I only did 2 yrs in 44th Med Battalion VN.
NO ONE teaches desert one-to-one fighting.
9
“Because I’m old, now 94, I recognize these omens of doom,” wrote Harry Leslie Smith, a Royal Air Force veteran, in an essay this week in the Guardian. “Chilling signs are everywhere, perhaps the biggest being that the U.S. allows itself to be led by Donald Trump, a man deficient in honor, wisdom and just simple human kindness.”
I'll take the perspective of a person who lived through a period of history as opposed to someone who's demonstrated complete ignorance of that same history. Any day.
I'll take the perspective of a person who lived through a period of history as opposed to someone who's demonstrated complete ignorance of that same history. Any day.
145
This column inspired me to figure out what to do with those Confederate statues: place one in my driveway, where I currently park my car. Every morning, I find the car covered with bird droppings - there are trees overhead. It would be a perfect place to preserve the Confederate historical record and demonstrate the respect that the Confederate generals have earned in the Civil War.
24
They would be legends in their own time.
Put them in a museum of American history. They are witnesses to how long it takes for racism to die.
I would suggest carving "TRAITOR" on each one, then leave them up as a real history lesson.
Thank you Mr. Egan, and my dad, a member of the U.S. Army in the Pacific, who has long since passed, thanks you also! He wouldn't recognize the country he fought for.
31
neither would mine. He and my uncles must be spinning in their graves.
When a racist Birther-Liar-In-Chief and a racist Southern Strategy political party is consistently ring-leading a band of merry white supremacists, believe them, America.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them; the first time.”
― Maya Angelou
Don't let your children grow up to be Republicans.
We shall overcome.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them; the first time.”
― Maya Angelou
Don't let your children grow up to be Republicans.
We shall overcome.
315
I know you think your moniker makes you sound smart - but in fact, Socrates never WROTE anything. If you really wanted to be impressive, you should have called yourself, "Plato".
1
My father was of the Greatest Generation. As an engineer working for The Boeing Company, he was sent to England in 1943 to aid in service of the B-17 bombers that were making waves of runs over Germany, in an attempt to damage Germany's war manufacturing.
Although, like many of his generation, he never talked much about his war service, on the evening of the 50th anniversary of D-Day, he did tell the story of how he and his fellow engineers would stand on the roof of their hotel in London and, against all thought of safety, watch the German bombing raids coming in over the city. He also told of going to the airfield as he did every day while the B-17 bombers were being prepped and talking to one of the twenty-something pilots. That young man, plucked from the hinterlands of America and doing his perilous duty as expected told my father: "You're lucky, Bob. You'll get to go home." An appalling number of B-17 crew members never made it back to England, let alone America.
A decade after my father told me this story, I chanced to be at the Air and Space Museum in unlikely McMinnville, Oregon. There I was able to crawl through a remaindered B-17 with the commentary of a vet-volunteer making the freezing cold and deafening experience of a bombing raid come alive. The vet had been a tail gunner. He spoke with humility of the din and the chill and of the high chance of dying in the metal death box, never forgetting his luck at being the American boy who made it back.
Although, like many of his generation, he never talked much about his war service, on the evening of the 50th anniversary of D-Day, he did tell the story of how he and his fellow engineers would stand on the roof of their hotel in London and, against all thought of safety, watch the German bombing raids coming in over the city. He also told of going to the airfield as he did every day while the B-17 bombers were being prepped and talking to one of the twenty-something pilots. That young man, plucked from the hinterlands of America and doing his perilous duty as expected told my father: "You're lucky, Bob. You'll get to go home." An appalling number of B-17 crew members never made it back to England, let alone America.
A decade after my father told me this story, I chanced to be at the Air and Space Museum in unlikely McMinnville, Oregon. There I was able to crawl through a remaindered B-17 with the commentary of a vet-volunteer making the freezing cold and deafening experience of a bombing raid come alive. The vet had been a tail gunner. He spoke with humility of the din and the chill and of the high chance of dying in the metal death box, never forgetting his luck at being the American boy who made it back.
154
Thank you for your father's service to our nation and freedom from Hitler.
80,000 died in those planes, 50 million in the war against fascism. Read Randal Jarrell's "The Death of The Ball Turret Gunner" to see a poet's searing, understated image of one flier's abortion-like death. I knew an RAF radio repairman who flew on the test-flight of every WWII bomber whose radio he had repaired. He did not volunteer, it was simply expected. At 85 he still had a model RAF bomber in his tiny den. He remembered much he wish he'd forgotten.
1
Mr. Eagan points out that our country's true culture and history cannot be found in statues put in place to support Jim Crow politicians rewriting the history of the civil war. Unfortunately, his focus is on Trump and not the people who made the Trump Presidency possible and who sustain it - the republican party.
Trump is the manifestation of a political party and a money driven political system that needs to fade into history. I say that because any politician who is a true patriot, one that understands and embraces the truths we hold to be self-evident, would not be supporting Trump.
Unfortunately, the behaviors of most of our country's politicians make clear that true patriots are in short supply in our nation's statehouses, congress, and courts. Instead what we have are people who wear flag lapel pins, and stand with veterans for photo-ops and run for cover when a situation requires the words of a true patriot.
Any politician who is a true patriot would be calling for a constitutional convention to fix what the framers got wrong and improve upon what they got right. Instead our politicians work hard to suppress the vote, pass laws that favor and enrich their patrons and stay in office.
Trump is the manifestation of a political party and a money driven political system that needs to fade into history. I say that because any politician who is a true patriot, one that understands and embraces the truths we hold to be self-evident, would not be supporting Trump.
Unfortunately, the behaviors of most of our country's politicians make clear that true patriots are in short supply in our nation's statehouses, congress, and courts. Instead what we have are people who wear flag lapel pins, and stand with veterans for photo-ops and run for cover when a situation requires the words of a true patriot.
Any politician who is a true patriot would be calling for a constitutional convention to fix what the framers got wrong and improve upon what they got right. Instead our politicians work hard to suppress the vote, pass laws that favor and enrich their patrons and stay in office.
97
Do you really want the incompetent, self-serving buffoons now roaming the hallowed halls of congress, let alone the states rights nuts, attempting to rewrite the constitution?
Just remember, like a special counsel's investigation, there are no guardrails. Once you open the door to a constitutional convention it can veer off into a world of unknown directions.
Just remember, like a special counsel's investigation, there are no guardrails. Once you open the door to a constitutional convention it can veer off into a world of unknown directions.
3
God Bless the souls of that generation!
43
Thanks, Mr. Egan. My dad, now long passed, fought in Europe in George Patton's Third Army. He came home unwounded but the war took its toll on him, as it did on every man and woman who served, and on their families back home. I know he would be sickened by Trump's betrayal of the American ideals that his generation sacrificed so much to try to preserve, so that future generations could move us closer to realizing them.
What I don't understand is how any son or daughter of a WWII veteran could witness the events of last weekend and maintain any vestige of respect for a man who is president in name only.
What I don't understand is how any son or daughter of a WWII veteran could witness the events of last weekend and maintain any vestige of respect for a man who is president in name only.
156
Not to forget, Patton's Third Army liberated Buchenwald, and the soldiers seeing that concentration camp first hand were probably be haunted by these images for the rest of their lives.
My German father was under house arrest in the two months before the end of the the war to be transported to Buchenwald as an enemy of The Reich. The fact that Patton's Third liberated our neck of the woods along the Werra river already in early April 1945 saved his life, thanks to you father and many, many other young American soldiers.
My German father was under house arrest in the two months before the end of the the war to be transported to Buchenwald as an enemy of The Reich. The fact that Patton's Third liberated our neck of the woods along the Werra river already in early April 1945 saved his life, thanks to you father and many, many other young American soldiers.
1
These alt right or more accurately sedition and un-American men ( I did not see any women among them) are too uninformed and lacking in positive self image to be called American. Did you notice that there were many brave women in those opposing these losers.
We are now benefitting from the equal opportunity finally given to women.
We are now benefitting from the equal opportunity finally given to women.
69
Very good piece. It's not for nothing they are still referred to as the Greatest Generation. Let's hope we can show some of that same dedication and preserve what their honor and sacrifice gave us.
29
While I support the words of praise for the greatest generation, of which my father was a decorated member, I note that, as far as I know, nobody protesting in Charlottesville last week owned slaves or committed a traitorous act of insurrection. Reading Tim today, one gets the impression that they did.
America isn't for the lily-livered: an important part of it is that we tolerate expressions of convictions that we despise, because if we don't the next convictions some elite might censor could be ours. KKKers and neo-Nazis don't have much of an impact on my life because their passions and convictions are not mine; and I favor the removal of Confederate totems to museums where they can be regarded by Americans in some context. But what concerned me far more than the predictable hate-language used by these groups was the presence of weapons at a rally, which is intimidating and dangerous, and which should be outlawed.
In the end, we've had KKKers since the 1860s, and we've had neo-Nazis since the 1940s ... and despite the hateful premises they espouse we still have moved immensely to make America a far more inclusive place than it was decades ago. Clearly, their presence in our midst hasn't been fatal -- and I don't need a member of the greatest generation to tell me that.
America isn't for the lily-livered: an important part of it is that we tolerate expressions of convictions that we despise, because if we don't the next convictions some elite might censor could be ours. KKKers and neo-Nazis don't have much of an impact on my life because their passions and convictions are not mine; and I favor the removal of Confederate totems to museums where they can be regarded by Americans in some context. But what concerned me far more than the predictable hate-language used by these groups was the presence of weapons at a rally, which is intimidating and dangerous, and which should be outlawed.
In the end, we've had KKKers since the 1860s, and we've had neo-Nazis since the 1940s ... and despite the hateful premises they espouse we still have moved immensely to make America a far more inclusive place than it was decades ago. Clearly, their presence in our midst hasn't been fatal -- and I don't need a member of the greatest generation to tell me that.
7
Yes, Richard, never mind the racist Birther-Liar-In-Chief leading America over a Russian-Republican cliff.....America is doing great in 2017 as it brings back 18th century coal.
Republican nihilism is not quite as impressive as you think it is.
Republican nihilism is not quite as impressive as you think it is.
63
It was fatal to Heather. And it has been fatal in numerous lynchings, church-bombings, and acts of hate against various groups across the decades you mention. I agree about your comments regarding weapons. That is hardly what Madison and his colleagues had in mind in drafting and ratifying the First or any other amendments. Whether the American experiment survives or is dying by degrees...no one knows.
5
No Richard. We do NOT have to tolerate Neo-Nazis, white supremacists or white nationalists. The government as per the 1st Amendment cannot quash their speech but good decent citizens don't have to listen to it.
It's really sad that you have to be told this.
It's really sad that you have to be told this.
5
Thanks for that. It distilled and encapsulated all of what I've been thinking this last week.
26
Next thing I'm expecting to see is a condemnation of not only the terrorist driver in Barcelona, but also of the pedestrians who were hit. Blame on both sides, as it were.
71
You'll have a looong wait, Steve L. Try to find a life while you wait.
All nations generate myths about their past. Myths are very powerful. They elevate heroes, often far above their actual accomplishments and airbrush away the inevitable warts.
But since we are 'really' examining history let's note that one of the driving motives behind our founding fathers for the American Revolution was the protection of slavery.
Slavery was not not simply a southern phenomena and in fact New York was a major center of both slavery and the slave trade. We think of the Hudson valley as settled by Dutch farmers and forget that slaves were put to work throughout that region.
After the Mansfield case in Britain it was clear that slavery would soon be abolished on the British Isle and that declaration would likely spread to all of Britain's colonies.
By the 1770's slavery was central to the American economy and not just in the south. Insurance companies, shipping, banking and investment houses all participated in slavery and all profited generously from it. Securing property in flesh was as strong a motive as the quest for liberty.
The myths of Confederate redemption need no refute. But those monuments were built not just to honor bravery on the battlefield, but the cause whose premise was that civilized white people must in perpetuity rule over and exploit the labor of blacks.
Correcting those myths and honoring our true history goes beyond rearranging a few statues. It's the work of us all.
But since we are 'really' examining history let's note that one of the driving motives behind our founding fathers for the American Revolution was the protection of slavery.
Slavery was not not simply a southern phenomena and in fact New York was a major center of both slavery and the slave trade. We think of the Hudson valley as settled by Dutch farmers and forget that slaves were put to work throughout that region.
After the Mansfield case in Britain it was clear that slavery would soon be abolished on the British Isle and that declaration would likely spread to all of Britain's colonies.
By the 1770's slavery was central to the American economy and not just in the south. Insurance companies, shipping, banking and investment houses all participated in slavery and all profited generously from it. Securing property in flesh was as strong a motive as the quest for liberty.
The myths of Confederate redemption need no refute. But those monuments were built not just to honor bravery on the battlefield, but the cause whose premise was that civilized white people must in perpetuity rule over and exploit the labor of blacks.
Correcting those myths and honoring our true history goes beyond rearranging a few statues. It's the work of us all.
171
Slavery in England was abolished by William the Conqueror after 1066. It was allowed in the Empire until 1833, although the trade itself was outlawed in 1807.
In the U.S. Revolutionary War, the British offered freedom to American slaves that left their masters and joined them, and between the Revolution and the Civil War, escaped slaves could find freedom in Canada.
In some ways, the separation of the United States from Britain prefigured the separation of the Confederacy from the United States. The planter class was instrumental to both wars.
There were many fine words, though, and plenty of statues.
In the U.S. Revolutionary War, the British offered freedom to American slaves that left their masters and joined them, and between the Revolution and the Civil War, escaped slaves could find freedom in Canada.
In some ways, the separation of the United States from Britain prefigured the separation of the Confederacy from the United States. The planter class was instrumental to both wars.
There were many fine words, though, and plenty of statues.
2
i'm not saying your discussion of slave history is not accurate. it may be. What i'm saying is that the revolutionary founders were flawed men who formed a country with a constitution and a creed of freedom -- even if not realized immediately. The civil war was fought by traitors on one side and patriots for their country on the other.
2
This may be true but to continue to cite only the "bad" whites and disregard the whites who actually gave their lives to end slavery or the abolishioners who never gave up the cause is also rewriting history. To just pick out the bad guys of a race of people somehow seems unjust something like, oh let's see, racism.
2
A person does not need a block of granite to learn history. One need not even go to a school. If one does the right research on the internet, all of the knowledge of mankind is available at the click of a mouse.
How many Americans, of whatever age and level of education, regardless of sex, race, or ethnicity, could truly obtain a passing grade on a basic citizenship test?
I know our current president could not.
How many Americans, of whatever age and level of education, regardless of sex, race, or ethnicity, could truly obtain a passing grade on a basic citizenship test?
I know our current president could not.
136
Hmm, when it comes to education I wonder if the DT is even "smarter than a 5th grader"... Let's see, has a staff that can research and find answers to even make him appear relatively decent in areas he has challenges in and yet he disregards and fails to take advantage of the support. OK, Nope, he's not, I can stop wondering now.
1
"Warming the hearts of the little Hitlers this week, Trump claimed to have looked carefully at the hatemongers in Charlottesville and found many good citizens."
What an insult to the Greatest Generation. I've known many, and although in the Navy flying units of dive bombers and gunners the trend is conservative, I believe they'd all roll over in their graves now at the fascism edging its way into the Oval Office.
Thank you Timothy for highlighting the true patriots of America, those who saved the world from fascism in multiple theaters (my Dad commanded destroyers in both the North Sea and the Pacific Theater).
Those of us boomers privileged to be born to those returning from WWII heard a lot about sacrifice and duty from our fathers. From the sounds of things, Donald Trump was not among thtem, despite his covering himself constantly in the American flag and admiring military shows of might.
Donald Trump is my age, and one would presume he learned the same US history I did. Shame on him and his young thug followers who are blanketing themselves with historical lies, encouraged by a president with absolutely no knowledge of our past.
Corker is right: Donald Trump has no respect for American history and values.
What an insult to the Greatest Generation. I've known many, and although in the Navy flying units of dive bombers and gunners the trend is conservative, I believe they'd all roll over in their graves now at the fascism edging its way into the Oval Office.
Thank you Timothy for highlighting the true patriots of America, those who saved the world from fascism in multiple theaters (my Dad commanded destroyers in both the North Sea and the Pacific Theater).
Those of us boomers privileged to be born to those returning from WWII heard a lot about sacrifice and duty from our fathers. From the sounds of things, Donald Trump was not among thtem, despite his covering himself constantly in the American flag and admiring military shows of might.
Donald Trump is my age, and one would presume he learned the same US history I did. Shame on him and his young thug followers who are blanketing themselves with historical lies, encouraged by a president with absolutely no knowledge of our past.
Corker is right: Donald Trump has no respect for American history and values.
398
To JWH: I have no idea who Christine McMorrow is, but nothing about any of what I have read from her over the past months suggests that she is a "shill" for anyone. If, as she notes in this message, she is the same age as President Trump, she is, like many of us, a baby boomer and possibly retired, so she may have the time to reflect and write about the news of the day to a degree not possible for many readers who are still in the middle of their working careers.
Any regular reader of the Op-Ed page will recognize at least 20 or 30 names or IDs that appear with some regularity, and my impression is that they are in the vast majority of cases simply readers who are impelled to comment on the news and opinion pieces that have moved or concerned them.
Any regular reader of the Op-Ed page will recognize at least 20 or 30 names or IDs that appear with some regularity, and my impression is that they are in the vast majority of cases simply readers who are impelled to comment on the news and opinion pieces that have moved or concerned them.
5
I don't know but I like her.
2
He learned NOTHING!
1
And oh, by the way, Robert E. Lee was not the best general of the civil war. Liddell Hart, arguably the best strategist of the 20th century, said simply, all modern war is a footnote to Sherman. Or easier to understand, Sherman destroyed the South, eliminated 2 of the 3 Confederate armies, and lost less men than Lee lost in one hour at Gettysburg.
212
I read in a history book that when Europeans heard of Sherman's scorched-Earth tactics in Georgia, they all cheered because the last slave-traders were getting what they deserved.
Plenty of debate, though many were better than Mr. Lee - Gettysburg was cataclysmically bad for the South, not that I mind. I'd still say Mr. Longstreet, with his support of Reconstruction at great personal risk after the war being perhaps even more important.
You took the words right out of my keyboard!
I would call them "monumentalists", those desperate to hold on to a belief from the past when they thought honor reigned. Whether it was the Schutzstaffel or the owners of slaves 80 years earlier, the "honor" celebrated was the honor of thinking they were and deserved to be superior to others. Casting their visions in bronze and placing them on pedestals, they can longingly remember the fictions their predecessors supported with force of arms.
But history moves on and we gain a better understanding of the world and our position in it not by revering the past but by creating new and better things from what we inherit and the wisdom we gain. I would much rather see a smile on the face of my grandchild than the rigid gaze of an old static soldier on a horse in the park.
But history moves on and we gain a better understanding of the world and our position in it not by revering the past but by creating new and better things from what we inherit and the wisdom we gain. I would much rather see a smile on the face of my grandchild than the rigid gaze of an old static soldier on a horse in the park.
41
from one more World War II vet
On neo-Nazis it is clear
Don thinks we're too severe,
Their good deeds always overlooked
On the Holocaust we're hooked,
The swastika we often see
Over-misjudged, symbolically.
On neo-Nazis it is clear
Don thinks we're too severe,
Their good deeds always overlooked
On the Holocaust we're hooked,
The swastika we often see
Over-misjudged, symbolically.
132
God bless you, Larry!
42
Larry, thank you for your service, and your poetry.
1
Thank you Larry, for your wit, your relentless good humor, and last but not least your service!
1
In truth, Mr. Trump's sense of what matters starts and ends with himself. His children are merely ego boosters, whom he adores as long as they reflect well on him (or, at least, he thinks they do). Ever notice how little he talks about or is seen with Bannon? The child is too young for Daddy to bask in the glow of his accomplishments yet (after all, how many methods does a wealthy 11 year old have to make money?).
History? DT doesn't need it because he knows he is the greatest, biggest, most successful (but also most put upon) figure in history. Why learn about all his inferiors?
History? DT doesn't need it because he knows he is the greatest, biggest, most successful (but also most put upon) figure in history. Why learn about all his inferiors?
126
"...seen with Bannon"?? I think you mean "seen with Barron."
In any case, the child is 11 years old, and I am pleased to see that he is kept away from media attention.
In any case, the child is 11 years old, and I am pleased to see that he is kept away from media attention.
1
@ Anne-Marie - Anne-Marie, have you seen any reports on how the Jewish wing of his family is handling his praise of the collective from which many anti-semitic chants are coming? I assume the answer is no, but I cannot imagine how Ivanka and Jared can tolerate his behavior.
Larry L.
Larry L.
A telling slip of the keyboard, Ms. Hislop. DJT's son's name is "Barron." "Bannon" is the name of his chief White House strategist - code for puppetmaster in this shameful episode. Easy to see how you might have interchanged the monikers!
1
Decent Americans have been lulled by the phrase: The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
As we've seen from efforts of the Koch Bros. and their ilk, through to djt and his base, it is entirely possible for the gains made in the 20th century - particularly following 1945 - to be a blip in history, if decent Americans fail to be active at the ballot box, as well as daily political life.
The coinciding of events at Charlottesville, djt's blessings of same, and the passing of the WWII generation, make us wonder anew if Thom Hartmann is correct in his pointing out of the 80-year cycles of human history:
https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2004/07/fourth-turning-american-prophecy
We hope not, but know that Steve Bannon is a devotee of the notion:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/us/politics/stephen-bannon-book-fourt...
The arc of the moral universe must be nurtured every day - in the public square - by decent Americans, or it will become contorted.
As we've seen from efforts of the Koch Bros. and their ilk, through to djt and his base, it is entirely possible for the gains made in the 20th century - particularly following 1945 - to be a blip in history, if decent Americans fail to be active at the ballot box, as well as daily political life.
The coinciding of events at Charlottesville, djt's blessings of same, and the passing of the WWII generation, make us wonder anew if Thom Hartmann is correct in his pointing out of the 80-year cycles of human history:
https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2004/07/fourth-turning-american-prophecy
We hope not, but know that Steve Bannon is a devotee of the notion:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/us/politics/stephen-bannon-book-fourt...
The arc of the moral universe must be nurtured every day - in the public square - by decent Americans, or it will become contorted.
171
@R. Law
I like your comments and look for them. But I hope you're misestimating responses to the famous phrase you cited. In believing that the arc bends toward justice, I feel encouraged rather than lulled. I think it operates that way in those who hold it dear. I'm in less danger of being lulled than in giving into discouragement.
Keeping on in these uniting states. (Some NYT commenters would sever our slower ones.)
I like your comments and look for them. But I hope you're misestimating responses to the famous phrase you cited. In believing that the arc bends toward justice, I feel encouraged rather than lulled. I think it operates that way in those who hold it dear. I'm in less danger of being lulled than in giving into discouragement.
Keeping on in these uniting states. (Some NYT commenters would sever our slower ones.)
Once those actively involved in history pass on, the collective memory dims. That's why these events pace out in 80 years. That's the average lifespan. Wonder how long it will take before Americans forget why we go through such hassle at airports?
For all the things we worried about when we watched an ignorant narcissistic TV host grope his way to the presidency, the rise of white supremacists was not one of them.
Yet, here we are, listening to the leader of the United States of American making apologies for Nazis.
The president has revealed himself to be a common, amoral and malevolent thug, too eager to find fault with demonstrators who protest the rise of latter-day Nazis, and too ignorant of history to understand why it's a bad idea.
Nazi sympathizers and skinheads supported the president at his rallies, who talked their language. He revealed a bond between himself and these slathering brainless zealots. He urged them to beat his hecklers, as if urging was necessary.
And now, with the collusion of ignorant people everywhere, he is their president.
What is the proper response when a country finds itself with man like this sitting in the Oval Office? How do we drive him back to the swamp?
Here's a suggestion: at his next public speech, the audience should spontaneously break out into a chorus of La Marseillaise. The sound would swell until it drowns him out, replacing his hatred with hope, and helping us drive him back into the swamp that spawned him.
Yet, here we are, listening to the leader of the United States of American making apologies for Nazis.
The president has revealed himself to be a common, amoral and malevolent thug, too eager to find fault with demonstrators who protest the rise of latter-day Nazis, and too ignorant of history to understand why it's a bad idea.
Nazi sympathizers and skinheads supported the president at his rallies, who talked their language. He revealed a bond between himself and these slathering brainless zealots. He urged them to beat his hecklers, as if urging was necessary.
And now, with the collusion of ignorant people everywhere, he is their president.
What is the proper response when a country finds itself with man like this sitting in the Oval Office? How do we drive him back to the swamp?
Here's a suggestion: at his next public speech, the audience should spontaneously break out into a chorus of La Marseillaise. The sound would swell until it drowns him out, replacing his hatred with hope, and helping us drive him back into the swamp that spawned him.
365
@ gemli, a wonderful idea and if it were possible to plan on being there I would have Annika and Ann, both fluent in French, teach me to sing those words Allons enfants de la patrie, and on second thought I think I will ask them next week.
Larry L.
Larry L.
35
When Trump watches Casablanca, who does he root for?
2
What surprised me most during the election was seeing neo nazis at one of his rallies giving their "heil t rump" salutes and that did not destroy his chances of election.
When someone tells you they are a nazi.....believe them.
When someone tells you they are a nazi.....believe them.
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Column is not well researched. George HW Bush used a racist message to get himself elected in 1988: Remember Willy HORTON? Bush "pere"had no misgivings about employing specialist of "dirty tricks," Lee Atwater to vilify Michel Dukakis, a good man, with high ethical standards, to gain lead for his boss over Dem. candidate which he then never relinquished.Bush "pere" is another example of a WWII combatant who showed heroic courage on the battlefield,but disgraced himself in civilian life , to wit the 1988 campaign by employing a racist message. 45 used false data to justify a war that has cost lives of over a million Iraquis, 5000 American soldiers, and over 50,000 casualties.Many wounded returned home"dismounted,"--see Times newspaper article on 1 such injured veteran. Others r missing eyes and limbs. Egan, who I don't believe saw service himself, should have quoted Sen. Duckworth, not the Bushes in his repudiation of Trump who tried to be fair to both sides. He was not ingratiating himself to the far right.Egan believes that just writing an anti Trump op ed is enough to pass muster with the EB, but that should not be the case.Journalistic standards should remain high for Egan and other writers on the paper. Quality of writing and research is of paramount importance.
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Interesting that you disparage the Bushes, father and son, but defend Trump! I very much doubt that Trump has ever "tried to be fair." Don't know if Egan served in the military. Did you research that?
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It might be more constructive to live in the present moment when discussing the Bushes. Personally, after reading much about HW, I found him flawed but refreshing. He was a man who came from a culture of "service" to his country. Why not simply embrace his decency now?
That being said, the Willy Horton scheme made him very uncomfortable. And I roundly condemn it. But in politics, the naive and pure lose elections. The area of grey is huge.
Then there is W. He did all that you say he did. He was an ignorant idiot. But that begs the present question: "How come I reflect so fondly upon him now - knowing he made all those stupid mistakes?" I fear he will positively saintly quite soon.
That being said, the Willy Horton scheme made him very uncomfortable. And I roundly condemn it. But in politics, the naive and pure lose elections. The area of grey is huge.
Then there is W. He did all that you say he did. He was an ignorant idiot. But that begs the present question: "How come I reflect so fondly upon him now - knowing he made all those stupid mistakes?" I fear he will positively saintly quite soon.
SENSIBLE BOB:Margaret Feitlowitz, in her "Lexicon of Terror" on Argentina's "dirty war" against subversion led by 3 juntas between 1976 and 1983, responsible for tens of thousands of deaths of innocents--have interviewed a good number of "familiares" of the disappeared for Hoover. know also attorneys of "Defensoria Publica" for ESMA detenus responsible for the extermination of the victims-- devoted a chapter to Adolfo Scilingo, "suboficial"charged with throwing victims out of planes in "vuelos de muerte,"and paid the price in terms of his conscience.Scilingo is now imprisoned in Spain. Feitlowitz began chapter by writing "The Past is a predator," and that is the way I feel about architects of our incursion into Iraq.Can 45, Powell, Tenet, Rumsfeld inter alios ever live down what they did to Iraqui people and to our own soldiers?14 years later and billions of dollars having been spent, countless lives ruined and lost. "Pour qui et pourquoi?"
The real memorial to Robert E Lee is our Arlington National Cemetery where thousands of men killed by his orders are buried on his former property. The stautes currently being contested were put in place by people who did not believe ALL men are born equal. As a man of honor, he recognized the memory of the fallen was not in vain but they were his true memorial.
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Thank you for remembering. It was my first thought, too.
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Lee was a fool who believed God runs human affairs.
I may be mistaken, but I believe that Robert E. Lee lost the property for failure to pay taxes. I read that he sent his wife to pay them but they would not accept the money from her, her;he needed to pay them in person. I assume this was a ploy to capture him.
How can you say Arlington Cemetery is a memorial to REL? It is a memorial to those who lost their lives in valiant service to our country. It was not his idea to turn the property into a cemetery for all soldiers -black, white, Jew, Muslim, American Indian - all those who served w/honor.
Faulty thinking.
How can you say Arlington Cemetery is a memorial to REL? It is a memorial to those who lost their lives in valiant service to our country. It was not his idea to turn the property into a cemetery for all soldiers -black, white, Jew, Muslim, American Indian - all those who served w/honor.
Faulty thinking.
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As always, you deliver a powerful message by sharing the compelling stories of remarkable individuals uniquely positioned, yet often unheard, to provide important perspective. With this personal, often intimate viewpoint on issues facing our nation, I am able to process the seemingly endless stream of disturbing political information into context. Thank you for helping my understand how what is happening in the moment fits into the larger, broader picture. I am no less disturbed but a bit more comfortable when this mess is put into a broader historical perspective (and now I know what those terrible symbols I see in the footage, othala rune and Black Sun, are called as well as their chilling history).
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My uncle was a decorated WWII vet. He won four bronze stars in big battles in Germany, including the Battle of the Bulge. He never mentioned it. He was as non violent a person as you would ever find. He died in 2005. I miss him terribly. But, I am so thankful that he never lived to see Trump as our President.
My father, an immigrant, died in 1985. He also fought in WWII. He won one bronze star in the Philippines. He never mentioned it. He was as non violent a person as you would ever find. His family was murdered by the Nazis. I miss him terribly. But, I am so thankful that he never lived to see Trump as our President.
That's how bad Trump is. He makes you thankful that those you cherish most never had to live under his regime.
My father, an immigrant, died in 1985. He also fought in WWII. He won one bronze star in the Philippines. He never mentioned it. He was as non violent a person as you would ever find. His family was murdered by the Nazis. I miss him terribly. But, I am so thankful that he never lived to see Trump as our President.
That's how bad Trump is. He makes you thankful that those you cherish most never had to live under his regime.
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@ Bruce R. - If only Trump could read these stories to learn about the American he never became. In my family it was the older cousins who went and came back, all but one. They never said much and as kids we did not even think of this. Now at 85, having set and met a goal of seeing two of them in their 90s in our home town, I now think a lot about what they gave.
Larry L.
Larry L.
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My dad also fought in WWII. He was a clerk, sparing him from most of the fighting - with the notable exception (which he only once told me about) of the Battle of the Bulge. He said, they didn't need clerks so they handed him a rifle and shoved him out into the cold. The only time I ever saw him cry was the time he talked about what happened to him and his squad during the fighting - they had "rescued" a young (13-14) boy who became kind of a mascot. One night that boy stabbed two of the squad to death and slipped away. That was as far as he talked about the war.
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My father did not talk of his war experiences either. He was a medic in the Pacific. As a child I once asked him if he had ever killed anyone in the war. He almost snapped back at me: if I had, do you think I would be proud of it? I never asked him another question about the war.
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I'm glad you honored the old vets and found a few to make the case. But we all know that at a sizeable chunk of them support Trump. It's something I will never understand, so I have quit trying.
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I question that any WWII vets support Trump. Citations please.
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Agree. Remember how he said he always wanted one of those Purple Hearts. That did it for this vet.
Maybe you should talk to and listen to these old guys -- maybe they know a few things. Don't assume they all hate Trump (or all love Trump) -- they are individuals, just like you and me.
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Beautiful column and a reminder that there are still some great American heroes. As I read it I thought of the words of George Santayana "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
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The first time I saw that quotation was in an exhibit at Dachau in 1971. The place was packed with German school children that day, as apparently it often is. I truly didn't know how they could face their history so blatantly; I was emotionally exhausted when we left that place of horror. Sometimes remembering our history should be painful.
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Unfortunately, we Americans don't even remember the news. After the reign of error that was W and his republican enablers I thought it would be generations before republicans would regain any power in America. Boy was I wrong.
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