Jelani Cobb, in the New Yorker today, on “the Confederacy’s final retreat“:
In some future footnote or parenthetical aside, it may be observed that although General Robert E. Lee surrendered in 1865, the Confederacy’s final retreat did not occur until a century and a half later. The rearguard movement of Republicans in the aftermath of the slaughter in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church marked the relinquishing of the Confederacy’s best-fortified positions: the cultural ones. We have for decades willfully coexisted with a translucent lie about the bloodiest conflict in American history and the moral questions at its center. Amid the calls last week to lower the Confederate battle flag at the state capitol, the defenders of the flag averred that it represents “heritage, not hate.” The great sleight of hand is the notion that these things were mutually exclusive.
Americans, both in the South and beyond, attach a particular brand of exceptionalism to the region. This is the reason that there is a Southern Historical Association but not a Northern one; a genre known as Southern literature but no Northern corollary; and a concept of Southern politics as something distinct from the national variety. The notion of the Confederate flag as a benign tribute to that exceptionalism rests upon another premise that illustrated, long before our present concerns with climate change and vaccination did, the political usefulness of denial: the idea that the Civil War was not fought over slavery—a claim that would have bewildered those who served in it—allowed Southerners to memorialize the leaders of an armed insurrection without the sticky moral baggage of bondage attached…
The South is exceptional not primarily because of its literature or its food or its politics but because, as historians have pointed out, it is the only region of the United States that has lived for the majority of its history with the experience of military defeat. Four decades after the U.S. withdrawal from Saigon, Vietnam remains a spectral presence in American foreign policy and military strategy. But when the Vietnam War began the South had already been familiar with that kind of recrimination and self-doubt for a hundred years. It not only fought tenaciously for the right to own human beings; it did so unsuccessfully. Neither of these facts can be easily accepted, but only one of them can be easily denied… Such denialism has governed an important portion of our national affairs and distorted our self-image, but it collapsed in the hail of fire in the sanctuary of Emanuel A.M.E. Church.
… which reminded me I had bookmarked some excellent links that I didn’t get a chance to post right after the Charleston tragedy. Here’s Martin Gelin, U.S. correspondent for the Swedish national newspaper Dagens Nyhete, with a repost from 2014 on “White Flight: America’s white supremacists are ignored at home. So they are looking to start over with a little help from Europe’s far right“…
BUDAPEST, Hungary—In the United States, nobody listens to Jared Taylor. Despite his Ivy League education and polite manners, few people working in politics take him seriously. That’s because he is a white supremacist, although he would prefer to be called a “racial realist.” When he tries to organize a meeting for his publication, American Renaissance, it is typically banned from hotels and conference rooms as soon as the proprietors find out about its racist mission. His ideas obviously hold little sway with established political parties or institutions. Which explains why Taylor traveled to Hungary last month to organize an international conference of white supremacists and anti-immigrant nationalists from more than 10 countries with the express purpose of making common cause with Europe’s own burgeoning far-right political movements. The conference was blandly dubbed “The Future of Europe.”…
Sally Jenkins, in the Washington Post, on “Unraveling the threads of hatred, sewn into a Confederate icon“:
… If you went to Germany and saw a war memorial with a Nazi flag flying over it, what would you think of those people? You might think they were unrepentant. You might think they were in a lingering state of denial about their national atrocities. The Confederate battle flag is an American swastika, the relic of traitors and totalitarians, symbol of a brutal regime, not a republic. The Confederacy was treason in defense of a still deeper crime against humanity: slavery. If weaklings find racial hatred to be a romantic expression of American strength and purity, make no mistake that it begins by unwinding a red thread from that flag…
Pacific Standard interviewed University of Houston professor Gerald Horne, whose research addresses racism in U.S. history:
…Why are the Rhodesian and apartheid South African flags symbols for white supremacists?
Well, as you may know, both Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa had substantial support in the U.S. during their tenure as regimes, including at the highest level. As I noted in the book I wrote on the war in Rhodesia, the fact is that, in my estimation, thousands of Euro-Americans traveled to Rhodesia to fight against African majority rule. Today, with declining economic prospects for many in what is termed the white working class, and with many of that group voting against their own interest in any case by voting for the right wing, at a time when we are all told that China is in the passing lane, there’s rising racial anxiety amongst many in the so-called white community that the press doesn’t necessarily cover. And so these sentiments continue to be inflamed and fester…
Jelani Cobb, again, on “Equality and the Confederate Flag“:
… Fifty-five per cent of the black population of the United States resides in the South. A hundred and five Southern counties have a population that is at least fifty per cent black. The idea of the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern pride presumes that there was some universally accessible virtue associated with the circumstances under which that flag came into existence. The more honest assessment would preface the word “Southern” with the adjective “white.” This, more than anything else, is the connection between the South that Dylann Roof glorified and the one upheld by the more mainstream defenders of the Confederacy: Roof wished to speak of this tradition honestly, sans euphemism, with all the racial adjectives included. He wished to be honest about what the South has been in hopes that it might be such a thing once more. And it is precisely this candid contempt, as much as any heinous act he committed in the church, that has made the flag untenable on the grounds of the State House of South Carolina…
cokane
good links, thanks!
muddy
I got an old book at a yard sale recently, it’s Acts and Resolves of the General Assembly of the Sate of Vermont, 1896. I will say that they did a lot of work in the legislature back then! Many towns setting up water systems and other infrastructure. They provide for taxing all kind of stuff and for providing for paupers. There was a huge expenditure of $22,000 for an Insane Asylum.
It lists also a provision to give care and burials for indigent veterans of “The War of The Rebellion”.
Suzanne
@efgoldman:
I hope so. I’d like to see that. Would be good for a laugh.
Schlemazel
At Yellowstone yesterday I saw some jackass, mid-50s, balding, white cop-killer beard and on the left sleeve of his jacket was the emblem, an eagle carrying a wreath with a swastika in it. Made me so damn proud to be an American. I would like to have reenacted Dresden on his ass.
Matt McIrvin
Final? This sounds optimistic to me.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
So much for covenants.
Suzanne
@efgoldman: They need to be thoroughly humiliated before they can climb back out of the morass. Think what happened to Indiana, but even worse.
Major Major Major Major
Ok, pro tip: don’t take a 2-hour Krav Maga class about choking if you value your consciousness o.O
Yes, I’m fine.
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: walked my bike. I imagine I’ll have bruises on my wrists tomorrow? Good thing I telecommute.
Suzanne
@efgoldman: I really think that it will take laughingstock status and a financial hit to make it better.
I got contacted by a recruiter a couple of months ago, and I said that I absolutely would not consider any job offer in the Confederacy. I can’t handle that shit. I’d rather stay in AZ.
Mike Furlan
“… If you went to Germany and saw a war memorial with a Nazi flag flying over it, what would you think of those people? You might think they were unrepentant.”
Or you could go to Balloon Juice and find a link to a member of The League of the South, what would you think of the person who put up that link?
http://www.myarklamiss.com/story/d/story/league-of-the-south-holds-confederate-flag-demonst/36968/fJ_2ha7RRk2ld4gcHNUy9Q
Daniel Larison, the self described proud member of the League of the South is promoted here.
joel hanes
@Matt McIrvin:
>> the Confederacy’s final retreat did not occur until a century and a half later.
> Final? This sounds optimistic to me.
Optimistic? more like deluded.
Retreat? Nah. Camouflage and denial and rationalization in public,
compartmentalization and stone racism in private, same as ever and always.
It will never be over for a big part of the Old South.
KS in MA
@Suzanne:
Good for you!
Belafon
@joel hanes: And it will spread to other states. And we will never get rid of it because these people will always exist. So I’ll take shaming them back under the rock they crawled out of as a victory.
joel hanes
@Belafon:
And it will spread to other states
Has, long before the first shots at Sumter.
The most racist person I’ve known well was my Army squadmate from South Boston.
The guy from Blowing Rock North Carolina was bigoted, but not so angry and hateful about it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Belafon: the jackass fireman in MN who hung a flag from a firetruck for his town’s Fourth of July parade said he didn’t want to offend anyone or make a statement, he just doesn’t like “the PC”
opiejeanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So, being expected to be polite and not hurt or offend others is a terrible imposition.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and here’s a shocker
mai naem mobile
I am so fucking tired of the south and their crap. They need to get the fuck over it and move on. I’m so fucking glad we don t have a fucking Southern president with a fucking Southern drawl. I’ll be glad if we never get a Southern president.
West of the Cascades
@efgoldman:
By state law, all rainbows in South Carolina are white.
Punchy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: hates the PC, eh? So he’s an Apple MacBook kinda guy?
Cervantes
@Schlemazel:
What we did there was a war crime.
Aleta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: a trilogy of battle cries
Tree With Water
@Suzanne: “They need to be thoroughly humiliated before they can climb back out of the morass”.
Which was a common enough feeling throughout the North by the spring of 1865. It was also counsel that U.S. Grant, in accordance with his thorough understanding of the wishes of Abraham Lincoln, wisely ignored at Appomattox.
joel hanes
@opiejeanne:
Many people will interpret everything through the lens of tribalism,
and are unable or unwilling to see things from the viewpoint of someone outside their tribe.
An attack on the SBF is an attack on their tribe, therefore ipso facto unjustified and wrong.
Therefore (they feel, rather than think), defiant display of the SBF is justifed as a response.
Suzanne
@Tree With Water: Grant and Lincoln were better people than I, and much more inclined to keep the Union together. I’m at the point where I’d rather let them secede.
Mike G
@opiejeanne:
Anything that offends non-conservatives is considered a “brave” and “courageous” stand against the “tyranny” of PC.
Anything that offends conservatives will unleash a tsunami of whining, boycotts, angry denunciation, and real threats of violence.
The right-wing crybabies are so used to being the only ones dishing out abuse with impunity, they can’t handle it when the lowly minorities actually push back, so they vigorously try to stigmatize it when their intimidation tactics don’t work anymore.
Gene108
From what I recall of the Reconstruction era, the North was not overly thrilled with the idea of blacks as equals.
They did not approve of slavery, as matter of principle, but this did not make Notherners egalitarians.
Cobb, in the first WaPo link, overlooks this.
If the the North really cared about equality, as a guiding principle, there would have been more push back against the Lost Cause mythology. There also would not have been the Gilded Age / Robber Barons springing up on the heels of the Civil War.
Also, the North was inundated with a significant wave of immigration post Civil War, so a large percentage of the Northern population did not have any ties to what happened a generation or two prior to their arrival, unlike Southerners.
The country, collectively, has been responsible for allowing the Lost Cause mythology to linger, though some parts are more responsible than others.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: It sounds better than it is as a policy.
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: I’m due for a dose of mood stabilizers but all I can think of to do with people like that is unprintable in polite company. It’d probably only take 30 seconds or so though.
ETA: Comedy, etc., usual caveats, plus you know they’d swing first.
PurpleGirl
@Cervantes: Coventry. And they bombed Coventry first.
ETA: And all the bombings of London and elsewhere in the UK.
Omnes Omnibus
@PurpleGirl: One war crime doesn’t justify another.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I didn’t start it.
fleeting expletive
I made use of the five-second rule a little while ago on a fine ham and swiss sandwich. I hope I do not get sick.
Major Major Major Major
At least Dresden got us one of our best novelists evar.
Omnes Omnibus
@fleeting expletive: You’ll be fine.
Tommy
@fleeting expletive: That is well within your rights.
Gene108
@Schlemazel:
I do wonder, if you could point out to neo-Nazis the shwastika is an ancient symbol used mostly by Asians prior to Hitler co-opting it that they would find another symbol to rally behind?
Just show them some pictures of Ganesha or Buddha depicted with shwastikas and point out most of the people in this world, who still bother with it as a symbol are really, really brown and they are using a brown person’s religious symbol as a logo for white supremacy.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I usually respond to this kind of thing with a quote from “Sympathy for the Devil. Not tonight. I am happy.
PurpleGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe so, but any time someone mentions Dresden, I ask them to consider that the Nazis bombed other places first and were the cause of WWII. It’s estimated that 60 million people died because of the war. I’ve fought this situation with cousins, no one wins the fight but I’ve made damn sure that they concede that the US/France/the UK were not the aggressors but that our cousins several times removed were the aggressors. (Yes, I had some cousins who were Nazi symphatizers.)
Gene108
@efgoldman:
True.
But they are nuts for clinging to it as a symbol, because it is both misappropriated and like the Confederacy, Hitler and his Nazis were a bunch of losers, who got their asses kicked.
If people want to rally behind a symbol they should at least try to pick a winner, unless you are a sports fan. A sports fan should stick with his or her team, even if they are losers.
Omnes Omnibus
@PurpleGirl: Okay. How does a war crime on one side justify another on the other side?
Cervantes
@PurpleGirl:
One good war crime deserves another?
Many times as many civilians were burned to death by the Allies in Dresden as fell to the Luftwaffe’s bombs in Coventry. How does this difference enter into your calculation?
Tommy
@Major Major Major Major: Maybe to cheer you up.
Well a pic of my niece and me:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/webranding/8347894362/in/dateposted-public/
When she was born I was almost scared to hold her. Afraid I’d do something wrong. You know not having any kids. Well I didn’t “break” her and growing up into wonderful little lady. Even better she likes her uncle.
Oh and for some music, Dead Can Dance, Rakim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itwL5y0He-k
Tribal in its nature but whenever I am feeling down, well they are Dead Can Dance. I’ve spent days dancing in a field in Middleburg (Northern Virginia) and now my house here in IL with their music on.
Suzanne
@efgoldman: I’m aware. I keep canvassing and donating and making phone calls, to no avail.
I’d be willing to move if the U.S. split. No question.
PurpleGirl
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Cervantes:
They don’t balance out, I didn’t say they did. I wrote that the Nazis bombed places first. The Nazis were responsible for starting WWII and causing in one way or another the deaths of some 60 million people. I had a great uncle who was a member of the Nazi Party and in 1942 decided to come to the US; well, he was turned away in NY and spent the rest of the war sailing back and forth between NY and Europe. No country in Europe wanted to let him back in until after the war.
Don’t expect me to feel very sorry for the Germans for suffering karma.
Omnes Omnibus
@PurpleGirl: War crimes don’t balance out. There are always innocent people who get fucked over by war. Some of the Germans who were bombed out were socialists who were just trying to survive. But fuck them, right?
Tommy
@Suzanne: We don’t need that. I come from a state that was split and then split again by the Civil War. As Ken Burns says we killed each other wholesale.
My father’s PhD is in Civil War military history. When you might have gone to Disney Land I went to Civil War battlefields for my summer vacation.
In Cold Harbor almost 10,000 Americans died in 15 minutes. In Gettysburg they had to stop helping the wounded because the window they were throwing out the arms and legs they were cutting off, well the pile of them got higher than the second story window they were working out of.
The south caused this. They started it. Fuck them!
Tenar Darell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Did anyone tell this ignoramus how many soldiers from Minnesota died in the Civil War? I can, it takes a quick Google to compare 2,584 dead men (not wounded, dead) to the total enlisted of 24,020. This man is a fool. I really hope someone has already pointed that out to him.
Also too, has he been reprimanded or fired yet? Because I sort of expect it now. It is perfectly legal with corporate social media policies/government service and concerns over public image to fire him. And on top of this that guy tagged a frickin’ town fire truck with that isht. I do not see how his job survives.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Back home from the local bar are you?
Major Major Major Major
@Tommy: Great pic. Reminds me of my own nieces.
They’ll be visiting SF for the first time in a week or so, that should be fun. Eight and six, they are.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: You so like to pick and find ways to start a fight don’t you. It would almost be funny if you didn’t do it so often.
Suzanne
@efgoldman: I love the weather in New England. It is definitely a possibility. The heatz, I hatez it.
Aleta
@Tommy: nice picture; your niece looks special. Thanks for the good music, too.
Suzanne
@Tommy: Meet , the comma. Your friend. Try taking him around the block sometime.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: No, I was just making an observation based on your recent posts.
Cervantes
@PurpleGirl:
The question wasn’t about how evil the Nazis were.
The question, if you want to call it that, was about the re-enactment of a war crime (in this case an Allied one).
It wasn’t even really a question — just a feeling about how war crimes are treated in seriousness and in jest.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, he was fired.
Tommy
@Major Major Major Major: I think from when that pic was taken in 2012 until now are the so cool years in a childs life. I know parents will say all of them are, but these rock for me. Maybe a few more before she doesn’t want her uncle to hug her and ask for a kiss on the cheek and the girl runs across the room and tackles you :)!!!!!!!!
In that pic she is showing me how to play a game I got her. I mostly get her analog things even though I work in tech for a living. Books. Things you can hold. Science stuff.
They were the things I had as a kid that brought me much joy. I want her to have then as well, even if she doesn’t want to use them. She has them.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: Cool your jets, hot shot. You’re being a little fiery today. We all have days like that but this is over several comment threads now.
There’s no excuse for being mean.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: I double-checked, he was suspended and expects to be fired, but I can see him joining Zimmerman and Joe the notPlumber signing autographs and CPAC and gun shows
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: Observations can be very flawed. But sure are always spot on. Accurate.
Major Major Major Major
@Tommy: I always get them analog or science-y stuff (age appropriate of course, I’m not gifting a five-year-old sulfuric acid). Or books. Usually age-appropriate stuff about zen. The Giver, when they’re a little older. Maybe Hatchet for the tomboy.
Ender’s Game will be given around the time of puberty I suspect.
Tenar Darell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I want to say good, good riddance. But, my inner history buff wishes he’d had some remedial state history first. Educate, then fire for cause, yeah!
ETA – ahah, suspended! That means he still can be required to listen to a history lesson before he gets his severance, maybe?
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: @Tommy: The fact that I think you are a person who would support hazing, and is more than a bit antisemitic and racist. That’s enough for me. Do have a nice evening though.
Tommy
@Major Major Major Major: This has happened before. I will be the first to say I made some not so artful comments in the past. Omnes Omnibus then seems to want to take that comment and paint me as this or this. Confused me on many levels. The first, you got the energy to track me and my comments and post about them. Well now I think about it that is the first, second, and third IMHO.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I have come across this commenter before. I am not working in a vacuum.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: Post my shit if you got it. What blows my mind is have I ever been rude to you?
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: @Tommy: I’m not getting involved; I just like to (personally) give everybody a clean slate on each thread unless they’ve done something to deserve otherwise.
Not asking for evidence and not getting involved. You’re both pretty frequent commenters and even when I disagree with either of you I generally value your contributions.
So, not getting in this pie fight.
EconWatcher
Jared Taylor is actually a fascinating piece of
work. I’ve been watching him for a bit.
Yale educated, flawless speaker of Japanese, raised by liberal Christian missionary parents, he takes the kind of disgusting bigotry you might expect from a skinhead and translates it into a kind of faux-sophisticated patrician language.
The results are sometimes hilarious: I once saw a video of him speaking in his honeyed, academic tones, wearing a flawless suit, and then the camera panned to the audience: a bunch of slack-jawed, inbred looking rednecks from the Council of Conservative Citizens.
What baffles and fascinates me is, why? What does he get out of this? It may be similar to David Irving, who apparently first got a thrill out of shocking people with his pro-Nazi schtick as a teenager in immediate post-war Britain. But Taylor seems kind of different. What makes a guy like this?
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy:Have you never made comments about Jews? Surprise at their diversity of opinion? Things like that?
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes you are.I have said things not popular. You have joked you can use the search function of this site to see how wrong I am. Cool. Do it!
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: @Tommy: Oh lighten up, Francis.
It’s balloon-juice. Forget it, Jake.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: I made a lot of comments about Jews, 5 out of my 6 bosss, and how all of them I knew were liberal. You talking about something else post the entire thread.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Good god. I suddenly realized the anti-Semitic things you just blurt out. I can’t really argue with that.
Tenar Darell
@Suzanne: Don’t succumb to that feeling, please! I think that’s part of the nefarious plan,to piss everyone off enough that we don’t care anymore. As TNC reminded probably a few times in history/politics discussions: What about that large minority of our fellow citizens who love their homes, and would never dream of seceding? Anyway, please don’t give up on them.
Ditto on efgdman’s suggestion. Maine might still have “human bowling jacket” Paul LePage, but all the other NE States could always use architects, especially ones that can handle retrofits too. C’mon and join the winter wonderland. You know you want to!
Tommy
@Major Major Major Major: I would most times. Like every time. This is a thing that happens a lot here. Not just a once or twice off thing. One way IMHO.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: So what is your issue with Jews?
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus:
That is anti-Jews? You are an ignorant person.
Knowing I didn’t know anybody in DC they accepted me into households. For many holidays. Often Jewish families took me into their house. Invited me over for their holidays. Fuck you not getting this basic, basic, fact.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: Why would you say I have an issue with Jews? You have to first explain that.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: so what is your issue with humans?
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy:
Is that even English?
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: so you are going to my grammar and not what I said. Nice. Only thing you got.
Where, and you liked to say here you got a search engine to understand who I am, where have I said anything against Jewish people?
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Tommy, everything I have ever read by you about people of the Jewish faith has been a bit offensive. Not just tonight. Over time.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: You are stupid.
Major Major Major Major
Oh, be nice. Can’t we just talk about cats?
opiejeanne
@joel hanes: Yes, I know, and it’s not just “many” who people resort ti tribalism, we all have done it at some point.
My comment was not made out of naiveté; I’ve been around enough people who think that way, that think that being PC is a form of cowardice, as in being too timid to speak one’s mind when what they really want is permission to say rude things and racist things and hurtful things.
opiejeanne
@Tommy: She’s adorable.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: How about dogs? I’m a dog person.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: Sure, whatever.
opiejeanne
@BillinGlendaleCA: No! I love cats! No dog talk!
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: Oh now, I see how it is.
BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: Then I guess I have nothing to contribute. I’ll go sit in the corner and smoke a cigarette.
opiejeanne
@BillinGlendaleCA: ;-)
Betty Cracker
I’m mildly surprised that our flying pedant squad let the inaccuracies by the New Yorker writer quoted above stand. There are, of course, notable literary, political and cultural traditions in the US outside the South.
Central Planning
@fleeting expletive:
You might. Do you have kids? The fact that you know the five-second rule implies you do. If you do have kids, you’ve been exposed to all sorts of nasty things so you’re probably fine.
tybee
http://i.imgur.com/t5Fvq.jpg
chopper
@Tommy:
he’s cranky today on account of it’s hot out.
Cermet
Dresden was not a war crime – period. The whole reason behind real war is to kill the enemy – all of them. War in more modern times, unlike the romantic myths created in the 18th century where civilian populations considered separate was not applicable by the 19th century. By then, war had become total by WWII; soldiers were not just the only threat anymore – the industrial strength and civilian population were also the strength of the war waging country. If the Nazi’s had won WWII the losing sides would not have been taken over and rebuilt like we did for Germany.
No, the Nazi’s had a plan to wipe out all, and I absolutely mean all Slav’s (mostly Russians but also all other “inferior peoples in those areas. The death toll would have far, far exceeded 60 million dead.) We, and the Brits would have faced death camps and mass slaughter, too. This would be continued by the next generation of Nazi children – the so-called civilian innocents. The figure of 60 million dead from WWII does not count the far vaster number of Chinese who died due to WWII – a war started by Germans and that area might never had suffered war if Japan hadn’t seen an opportunity so yes, Chinese deaths were due to Hitler and all the Germans.
The true figure of dead from WWII will never be known but 60 million is a lower bound. These Nazi’s and they included most all the civilians of Germany gave Hitler his power. They were absolutely legit targets for continued attack until Germany surrendered. That is a fact of life. Try reading real history and learn the terrible toll of people other than our view of the war. Read what the Russians and Chinese really suffered at the hands of these monsters.
Craig
My family has lived in the South for the past 315 years. The Confederacy (which existed for 4 of those 315 years) might be part of some Southerners’ culture but it’s not part of mine.
ET
I know when things aren’t working out so well socially or economically people turn to tribalism but for various countries in Europe white supremacy didn’t work out so well just a few decades ago.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cermet: What exactly was the military purpose of bombing Dresden?
Craig
@Omnes Omnibus:
What exactly was the military purpose of bombing Dresden?
The same military purpose for burning Atlanta to the ground. Breaking the spirit of the civilian populace by burning their homes to the ground helps to bring an end to wars.
Paul in KY
@Tommy: Nice pic, Tommy!
Paul in KY
@Tenar Darell: In a perfect world, his Minnesota neighbors would have tarred & feathered him.
Xenos
@Craig: Except that Sherman did not burn Atlanta. He just marched in immediately after it had been set alight.
Paul in KY
@EconWatcher: He gets to be the leader of that motley crew.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Oh, it’s the New Yorker. Not worth the time….
Paul in KY
@Cermet: Certainly in the 15th century, ‘civilians’ were considered fair game (if the commander had indicated so). Been reading my Wars of the Roses stuff (plus Tamerlane).
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Killing Nazis
Craig
@Xenos:
Except that Sherman did not burn Atlanta.
It’s a good thing I didn’t state that in my original post.
Taylor
@Craig: Kurt Vonnegut had a good analogy for strategic bombing. It is a form of torture, but one where you bring in the prisoner’s family and torture them in front of him.
Bomber Harris was a war criminal.
Besides killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, it is not clear that strategic bombing in WWII accomplished anything. I don’t remember Germany surrendering early because their cities were destroyed.
Craig
The Transcendentalist writers, Thoreau, Emerson, etc could be characterized as a Northern/Yankee literature.
Omnes Omnibus
@Craig: And how is that compatible with the Geneva Conventions?
Craig
@Taylor:
I don’t remember Germany surrendering early because their cities were destroyed.
Japan surrendered for that very reason. The military still wanted to fight, but wanted to spare more destruction on their civilians.
Denali
@OO,
There is a recent book on the bombing of Dresden, which does cite the industrial/military factories in the area. It was, of course, a humanitarian and cultural tragedy. The British and Canadians financially supported the rebuilding.
I am also from the South, and am ashamed of the blindness of some of my family when they cover their racism with their Bible quotes and need for heritage. It tars their friendliness and basic humanity.
Craig
@Omnes Omnibus:
And how is that compatible with the Geneva Conventions?
Good question. And it took me all of 30 seconds to find the relevant wikipedia article to answer your question. Until 1949 no Geneva Convention covered the treatment of civilian areas.
The Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field was adopted in 1864. It was significantly revised and replaced by the 1906 version, the 1929 version, and later the First Geneva Convention of 1949.
The Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea was adopted in 1906. It was significantly revised and replaced by the Second Geneva Convention of 1949.
The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War was adopted in 1929. It was significantly revised and replaced by the Third Geneva Convention of 1949.
The Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War was adopted in 1949.
boatboy_srq
@efgoldman: For “white cop-killer beard” read: something between Saruman and ZZ Top. Yours is trimmed: too short to qualify.
Taylor
@Craig: Your own example contradicts your argument. Japan did not surrender despite the firestorms that engulfed Tokyo and its other major cities.
Nuclear weapons were a game changer. Now we are talking about potential complete annihilation. This is a distinction that advocates of nuclear weapons try to obscure. Obscuring the difference between nuclear and conventional strategic bombing just demonstrates your own ignorance on the topic.
Paul in KY
@Taylor: We were just trying to kill Nazis. After a couple years of it, it was apparent they would not surrender absent their evil country being invaded/taken over.
Paul in KY
@boatboy_srq: Ie., what a youngish dwarve would sport.
Craig
@Taylor:
Nuclear weapons were a game changer. Now we are talking about potential complete annihilation. This is a distinction that advocates of nuclear weapons try to obscure. Obscuring the difference between nuclear and conventional strategic bombing just demonstrates your own ignorance on the topic.
The only person being ignorant here is you. We used the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, they refused to surrender. Then we used the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, they said “We’ll think about it.” Then we loaded up some B29s with incendiaries and visited Tokyo. They surrendered the next day.
boatboy_srq
@Paul in KY: GIMLI! There you go. But add the “white” and it means something more like what Gloin wore.
Paul in KY
@boatboy_srq: Cool!
Geeno
@Cervantes: It has to be remembered that the concept of “war crimes” was new and ill-defined in WWII. The Germans had set the “terms of engagement” with their attacks, so it was deemed perfectly legitimate to do the same to them. That’s just how wars were fought before Nuremberg, and frequently since.
Cervantes
@Geeno:
Was not responding to a pre-WWII joke about war crimes.
The joke was made yesterday.
Archon
@Craig:
The idea that Japan surrendered because of our use of nuclear weapons fits nicely into American propaganda though.
Saying “nukes ended the war” basically made any political, moral, and economic argument against building and using it futile.
Cervantes
@Craig:
Your chronology is somewhat off.
What that means for your argument I leave for you to consider.
yodecat
@Gene108: You’re sorta right about the Swastika. Those brillant Nazi propagandists took an ancient symbol and modified it just a leetle bit, tipping it at a 45 degree angle. I have a handle from a gas cock depicting the *real* Swastika; it dates from the early 20th and it was American made.
CrustyDem
@Archon: @Craig:
Uhh. Might want to check your dates, because they’re completely wrong… The worst firebombing of Tokyo was in early 1945, Japan announced their surrender hours after the bombing of Nagasaki.
Carcin
You’d have fit right in at Wannsee.
One of the dumbest things I’ve ever read about WWII, on an internet full of them…