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| Subject: Remembering, but learning? | |
Author: A | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 18:25:16 11/15/04 Mon In reply to: Ed Harris (Venezia) 's message, "Remembrance Sunday" on 00:59:24 11/15/04 Mon What does it achieve though? We remember, and then send out a bunch of young men to kill and get shot at for no decent reason. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Remembering and understanding. | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 18:31:44 11/15/04 Mon We remember them because walking back up Whitehall after the Service there are no swastikas flying from the government buildings, entirely owing to their sacrifices. Whether or not we think that more recent wars are as noble or as just - and I accept that many think quite the opposite - that is the responsibility of the politicians and in no way diminishes the privations and suffering which our soldiers and sailors voluntarily undergo for our country. Remembrance, perhaps, doesn't 'achieve' anything, but that is not the point. It is a mark of respect for the individuals who serve, not a gesture of solidarity with the politicians who direct their service. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: Remembering | |
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Author: A [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:22:28 11/15/04 Mon I've always seen remembrance as respectful of the dead, but I really have to say that such services seem to be drafted in to glorify things they should have no part in... modern things. That the Allies and Germans didn't learn from WWI was proven in WWII. That we didn't learn from the brutality of WWII is still being proven. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: ? | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 21:22:31 11/15/04 Mon What is your point, A? That we should abolish remembrances until there is universal peace? [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Remembering and understanding. | |
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Author: Ben.M(UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 18:33:43 11/15/04 Mon "We remember them because walking back up Whitehall after the Service there are no swastikas flying from the government buildings, entirely owing to their sacrifices." Couldn't have said it better. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Thankfulness | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 18:37:57 11/15/04 Mon Every single day of the year, we are all able to do things that would not be possible without their sacrifice. We are able to worship freely, say as we like, form an association like this, and complain about our political leaders. If the swastika was hanging from the Cenotapth, and Hitler or one of his successors was lying the first wreathe, we would not be able to do anything like that. Is it really so much to give up a few hours of our year to remember those who made the remainder possible? "For your tommorow, we gave our today." [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: those few hours | |
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Author: A [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:24:36 11/15/04 Mon "Is it really so much to give up a few hours of our year to remember those who made the remainder possible?" Yes, if we apply the lessons of history to the present day. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: I'm afraid I can't share your point of view there; the least we shall do is remember them | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:46:41 11/15/04 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: yesterday I heard a lecture by a German journalist ... | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 18:40:28 11/15/04 Mon ... in which he said that Germans should always remember that their democracy was not achieved by their own struggles, but was a gift from others: our gift, and worthy of being remembered. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: Democracy, germans etc | |
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Author: A [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:26:37 11/15/04 Mon Ian, like I say to the other posters, I have no doubt of the sacrifice in World War II, and the ending of the barbaric regime in Europe, but I also remember that in school remembrance services and elsewhere, that people used them to glorify various wars usually nothing to do with WWII. What's the point in remembering if you don't learn from it? Surely it's worse if you can see what went before and you're repeating the same mistakes. Thank God we didn't enter Vietnam, as the poor ANZACs were made to, but look at what's come since WWII. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
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Author: Ed Harris (venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:33:57 11/15/04 Mon Remembering is the point, not learning. Learning is up to the politicians, not the veterans with half their limbs missing. At remembrance services, there is never any mention of the justice of particular wars, past and present, just the hardship and sacrifices of the people who ended up taking part in them. That is only fair. And if you were taught in school to glorify wars, then I guess that you went to school a long time ago, probably before 1919. Since then, wars have been descibed in all schools in the British world as a source of sadness and regret. Except America, of course, where they make the exceptions of the American Revolution, World War II and the Star Wars troligy. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: no one ever glorified war when I was at school | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:44:48 11/15/04 Mon ANZAC Day services were always very solemn occasions. What's the point in remembering if you don't also learn? Look at it this way: if we forget, we have also lost the chance to learn. Remembering keeps alive the possibility of learning. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Lessons | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:16:18 11/15/04 Mon I share the sentiments of most of those here who recognise that the remembrance events are about respect, not analysis. However, as a side note, I would point out that a lot WAS learnt between the two world wars with regard to combat technique. There was a greater respect for the lives of the soldiers who were asked to fight in WW2. Thankfully, the futile slaughter and arrogant stupidity that characterised the efforts in the trenches of the Western Front and the Gallipoli campaign, were largely absent from WW2. The Second World War invented much of the military doctrine, techniques and technology that we use today. WW1 fighting was not so different to the campaigns of the Napoleonic wars, and the American war of Independence, with green tunics instead of red ones. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: Addendum | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:25:04 11/15/04 Mon If we want to debate political lessons, what would be the best one to learn from WW2? Personally, I think it would have been that appeasement does not save lives, and that we should have invaded Germany in 1933. I wonder how many people would agree with that statement, while being vehemently opposed to the Iraq war. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Possibly | |
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Author: Ed Harris (venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:55:59 11/15/04 Mon But in 1933 Germany had no weapons and it would have been hard to second-guess how closely Nazi foreign policy would live upto Nazi rhetoric. If we are going to roll up our sleeves and play the hind-sight game, I would say that we should have declared war on Japan when WWII really started in 1936, with their invasion of Manchuria (our identification of Sept 1939 as the start of the war is as ignorant as the Americans' attempt to date the start of WWII as the bombing of Pearl Harbour). Had we done that, as opposed to letting them have their way, then Hitler would have thought twice about invading Czechoslovakia and Poland; without military expansion and the theft of raw materials and the acquisition of slave labour, Nazi Germany's economy would have been unsustainable, and his regime would eventually have crumbled under internal pressures, as in all dictatorships. Sic semper tyrannis. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: War in China | |
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Author: Nick (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 13:32:11 11/16/04 Tue But if we had declared war on Japan in 1936, how much of the world would have followed us? The British Empire only began to re-arm half-heartedly in 1936 having idealistically and under American pressure scrapped most of its military capability in the 1920s. We probably couldn't have won a war against Japan, and with the only obvious non-fascist superpower engaged in a futile war in China, there would have been nothing to stop Hitler invading eastern Europe. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Yep | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 22:31:45 11/15/04 Mon "But in 1933 Germany had no weapons and it would have been hard to second-guess how closely Nazi foreign policy would live upto Nazi rhetoric." Exactly, this is why I drew the comparison with Iraq... [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: I could easily apply a similar comparison to half the countries in the world. | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 22:46:21 11/15/04 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: I'm sure you can... | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 23:23:59 11/15/04 Mon And we'll probably be at war with one of them in years to come... [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Probably several. | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 03:43:43 11/16/04 Tue [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: we learned that air power is crucial | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 23:42:56 11/15/04 Mon and that it is apparently acceptable to test new weapons on your enemies after they are defeated, as long as they have not formally surrendered. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: As always, the situations are different... | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:37:02 11/15/04 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |