I posted this elsewhere (Political Wire):
Let us remember that November 11, 2018 will be the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the second-most destructive war ever and the war that made possible the horrors of Bolshevism, Nazism, and sundry other novel forms of brutal tyranny that made the most destructive war in history and genocidal slaughters a near inevitability.
World War I was the worst possible war at the time, and a calamity whose horror nobody predicted at its start. It is hard to imagine a war that so universally scarred the surviving soldiers. Nobody fully understands why it came to be, but the militarization of so many cultures surely contributed to the horror of the war. Monarchs and presidents were proud of their well-drilled infantry units and of their battleships, and of the rapid development of armament industries nd related big business (including steel and chemicals).
As demonstrated in the next war, World War I gave at best temporary and superficial solutions to the failings of the pre-war world. It weakened the best of men and empowered the worst. Donald Trump, who seems to have little studied history of any kind, attaches himself as much as possible to military pomp and regimentation -- just like the Emperors of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, all of whose political systems disintegrated at or near the ends of the war. A militaristic culture is spoiling for a fight, and those spoiling for a fight usually get one. It is the same with kings in palaces as it is with angry drunks in seedy saloons.
The least appropriate treatment for the 100th anniversary of the end of what had been called the Great War and the War to End All Wars ("to end all" meaning a superlative in the day) is a display of military prowess. More apt would be contemplation of the stupidity of a militarized culture that easily drifts into pointless war over some affront. Prayer and fasting would be far more apt.
Let us remember that November 11, 2018 will be the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the second-most destructive war ever and the war that made possible the horrors of Bolshevism, Nazism, and sundry other novel forms of brutal tyranny that made the most destructive war in history and genocidal slaughters a near inevitability.
World War I was the worst possible war at the time, and a calamity whose horror nobody predicted at its start. It is hard to imagine a war that so universally scarred the surviving soldiers. Nobody fully understands why it came to be, but the militarization of so many cultures surely contributed to the horror of the war. Monarchs and presidents were proud of their well-drilled infantry units and of their battleships, and of the rapid development of armament industries nd related big business (including steel and chemicals).
As demonstrated in the next war, World War I gave at best temporary and superficial solutions to the failings of the pre-war world. It weakened the best of men and empowered the worst. Donald Trump, who seems to have little studied history of any kind, attaches himself as much as possible to military pomp and regimentation -- just like the Emperors of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, all of whose political systems disintegrated at or near the ends of the war. A militaristic culture is spoiling for a fight, and those spoiling for a fight usually get one. It is the same with kings in palaces as it is with angry drunks in seedy saloons.
The least appropriate treatment for the 100th anniversary of the end of what had been called the Great War and the War to End All Wars ("to end all" meaning a superlative in the day) is a display of military prowess. More apt would be contemplation of the stupidity of a militarized culture that easily drifts into pointless war over some affront. Prayer and fasting would be far more apt.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.