American Values Gone Awry
I don’t present the meme at the left to engage in any discussion of religion. While I “don’t go there,” it’s a great representation of the enormous hypocrisy of the times in which we live. The more adamant some people are about calling themselves Christians, the less their behavior and value-set resembles those of Christ.
There is an analogous case to be made about American values. The principal values of today’s “patriots” include:
• Demonizing immigrants and ignoring the needs of refugees
• Supporting the rights of all people, regardless of mental background, to own weapons of war
• Destroying public education
• Ruining the environment in favor of corporate polluters
• Denying healthcare to tens of millions
• Accepting (and in many case participating in) white nationalism
• Widening the gap between rich and poor via tax cuts for the super-wealthy
• Supporting a president who, at the very least, is a pathological liar and proud sex criminal
My father flew 29 successful (and one unsuccessful) bombing missions over Germany in World War II, risking his life to ensure Nazi values did not prevail on Earth. He’s rolling over in his grave.
Craig,
That’s a fine rant you’ve got going there !
I was interested in the perspective you have in relation to your father’s war service. Today, those 29 missions which indiscriminately killed woman and children with horrendous weapons of great cruelty (Dresden etc) would be condemned as evil war crimes.
On the other hand, how else was an evil like National Socialist Germany to be defeated ?
My father also served from 1939-45. Wounded five times and highly decorated, he eventually found himself among the first senior officers to liberate Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp.
The experience affected him very deeply, despite having survived 6 years of hard service and taken part in a lot of bitter combat. However, even the horrors of the concentration camps did not prepare him for the monstrosity of Russian occupied Dresden.
This ancient and largely defenseless city crammed with refugees was devastated in the last months of the war by a horrendous fire-storm, the result of allied bombing. The survivors were then subjected to the rapacious and brutal cruelty of Russian occupation forces.
My father visited the city a month after German capitulation, his witness of the sights and deeds still being perpetrated against the hapless survivors completely destroyed his faith in humanity.
After leaving the Army, my father devoted his life(and family fortune) to gambling, partying and socializing. Finally dying as an aging and dissipated cynic. Until recently, my only memories of him were as an unreliable, irresponsible, selfish, if charming and charismatic figure.
He died leaving his only monument to posterity, an astonishing accumulation debt, and my now orphaned younger brother whose school fees hadn’t been paid for 2 years.
Between the greed of the UK taxman (inheritance tax on a virtually bankrupt estate) and my father debts, I found myself in the impossible situation of being forced to assume an the responsibility for an inheritance I never wanted, or sought.
It feel to me to fulfill the family to our employees, tenants, and creditors. In addition I had responsibility young brother I barely knew, who was mourning his beloved father having lost his mother when he was still young. He loved his school where his father and grandfather had attended,and our old family estate. (My Mother had been smart, divorcing my profligate father and taking me back home to Australia many years earlier, my father promptly remarried a much younger beauty pageant winner).
After many years of struggle to restore the family fortunes, which lead to the termination of my first marriage, I formed a deep resentment toward my father’s irresponsible and selfish behavior.
A few years ago, I was contacted by my father’s old firm of solicitors who apologetically informed of the discovery of two large tea chests (boxes)and a large traveling case left in trust for me, but long forgotten due to the death of an elderly partner in the firm.
The cases contained a trove of my fathers diaries from the time he was 11 years old and finished when leaving the army in 1956, after service in WW2, Korea, Malaysia, Kenya, Suez and Aden.
Along with the diaries were many photo’s and memento’s (even nine films). Armed with this information, and my own military contacts, I was able to research military records and other sources which provided context for the contents of his diaries. Reading and understanding his experiences, provided me with a new insight and explanation for the his behavior the demons that drove his character and lifestyle in later years .
It’s important we look after the mental well being of our service people and returning veterans. Sadly, for veterans of my fathers generation and social class, there was no help available, no compassion. They were expected to cope with only the assistance of alcohol and showing no sign of weakness.
Reading in his own words, how he descended from a hopeful, high spirited, generous and idealistic schoolboy to the man he became in later life, was a revelation.
I’m grateful for the discovery of these diaries, as they’ve eased a lot of resentment and taught me how easily we can form erroneous judgement about our fellow man if we haven’t walked it their shoes.
Wow. Thanks for that very interesting and heart-rending story.
My father whacked oil refineries; there was identically zero “indiscriminant killing of woman and children.” (What a weird and utterly thoughtless remark.)
We are all glad he wasn’t asked to do Dresden; he was a very decent human being, and that would have been a terrible thing for him to have participated in.