Comments on: Believing the worst

By: Barry Meislin

Barry Meislin — Sun, 21 Sep 2014 07:52:05 +0000

Blert,

Indeed, you are correct.

It is what is known as “projection”, of course.

Something that the extremely paranoid are extremely good at.

Imagine raising and educating your youth to be extremely paranoid… (hey, maybe that’s not such a bad idea!)

File under: Some are born paranoid; some achieve paranoia, and some have paranoia thrust upon them….

By: Richard Saunders

Richard Saunders — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 17:37:21 +0000

RA — my father was in an Engineer Combat Battalion, definitely a line unit, usually an in-front-of-the-line unit (mine clearing and road building was their speciality.) He became a rated translator after V-E Day. Since he had only arrived in France in February 1945, he didn’t have enough points to go home immediatley. Instead of being sent to Japan, he stayed in Europe until May of 1946, working at a POW camp. Thank God for Harry Truman!

By: jp

jp — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 16:39:01 +0000

Also, it’s my impression that people in this country were somewhat more willing to believe the atrocities of the Japanese.

Remember also that the Japanese had been at war in China for the better part of two years before war broke out in Europe. The horrors of Nanking had been reported by the New York Times and other outlets years before allegations of death camps started to emerge in the States.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 13:38:33 +0000

This is a fascinating post and I agree with portions of it.

But I think it avoids a key issue — and that is that it is not the responsibility of the US government to “combat evil” of whatever sort. The responsibility of the US government is to conduct an excellent defense of our country.

So I think at least some of the disinterest in “evil” in other countries is 1) there is radical horrific “mass evil” going on in *dozens* of countries, not merely the Middle East, and 2) the recommended solution is always, from the US, to “commit troops, go to war, and spend lots of money” to “combat this particular evil right here.”

Since the sole option to “combat this evil right here” appears to always be “America goes to war” many people who might otherwise be engaged in “combating evil” turn it off, since they don’t want America to “go to war.” And what else are they going to do to “combat evil?”

In the absence of an opportunity for an individual to help or assist, such individuals will often shut their eyes and go on about their business.

By: RA

RA — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 12:08:45 +0000

Richard.
My father was in the 104th ID Timberwolves. The CG was Terry Allen, whose men think he walked on water. He was well known for looking out for his guys. After leaving the Canadian Corps, he figured out a way to continue the officers’ liquor ration. His emphasis on night fighting meant they had a very low casualty rate and lessons learned about such things, referring to the Timberwolves, were preached to us at Benning several wars later.
From which it is possible that it was only the division, Allen being so involved. OTOH, it applied only to line units. Don’t know if official translators were presumed to be in a line unit, subject to capture.
Most of the Germans my Dad’s guys captured had at least one guy speaking English. That was sufficient for first-level interrogation, “Where are the tanks?” and “hands up”.

By: Richard Saunders

Richard Saunders — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 01:08:17 +0000

RA – Must have been at a unit level then — my father’s Yiddish certainly came in handy; he was rated as an official German translator.

Your second point is correct. The Army did offer Jewish soldiers the option of putting a religion code on their dogtags other than the “H” (Hebrew) which was used at the time. (I had “J” on mine in 1970.)

The British, after first interning the Jewish German refugees, eventually formed them into Commando units, alongside the Danish, French, Norwegian, and other Troops they formed. They made them change the Jewish sounding names to British names, though.

By: RA

RA — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 19:45:28 +0000

My father had an Infantry platoon in Europe. His first runner was a Jewish guy who spoke Yiddish, which would have been useful in Holland and Germany. But when the Army–possibly it was only his division–found what even the mild-mannered Wehrmacht did to Jewish POWs, the Jews were pulled from line units.
The Eight Air Force provided bogus non-Jewish ID to its aircrew.

By: Richard Saunders

Richard Saunders — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 17:46:39 +0000

Blert: Where did you get that idea about Jewish soldiers not being sent to Europe unless they volunteered? Absolutely untrue. Neither my father nor any other Jewish veteran I knew was ever asked to volunteer for Europe — they were sent and they went. A couple of the more prominent examples were General Maurice Rose, CO) of the 3rd Armored Divison, and Major Abe Baum, CO of Georgie Patton’s “Jewish Brigade” that he sent on the ill-considered mission to rescue his son-in-law from a German POW camp.

By: RA

RA — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 12:50:14 +0000

Beverly.
Of course it’s terrible. But the leftist lies are different from, say, an assertion that the world is flat or a difference of opinion on whether Pluto is a planet.
Leftist lies are props of one’s self-image, one’s personality, one’s self-presentation in everyday life (Goffman).
Quite literally, your relations and their millions of like-minded (hurts to use “mind” in this context) cannot give up a lefty lie.

By: Beverly

Beverly — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 07:19:04 +0000

My niece is a good person, very sweet; but she’s a devoted Obama worshipper. As is her fiance. Even though she lives in a majority-Republican city, and is taking some flak for (as she indignantly said) being a “fool” for voting for him. Her objection to that was that it was so Rude of people to say such things, so Unfair.

IOW, she’s been absorbed by the Borg.

I never send her political emails, knowing it would have this effect; the previous one (singular) was one I thought was wryly amusing, about Columbus Day (she replied by declaring that Columbus “practiced sexual slavery!” so she couldn’t be “on team Columbus”).

I also almost never try to communicate with the kids about all this very important stuff, because frankly, it makes me sick to my stomach to hear all the horrid Leftist lies they’ve been told come spouting out of their mouths. The brainwashing is terrible.