In article <[log in to unmask]> Dave Wells
<[log in to unmask]> writes:
>Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 13:35:45 -0700
>From: Dave Wells <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: History, War and Remembrance
 
<SNIP>
 
>World War 2 involved many deaths that were not directly involved in the
>military.  The philosophy of war had come to include non-military as
>reasonable targets (historically, the progression of war from strictly
>armies battling each other to the inclusion of "innocents" had become
>complete by World War 2).  Nationalistic glorification of death is a
>moral question, reaching to the very core of what is "acceptable".
 
>Americans are fortunate they do not have the monuments of destruction on
>their own soil, that they pass day-to-day.  ...
 
I would think that some of the good citizens of the former Confederate States
of America might take issue with that. An entire mythology has grown up around
the "Lost Cause", the sacking of Georgia, etc.  This mythos and it's
anti-mythos are still sources of conflict in the south (just witness the
recent conflict over the 'battle-flag' of the Confederacy.) I certainly agree
that NOTHING like the kind of damage that WW II caused in Europe and Asia has
happened in the USA.
 
> ...I agree that citizens It becomes easy to relegate
>those images only to the media.  In Russia, the evidence of  the
>destruction of war is nearly everywhere; it is difficult to ignore.  We
>must remember that wars are decided by political institutions that send
>others to do their work for them, propogandize about the "rightness" of
>the action, and edit the results for "justification" of those actions.
>History is the storie(s) of what has happened before.  Generally, there
>is more than one story about any particular event.  To understand what
>happened, or may have happened, we need to consider all those stories.
 
>History may be painful, or pleasant, or controversial, but it is as it is.
 
>Dave Wells
 
 
History is written by the winners. Archeology is what is left of the losers
 
 
AJL Cary
[log in to unmask]
Pres. Society for Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources
PO Box 783, Newark, CA 94560
 
A railroad museum focussing on the preservation, interpretation, and
restoration of 19th Century narrow gauge railroad cars.
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Andrew J L Cary,  Senior Curmudgeon  : In general, these are my opinions &
CBDM, Development Research           : do not reflect those of my employers
Syntex (USA) Inc, Palo Alto, CA 94301: they ARE welcome to use them
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