A sense of proportion

[RayS]

Currently the media are listing news of the annivesary of the death of John Lennon alongside that of the news of the assination of JFK.
In my memory - since around 1939 - neither of thise rate particularly highly against the 1939 broadcast " and hence we are now at war with Germany"

I would rate these 90%/9%/1% although news of any man's death diminishes me, never ask, for whom the bell tolls etc.

Does the current generation understand what happened back then ? However sad and tragic, does 9/11 rank with the horrors of WW1 and 2 ?

As they say sh*t happens.

If you all say I'm just living in the past I will happily accept your verdict but at the moment i'm uneasy.

 

[JonnyG]

You are more than within your rights to live in the past or have a differing opinion on what ranks higher of any subject.
For me and given that i was born in 62,then with no real knowledge WW1 would rank highest based sheerly on the uncountable millions that died Then WW2, JFK to me is history,but he is of little importance to me or the properganda surrounding him,yes to others it may well rank far far higher,but then some would indeed rank john lennon higher because maybe he effected them more.
9/11 or for me 11/9 as i am proud to be British and that is how we would do 11th sept, hold more to me than jfk,but for two reasons one is private.

 

[Guest]

There is no doubt that the 2nd World War was a major event of all time basically for the fact that for the first time in history, civilian casualties far outnumbered the military and so introduced even newer horrors for everyone to face. In addition for the 1st time in history whole nations embarked on unspeakable horrors without the slightest concern of its morality.
However, it finished 65 years ago if my maths is correct and almost everyone who took part is now either dead or at a very advanced age. No disrespect to anyone still alive but if you were 20 in 1945 then you are now 85. Therefore many people now remembering it were either small children or born just after the War and remember more the aftermath of poverty that the UK faced until the mid 50’s. Since that date we have had wars virtually every year and we are now currently involved in the longest war since the 1800’s, so it is reasonable to allow people to have different views. Many of the ‘war generation’ deplore the activities of the youth of today but then again it was them, and their children who allowed the situation to develope.
We do have to accept that things have changed or we will still be attacking the Germans, most of whom are of a generation who never experienced the actual event. You cannot blame the children for the sins of the parents.
However, I do accept that we should always acknowledge the sacrifices made in our name by everyone in conflicts old and new and that we do need to ‘encourage’ the younger generations to respect the past, either using a ‘carrot or a stick’ if necessary. Other nations manage it very well, so why cannot the UK?

 

[colin(bridgend)]

This "moron" who was photographed swinging from the Union flag on the Cenotaph claims he did not know what it represented. Surely to goodness he has seen the Rememberence Day service on television each year. Also there is more than likely a Cenotaph in his locality. As far as his ignorance is concerned the sylabus for History in school is now 20th. Century not from days gone by of the Tudors, etc. If he paid more attention to his school studies and to what life is about then he would have known the reason for the London Cenotaph and what it represents.

The same applies to the idiot urinating on the statue of Sir Winstone Churchill - the pair of them should be horsewhipped and sentenced to three years in the armed forces. However they will probably end up with a rap across the knuckles and told to be good boys in future.

 

[Chris_Hyde_Cheshire.]

Colin, you are wrong!
They will either get a rap across the knuckles OR told to be good boys in the future, they only get both violent crimes against the elderly / infirm these days....................

 

[Parksy]

It could be said to be dependent on which generation is looking at the tv reports but it's more complex than that. Those of us who were taught history know that Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson was the JFK or the John Lennon of his day. He was a brilliant naval strategist of his time and he was revered by those who served under him and adored by the British public.
Mankind lost a lot when they lost men such as him.

The conditions which gave rise to World War 2 came about largely as a result of the social and economic situation in central Europe after World War 1.
I am of the generation who knew relatives who had fought in the trenches of the Great War and our fathers and uncles had served in the Second World War so the collective memory of these world changing events resonated very strongly within our lives. The trenches claimed the very best men of their generation, those that mankind could least afford to lose. There are memorials in towns and villages all over Great Britain which commemorate the dead of both European wars, very few families were untouched by war and in British towns and cities aerial attack claimed the lives of service personnel but mainly civilians from within our close communities.
The horrors of conflict on this truly global scale coupled with the loss of innocence bought about by genocide cost mankind dear.

John F Kennedy represented hope for the post war generation, he was a remarkable figure for his time, a world statesman who bravely faced down the might of the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis. Regarded by many Americans as being of immigrant stock and in spite of this elected as a Democrat in an ultra conservative nation just after the McCarthy era of communist scares and witch hunts one of his well known utterances was "There are no white or coloured markers in the graveyards of battle". He had begun to break down barriers and mankind was robbed of a great leader who would have cast off the chains and shackles binding predjudiced minds had he not been claimed by Lee Harvey Oswalds bullets at Dealy Plaza on that fateful November day. It was a loss that the world could ill afford.

John Ono Lennon helped to alter the perceptions of many of those of his generation. He taught those who would listen that there is no glory in war, peace is precious. He taught himself (and us) to respect women and to treat them as equals even though at the time he was reviled and laughed at for what he did. He opened the minds of many of us and his death was a loss to mankind. Who knows what he might have gone on to achieve in terms of influencing the minds of those with the power to change things?
Wars are being fought by our troops in our names now, today, and lives are being lost in a conflict that the Chief of the General Staff admits that we have no hope of winning. Can we afford to lose these young lives?
As Winston Churchill once said, we should learn from history, the lessons are there for all of us, including the young who disrespect memorials commemorating the sacrifice of those who allowed them to have the freedom to do just that.
There is no method of prioritising any of the deaths mentioned, from times which are beyond our memory to the present day we all lost something when every single one of them died.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Agree 100% but I agree with some points more than others .... heh! heh! heh!

As someone who is patriotic anyone who fought and died for this country should be reverred but moving to todays problem, Afghanistan, I fear the lives lost and young men permanently crippled have been such a waste. As soon as the troops leave the country will revert to it's former tribal feudal system, the corrupt government will flee and more than likely be given asylum here.
The kid who sprayed Churchills statue should when caught be made to clean it - with his tongue. The kid who used the Union flag and swung from the Cenotaph should be tied by his feet with the flag, hung upside down for 24 hours, and pelted with rotten fruit and bad eggs.

I'd even travel to London to join the celebration of justice.

 

[Parksy]

Agree 100% but I agree with some points more than others .... heh! heh! heh!

As someone who is patriotic anyone who fought and died for this country should be reverred but moving to todays problem, Afghanistan, I fear the lives lost and young men permanently crippled have been such a waste. As soon as the troops leave the country will revert to it's former tribal feudal system, the corrupt government will flee and more than likely be given asylum here.
The kid who sprayed Churchills statue should when caught be made to clean it - with his tongue. The kid who used the Union flag and swung from the Cenotaph should be tied by his feet with the flag, hung upside down for 24 hours, and pelted with rotten fruit and bad eggs.

I'd even travel to London to join the celebration of justice.

Churchill said that we should learn from histry but US foreign policy never takes history into account, hence Iraq and Afghanistan.
British troops fought and died in Afghanistan 200 years ago but nothing changed then and nothing will change now.
The Afghans are Taliban one day, farmers the next, elected officials sponsored by the west on yet another day and back to being feudal warlords again the next.
I don't agree with this business of disproportionate medieval punishments, there are those in this country who would like to see Sharia law introduced and Britain to become a Caliphate which is against everything that those named on war memorials who made the sacrifices were fighting against. The oft mentioned disproportionate punishments which feature heavily in letters to the press are more in keeping with Sharia than western justice.
Of course the idiots who have outraged public decency and disrespected our war dead should be punished, at one time these types would have been sent to Borstal institutions for a spot of 're education' so they should definitely be made aware of what they have done but punishments need to be proportionate. Piddling on Churchill's statue is wrong and the lack of respect shown by Charlie Gilmore is abhorrent to us but nobody died, the parents of these people need to ask themselves what sort of offspring they have reared.

 

[Dustydog]

RESPECT.
That word doesn't exist in these To$$er$ vocabulary.
My mum was buried alive for 48 hours after a doodlebug hit her bank in 1944. She thought she would never make it.
Dad and my uncle were terrified many a night on their numerous trips to the Reich, never knowing if they would get home or be burnt alive at 15000 feet or be a POW. My other uncle fought hand to hand at Monte casino. They knew real fear. That's what the kids at the demo have no conception of.
To be afraid and absolutely terrified would soon sort out these arrogant little selfish gits.

 

[emmerson]

How many among our forum-ers have visited the Menin Gate to attend the 8.00pm ceremony? This takes place every evening, and on both occasions I've attended there have been as many youngsters as elderly, because the kids are brought up to respect the war dead. The Last Post is played by members of the local Fire Service, and there is a waiting list of young people for the privelege of playing. The people of the town are also proud to attend the ceremony, many going every night.
How many have visited Oradur-sur-glane, the mis-named Martyr's Village? Left as it was after the German army raped it in 1945, as a monument to those who died, it is spine-chilling to walk through the streets and see the tools and toys left just as they were after the place was razed to the ground after its all of inhabitants were horrifically killed.
Perhaps if some of our mindeless morons could see these things, they too might learn respect, but sadly, I won't hold my breath.
I agree with LB, this country has gone too far down the road to anarchy to be turned back now. I'm very glad to be elderly, but fear for my grandson's future.

 

[JonnyG]

Parksy wonderful post,although the jfk bit is the brilliant one-sided propaganda of the 60s.,its not just a case of Russian archives becoming available from the cold war, many ex CIA operatives have also confirmed it over time .

Fact. America had moved nuclear missile installation to the Turkish, USSR border. The USSR retaliated by making moves to do the same and placing their missiles in Cuba. America withdraw there missiles from the Turkish USSR border and therefore the USSR did the same. Bit like the old cowboy and Indian films we grow up on, cowboys good, Indians bad, but that ideology has also taken a right hammering over the past few decades.

 

[Parksy]

The USSR of the 60s was well and truly behind the 'iron curtain' as Churchill called it so nobody in the West knew anything about the movement of missiles.
Any 'propaganda' of those days was completely one sided because no news whatsoever leaked from the USSR and yes, we were led to believe that 'communism', for want of a better word, was bad and we did believe that communism was bad. Many of us still belive that communism, Marxism, call it what you will, is a deeply flawed system. When Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital his utopian vision took no account of human nature or greed which is why thousands tried to escape the yoke of communism, most visibly in the divided city of Berlin.
I was a young boy during the missile crisis and I remember the very real threat of nuclear war with the US and USSR crawling very close to what was then called 'the brink', i.e. the point of no return.
JFK was a very charismatic figure, we had Harold McMillan who seemed old and tired and monochrome. He promised hope to a generation of Americans and by extension to the western world. Hindsight leaves us all to wonder whether or not the promise shown would have been fulfilled but let's not forget that back in those days we had no choice other than to believe what we were told.
Not only did JFK start to address the domestic issues surrounding race he stalled further European communist expansionism whith his 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech which I remember very well.

 

[Surfer]

Contrary to every one else's view, I don't rate J F Kennedy or his clan at all! His brothers Bobby & Edward were total **at! Churchill had far more gumption than any of the Kennedys! Media can never get anything right! My grandfather fought in South West Africa and then in the trenches during WWI. My father served in Italy and other places and was present at the hanging of Mussolini n and his mistresses. My father is now 85!