Things are looking bad for Europe. But then, things have looked bad for Europe before... all too frequently in the last century.
Why is that? Why is it that Europe seems afflicted, again and again, with one extreme after another, compared to the central road that North America has traveled down, during the same century?
There seems a constant partnering, in Europe, between forces of extreme apathy, and forces of extreme curiosity... if we define totalitarian governments as overly curious about their own citizens. Why no happy middle ground, as we have been generally blessed with here at home?
Mandatory disclaimer: we can hardly brag of living in a libertarian utopia... yet when I read of Europe's current downward spiral, and the placid (and flacid) indifference of so many of its citizens, I must mouth a silent prayer of gratitude that I was born here rather than there.
What will it take to change them? The better question: what will it take for them to finally, finally, change themselves?
Ol' Doc Henry modestly suggests: taste once the fruit of renewed faith, and let's see what happens to the spawn of their dogmatic apathy.
Otherwise, this video's blurring of past, present and future will become much harder to detect:
3 comments:
WOW!
At least an Academy Award! Fine job. Keep churning them out!
The question is: is the Europe (and the America) of today capable of preventing the worst, or has something essential really died?
We still don't know the answer to that question.
Thank you both!
Tiberge, I am not sure that a great number of those who fought in, or persevered through, WWII knew the answer to that question in their time, either.
I read many books on that war written during the war itself, before the "last chapter" had been written, and their tone sounds like a lot of blogs today: "wake up,wake the neighbors, get them on board, we've got to keep going!" etc
As well, I've listened to old radio broadcasts from the war years, for the last 30 years as a fan, and heard a side of the story that my grandparents never mentioned; for instance, there was once a radio series called "You Can't Do Business With Hitler". Why would such a show exist, unless far too many people in 1942 (the year it was broadcast) actually fooled themselves into believed one could do business with him?
Many such series, taking place on the Home Front, would have characters mouth frustration with rationing, and other wartime privations, even participating in the black market for rationed goods. The script would explain the need for rationing, would talk about the dangers associated with inflation, and other factors that needed to be clarified... but clearly, a sizeable proportion of the population must have **needed** such explanations, or else why make them?
As I say, I am not so sure that we are so far removed from attitudes of the time. One clear difference: today there are far too many professors, media mavens and politicians telling us that we probably could do business with hitlers.
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