The Political Left, having recently rediscovered democracy, now rediscover's shame. A blog entry by Robert Reich.

Marjory Taylor Greene, left, Howler Monkey's right (By Steve from washington, dc, usa - howler monkees doing their thing, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3963947).  One of these examples is shameful, and it ain't the one on the right.

This is an interesting and in my view largely correct, insightful blog entry by Robert Reich:

The death of shame

It also comes, I'd note, on the same day that a Wyoming Republic commentator made what are somewhat similar comments, calling a member of the GOP Central Committee a hypocrite in no uncertain, and indeed highly crude, terms, although if true, they'd be deserving ones.

And hence, I guess, my comment.

While I think that what Reich is complaining about is in fact shameful, which starts with Marjorie Taylor Greene acting like a Howler Monkey during the State of the Union Address, how the crap can anyone on the hardcore political left sincerely make this claim? The hard left in the country has spent the last 50 years totally dismantling any concept of shame in absolutely everything whatsoever.

And that's a lot of the reason why we are exactly where we are.

Do we have no shame?

Of course not. We were told that nothing is shameful.

And indeed, this tracks well into the purpose of this blog, looking at then. . .and now.  And, moreover, we often fail to note this trend, i.e., descent, in literature, as we assume that everyone in the past was living in the sewer or wanted to be like us, in the sewer.

That's truly not how it was.

I'll admit that I am torn in how to present this post.  When I started drafting it, I found I went into detail on where shame has exited.  I hadn't intended in the first place that the thread be a catalog of things formerly shameful, and now no longer shameful.  And in looking at it, I don't think that's the correct approach.  Maybe I'll expand on individual items later.

But what I will note, is there are a lot of things that were once regarded as highly shameful, in the arena of personal conduct, that no longer are, and in some instances, left-wing social engineers have gone so far as to impose shame on anyone commenting on them, or not engaging in them. Shame hasn't really left in that sense, it's been transferred.

Taking what is a short arch of history, but a long one in terms of individual lives, since World War Two, and really, since the late 1960s, a massive effort has been expended on this by the left.  Even as late as the early 1980s, for instance, many things that are now not shameful, were.  

Sex outside of marriage, particularly for women (or girls) was shameful.¹   Having a baby out of wedlock was shameful.²  Homosexuality was shameful.³   Men dressing in women's clothes or affecting a female appearance was shameful. Prostitution was shameful⁴ . Avarice was shame, including avarice in these areas.⁵

Even into the 1970s, being divorced conveyed an element of shame.⁶   Living with the opposite gender and not being married was shameful. 

Well beyond that, having a child and not supporting the child economically, even to the point of your own well-being being impaired, was shameful.

While it was definitely changing during the 60s, putting yourself on display, i.e., being an "exhibitionist" was shameful.

Pornography, even after Playboy, and its consumption, was shameful.

All this started getting ripped down in the late 1940s, it accelerated in the 60s and 70s, and it's gone on to really stretch the balloon in our present age.  The results have quite frankly been a disastrous assault on nature.

Now, I don't wish to suggest that every conveyance of shame was warranted or a good thing. There were some really bad results.  The high abortion rates of the 70s and 80s were partially due to it being simply too shameful in many people's minds to bear a child out of wedlock, with the shame being imposed both on the young woman, but also on her family.  That this has ended is a good thing.

But the Me Generation's deep dive into themselves, and "if it feels good, do it", as the ethos, has been hugely destructive.  The KIA, MIA, and WIA of the Sexual Revolution has caused a limping society.  The focus on "me" lead to a focus on "mine", destroying community and boosting greed.

And in no small part, it's lead to where we are in things like Reich has complained about, and not just in this post.  It's all sort of the same package.  If the whole world is about me, me, me, and my needs, needs, needs, I really don't need to care what anyone else thinks or even reality.  The difference, therefore, between Marjorie Taylor Greene howling for attention and a transgender advocates demanding that a man be viewed as a woman, as he wants to be, are really thin. Likewise, the difference between a AoC and Elon Mus isn't all that much.

Also, really thin is the difference between individualized self-expression, including pantless individualized self-expression, and Harvey Weinstein pulling the latter off of somebody else.  It all just goes together.  In a way that they likely couldn't recognize, Hugh Hefner, Harvey Weinstein, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert are all fellow travelers on the same destructive cultural bus.

Reich cites to shame being a necessary social engine, and it is.  But you can't partially restore shame, really, as it has to be based on a larger something.  You can't just say "bad", and it's bad, because it's bad.  Bad things are bad, but due to something else making them bad. 

We've been seeing a lot of this recently, interestingly, and some of that's a good sign.  The Me Too movement is an effort to restore shame where it had once been.  At least up into the 50s, if not beyond, men who expected women to put out were called "wolves", and to be tagged that was shameful.  While the name was no longer around by the late 70s, early 80s, the same conduct was still not admired at that time, but Hefner and company were ripping it down, and in deed, raping it down, basically.  Hollywood, where actress self prostitution was pretty common all along, was interestingly the first to really say "enough", on an individual level, and try to reverse it.

But you really have to restore the metaphysical basis for why that's wrong, to really get anywhere.

Young people, left without the guide rails of the culture that was torn down, have partially restored it as well, although groping for a basis for it remains.  And in some odd ways, as we recently addressed, even the transgender movement, deep down, is an effort to reach out to get back to a less material, less perverted, time.

So here we now are.  Having become comfortable with a Quasi Judaical Dictatorship that's suddenly betrayed autocracy and restored democracy, the left finds itself now championing what it had become comfortable omitting, and here at last, its rediscovered, shame.

So is this a "everything was better in the past" post?  No it isn't.

But shame exist for a reason, and excising it wholly was a mistake.

Footnotes.

1.  People will instantly claim that there was a double standard, and to some degree that was true, but not to the degree that people commonly imagine.  It is true that it's becoming public knowledge that a girl had sex outside of marriage would tarnish, and often severely, her reputation, and if it was a case of multiple men, it would put her in a category that would be difficult to ever get out of, but men who were multiple standard violators likewise got tagged with a permanent, indeed lifelong, reputation they couldn't get out of either.  They had greater leeway than women, but not absolute leeway.

2. As noted in later in the thread, this probably partially lead to the high abortion rates of the 70s and 80s.  It also, however, lead to a lot of children being given up for adoption in a process in which the pregnant girl often absented herself, or her family absented her, for a period of time so that the pregnancy would not be discovered.  I know at least one person who experienced, this, later going on to a very respected adult life and the pregnancy not being discovered until after she had died.  As there was a high demand for healthy infants to adopt, and frankly white healthy infants (and there still is), this often worked out well for the adopted as well. Again, I personally know one such person whose mother was a college student when she became pregnant and the father never knew.

Indeed, that latter item is surprisingly common.  You'd think the distressed young woman would have always told the father, but often, they didn't.  This is because they didn't want, quite often, to be faced with the choice of marrying the individual, which also often occurred.  Such marriages usually happened quickly before the woman "showed".  In cases in which the women were in their 20s, they often just didn't want to be married to the man in the end, and for teens, their families didn't want to put them in that spot, quite often.  And of course, date rape wasn't really a concept at the time, and therefore in cases in which that resulted in pregnancy, not wanting to marry the man made sense.

3.  This tended to have an arresting influence on open displays of homosexuality, and it also led to quite a few homosexuals simply suppressing it individually, or even refusing to acknowledge it in any sense.

4.  It still mostly is, of course, but there are ongoing efforts to break this down.

The degree to which prostitution is shameful, although not really being a prostitute, tends to change by era.  In rough and ready frontier areas, the institution tends to exist pretty openly, and it also tended to very much be associated with certain armies, sometimes by compulsion.  That doesn't necessarily mean that the individual shame associated with it evaporates, but rather the tolerance of it is pretty open.  In other eras, there's very low tolerance for it.

There tends to be a myth that prostitutes were the founding women in a lot of regions of the frontier, which is just flatly false.  I've heard this myth associated with one local, now long deceased, historian, but as I've never read his work, and for acquired bias reasons I'm unlikely to, I don't know if that's really true.  Be that as it may, the most typical fate for prostitutes was early death, due to the lack of protection from disease.

5.  But not just in these areas.  Being "greedy" has been something that's always been around, but which wasn't tolerated in the way it now is until after the Reagan Administration came in.  

Americans have always had a very high tolerance for the accumulation of wealth, but not to the present level.  Simply being wealthy is not a sign of avarice, but having wealth was at one time very much associated with a social expectation of charity. Quite a few wealthy people still exhibit that trait today.

"I pay my taxes", while something nobody likes doing, was actually something the very wealthy used in their self-defense at one time, as the upper tax rate was extremely high.

6.  Fault, of course, had to be demonstrated for divorce up until nearly everyplace, or maybe everyplace, adopted "no-fault divorce".

Divorce is really regarded as being routine today, but even into the 1970s it was a mark against a person.

Tuesday, February 16, 1943. Mildred Harnack executed. Theresienstadt temporairly spared. Domenikon not spared. Norwegian paratroopers drop. Stalin asks for a "second front".

Himmler ordered a cessation of deportations of elderly Jews from the Theresienstadt ghetto, resulting in a complete sessaion of deportations of all Jews from there for six months.  Oddly, the ghetto had been designated as a location where elderly Jews could live out tehir lives, albeit not comfortably, resulting in the order, but a peson has to wonder to what extent the order simply wasn't practical, given the massive strain hte war had put on the German railways system, which was being compounded by German deportations.

Italian soldiers commenced reprisal murders of Greek civilians at Domenikon which would result in 175 Greek men being killed.

Norwegian paratroopers were dropped by the British at Skrykenvann in preparation for a raid on the hydro plant at Vemork, targeted at heavy water production.

East German stamp in honor of the Harnacs.

Mildred Harnack, née Fish, a 41-year-old Milwaukee, Wisconsin native, was executed by guillotine at Germany's Plötzensee Prison on orders of Adolph Hitler.  

Harnack was an academic who married Arvid Harnack, a German academic. The couple moved to Arvid's native land, and in the 1930s the couple, if not outright Communists, were at least serious fellow travelers, something not that unusual for academics at the time.  While this was the case, they nonetheless were members of the American Church in Berlin, a Protestant church which Americans attended prior to the war.

The Harnacks were members of the Red Orchestra, which lead to her arrest and execution.  

The story of her death is largely unknown in the US and was in fact suppressed by the US government due to their Communist sympathies.   The U.S. Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) concluded her execution "justified", which legally it likely was, given that the sentence for treason was death everywhere at the time. That doesn't make her effort any less noble, of course.

Josepah Stalin, who was fighting a one front, if gigantic, war wrote to Franklin Roosevelt, reiterating the need for a "second front".  The United States was, of course already engaged in a second front in North Africa, a third front in the Pacific, and a basically a fourth front on the Atlantic, none of which involved the Soviets.

The Western Allies, throughout the war, loyally plade this sharade with Stalin, who was, of course, a former German ally, none of which is to belittle the giant Soviet war effort, but which is also not to ignore that the effort was being heavily supplied by the Western Allies.  Soviet propoganda, particularly in the USSR itslef, was so effective on thsi score, hoewver, that unfortunately modern Russians still believe it.

Former slave George Washington Buckner, and later U.S. Minister to Liberia (1913 to 1915) died in Indiana at age 87.  He was also a physician.

Friday, February 16, 1923. Bessie Smith sings the blues.

Blues great Bessie Smith was in the studio.

Smith was a musical giant in her day, but was buried in an unmarked grave when she died due to injuries from an automobile accident in 1937.  In 1970s ,that was addressed and a new tombstone was erected.

The inner chamber of the Tomb of Tutankhamun was opened by Howard Carter's archeological party.

The Conference of Ambassadors of the Allied Powers, which did not include the US, as the US had gone into international hiding on the basis that ignoring the world makes you safe from it, approved the transfer of Memel to Lithuania.  We dealt with this previously and the nature of this oddly disputed small Baltic territory.

Italy ratified the Washington Naval Treaty and the Treaty of Santa Margherita, the latter of which settled a territorial dispute with Yugoslavia,

Why?

Why do some people who are signed up on neighborhood email lists/websites feel compelled to report every time they see a dog that's not with a person?

Seriously?

Just seeing a dog out isn't a crisis.  It'll probably go home.  And if it's out, whomever you are trying to reach by email probably isn't sitting at a computer.

Monday, February 15, 1943. Princess Elizabeth appears on the cover of Life, We Can Do It appears at Westinghouse.

Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth II, appeared on the cover of Life magazine.  The black and white photograph of the young Elizabeth is a shock to see today.

The Battle of Demyansk began, with the objective of encircling German troops in a salient and relieving the front near Moscow.  It'd more or less achieve the latter, but not the former.

Sarah Sundin's blog has a number of interesting items in it:

J. Howard Miller's little seen "We Can Do It" poster.  Note the "Post Feb. 15 to Feb 28" notation on the poster.

Today in World War II History—February 15, 1943: J. Howard Miller’s “We Can Do It” poster, now identified with Rosie the Riveter, is first posted at Westinghouse for a two-week in-house campaign.

The poster is one of the most recognizable in history now.  Ironically, it was little known to the World War Two generation itself, and only became widely known some forty years later.  In this sense, it's much like the "Keep Calm And Carry On" British poster, which was so rare in World War Two that it's debated if it was put up at all.

The poster, which is in fact not particularly skillfully executed, was limited to 1,800 runs and 17" x 22" in side.  In its original posting, it was put up only in Westinghouse factories, and in fact the female subject in the image wears a Westinghouse Electric floor employee badge. The workers who would have seen it were engaged in making helmet liners, and the poster was part of a gentle effort, in part, from dissuading strikes.  It was part of a 42 poster series by Miller.

Miller himself may be regarded as a somewhat obscure illustrator.  He was busy during World War Two and issued other posters that had an industrial theme.

Miller's female worker was based on a photograph of Geraldine Doyle, nee Hoff or Naomi Parker, it isn't really clear which, although some claim that it's definitely Parker.  It might have been both women, and more than just the two. The poster was painted from a photograph or photographs, and not a live model.

During the war itself, the Rockwell Saturday Evening Post illustration of a stout, defiant female riveter was the accepted depiction of Rosie the Riveter.  Rockwell, with his keen eye for detail, had painted "Rosie" on her lunch box.  

The name, Rosie the Riveter, was first used in a song by that name by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb, recorded by The Four Vagabonds, which came out prior to Rockwell's May 1943, illustration.  The song, in turn, had been inspired by a newspaper column about 19-year-old Rosalind P. Walter who had gone to work as a riveter in Stratford Connecticut as part of the war effort. The model for the Rockwell painting was not an industrial worker, but a telephone operator, Mary Doyle Keefe, née, perhaps ironically, Doyle, who was Rockwell's neighbor.  She actually posed for a photograph for Rockwell's photographer, rather than for Rockwell live.

Keefe, who was not yet married, didn't like the painting as Rockwell had made her image so beefy, for which he apologized.  She attended Temple University, became a dental hygienist, married and passed away in 2015 at age 92.  Rosalind P. Walter went on in later life to become quite wealthy and was a noted philanthropist, particularly supporting public television.  She died in 2020 at age 95.

J. Howard Miller lived until 2004, but remained obscure, unlike his famous poster.

It should be noted that the depiction of the women and their story itself is interesting.  Vermonter Keefe was the daughter of a logger, but was obviously from a solid middle class Catholic family, something that would not have been surprising in any fashion at the time. As noted, she was not an industrial worker herself.  Geraldine Doyle worked only very briefly as an industrial worker in 1942, quitting as she feared injuring her hands as she was a cellist.  She later married a dentist later in 1943.  They met in a bookstore.  While her association with the painting is disputed, her World War Two factory photograph is remarkably similar to the poster.  Parker was employed in a factory prior to the war and continued to be during it.

The Miller image is used for a sign on the outside of the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in California, a Federal park dedicated to the World War Two home front.  World War Two, immediately following the Great Depression, had an enormous and permeant (and probably not good, really) impact on California, so the location is well placed.

Democracy returned to Uruguay.

Blog Mirror: Office Hours: Fake brand competition, monopoly power, and inflation

An interesting article by Robert Reich on monopolies:

Office Hours: Fake brand competition, monopoly power, and inflation

Of course Reich, like most conventional economist, even though on the left, points this out, but then starts whistling pasts the graveyard on it.  The solution to this sort of thing, and it is an obvious problem, is a much more distributist economy.  Not simply slightly adjusting the dials on the Sherman Anti Trust Act or corporate tax rates, although both of those need to be addressed.

Thursday, February 15, 1923. Forbes quits from long distance, Veterans gather, Greece compounds the injustice.

Gathering at USS Maine memorial on the 25th anniversary of its sinking.

Charles R. Forbes, the Director of the U.S. Veteran's Bureau, resigned the position from his self-appointed refuge of Europe, following suspicions that he had been selling surplus supplies at huge discounts to contractors for kickbacks.  His confrontation with Harding on the matter had resulted in a physical altercation, with Forbes reportedly begging Harding to be allowed to depart for Europe prior to resigning.

The Scottish born Forbes had lived a colorful life, having been a Marine Corps musician at age 16, an engineer, a soldier in the Army charged with desertion and ultimately discharged as a Sergeant First Class after only eight years of service, employed in the construction field, and a Lieutenant Colonel in World War One.

He'd be prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud the Federal Government and end up serving 20 months in prison.  He'd live until 1949, dying at age 74.

Greece expropriate additional dwellings from the Albanian Cham Muslims in order to free up dwelling space for expelled Greeks from Turkey, thereby compounding the injustice.

Albanians had nothing to do with Greece's situation and the event signals out how Greece, in some ways, set the table for the disaster it was experiencing.  Turkey was being barbarous to the Anatolian Greeks, but the Greeks had not been kind to the Anatolian Muslims.

And this also demonstrates how something that began in World War One with good intention, independent nation states comprised of free peoples, was morphing into expelling minorities from lands they'd occupied for eons.

Margaret Lindsey Williams, working on her portrait of President Harding.

Sunday, February 14, 1943. The Battle of Kasserine Pass.

The Afrika Korps launched a surprise assault on U.S. forces at Kasserine Pass, ultimately causing US forces to withdraw 50 miles and causing massive American material loss.

US troops were green and poorly led and poorly supported by air cover.  Rommel's German and Italian forces were experienced and well led, and well supported by air cover.   It was the first major U.S. engagement against the Afrika Korps and an embarrassing failure of American arms. It would also lead to immediate shakeups in the American command.

Part of an overall Afrika Korps effort, the Axis forces profited from the American defeat in real terms.  It interestingly was part of an overall German pattern of commencing offensives on Sundays.

The Priestly Society of the Holy Cross was founded by Spanish Catholic Priest St. Josemaria Escriva.  It would become an integral part of Opus Dei, which he also founded.  Opus Dei has been an influential Catholic organization which seeks to sanctify its members through their secular vocations.

Wednesday, February 14, 1923. Veterans, Radio Hockey, Women Marksmen, French Debt Collecting

Hollywood, California, February 14, 1923.

Some Spanish American War veterans visited Washington, D.C.  They were in a class of veterans that would increasingly be forgotten due to the swell of veteran ranks caused by World War One.

The members of George Washington University's Women's Rifle Team, located in Washington, D. C., were photographed.

Women have competed in the shooting sports forever.  Interesting to see this photograph of a group of young female marksmen in an urban environment, before firearms caused people living in cities to freak out.

Toronto's CFCA broadcast, on this Valentine's Day of 1923, the first NFL game to be subject to the same.

The game was between the Toronto St. Patrick's, now the Maple Leafs, against the Ottawa Senators, which is now defunct.  Toronto won 6 to 4.

CFCA would only broadcast for ten years before going out of business.

French authorities seized 85,000,000 Marks from the city hall treasury of Gelsenkirchen, and 17,000,000 from the railway station, in retaliation for the city's refusal to pay 100,000,000 Marks due to the wounding of two French officers in clashes with the police.

The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Rating.

 

Full democracies   9.01–10.00   8.01–9.00 Flawed democracies   7.01–8.00   6.01–7.00 Hybrid regimes   5.01–6.00   4.01–5.00 Authoritarian regimes   3.01–4.00   2.01–3.00   1.01–2.00   0.00–1.00 No data   

We should not want to be in the flawed category, but there is reason to have us there, which should concern us all.

Of course, the second something like that is said somebody is going to rush out and state "but we're a republic, not a democracy".

Did Ukraine Change your Mind about Russian Tanks? @TheChieftainsHatch

A comment about Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Hog Leg. Sunday games, rural activities, and gatherings.

Soccer, Scotland, 1830s.

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Hog Leg: Nothing says America like shooting guns and watching the Super Bowl. A nice sunny afternoon was the perfect time to try out my newly borrowe...

This is interesting.

The Super Bowl used to be a bigger deal in this house than it now is. Seems like a lot of things once were.

I’m not a football fan at all, and I didn't really start watching the Super Bowl until my wife and I were married.  She is a football fan and will watch the season, and always watches the Super Bowl.  

When we were first married, there were Super Bowl parties.  We didn't have kids at first, and my wife's brothers were young at the time.  Later, however, it carried on until the kids were teens.  Then something changed, including the giving up of the farm (the farm, not the ranch), longer travel distances, and some residential changes at the ranch.  Ultimately, the parties just sort of stopped, although I'm sure my two brothers-in-law, who live in houses at the ranch yard, still observe a party, and my father and mother-in-law, who live a few miles away, likely travel to that.

Much lower key than it used to be.  No big gatherings like there once were.

Back in the day, we had a couple of them at our house.

Basically, the dining fare was always simple. Sandwiches bought at one of the local grocery stores, chips and beer.  Typical football stuff.

At some parties at the farm, there were bowling pin shooting matches. For those not familiar with them, people shot bowling pins from some distance with pistols.  It was fun.  Frankly, I don't think a lot of people are all that interested in the Super Bowl to start with, and at least at the Super Bowl parties with bowling pin matches people went out to the match, and it ran into the game, which says something.

The other day also, I wrote on community.

I note this because, at one time, Schuetzen matches were big deals in German American communities.  And while they involved rifles, and indeed very specialized rifles, they were also big community events.

And such things aren't unique to just those mentioned.  In parts of the country, men participating in "turkey shoots" were pretty common.  

Of course, shooting clubs and matches still exist nearly everywhere, and lots of men, and women, participate in matches.  

Less common, however, are the rural informal matches.

All sorts of rural activities were once associated with holidays, and events.  I guess that the Super Bowl is some sort of large-scale informal civil holiday, even though of course it always occurs on a Sunday.  Indeed, the playing of the game on a Sunday is curious.  I put a little (very little) time looking into that, and found this CBS Sports comment on it, which it must be first noted explained that football really started being popular in the 1920s.

Sunday was a free day during a decade where it was common to work on Saturdays, so the APFA played most of their games on that day. Fast forward 30 years to the advent of television networks, who were desperately looking for programming on Sundays in the 1950s.

That makes some sense to me, as I still work on Saturdays.

I'd note, however, that is this makes sense, it doesn't quite explain why baseball games occur all throughout the week, and I think there are Monday night professional football games as well, albeit televised ones.

I wonder, however, if it has deeper roots than that. American football is the successor to Rugby, and Rugby and Soccer were hugely popular in the United Kingdom.  Prior to major league fun sucker Oliver Cromwell taking over the English government, in the United Kingdom, Sunday had been a day for church and then games.

This went back to Medieval times, before the Reformation.  People worked, and worked hard, six days out of seven, but on the seventh, they rested. And resting meant going to Mass, and then having fun, and fun often meant games and beer, as well as other activities.  In spite of their best efforts, major Protestant reformers weren't really able to make a dent in village observance of tradition until Cromwell came in and really started ruining things.  To Calvinist of the day like Cromwell, Sunday was a day for church and nothing else, although contrary to what some may suspect they were not opposed to alcohol.  Cromwell's Puritan government banned sports.

It's no wonder he was posthumously beheaded.

Cromwell and his ilk did a lot of damage to the Christian religion in the Untied Kingdom, and if you really want to track the decline in religious observance in the UK to something, you can lay it somewhat at the bottom of his severed head.  Indeed, while hardly noted, what we're seeing going on today, in some ways, is the final stages of the Reformation playing out, and playing out badly.

Anyhow, after Cromwell was gone and the Crown restored, games came back, and they came back on Sunday.  Not just proto-football, but all sorts of games.  And games became hugely associated with certain religious holidays in the United Kingdom.  The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, is one such example, as is New Years, the latter of which is a religious holiday in and of itself.

I suspect, however, that this had a lasting influence.  I don't know for sure, but I think football is on Sunday as Sunday was the day of rest, and watching the village football game and having a tankard of ale was all part of that, after church.  I also suspect that this is the reason that some American holidays are associated with football, such as Thanksgiving, which had its origin as a religious holiday, and New Years, which as noted also is.

Now, of course, with the corrupting influence of money, it's become nearly a religion to some people in and of itself.  People who dare not miss a single football game never step foot in a church.

Also lost, however, is the remaining communal part of that.  Watching a game played that's actually local, rather than corporate national, to a large extent.  And one free of advertising.  Indeed, the Super Bowl has become the number one premiere venue for innovative advertising, some of which isn't bad.

Anyhow, maybe the Super Bowl Party, in some form if properly done, is a step back in time to when the game was more a vehicle than an end in and of itself, and when it wasn't such a show that a big freakish half-time performance was expected.

We can hope so.

Percentage Tattooed

 From the Twitter feed of Simon Kuestenmacher:

I admit, I just hate this trend.  And if its 46% of Americans, that means its well over 50% of younger Americans.

I've wondered what it was in the US. Over my lifetime, It's gone from something only certain veterans and members of motorcycle clubs had to being darned nearly universal for people under 40.  I have to confess that while tattoos have gotten better, I hate this trend.

Related thread:

The Evolution and Rise of theTattoo.

Saturday, February 13, 1943. Corsairs deploy, Women Marines.

F4U Corsairs arrived at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, their first combat deployment.  The first actual combat would take place two days later.

While a carrier plane, the Corsair was at first deployed from land airstrips out of concerns that the high angle at which it sat when on its tail would make carrier operations difficult.  This was rapidly proven a false fear, as the Royal Navy put their Corsairs to carrier operations immediately.

The Marine Corps announced the formation of the Marine Corps Women's Voluntary Reserve.

There was a fair amount of resistance to the women's branch of the Marines within the Marine Corps itself, at first, even though this had also been done in World War One.

Sarah Sundin noted the anniversary of World War Two female marines on her blog:

Today in World War II History—February 13, 1943: US Marine Corps Women’s Reserve is officially established. Boston Navy Yard is awarded the Army-Navy “E” Award for excellence in production.

She also noted that the Germans required Tunisian Jews to pay a fine for being, basically, Jewish, showing how the German war effort was more and more focused on the Jews, rather than winning the war, which of course they were losing. 

The Germans won the Battle of Krasny Bor outside of Leningrad.

Tuesday, January 13, 1923. Record Cold Wave

 t's been cold here recently, which is the only reason I'm putting this paper up.  It was cold here a century ago as well.

The moving of inaugural day, however, was probably the more important news.  Why do feel as if this came up today, it'd meet with some real fire breathing populist right wing opposition?

This does serve as a reminder, FWIW, that just because it's in the Constitution, doesn't mean it can't be tweaked.  Originally, state legislatures picked Senators, women couldn't vote, and Native Americans weren't citizens.  We changed all that.  We should, at this point, do away with the Electoral College.

Ukrainian Troops Training with HK G36s

Friday, Febraury 12, 1943. Roosevelt addresses the nation.

World War Two U.S. poster, part of a series, which sought to portray all Allied soldiers as fighting for the same cause.  This poster depicts a Red Army sniper, although the photograph is a bit odd.  The soldier wears an Adrian French style helmet, which the Soviets did in fact use, but which they had started to replace in 1939.  Therefore, this photograph would have had to have been from very early in the war.  Additionally, the scope on his rifle is much more substantial than that typically used by the Red Army.  In truth, of course, the Red Army soldier was not fighting for freedom, but for the preservation of the Soviet Union at this point in the war. Earlier in the war, he'd fought for the reincorporation of lost regions of the Russian Empire into the USSR.  He was also fighting directly for his family and the Russian people, who were subject to German barbarism, but freedom wasn't really part of the equation. This topic would be loosely addressed by Roosevelt in his speech.

President Roosevelt address the nation on the result of the recent Casablanca Conference, in which he stated:

It is nearly two years since I attended the last dinner of our White House Correspondents' Association. A great deal of water has flowed over the dam since then.

And several people have flown over the water.

Two years ago—many months before Pearl Harbor—I spoke to you of the thought that was then uppermost in our minds— of the determination of America to become the arsenal of democracy. Almost all Americans had by that time determined to play their full part in helping to save civilization from the barbarians. Even then, we were in the midst of the historic job of production- a job which the American people have been performing with zest and skill and, above all, with success.

Tonight, as I speak to you, we are in the war, and another thought is uppermost in our minds. That is our determination to fight this war through to the finish- to the day when United Nations forces march in triumph through the streets of Berlin, and Rome, and Tokyo.

Last September, as some of our publisher friends here tonight knew at the time, I made a tour of inspection through this country. I saw war plants at work. I saw Army and Navy training camps and flying fields. I saw American men and women—management and labor alike—working with the objective of beating production schedules. I saw American soldiers and sailors and fliers doing the job of training for the fighting that lay ahead.

Now I have returned from one of the fronts overseas, where the production from American factories and the training given in American camps are being applied in actual warfare against the enemy. I have seen our troops in the field. I have inspected their superb equipment. I have talked and laughed and eaten with them.

I have seen our men- the Nation's men- in Trinidad, in Belem and Natal in Brazil, in Liberia, in Gambia. We must remember that in these places there is no actual fighting, but there is hard, dangerous, essential work, and there is a tremendous strain on the endurance and the spirit of our troops. They are standing up magnificently under that strain. And I want them to know that we have not forgotten them.

I have seen our men—and some of our American women—in North Africa. Out there it is war. Those men know that before this war is over, many of them will have given their lives to their Nation. But they know also that they are fighting to destroy the power of the enemies of this country, that they are fighting for a peace that will be a real and lasting peace and a far better world for the future.

Our men in the field are worthy of the great faith, the high hopes that we have placed in them. That applies as well to the men of our Navy, without whom no American expeditionary force could land safely on foreign shores. And it applies equally to the men of our merchant marine who carry the essential munitions and supplies, without which neither the United States nor our allies could continue the battle.

No American can look at these men, soldiers or sailors, without a very great emotion and great pride—and a deep sense of our responsibility to them.

Because of the necessary secrecy of my trip, the men of our armed forces in every place I visited were completely surprised. And the expression on their faces certainly proved that.

I wish that I could pay similar surprise visits to our men in the other fields of operations. And don't let anybody assume, because I have said that, that next month I am flying to Guadalcanal. But I wish I could see our men, and our naval bases, and the islands of the Pacific, and Australia, on the mainland and the islands of Alaska, the islands of the Atlantic, the two Guianas, the Canal Zone, Iceland, Britain, Central Africa, the Middle East, India, Burma, and China. I wish I could tell them face to face that their Government and their people are very proud of the great job that they are doing, in helping to strengthen the vise that is slowly but surely squeezing the breath out of our enemies.

In every battalion, and in every ship's crew, you will find every kind of American citizen representing every occupation, every section, every origin, every religion, and every political viewpoint.

Ask them what they are fighting for, and every one of them will say, "I am fighting for my country." Ask them what they really mean by that, and you will get what on the surface may seem to be a wide variety of answers.

One will say that he is fighting for the right to say what he pleases, and to read and listen to what he likes.

Another will say he is fighting because he never wants to see the Nazi swastika flying over the old First Baptist Church on Elm Street.

Another soldier will say that he is fighting for the right to work, and to earn three square meals a day for himself and his folks.

And another one will say that he is fighting in this world war so that his children and his grandchildren will not have to go back to Europe, or Africa, or Asia, or the Solomon Islands, to do this ugly job all over again.

But all these answers really add up to the same thing; every American is fighting for freedom. And today the personal freedom of every American and his family depends, and in the future will increasingly depend, upon the freedom of his neighbors in other lands.

For today the more you travel, the more you realize that the whole world is one neighborhood. That is why this war that had its beginnings in seemingly remote areas—China—Poland—has spread to every continent, and most of the islands of the sea, involving the lives and the liberties of the entire human race. And unless the peace that follows recognizes that the whole world is one neighborhood and does justice to the whole human race, the germs of another world war will remain as a constant threat to mankind.

Yes, I talked with many people in our armed forces, along the coast and through the islands of the Western Hemisphere, and up the coast of West Africa. Many of our soldiers and sailors were concerned about the state of the home front. They receive all kinds of exaggerated reports and rumors that there is too much complaining back here at home, and too little recognition of the realities of war; that selfish labor leaders are threatening to call strikes that would greatly curtail the output of our war industries; that some farm groups are trying to profiteer on prices, and are letting us down on food production; that many people are bitter over the hardships of rationing and priorities; and especially that there is serious partisan quarrel over the petty things of life here in our Capital City of Washington, D.C.

I told them that most of these reports are just gross exaggerations; that the people as a whole in the United States are in this war to see it through with heart and body and soul; and that our population is willing and glad to give up some of their shoes, and their sugar, and coffee, and automobile riding—and privileges and profits—for the sake of the common cause.

I could not truthfully deny to our troops that a few chiselers, a few politicians, and a few—to use a polite term—publicists -fortunately a very few- have placed their personal ambition or greed above the Nation's interests.

Our troops know that the Nazis and the Fascists and the Japanese are trying hard to sell the untruths of propaganda to certain types of Americans. But our troops also know that even if you pile up a lot of molehills of deception one on top of the other, you still cannot make a mountain big enough, or high enough, or solid enough to fool many people, or to block the road to victory and to an effective peace.

I think a fundamental of an effective peace is the assurance to those men who are fighting our battles, that when they come home they will find a country with an economy firm enough and fair enough to provide jobs for all those who are willing to work.

I am certain that private enterprise will be able to provide the vast majority of those jobs, and in those cases where this cannot be accomplished that the Congress of the United States will pass the legislation that will make good the assurance of earning a living.

There are still a few men who say we cannot achieve this and other honorable, reasonable aims for the postwar period. And in speaking of those professional skeptics—those men of little faith -there comes to my mind an old word in our language- the word "petriloggers."

The formal dictionary definition and derivation of the word are neither here nor there. To most of us "pettifogger" brings to mind a man who is small, mean and tricky, and picayune. In a word—petty. It is the type of man who is always seeking to create a smoke screen and fog, for the purpose of obscuring the plain truth. And you and I know some pettifoggers.

Today, those pettifoggers are attempting to obscure the essential truths of this war. They are seeking to befog the present and the future, and the clear purposes and the high principles for which the free world now maintains the promise of undimmed victory.

To use one example, in a small sector of the world's surface in North Africa—we are now massing armies—British, French, and American- for one of the major battles of this war.

The enemy's purpose in the battle of Tunisia is to hold at all costs their last bridgehead in Africa, to prevent us from gaining access to the Straits that lead to Nazi-dominated Europe.

Our prime purpose in this battle of Tunisia is to drive our enemies into the sea.

The British First Army in this battle, commanded by General Anderson, contains many veterans of Flanders and Dunkirk. Those men have a score to settle with the Nazis, and they are going to even that score.

The British Eighth Army, commanded by General Montgomery, has to its eternal credit the smashing defeat of Marshal Rommel's Army, and the now historic fifteen-hundred-mile pursuit of those once triumphant Nazi-Fascist forces.

The enemy in Tunisia will be attacked from the south by this great Eighth Army, and by the French forces who have made a remarkable march all the way across the Sahara Desert under General Le Clerc, one of General de Gaulle's officers. From the west the enemy will be attacked by the combined forces of British and Americans, together with French troops under the command of General Giraud.

And I think that we take a certain satisfaction tonight that all of these forces are commanded by General Eisenhower. I spent many hours in Casablanca with this young general- a descendant of Kansas pioneers. I know what a fine, tough job he has done, and how carefully and skillfully he is directing the soldiers under him. I want to say to you tonight—and to him—that we have every confidence in his leadership. High tribute was paid to his qualities as a man when the British Government, through Mr. Churchill, took the lead at Casablanca in proposing him for the supreme command of all the great Allied operations which are imminent in North Africa.

The deputy to General Eisenhower is General Alexander, one of Britain's greatest fighting men. He commanded all the British forces in the Middle East, including the Eighth Army that won the decisive battle at El Alamein. He and General Montgomery planned that engagement and the stupendous advance that followed. At this moment—as I speak to you tonight—General Alexander is standing at the right hand of General Eisenhower planning new military operations.

These important facts reveal not merely cooperation but active collaboration between the United Nations. Let these facts be duly noted by our enemies.

Our soldiers in Tunisia are well trained and equipped, but they are facing for the first time actual combat with formidable opponents. We can be absolutely certain that they will conduct themselves as bravely and as effectively as did those young Americans under General Pershing who drove Germany's best troops through the Argonne forest and across the River Meuse.

I think we should be prepared for the fact that Tunisia will cost us heavily in casualties. Yes, we must face that fact now, with the same calm courage as our men are facing it on the battlefield itself.

The enemy has strong forces, and strong positions. His supply lines are maintained at great cost, but Hitler has been willing to pay that cost because he knows the consequences of Allied victory in Tunisia.

The consequences are simple. They are the actual invasions of the continent of Europe. And we do not disguise our intention to make these invasions. The pressure on Germany and Italy will be constant and unrelenting. The amazing Russian armies in eastern Europe have been delivering overpowering blows; we must do likewise in the west. The enemy must be hit and hit hard from so many directions that he will never know which is his bow and which is his stern.

And it was made clear also at Casablanca that all Frenchmen outside of France, for we know little of what is happening in France, but all Frenchmen who can, are uniting in one great paramount objective—the complete liberation of France and of the French people who now suffer the torture of the Nazi yoke. As each day passes, a spirit of unselfishness is more greatly uniting all Frenchmen who have the opportunity to strike that blow for liberation.

In the years of the American Revolution, and the French Revolution, the fundamental principle that guided our democracies was established. Indeed the whole cornerstone of our democratic edifice was the principle that from the people and the people alone flows the authority of government.

It is one of our war aims, as expressed in the Atlantic Charter, that the conquered populations of today- shall again become the masters of their destiny. There must be no doubt anywhere that it is the unalterable purpose of the United Nations to restore to conquered peoples their sacred rights.

French sovereignty rests with the people of France. Its expression has been temporarily suspended by German occupation. Once the triumphant armies of the United Nations have expelled the common foe, Frenchmen will be represented by a government of their own popular choice.

And it will be a free choice in every way. No Nation in all the world that is free to make a choice is going to set itself up under a Fascist form of government, or a Nazi form of government, or a Japanese war-lord form of government. For such forms are the offspring of seizure of power followed by the abridgment of freedom. Therefore- and this is plain logic- the United Nations can properly say of these forms of government—Nazism, Fascism, Japanism—if I might coin a new word-the United Nations can properly say to that form of government two simple words, "Never again."

For the right of self-determination included in the Atlantic Charter does not carry with it the right of any Government anywhere in the world to commit wholesale murder, or the right to make slaves of its own people, or of any other peoples in the world.

And the world can rest assured that this total war, this sacrifice of lives all over the globe, is not being carried on for the purpose, or even with the remotest idea of keeping Quislings or Lavals in power anywhere on this earth.

The decisions that were reached, and the actual plans that were made at Casablanca were not confined to any one theater of war, or to any one continent, or ocean, or sea. Before this year is out I think it will be made known to the world, in actions rather than in words, that the Casablanca Conference produced plenty of news; and it will be bad news for the Germans and Italians—and the Japanese.

We have lately concluded a long, hard battle in the Southwest Pacific, and we have made notable gains. That battle started in the Solomons and New Guinea last summer. It has demonstrated without question our superior power in planes, and most importantly in the fighting qualities of our individual soldiers and sailors.

American armed forces in the Southwest Pacific are receiving powerful aid from Australia and New Zealand, and also directly from the British themselves.

We do not expect to spend the time that it would take to bring Japan to final defeat merely by inching our way forward from island to island across the vast expanse of the Pacific. It would take too many years.

Great and decisive actions against the Japanese will be taken to drive the invader from the soil of China. Yes, important actions are going to be taken in the skies over China—and in the skies over Japan itself.

The discussions at Casablanca have been continued in Chungking with the Generalissimo by General Arnold, and have resulted in definite plans for offensive operations.

Remember that there are many roads that lead right to Tokyo. And we are not going to neglect any of them.

In an attempt to ward off the inevitable disaster that lies ahead of them, the Axis propagandists are trying all their old tricks, in order to divide the United Nations. They seek to create the idea that if we win this war, Russia, and England, and China, and the United States are going to get into a cat-and-dog fight.

This is their final effort to turn one Nation against another, in the vain hope that they may settle with one or two at a time- that any of us may be so gullible and so forgetful as to be duped into making "deals" at the expense of our allies.

To these panicky attempts- and that is the best word to use: "panicky"—to escape the consequences of their crimes, we say —all the United Nations say- that the only terms on which we shall deal with any Axis Government, or any Axis factions, are the terms proclaimed at Casablanca: "unconditional surrender." We know, and the plain people of our enemies will eventually know, that in our uncompromising policy we mean no harm to the common people of the Axis Nations. But we do mean to impose punishment and retribution in full upon their guilty, barbaric leaders.

The Nazis must be frantic—not just panicky, but frantic if they believe that they can devise any propaganda that would turn the British and the American and the Chinese Governments and peoples against Russia—or Russia against the rest of us.

The overwhelming courage and endurance of the Russian people in withstanding and hurling back the invaders- the genius with which their great armies have been directed and led by Mr. Stalin and their military commanders—all speak for themselves.

The tragedy of the war has sharpened the vision and leadership of the peoples of all the United Nations, and I can say to you from my own full knowledge that they see the utter necessity of our standing together after the war to secure a peace based on principles of permanence.

You can be quite sure that if Japan should be the first of the Axis partners to fall, the total efforts and resources of all the United Nations would be concentrated on the job of crushing Germany.

And, on the other hand, lest there be any question in Nazi or Japanese minds that we are wholly one in the prosecution of the war to a complete victory over our enemies, the Prime Minister wished, at Casablanca, to make a formal agreement that if Germany should be conquered before Japan, all British Empire resources and manpower would, of course, join with China and us in an out-and-out final attack on Japan. And I told Mr. Churchill that no formal statement of agreement along those lines was in the least bit necessary, that the American people accept the word of a great English gentleman and that it is obvious and clear that all of us are completely in accord in our determination to destroy the forces of barbarism in Asia, as well as in Europe and in Africa. In other words, our policy toward our Japanese enemies is precisely the same as our policy toward our Nazi enemies: it is a policy of fighting hard on all fronts, and ending the war as quickly as we can, on the uncompromising terms of unconditional surrender.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of a great, plain American. The living memory of Abraham Lincoln is now honored and cherished by all of our people, wherever they may be, and by men and women and children throughout the British Commonwealth, and the Soviet Union, and the Republic of China, and all of our sister American Republics, and indeed in every land on earth where people love freedom and will give their lives for freedom.

President Lincoln said in 1862, "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us . . . in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."

Today, eighty years after Lincoln delivered that message, the fires of war are blazing across the whole horizon of mankind from Kharkov to Kunming—from the Mediterranean to the Coral Sea—from Berlin to Tokyo.

Again—we cannot escape history. We have supreme confidence that, with the help of God, honor will prevail. We have faith that future generations will know that here, in the middle of the twentieth century, there came a time when men of good will found a way to unite, and produce, and fight to destroy the forces of ignorance, and intolerance, and slavery, and war.

The speech was notable for several reasons.

"English" soldier, who might be Welsh, Scots, Northern Irish or, in fact Irish, in the same poster campaign. He's carrying a Boys Antitank rifle, something not commonly seen by this point in the war..  He was fighting for freedom, but a definition of freedom that included ongoing colonial administration of regions of the British Empire until they were sufficiently developed so as to become part of the British Commonwealth.

For one thing, Roosevelt felt compelled to warn Americans that heavy casualties would be coming in Tunisia, probably steeling the audience to an inevitable increase in loss of life which, while it had certainly occurred in North Africa, had been relatively light so far.  He also hinted at future actions to come.

Australian soldiers, whom were largely volunteers for most of the war, were fighting for freedom, but Australia was actually a colonial power in its own right, with New Guinea being its colony.

And he also had picked up on Axis propaganda, which was in fact trying to split the Western Allies from the Soviet Union.  The fact that it was addressed must have meant that there was some Administration fear about ongoing conservative hesitance about having adopted the USSR as an Ally.

Canada has never had an empire, unless you consider the Canadian incorporation of the Canadian west to be colonialism, which stretches the definition in my view.   The same claim has been made against the United States, which I also regard as stretching the definition.  Canadian troops were stationed in Hong Kong, which was a British Crown Colony prior to the Japanese attack on it, but Hong Kong's history is really unique and in modern times has not been an example people point to in order to complaint about colonialism.

Of course, while the alliance was a fact and necessary, the concerns about the USSR were well-founded.  The Soviet Union's war aims were never the same as the West's, which perhaps might be best illustrated that the war began over the question of Polish sovereignty, which it would not regain, due to one of its original invaders, the USSR, destroying it.

What the views on the war of the average Chinese soldier were in the war are now probably lost to the ages.  China had fought off and on in a series of civil wars that had seen the country briefly united under the Nationalist before the Communist within the Nationalist government split off and were expelled, at which time the party drifted rightward and the civil war commenced.  China could not be regarded as a democracy in 1943, although it had attempted to become one at the beginning of the movement which had brought the Nationalist to power.

Roosevelt also addressed the French, which is interesting, and in doing so tried to come up with a legal theory as to why the Free French weren't outright rebels against the distasteful legitimate French government.  Sovereignty vesting in the people became the theory of the day.  As large as the French resistance had become at this point, in the form of the French military everywhere outside of France itself, and the Germans having occupied Vichy, its surprising that he bothered really.

Ethiopia was certainly not a democracy, but it was fighting for its freedeom.

The Soviets took Krasnodar, in Ukraine, on this day.

US troops attacked German the Afrika Korps at Faid, Tunisia, while the British repelled an Afrika Korps attack at Ousseltia.

Japanese counter-attacks at Donbaik and Rathedaung, Burma, were unsuccessful.

The University of Wyoming defeated Colorado State University in basketball, 57–34 in the basketball variant of "The Border War", which was a basketball series, not one single game.

Epilogue.

Most of the people who saw this poster probably thought of the Allied sailors of occupied countries who were serving on board ships that had not been captured by the Germans when their nations were overrun.  The Dutch, however, had a sizable naval contingent based in the Dutch East Indes which in fact did fight valiently in 1941-42 when the Japanese attacked there.  Having said that, the irony is that the Dutch were hated in the Dutch East Indes and the Japanese explusion of them was successful in that the British never allowed the Dutch to return.  Indonesian collaborationist were not, moreover, punished by the Indonesian population for their collaboration, and in some instances went on to successful post war political careers.  While the Japanese occupation of anything was not admiralbe, The East Indes, the thing they were attempting to grap at the start of the Pacific War, makes for a lot of odd exceptions.

Of interest, the series of posters I put up above, of which there are additional posters in the series, is well known, but has never struck me as an attractive series of posters.  It's interesting that it was done, as it demonstrates that there was some isolationist, nativist, resistance to the war even well into the war, and the government felt it was necessary to try to influence Americans toward believing that all the Allied soldiers were fighting for the same thing.

Of course, as noted, they weren't.  

By and large, the Western Allies, which would include the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Free French, Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium were, although as some latter day critics like to point out, imperfectly.   France, the UK, Australia, Belgium, and the Netherlands were imperial powers who, it can be pointed out, were not in favor of the immediate liberation of their colonial subjects.  Having said that, while the British were not yet in the "winds of change" era, they had moved as far back as the late 19th Century towards a Commonwealth of Nations theory of empire and were well down that path, which resulted in various nations achieving dominion status within the empire, at which point they were free governing nations.  It included a couple of nations that were problematic in that regard, however, as South Africa was a racist democracy at the time, and India clearly wanted out of the Empire entirely.  Nonetheless, saying that the British Commonwealth and Empire was fighting for freedom would be largely accurate.

France, for its part, was evolving in its imperial concepts, but not nearly as quickly and not in the same direction.  It had moved towards a different concept, which was the "overseas department" of France, under which some colonies simply were part of France, but with a weighted voting system.  This would result in anti-colonial wars against France following World War Two, with perhaps the saddest and most ironic one being the Algerian War, as Algerians really rallied to the French flag during World War Two.

The Dutch and the Belgians were fighting for the freedom of their homelands, but they had no concept of colonial liberation at all.  The Dutch in particular are an oddity, as the Netherlands was widely regarded as a very peaceable nation and organically opposed to Nazism, although Dutch volunteers to the German military were notable, so much so that the liberated Dutch feared what Allied soldiers would feel about photographs of family members in German uniforms. Cornelius Ryan notes that in his book A Bridge Too Far, but dresses it up by calling them conscripts.  Having said this, the Dutch resistance as large and really effective.  Anyhow, the Dutch, contrary to their reputation in Europe, were absolutely despised in their East Asian colonies where they had a well deserved reputation for cruelty. This was so much the case that the British, which were seeking to retain their own colonies at the time, would not allow the Dutch to resume control in theirs after the war.

All of this contrasts enormously, of course, with the Soviet Union.  The USSR was a German ally up until 1941, having participated in the invasion of Poland and having been given a free hand by the Germans to invade the Baltic States.  In the 1939 to 1941 period, the Soviets not only did all that, but they attacked Finland and took a piece of Romania from that country.  They were not interested in Freedom at all, and simply eliminated Poland as an entity, as had the Germans.   The German invasion of the Soviet Union came when it did (it would have come sooner or later anyway) as the Soviets overplayed their hand in negotiating with the Germans for material resources, conditioning entering the war upon a transfer of pieces of the British Empire.  Following the war Poland's real sovereignty would not be restored in spite of that being the casus belli of the war in the first place, due to the USSR, and the independence of Hungary and Romania would be lost for two generations, those nations having brought that down on themselves for siding with the Germans.

Anyhow, these posters have surprisingly long legs, in spite of not being visually appealing, in my view.  Witness the following:

The poster above is a Freedom of Russia Legion poster stating "This man is your friend. he fights fir freedom”.   The Freedom of Russia Legion is a Russian unit within the Ukrainian forces, made up of men who have left the Russian Army and turned their guns on Russia.

And then there's this:

This is obviously lifted right from the series, and well done too I might add.  I woudn't have expected this.

And we have this:

This depicts a man who, in the 1992 Los Angeles riots, during which the rioters turned on the Korean population of the town, reported to his employer at his his employer's request, to defend the business.

This, by the way, gives a good reason for the 2nd Amendment.  The rifle his is carrying appears to be an AR180.

And this isn't the end of it, there are all sorts of takes on this poser series.

Neanderthal Crab Bakes.

Neanderthals living 90,000 years ago in a seafront cave, in what’s now Portugal, regularly caught crabs, roasted them on coals and ate the cooked flesh, according to a new study.

From CNN.

No surprise. Why wouldn't they have roast crabs?

Neanderthals eating crabs 90,000 years ago.  Okay, actually, these folks are in Raceland, Louisiana in 1938, but its the same thing, probably right down to the beer.  The messiness of eating crab is shown by the newspapers, and that explains also why those looking in the subject cave can tell Neanderthals ate crabs.

This provides, by the way, one more reason that being a vegetarian is nuts.  You don't toss out diets that we've been acclimated to for eons.