Forgive me. But I just wrote this for my blog. And it has given me a severe attack of vanity.
Telling the Truth is dangerous.
So here goes.
It was May 8, 1945. I was late for grade 6 - again. So the teacher sent me home - with a note. I was one frightened kid.
But my mother ignored the note. And she didn't even listen to me. Without a word, she took me to downtown Montreal on a tram car that was packed with jubilant people. The streets were packed, with a mob following a man strutting in front with a wire litter bin over his head. Then I saw the signs.
VE Day! Germany had surrendered! The war in Europe was over! My father would be coming home.
And, oh, there were there were stilll the wartime signs up. "Loose lips sink ships", "Buy a bond for freedom today"...."We've won the war. Now we've got to win the peace."
Oh! That last was a new one. But it made no sense We'd won the war. It was over. My father was coming home. So we'd won the peace...hadn't we?
It certainly looked that way. We formed the UN to establish a sort of world government that would keep the peace. We formed NATO as a defence against Russian expansion.
And we threw it all away. The first use of NATO was to invade North Korea, an operation that killed a third of all North Koreans while making no gain whatever. Even the idea of preserving the freedom of South Korea was pure propaganda. South Korea was a vicious dictatorship.
No. The real purpose of that war was to occupy North Korea as a base to attack China. U.S. big business desperately wanted control of China as a capitalist's wonderland of cheap labour and markets. That's why President Truman seriously considered the nuclear bombing of North Korea when Chnese troops intervened.
Generally, the major powers, prominently the U.S., have pretty much ignored the U.N. And when Afghanistan offered to turn over Osama Bin Laden to international courts for trial on 9/11 charges, the U.S. refused - preferring to punish a whole country, killing far, far more than were killed on 911 - and most of them just as innocent as those who died on 911.
In fact, the biggest aggressor since 1945 (and perhaps the biggest in history) has been the U.S. with over 70 invasions, with uncounted CIA murders, with the CIA creation, traininig and equipping of al Quaeda. with drone bombers that have killed thousands, with the creation of dictatorships as it did all over Latin America, in Iran and in Africa, with the creation of chaos, refugees and horrible suffering in Africa.
All of this has been to make billionaires richer. And, like Britain in its fading days, the U.S. wants its empire to join its wars. That's why Canada and Britain fought in Korea and Afghanistan and Libya. That's why Britain fought in Iraq. That's why Canadian soldiers are on a very dangerous duty in Lavia and, possibly, in Iraq and Syria.
And our news media reports it as though the world is made up of evil countries that are always picking on us. Yes. Guatemala was picking on the U.S. So was Castro. So was Vietnam. So was Iran. This is why Canadians are on dangerous duty in Latvia (and without our news meda paying much attention to it.) Same for Iraq and Syria.
The world of today is many things. But there is one thing it is not. It is not what our soldiers, sailors and airmen fought and died for in World War Two. It is not a world of peace and sharing and freedom. And our soldiers did not die so that billionaires could plunder oil in the Middle East.
We now have a world in which the most dangerous aggressor (by far) is the United States. And that's not because of the American people. It's because of those very, very wealthy Americans who own the American government - and almost all the news media.
No. It's not just Trump. It's every American President since 1945. .
(The American people can be propagandized by the news portrait of foreigners as evil; but there's an almost subconcious reaction, as well. They're fed up with wars. That's why the American army can't get enough volunteers. So now, slightly over half of the U.S. army is make up of mercenaries from all over the world. And they are extremely expensive, most earning more in a year than an American general does and, commonly, with the promise of American citizenship at retirement.)
On, November 11, let us, most certainly, remember those who served. Let us think of the debt we owe them. But let us also, for the first time, remember how we betrayed them, how we broke all the promises we made about the world they were fighting for. And let's promise to change, to honour the promises we made as they honoured our need for to risk their lives.
And let's stop making a propaganda show out of Nov. 11. For a start, let's take loaded words like patriotism off the table. That's a vague and misleading word. Patriotism is one of those words that can be good - or terribly evil. The Naziis who killed Canadians and who operated death camps for Jews were patriots. So were the Italians who killed for Mussolini, and the Japanese who starved Canadians in their work camps.
The Japanese were not only patriots serving their country. They were serving their emperor - as Canadians served their king and as Italians served Mussolini (who actually thought he was a caesar) and as Germans served Hitler.
There is nothing necessarily good about patriotism or serving your country. These are just propaganda words.
So let's get reasonable. From the age of six, I can remember the 'boys' coming to our place to say goodbye. I can remember their happiness. This was adventure. I remember the fellow who helped my father with the scouts, proud of his navy uniform, and thrilling me by letting me hold his jacknife. He, like many others of 1939, was joining because there were no jobs. This was the Great Depression, an almost universal plague of poverty and hopelessness. (He was blown off the bridge of HMCS Sackville on D Day.)
None of this detracts from the service he gave us, and the respect and honour we owe him.
My father joined because he had a family to feed. And that just wasn't possible in the Great Depression. The same was true for thousands, especially of the first contingent to go overseas.
My uncle joined to get away from his wife and children. It was no secret. He was at Dieppe and D Day. And he talked about the war for the rest of his life. But all the war ever meant to him was the great parties in England.
And Bertie. Poor Bertie. He was only 16 when he stole his brother's draft papers to join up. But he was big and strong and looked older. Intellectually, he was four or five. That's why he played with me. And he just loved marching because of the sound of the steel clips on his boots hitting the sidewalk. His family said they would tell the army his real age. But they didn't. They were a family of poverty and ignorance and alcohol and indifference.
In his first action, Bertie was lying down under machine gun fire. I met a man who was with him.
"He was cryin'. Yeah. I could see he was crying. Then he jumped up and was cut in half by the machine gun. Craziest thing, when he jumped up he was screamin' for his mother."
It wasn't all patriotism and God blessing the King.
Let's not lose ourselves in wonderland.
They were a generation raised in the dreadful 1930s, a period of suffering and hunger and fear and dreadful exploitation by the wealthy. And, for those ten, dreadful years, they got no help, none, zip from the government of this country. And less than no help from the wealthy of this country. Indeed, the wealthy used the hard times to cut salaries, cancel holidays, and even to put the unemployed into remote 'work camps' that were really concentration camps.
We most certainly should remember those who served, and remember with respect and gratitude for what they suffered. What we should not do is to romanticize November 11 as though it were a sort of revival of King Arthur's knights doing good deeds.
We should remember all - including the promises we made to them - the promises that we have since dishonoured - of the better world they were sacrificing for.
And the worst offender in that respect is The Canadian Legion. It has a record of romanticizing war, and forgetting about the promises. The greatest honour it could do to those who sacrificed would be to remind us of what it was all supposed to be for. Instead, it invariably plods into a dream world of big words and small actions.
With fond memories of Jack and Bertie and Howard, of my father who was away so many years of my life, of my mother who had to live through all the fears and loneliness of a wartime world - and with a son who couldn't even get to school on time.
Telling the Truth is dangerous.
So here goes.
It was May 8, 1945. I was late for grade 6 - again. So the teacher sent me home - with a note. I was -one frightened kid.
But my mother ignored the note. And she didn't even listen to me. Without a word, she took me to downtown Montreal on a tram car that was packed with jubilant people. The streets were packed, with a mob following a man strutting in front with a wire litter bin over his head. Then I saw the signs.
VE Day! Germany had surrendered! The war in Europe was over! My father would be coming home.
And, oh, there were there were stilll the wartime signs up. "Loose lips sink ships", "Buy a bond for freedom today"...."We've won the war. Now we've got to win the peace."
Oh! That last was a new one. But it made no sense We'd won the war. It was over. My father was coming home. We'd won the peace...hadn't we?
It certainly looked that way. We formed the UN to establish a sort of world government that would keep the peace. We formed NATO as a defence against Russian expansion.
And we threw it all away. The first use of NATO was to invade North Korea, an operation that killed a third of all North Koreans while making no gain whatever. Even the idea of preserving tthe freedom of South Korea was pure propaganda. South Korea was a vicious dictatorship.
No. The real purpose of that war was to occupy North Korea as a base to attack China. U.S. big business desperately wanted control of China as a capitalist's wonderland of cheap labour and markets. That's why President Truman seriously considered the nuclear bombing of North Korea when Chnese troops intervened.
Generally, the major powers, prominently the U.S., have pretty much ignored the U.N. And when Afghanistan offered to turn over Osama Bin Laden to international courts for trial on 9/11 charges, the U.S. refused - preferring to punish a whole country, killing far, far more than were killed on 911 - and most of them just as innocent as those who died on 911.
In fact, the biggest aggressor since 1945 (and perhaps the biggest in history) has been the U.S. with over 70 invasions, with uncounted CIA murders, with the CIA creation, traininig and equipping of al Quaeda. with drone bombers that have killed thousands, with the creation of dictatorships as it did all over Latin America, in Iran and in Africa, with the creation of chaos, refugees and horrible suffering in Africa.
All of this has been to make billionaires richer. And, like Britain in its fading days, the U.S. wants its empire to join its wars. That's why Canada and Britain fought in Korea and Afghanistan and Libya. That's why Britain fought in Iraq. That's why Canadian soldiers are on a very dangerous duty in Lavia and, possibly, in Iraq and Syria.
And our news media reports it as though the world is made up of evil countries that are always picking on us. Yes. Guatemala was picking on the U.S. So was Castro. So was Vietnam. So was Iran. This is why Canadians are on dangerous duty in Latvia (and without our news meda paying much attention to it.) Same for Iraq and Syria.
The world of today is many things. But there is one thing it is not. It is not what our soldiers, sailors and airmen fought and died for in World War Two. It is not a world of peace and sharing and freedom. And our soldiers did not die so that billionaires could plunder oil in the Middle East.
We now have a world in which the most dangerous aggressor (by far) is the United States. And that's not because of the American people. It's because of those very, very wealthy Americans who own the American government - and almost all the news media.
No. It's not just Trump. It's every American President since 1945. .
(The American people can be propagandized by the news portrait of foreigners as evil; but there's an almost subconcious reaction, as well. They're fed up with wars. That's why the American army can't get enough volunteers. So now, slightly over half of the U.S. army is make up of mercenaries from all over the world. And they are extremely expensive, most earning more in a year than an American general does and, commonly, with the promise of American citizenship at retirement.)
On, November 11, let us, most certainly, remember those who served. Let us think of the debt we owe them. But let us also, for the first time, remember how we betrayed them, how we broke all the promises we made about the world they were fighting for. And let's promise to change, to honour the promises we made as they honoured our need for to risk their lives.
And let's stop making a propaganda show out of Nov. 11. For a start, let's take loaded words like patriotism off the table. That's a vague and misleading word. Patriotism is one of those words that can be good - or terribly evil. The Naziis who killed Canadians and who operated death camps for Jews were patriots. So were the Italians who killed for Mussolini, and the Japanese who starved Canadians in their work camps.
The Japanese were not only patriots serving their country. They were serving their emperor - as Canadians served their king and as Italians served Mussolini (who actually thought he was a caesar) and as Germans served Hitler.
There is nothing necessarily good about patriotism or serving your country. These are just propaganda words.
So let's get reasonable. From the age of six, I can remember the 'boys' coming to our place to say goodbye. I can remember their happiness. This was adventure. I remember the fellow who helped my father with the scouts, proud of his navy uniform, and thrilling me by letting me hold his jacknife. He, like many others of 1939, was joining because there were no jobs. This was the Great Depression, an almost universal plague of poverty and hopelessness. (He was blown off the bridge of HMCS Sackville on D Day.)
None of this detracts from the service he gave us, and the respect and honour we owe him.
My father joined because he had a family to feed. And that just wasn't possible in the Great Depression. The same was true for thousands, especially of the first contingent to go overseas.
My uncle joined to get away from his wife and children. It was no secret. He was at Dieppe and D Day. And he talked about the war for the rest of his life. But all the war ever meant to him was the great parties in England.
And Bertie. Poor Bertie. He was only 16 when he stole his brother's draft papers to join up. But he was big and strong and looked older. Intellectually, he was four or five. That's why he played with me. And he just loved marching because of the sound of the steel clips on his boots hitting the sidewalk. His family said they would tell the army his real age. But they didn't. They were a family of poverty and ignorance and alcohol and indifference.
In his first action, Bertie was lying down under machine gun fire. I met a man who was with him.
"He was cryin'. Yeah. I could see he was crying. Then he jumped up and was cut in half by the machine gun. Craziest thing, when he jumped up he was screamin' for his mother."
It wasn't all patriotism and God blessing the King.
Let's not lose ourselves in wonderland.
They were a generation raised in the dreadful 1930s, a period of suffering and hunger and fear and dreadful exploitation by the wealthy. And, for those ten, dreadful years, they got no help, none, zip from the government of this country. And less than no help from the wealthy of this country. Indeed, the wealthy used the hard times to cut salaries, cancel holidays, and even to put the unemployed into remote 'work camps' that were really concentration camps.
We most certainly should remember those who served, and remember with respect and gratitude for what they suffered. What we should not do is to romanticize November 11 as though it were a sort of revival of King Arthur's knights doing good deeds.
We should remember all - including the promises we made to them - the promises that we have since dishonoured - of the better world they were sacrificing for.
And the worst offender in that respect is The Canadian Legion. It has a record of romanticizing war, and forgetting about the promises. The greatest honour it could do to those who sacrificed would be to remind us of what it was all supposed to be for. Instead, it invariably plods into a dream world of big words and small actions.
With fond memories of Jack and Bertie and Howard, of my father who was away so many years of my life, of my mother who had to live through all the fears and loneliness of a wartime world - and with a son who couldn't even get to school on time.
