Our trip was three parts; the first part was over but we still had well over half of our vacation left. We were supposed to meet Brad for a drink that first Sunday night in Luxembourg, but I had to stop for gas in Baden-Constructionburg, and we could not find the entrance to get back on the highway. This resulted in a lengthy detour in the dark that was fruitless; I turned around after twenty minutes or so to head back to the gas station and ask how to get back onto the highway. But it was unnecessary to ask, because as we were pulling into the station, there it was, among a mess of reflective construction poles. We ended up getting to Luxembourg more than an hour after we had planned, which was par for the course on our trip. As we had a very busy week in Luxembourg ahead, we checked into our hotel and went to bed. I returned the car in the morning and was charged more than $600 extra dollars for the additional mileage over our limit. Oh well. It was worth it. Thus came the end to the driving portion of the trip.
We had an early (for us) bus to catch to go to both the American and German military cemeteries. It was one of the alumni excursions we had signed up for over the summer. Chris had wanted to visit General Patton's grave when we had been there two years earlier, but it is hard to get to without a car, so we bagged it. When the opportunity to take him there arose this time, I took it.
The irony of the beauty of these sites is not lost on most people. The day was sunny and warm for the time of year. Our group had a tour guide who pointed out things you'd miss if you didn't know to look for them. We probably had one the first time I had visited 21 years before, but I was a twenty year old know nothing being whisked through a foreign country for the first time. To fully appreciate the details was impossible.
Yet to grasp the abstract bigger picture was profound. I understood, as a naive 20 year old, what had happened, and I understood why they had taken us to both cemeteries. I understood how life had been fundamentally altered forever, especially in Europe. Walking into that German cemetery was a defining moment in my life.
We had been taught that Hitler was the worst person to have ever lived, not only in school, but also in popular culture and Hollywood films. With this was the implication that all Germans were evil Nazis. Never was it suggested that Germans were victims, too.
But they were, and here was the proof. On that day I stopped looking at the world as friends and enemies. Only individual people can be bad, not entire groups.
But what caused groups to follow individuals? I always wondered how ordinary Germans let their country fall into fascism. I studied the history of the rise of Hitler, from a failed artist to rising to be one of the most evil villains in history. I can tell you the events that made it happen, names and dates and battles. That year, I visited three concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and went to museum after museum erected so Europeans would never forget how they almost destroyed Western civilization.
But I could never understand how Germans did not respond to these events and prevent it from happening, why there weren't protests when democracy was willfully dissolved in Germany, why there weren't more Oskar Schindlers or Johan van Hulst, people risking their own lives to do the right thing when it was finally too late. How did it even get to that point?
I am devastated to say that I am learning.
I still don't understand it, why it is so easy for people to be duped by propaganda, why people wave their flags without thought and repeat slogans that they've heard from political leaders, why they believe in the lies told, and the fake enemies and threats created by wannabe dictators and their staffs.
The propaganda we are seeing now in the United States is textbook authoritarian. You always need enemies if you want to be a dictator. For Nazis, it was Jews, Communists, and Gays.
For Republicans, it is all minorities. Immigrants are called rapists and animals. Socialists and Democrats are called "the violent left." (Republicans use the term socialist and communist interchangeably because they know most Americans don't understand the difference.) Gays are, well, still gays who should have no rights (some Republicans have even called for them to be imprisoned or put to death.)
They use various groups that really existed and then greatly exaggerate their presence. How many Americans had ever HEARD of Antifa before Trump made them a thing? It was a small group of misfits that showed up during protests in major US cities wearing balaclavas and generally just shouting a lot. It isn't some organized violent gang that Trump and his cult believe. Some brats burned a limousine during the Trump inauguration and suddenly it's a well-organized violent gang? No, it's propaganda, people. Because wannabe dictators always need an enemy. They had to demonize "socialists" as a violent gang, so they picked one small group of anarchists, labeled them as leftists, and elevated them to this kind of widespread problem. The Trump people knew they would be called fascists (rightly so) and found this group that claims to fight fascism so they could label all people who said the Trumpers are fascist as Antifa.
And then there's that damn wall and putting latinos in concentration camps and stealing children from their parents. At first, they said it was needed to combat MS-13, a latino gang that actually exists, but which most latinos despise, as MS-13 affects latino communities. Then it was the "caravan." It's all propaganda. Latino immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than white people in this country per capita. Most are coming here to escape drug cartel terrorism or governmental corruption that is so bad people are left in poverty. It's not different than Irish or Italian immigrants at the beginning of the last century. So why all the talk about an immigration "problem?" Because of the need for an enemy.
Most Americans barely get out of their hometowns, let alone see anything that would make them think about and understand the world. Our schools are worker factories. Our universities have become mostly trade schools, where few actually learn anything about the world. People attend college to get jobs rather than to gain knowledge.
The G.I. Bill gave the opportunity for those white men who survived World War II to attend college, and it helped set off flight to suburban isolation. In the suburbs, you encounter people who look like you, talk like you, make similar incomes. They are bubbles. They are propaganda heaven.
Fear is a product of isolation. Leaders with authoritarian impulses use fear as a weapon. That's what the Nazis did then. That's what Republicans are doing now. They want you to be afraid of everything so they can help make themselves and their friends even richer than they already are. You do the work, yet you see little return on the profits. Any increase in profit goes to executives and shareholders, not the workers who do the work. Wages haven't increased in thirty years.
They told you climate change is a hoax so the wealthy could get richer with fewer regulations.
They told you unions were bad so the wealthy could give fewer benefits and lower wages to employees.
They told you that socialism is bad so the wealthy could get richer by owning more.
This. Is. Propaganda. Stop falling for it!
This is what happens when you fall for it:
Visiting the cemetery again brought it all back, but it was especially poignant given the domestic danger we face in the United States right now. The question I had as a twenty year old remains on my mind today: why do we never learn?
 |
| American Military Cemetery in Luxembourg |
We had an early (for us) bus to catch to go to both the American and German military cemeteries. It was one of the alumni excursions we had signed up for over the summer. Chris had wanted to visit General Patton's grave when we had been there two years earlier, but it is hard to get to without a car, so we bagged it. When the opportunity to take him there arose this time, I took it.
 |
| Patton wanted to be buried among his men but his wife made them put it in a separate place. |
Yet to grasp the abstract bigger picture was profound. I understood, as a naive 20 year old, what had happened, and I understood why they had taken us to both cemeteries. I understood how life had been fundamentally altered forever, especially in Europe. Walking into that German cemetery was a defining moment in my life.
We had been taught that Hitler was the worst person to have ever lived, not only in school, but also in popular culture and Hollywood films. With this was the implication that all Germans were evil Nazis. Never was it suggested that Germans were victims, too.
But they were, and here was the proof. On that day I stopped looking at the world as friends and enemies. Only individual people can be bad, not entire groups.
 |
| There are up to four names on each tombstone, both sides. |
But what caused groups to follow individuals? I always wondered how ordinary Germans let their country fall into fascism. I studied the history of the rise of Hitler, from a failed artist to rising to be one of the most evil villains in history. I can tell you the events that made it happen, names and dates and battles. That year, I visited three concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and went to museum after museum erected so Europeans would never forget how they almost destroyed Western civilization.
But I could never understand how Germans did not respond to these events and prevent it from happening, why there weren't protests when democracy was willfully dissolved in Germany, why there weren't more Oskar Schindlers or Johan van Hulst, people risking their own lives to do the right thing when it was finally too late. How did it even get to that point?
I am devastated to say that I am learning.
 |
| 11,000 buried in a mass grave. |
The propaganda we are seeing now in the United States is textbook authoritarian. You always need enemies if you want to be a dictator. For Nazis, it was Jews, Communists, and Gays.
For Republicans, it is all minorities. Immigrants are called rapists and animals. Socialists and Democrats are called "the violent left." (Republicans use the term socialist and communist interchangeably because they know most Americans don't understand the difference.) Gays are, well, still gays who should have no rights (some Republicans have even called for them to be imprisoned or put to death.)
They use various groups that really existed and then greatly exaggerate their presence. How many Americans had ever HEARD of Antifa before Trump made them a thing? It was a small group of misfits that showed up during protests in major US cities wearing balaclavas and generally just shouting a lot. It isn't some organized violent gang that Trump and his cult believe. Some brats burned a limousine during the Trump inauguration and suddenly it's a well-organized violent gang? No, it's propaganda, people. Because wannabe dictators always need an enemy. They had to demonize "socialists" as a violent gang, so they picked one small group of anarchists, labeled them as leftists, and elevated them to this kind of widespread problem. The Trump people knew they would be called fascists (rightly so) and found this group that claims to fight fascism so they could label all people who said the Trumpers are fascist as Antifa.
And then there's that damn wall and putting latinos in concentration camps and stealing children from their parents. At first, they said it was needed to combat MS-13, a latino gang that actually exists, but which most latinos despise, as MS-13 affects latino communities. Then it was the "caravan." It's all propaganda. Latino immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than white people in this country per capita. Most are coming here to escape drug cartel terrorism or governmental corruption that is so bad people are left in poverty. It's not different than Irish or Italian immigrants at the beginning of the last century. So why all the talk about an immigration "problem?" Because of the need for an enemy.
Most Americans barely get out of their hometowns, let alone see anything that would make them think about and understand the world. Our schools are worker factories. Our universities have become mostly trade schools, where few actually learn anything about the world. People attend college to get jobs rather than to gain knowledge.
The G.I. Bill gave the opportunity for those white men who survived World War II to attend college, and it helped set off flight to suburban isolation. In the suburbs, you encounter people who look like you, talk like you, make similar incomes. They are bubbles. They are propaganda heaven.
Fear is a product of isolation. Leaders with authoritarian impulses use fear as a weapon. That's what the Nazis did then. That's what Republicans are doing now. They want you to be afraid of everything so they can help make themselves and their friends even richer than they already are. You do the work, yet you see little return on the profits. Any increase in profit goes to executives and shareholders, not the workers who do the work. Wages haven't increased in thirty years.
They told you climate change is a hoax so the wealthy could get richer with fewer regulations.
They told you unions were bad so the wealthy could give fewer benefits and lower wages to employees.
They told you that socialism is bad so the wealthy could get richer by owning more.
This. Is. Propaganda. Stop falling for it!
This is what happens when you fall for it:
Visiting the cemetery again brought it all back, but it was especially poignant given the domestic danger we face in the United States right now. The question I had as a twenty year old remains on my mind today: why do we never learn?
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