Time to do everything to keep the memories and learnings of WWII alive. 79 years ~ 2.6 generations
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The rise of nazism in America says we are already too late. We do tend to have slightly shorter memories than Europe. Learn from our mistakes.
> The rise of nazism in America says we are already too late.
This isn't a new thing, unfortunately.
Given that the KKK has been around for 100+ years — and the fact that the Eugenics movement really started in the United States[1] (so clearly so that Hitler mentions it in Mein Kampf), Nazism & Hyper-Nationalism have been in and out of fashion for over a century and we are still here.
[1]:https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-guarded-gate-daniel-okr...
Yep. This is the average societal memory horizon. The absolute cultural memory horizon tends to be roughly 250 years (10 generations) as that's about when most civilizations fail. At least once every generation, there is a moral or cultural test event that pushes that civilization writ large closer to disorder or makes it stronger by recovery, preparedness, and prevention.
What’s particularly worrying is the dwindling number of people who’ve actually been in the presence of an atomic detonation.
Being in the presence of an atomic detonation will do that to you, I suppose.
Yeah, there's a real sweet spot there - close enough to really get the immensity, far enough away to tell people about it.
The last atomic test was in 1992, so we have some years left.
Do we? How many are still in employment or active at the right places after 32 years?
Looking at drama around Ukraine war, it’s already lost.
I see the opposite. A nation state aggressively attempted to take over another, and the world reacted swiftly and largely in unison. The lesson seems learned, at least for now. If the lesson had been lost, everyone would have done nothing.
The NATO countries reacted in unison.
The rest of the world cares as much as we do about the wars in Africa.
Eh. Some countries (totally not pointing at Germany) fall out of that unison repeatedly.
> the world reacted swiftly and largely in unison
The western world. Don't forget that the early economic sanctions were largely ignored by the BRICS countries, which make up ~45% of the world's population.
The world reacted swiftly... And then the war continued. Had West reacted swiftly with it's shear power, the war would have ended 2 years ago. But it's still going on. And situation is getting dire for Ukraine. Too little ammo is supplied. New options of guns are approved too late. West could have helped to close airspace at least in West Ukraine, but that's not happening either. All sorts of sanctions are repeatedly broken with the help of „global south“ and our own greedy corrupted actors.
The only lesson here is (core)West cannot be trusted and you're on it's own. At least this is the lesson I learned living 30km from (pseudo)Russia border.
Except half of Americans are rooting for Putin.
> Except half of Americans are rooting for Putin.
Both "half" and "rooting" are exaggerations. No need for that. But yes, a depressing number of one party's politicians are willing to use Ukraine foreign policy as a domestic division issue.
I do not feel that is an exaggeration whatsoever. About half of Americans would prefer to see Russia win the war. I think I'm getting downvoted for speaking the plain truth.
>I do not feel that is an exaggeration whatsoever
That's the problem. Now lets see how the facts compare to your feelings.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/15/public-expre...
>More than eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners (88%) and Republicans and Republican leaners (85%) favor keeping strict economic sanctions on Russia. And at least six-in-ten in each party strongly favor maintaining strict sanctions (68% of Democrats, 61% of Republicans). Chart shows Democrats much more supportive of admitting Ukrainian refugees to the U.S. than are Republicans
>Similar shares of Republicans (75%) and Democrats (81%) favor keeping a large military presence in NATO countries located near Ukraine. And there is limited support among both Republicans and Democrats for taking military action, even if it risks a nuclear conflict with Russia: About a third of the public (35%) and nearly identical shares of Democrats (35%) and Republicans (36%) favor this.
This took less than 30 seconds to look up, btw.
> About half of Americans would prefer to see Russia win the war.
My brother in pro-democracy, you are literally exaggerating right now. If half the US adult population people really wanted Russia to conquer Ukraine, you would be able to easily cite polls showing it in rather stark terms.
Yes, it's definitely become a red/blue partisan issue, and yes, Republican "leadership" needs to be raked over the coals for their extended support for the Emperor's New Clothes, and yes, if Russia won they'd probably make up a bunch of "this is fine" nonsense... However!--Even if you assumed every single person of any party who thought "the US gives too much aid" was actually a crypto-Putinist hiding their dark desires for an outright Russian victory... Well, that's still only 37%. [0]
That far-reaching assumption almost certainly wrong through, especially since general sentiment toward Russia has almost hit rock-bottom. [1] That's why nobody even bothers polling for "which country would your rather see win."
[0] https://apnews.com/article/poll-ukraine-aid-congress-b772c97...
Doesn't it take 2 sides to make something a division issue?
Your mom milks babies for their blood.
Now, don't go and make this a division issue by disagreeing with me.
Do you also think it takes two sides to start a war?
What on Earth was Ukraine thinking of by taking Russia's bait and getting involved in its own invasion!
/light humor