Posted on 04/13/2022 10:54:59 PM PDT by bitt
I lived for very many years in rural Vermont. I’d bought a long-abandoned, post-and-beam farmhouse on a third-class dirt road. The realtor was a German immigrant who’d come to Vermont with his wife and infant children just after the war. He suggested that I call a local builder, Bob, to inspect the house, which was superficially in dreadful shape, but the farm and basement were sound. Bob said he’d be glad to put it right, and he and his brother-in-law restored it to its 1805 perfection.
Bob’s family had lived through the war in Germany, and through the famine afterward, and through relocation in America, ignorant of the language. Bob taught himself carpentry and all the building trades, and became a much-respected member of the small town, where all of his contemporary men had fought against the Axis in World War II. His brother-in-law, Eric, had been in the Hitler Youth, and Bob was a glider commando in the Luftwaffe—the equivalent, today, of Delta Force, or the Navy Seals.
My family became friends with Bob, and his wife, Ilse, became a surrogate grandmother—or better, great-aunt—to my kids. His family was my first encounter with the German national character—hard working, honest, and uncomplaining.
Of course I was seldom unaware that the regime he had fought for was dedicated to the destruction of my people and my race (if Jews are a race … in any case, to my like). I asked Eric about the Hitler Youth, and he said that he’d missed one meeting, and was told by his group leader that, should he miss another, he’d be shot. And, Bob, and every other man of fighting age and ability, was conscripted, and what were they to do?
Just as Eric explained, and perhaps apologized for, his membership in the Hitler Youth, Bob would tell me that his father had risked his life saving a Jew of his acquaintance.
To both cases: perhaps, and perhaps not. I never met a German who had lived through that wartime period who did not share with me the history of his family helping the Jews. Putting aside the question of the stories’ truth, I was struck by their seeming necessity for the teller. The current self-protective rationale of the Nazi era invokes an occupation by the forces of evil, which they were mostly too powerless to fight. Most of the people who lived through it are gone, and their descendants are entitled to imagine a history with which they can live—neither absolutely false nor true, but one in which someone tried to act.
Over the last two years in America, I’ve witnessed our own forces of evil with incredulity, despair, and rage. Corruption, blasphemy, and absurdity have been accepted by one-half of the electorate as the cost of doing business; as has the fear this acceptance generates. Does anyone actually believe that men change into women and women into men who can give birth, that the Earth is burning, the seas are rising, and we’ll all perish unless we cover our faces with strips of cotton?
No one does. These proclamations are an act of faith, in a new, as yet unnamed religion, and the vehemence with which one proclaims allegiance to these untruths is an exercise no different from any other ecstatic religious oath. They become the Apostles’ Creed of the left, their proclamation committing the adherent physically to their strictures, exactly as the oath taken on induction to the armed services. The inductee is told to “take one step forward,” and once they do he or she can no longer claim, “I misunderstood the instruction.”
Those currently in power insist on masking, but don’t wear masks. They claim the seas are rising and build mansions on the shore. They abhor the expenditure of fossil fuels and fly exclusively in private jets. And all the while half of the country will not name the disease. Why?
Because the cost of challenging this oppressive orthodoxy has, for them, become too high. Upon a possible awakening, they—or more likely their children—might say that the country was occupied. And they would be right.
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Thanks! I just saw the additional info you added.
David Mamet, raised in a communist-sympathizing household, has made a remarkable conversion to conservatism.
He is a multiple award-winning playwright and screenwriter who has taken the risks of denouncing the results of decades of liberal progressivism. As a result, he has not won a conventional media-star award since, and never will again, like David Horowitz.
A brave, brave man whose natural intelligence simply would not allow him to keep believing the lies.
This is an excellent essay by a writer’s writer.
Had you opened the link, you would have seen that the editor used graphic placement rather than a colon between the title and the subheadline.
It is, I believe, a metaphor for the United States. He sees our country in an apparent state of advanced disrepair, but notes the sturdy "foundation and farm" -- our Constitution and history of creative achievement and economic strength.
Your multiple posts about this guy instead of what he wrote sound triggered. You even compared your "stories" to his, as if his long history as an acclaimed writer is no great shakes. Why does he bother you so much?
I noted above, several times, that I knew that I was indulging in speculation, that it was an entirely subjective impression, and that my discussion with a certain other FReeper would have been more appropriate to a private discussion (because it is otherwise liable to be misunderstood).
I think that that pretty much exonerates me from any liability for these musings.
I explained that only yesterday I had binge-watched several interviews with him over an eight-year period, and - while I assuredly have no criticism of the essence of what he said - that I noticed a certain "Twilight Zone"-like similarity of all the interviews. If that doesn't "strike a chord" with you, and if you don't have a deeper explanation for it, then please ignore it.
There is no hidden resentment here, and no secret agenda on my part.
Regards,
I suspected something like that. But I never open links.
Regards,
It certainly isn’t a common usage, but neither was “bigly”. Had never heard that one before Pres. Trump used it.
Was not trying to "take away" anything from Mamet or diminish him. Just pointing out to a certain fellow FReeper that for someone who has had countless interactions with people of that ilk ("good" Germans), it is a rather pedestrian observation, so does not especially impress me.
How many times do I have to explain that all of my comments should be preceded - in thought - by a "for what it's worth?"
Not holding myself up as a Gold Standard - just explaining why I'm not esp. impressed by that particular observation.
Never claimed that my "stories" were of better literary quality than Mamet's.
The only "criticism" - if that's the proper word for it - of Mamet I have is the observation that, in three interviews with three very different interviewers over an 8-year period, he essentially "rehashed" the same old stories, anecdotes, aphorisms, and jokes. I got the SUBJECTIVE impression that that was not his conscious intention. So I posited that he might be trapped in some sort of weird mental loop. I invited anyone with a differing opinion or a better explanation to disabuse me of that impression.
That "humble" and "circumspect" enough for you?
Regards,
I regret not reading your subsequent posts before scolding you. Be well and be blessed, alexander_busek!
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