June 6, 2024
Today is the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Omaha Beach in France during WWII. D-Day wasn’t the end of that war, but it was the beginning of the end. One year later Germany was in ruins and Hitler lay dead in a bunker as VE Day celebrations rang out around the World. Millions of people lost their life in that war, but in the end, Democracy triumphed over Dictatorship.
We honor and give thanks to all who served and sacrificed so that we could live in freedom, not in a dictatorship. The noxious idea that a religion, race, or class of people were poisoning the blood of a nation was put to rest, but not before millions of our fellow human beings were systematically exterminated. Then, as now, there were individuals who leveraged people’s discontent and resentments to elevate their own interests. When things aren’t going well the idea of a scapegoat holds appeal for many. The suggestion that millions of human being belong in detention camps should be setting off all the alarms, because that’s exactly what the Nazis did.
Antifascist Americans in WWII.
In the 1930s and 40s Jewish people were the scapegoat in Hitler’s Reich. As the charismatic leader of a cult of personality, he promised to restore Germany’s greatness. He delivered destruction, death and ruin instead. It was only because a coalition of Allies, essentially the countries we call Western Democracies plus the Soviet Union, combined their resources to beat the Nazis that we’re not all speaking German today. Had the USA, the UK, or USSR not been part of the effort, the outcome might have been very different.
If another Hitler arose today, promising to restore a nation’s greatness and to eliminate human ‘vermin’ from within its borders, could he be stopped? Are there even the makings of that winning Allied coalition of 80 years ago? Would people sacrifice their comfort to support the effort to stop fascism? Would people remember that Hitler’s promises were all lies and that history records him as a mass murderer, and not any sort of hero?
These are some of the questions we are asking today, on the 80th anniversary of D Day. What do you think?
Don’t Be A Sucker.
