Dwain Northey (Gen X)

This was a line solemnly stated by Frankin Deleno Roosevelt on Dec 8^th, 1941, one day after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii Dec 7^th, 1941, a date that will live in infamy.

The is and was a seminal date in history and the event the finally pulled the United States into WWII.  December 8^th, 1941, was the day we entered the war declaring war against Japan it wasn’t until December 11^th that congress formally declared war against Germany.

This monumental date has few survivors that actually witness or heard FDR’s famous speech and now the events are relegated to History Books and all-day programs on the History Channel. I recently realized that my Father and my Son both missed a world changing days in history by 4 years, my father was born in 1945 so he wasn’t born to witness the events of Dec 7^th, my son was born in 2005 so he wasn’t present for 9/11. Both have had to hear accounts of those days from their respective parents and read about them in history books.

I don’t that we still retain the lessons learned for WWII because the institutional memory of those events is rapidly passing from this plain of existence. This past week Henry Kissinger passed, although he was a horrible person, he had memories of WWII and a former President that actually served as a submarine officer in WWII, Jimmy Carter is 99 years old and will be shedding this mortal coil and joining his belove wife Roselin soon after a life that can only be celebrated as one that we can only hope to emulate.

Will we forget the lessons on 9/11/2001 eighty years from now when most of us the bore witness that terrible day. Did we learn any lessons from that day? That is the bigger question.

President George W. Bush’s comments after 9/11 don’t ring with the clarion call FDR’s words after Pearl Harbor, “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.” Bush could have united the world after 9/11 as FDR solidified the Allies in WWII but we all know how that turned out.

I hope the institutional memory of the horrors of war stays with us so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes.  

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The unfortunate truth about history is that the events of the past are written by the victors. Case in point a world history lesson on the United States about the Revolutionary war has the colonist as the hero’s fighting and eventually winning independence from a tyrannical King in England, do you think the same story was told in England especially in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.

One pivotal event was the Boston Tea Party.

The Colonist Version

“Taxation without representation is tyranny,” British colonists protested when Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765. Even with the tax, British tea from India was still cheaper than inferior Dutch tea, but it was the principle involved that prompted the dumping of 342 cases of this disputed commodity into Boston Harbor in 1773.

The British Side

At considerable expense, Britain had won France’s North American territory in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). Britain faced a large postwar debt and the responsibility of additional land to protect and govern. Highly burdened by taxes themselves, the British were merely asking the colonies to bear the expense of their own administration and defense. As each proposed revenue bill met with opposition, it was repealed, Parliament being anxious to appease the colonies. Such “leniency” only encouraged additional disobedience, which was skillfully orchestrated by colonial propagandists. 

That sounds completely different doesn’t it. The colonists are represented as petulant children that were unwilling to contribute to the crown for graciously protecting them and securing them more land.

Think what a different story would be told if the Third Reich had succeeded in WWII.

The current crisis in Israel and the West Bank is multi-faceted and depending on who you listen to influences your view if who is the bad guy. My view is that Hamas is the bad guy, not the Israel citizen and Palestinian citizens, the horrific attack on 10/7 was planned & perpetrated by Humas no question and Hasas in not Palestine. Just like the Taliban was not Iraq or Afghanistan. Now the Israeli response is just as appalling because it has been targeting, intended or not, the citizens of the west bank not strategically the leader of the Hasas or the individuals that planned the actions of 10/7. Bibi Netanyahu isn’t a good guy in this situation because his actions over the past years as Prime Minister refusing any kind of 2 state solution has only intensified the militancy of both Israel and Palestine.

I don’t know if there will every be an equitable solution, arguably the U.N. stated the problem by willy nilly drawing boundary lines of the former English colony of Palestine.

I would love to be a time traveler and jump to the 22 or 23 century see if this biblical land dispute is ever resolved.