Wednesday, July 09, 2003

I’ve been remiss in heading over to see the WWII history and photos from BigWig’s file cabinet. The link takes you to the category page where all posts reside. I encourage you to head on over yourself to see the never-before-seen photos and read the history. He’s taking a lot of time to research the background of the photos and what they depict. It’s a good history lesson and reminder for us all.

UPDATE: I have to add a quote from one of the essays BigWig wrote to go along with the photos he posted on July 4:

The new flavor of Holocaust denial is not to deny that it happened, but to deny it significance, to reduce 6 million dead Jews to
a mere blip on the bloody radar of human history. “Bad things have happened to people all through history” goes the logic. “Besides, everyone does it.” It’s an argument that demands the perfection of human character before allowing action against evil while simultaneously denying that such perfection can possibly exist.

It’s a neat rhetorical trick, an excuse for inaction in the face of evil. Given the numerous discoveries of mass graves and documented atrocities visited upon the people of Iraq by the recently deposed Ba’athist regime, the timing of its emergence is suspicious, and saddening.

The argument’s aim is clear, though not all who ascribe to its logic recognize what that goal is. It seeks to make all of the human tragedy and suffering equally important, which sounds noble enough. But, if all deaths are equally important, then they are also equally unimportant, which leads to

“Bad things have happened to people all through history,”

So there’s no rush to when it comes to freeing Iraqis from their dictator, to defend Liberians from theirs, and suicide bombers and those who hunt them are morally equivalent.

and “Besides, everyone does it.”

Not the Germans. Not anymore. I wonder why that is?