Blogging takes time and effort and getting through the books one wants to blog about...
Well, lately there were several difficulties. One, I had moved the computer to the basement which is really cold; now I've moved it back upstairs. One could use the laptop, but I don't like it as much.
Then there was the subject matter all related to Word War II, misguided ideologies and atrocities. I had got some way through "Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin", which is truly an extremely important book. I stopped after the deliberate starvation of millions in the Ukraine, and the proof supplied that truly it was done deliberately and not just an unfortunate result of collectivization. The author convinced me. It was done deliberately. And Hitler had the mind to starve the entire East after he had conquered it, if he had conquered it, since the Slavs were an inferior race and could legitimately be killed off in the game of the survival of the fittest. It can make one's stomach turn and surely takes a toll. Indeed, the Russian prisoners of war were starved and killed for this same reason of inferiority. Millions and millions of people. It is hardly fathomable. It is so terrible. Social Darwinism is what it is called.
This is partly why I stopped. I also watched all the WW II documentaries on Netflix. They provided an overview but did not provide much depth nor did they explore the aspects of the story I am interested in. There was one part where the German people happily coped with the destruction of their cities while they still cheered on their leader and kept on fighting. This was quite infuriating. It seems like no one wants to understand how oppressive the regime was. Who wants to have war and keep fighting when the country is bombed to pieces? (And how many really wanted it in the first place.)
And then the entire series so far, no person has commented on anything at all. This is ok but after a while it becomes all a bit boring. This is not that there have not been google-hits. Some of the searches have been for Fichte, Voltaire and polygenetics.
One more thing I found discouraging was the fighting on other blogs. It seemed all the sudden that all the talking, all the discussing, all the clarifying comparing, hoping for consensus is all for nothing. It appeared to me that after three or four years on the internet nobody has ever changed their mind on much. ( -- No, it's not true. There is one person I know about. And he even became a Lutheran.)
So that's that, and I still don't feel like picking up the WWII thread, again. There are nicer things to read and think about and do.
The only other thing is a suggestion I have. After going some distance in the "Bloodlands", I thought it would be important for the world to acknowledge all the losses explored in the book. We should have an international day that recognizes the entire tragedy. In Edmonton we have a memorial to the Ukrainian Famine because many Ukrainians came here. In the spirit of racial thinking, even here they were considered something inferior to the Anglo-Saxon. In my teacher's foundation training we had a unit on how Ukrainians were to be integrated in those decades. This European thinking existed over here, also. In any case, we need to have not just Remembrance Days for Nov. 11, thinking about the end of WW I, but a time where we all stand together remembering all these atrocities and victims.
I mentioned this thought to a Russian Orthodox friend I have and he agreed whole-heartedly. We all need to know this and remember this. Not only were the Jews nearly exterminated for being racially inferior, etc. but so nearly were the Slavs. And Stalin killed whomever he wanted for whatever reason--his own comrades in purges and the Ukrainians for their nice fertile land.
P.S. In googling Ukrainian Famine Memorial in Edmonton I found out that we do have a ceremony here at the end of November called the Holdomor. http://www.edmontoneparchy.com/2011/11/holodomor-ukrainian-famine-genocide-memorial-day/ . I should get myself out for it next time.
Here is a picture of our current prime minister at a Holdomor memorial. It does not mention the location. Thanks to Flickr.
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