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The informal truces of the First World War amaze me whenever I read about it. I have similar feelings when I read about the widespread dissent by US troops duri
by dalke 12y ago
The informal truces of the First World War amaze me whenever I read about it. I have similar feelings when I read about the widespread dissent by US troops during the Vietnam War, ranging from Search And Avoid missions, to the "flattop revolts" and suspected sabotage of Navy ships.
The bitterest foes for the troops don't seem to be the enemy troops, but the politicians and upper staff, who offer the certainty of punishment and slander of dishonor, while the enemy troops offer only the chance of death or injury.
If true, I begin to understand why John Kiriakou, the only CIA agent jailed because the US decided to torture people, is a whistleblower and not one of the government torturers, including those that authorized the program. That sort of power structure requires that the authorities be able to be worse to its own people than what the enemy will do.
- schoen 12y agoI learned from one of James C. Scott's books that there was a "Memorial to the Unknown Deserter" created in Bonn, Germany, but local authorities prevented it from being set up there and it eventually ended up in Potsdam. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deserteurdenkmal_%28Bonn/Potsdam%29 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deserteurdenkmal_%28Bonn/Potsd... The human figure is formed from the negative space cut out of the stone. (The inscription from Kurt Tucholsky translates as "Here lived a man / who refused / to shoot at his fellow men. / Honor to his memory.") The German Wikipedia identifies a large number of similar memorials: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahnenflucht#Denkmale_f.C3.BCr_Deserteure https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahnenflucht#Denkmale_f.C3.BCr... Although some of them have been extraordinarily controversial in Germany (and Austria), they do exist; it's hard for me to imagine a similar memorial in the U.S.
- dalke 12y agoNice, and the negative space is good use of symbolism. I know of nothing like that in the US. The only references I found (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertion and http://crookedtimber.org/2013/05/27/memorial-day-2/ http://crookedtimber.org/2013/05/27/memorial-day-2/ ) were for Germany and Austria. A-ha! I found one; "a statue commemorating American draft dodgers and the Canadians who took them in." http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/war-resisters-statue-finds-a-home-1.627046 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/war-resisters... . The image link is broken, but archive.org has it as https://web.archive.org/web/20060113173812/http://vancouver.cbc.ca/gfx/Vancouver/photos/040923_resister3.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20060113173812/http://vancouver.... . I can't make much sense of the image though. Many groups in the US opposed the statue.