Thursday, August 04, 2005

More than 60 Years Ago in Nuremberg...

"Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and endangering the country. It works the same in every country."

-Hermann Göring, Reichsmarschall under Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, at the Nuremberg Trials.

Of course, posting this quote calls me out as a hypocrite. Wasn't I the one who wondered the other day why the news isn't more positive?

I suppose it's the realist in me that says there isn't any way to sugarcoat the truly bad things that are going on in our world and the country right now. I mean, it's not like you can take "20 Marines killed in Iraq today" and turn into "115,480 Marines and military personnel safe in Iraq today" without seeming silly and trivial.

In matters of death--and life--the facts are the facts. As for Göring, how unknowingly prescient of him.

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