Remembrance Day?

Sooo - can you splain to me some wars that weren't caused by economics? I'm very curious….

the crusades come to mind - fighting for fucking sand and god

a quick google search for religious wars:

the thirty years war

the reconquista

the troubles

henry 8's purge

the crusades come to mind - fighting for fucking sand and god

a quick google search for religious wars:

the thirty years war

the reconquista

the troubles

henry 8's purge

H ah ha ha ha - nice try.

Let's start with the Crusades.

Its the ultimate use of propaganda to make peeps feel good about a "just" war. Again - the root causes are economic. You need to understand the role of the Catholic church at that time in history to really get it tho. The Church was a money making machine. Monasteries and convents owned lands and worked farms. Getting to be a bishop didn't just come with a big fancy church - there were estates that went with it and considerable income to be had - the church was a kind of shadow feudal empire that straddled Europe, the near east and parts of the mid east.

Why did "Christianity" lose the"holy lands" to begin with? Duh - cause the turks wanted them. Despite popular belief, the mid east was still somewhat fertile back in the day. Not to mention the propaganda power which would bring more people (and money) to your faith if you controlled the motherlode of holiness.

The most telling part of the whole BS of the Crusades being a "just" war is the sacking , by christian, Frankish knights, of the Christian city of Byzantium (Constantinople) in 1204.

Hmmm - the wiki article on the crusades is somewhat biased, but the section on "trade" is quite telling…

Trade

The need to raise, transport and supply large armies led to a flourishing of trade throughout Europe. Roads largely unused since the days of Rome saw significant increases in traffic as local merchants began to expand their horizons. This was not only because the Crusades prepared Europe for travel, but also because many wanted to travel after being reacquainted with the products of the Middle East. This also aided in the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy, as various Italian city-states from the very beginning had important and profitable trading colonies in the crusader states, both in the Holy Land and later in captured Byzantine territory.

Increased trade brought many things to Europeans that were once unknown or extremely rare and costly. These goods included a variety of spices, ivory, jade, diamonds, improved glass-manufacturing techniques, early forms of gun powder, oranges, apples, and other Asian crops, and many other products.

If you want to understand the second world war - look into the Treaty of Verailles and the insane re-payments Germany was saddled with. The allies basically handed a crippled, angry, scared Germany to the Nazi's on a platter with a side of "we're gonna stay out your way until its REALLY bad".

Which were notably smaller and, given recent German unification and German industrial power, would have been significantly easier to pay off then the "insane re-payments" that Germany required from France at the end of the Franco-Prussian war in the 1870s.

The Treaty of Versailles was used, very effectively, by the Nazis as propaganda but it was predated by centuries of precedence.

…

The Crusades (multiple), like any war, were fought by a huge number of people for a huge number of different reasons (and for multiple reasons). And in this case, over hundreds of years: started by Pope's with hugely different motivations.

Every reason: ego, economics, religion, peer-pressure, etc, etc, etc.

…

Trying to summarize a multi-national, truly global, conflict into a single cause is asinine (not to mention thinking you can sum up any military conflict in history in a forum post) and jumping on people for expressing a different understanding then your all encompassing economic theory of war is ridiculous.

…

Back to Remembrance Day:

The ceremony in North Vancouver was very well attended. There are few sights more awe inspiring then watching a guy in his 80s or 90s march -UP- Lonsdale.

The number of people standing around talking during the ceremony, or talking on cellphones, or this year laughing and telling jokes, seems to get larger every year. I wonder why people even bother coming out.

This year I am standing next to a vet, in the pissing rain, and right in front of us there is a dad and his three kids shooting the shit and having a laugh as the ceremonies going on. Guys just shaking his head.

I held off for ten minutes or so, but finally I went up and asked them to show a bit of respect. Smirks all around.

Pretty ridiculous way to remember the people who died defending their families and their friends (regardless of the myriad of causes that started the wars they fought in).

-D

In 1944 my father cleaned up the city of Wuppertal after an allied bombing raid in which Napalm was involved. He was 14 years old.

He always told me that he would do anything to keep me from joining the army. He was traumatised because of war. So, yes, war is ugly, idiotic - but at the same time I think Europe was freed by the soldiers who fought against Nazi Germany. I can say that I am thankful, I have the chance to live a happy and peaceful life without fascism or another form of totalitarianism.

In 2006 I had the privilege to translate for a group of American WW2 veterans who lost their last man in the city or Wuppertal, back then I was a teacher-in-training.

It was humbling to say the least, I was really touched. I thanked them and wished them all the best. Basically some of them gave their lifes so that my father had the chance to raise my brothers and me in a non-fascist Germany.

It may well be that WW2 was primarily about money and economics - this does not diminish what the soldiers have done.

H ah ha ha ha - nice try.

Let's start with the Crusades.

Its the ultimate use of propaganda to make peeps feel good about a "just" war. Again - the root causes are economic. You need to understand the role of the Catholic church at that time in history to really get it tho. The Church was a money making machine. Monasteries and convents owned lands and worked farms. Getting to be a bishop didn't just come with a big fancy church - there were estates that went with it and considerable income to be had - the church was a kind of shadow feudal empire that straddled Europe, the near east and parts of the mid east.

Why did "Christianity" lose the"holy lands" to begin with? Duh - cause the turks wanted them. Despite popular belief, the mid east was still somewhat fertile back in the day. Not to mention the propaganda power which would bring more people (and money) to your faith if you controlled the motherlode of holiness.

The most telling part of the whole BS of the Crusades being a "just" war is the sacking , by christian, Frankish knights, of the Christian city of Byzantium (Constantinople) in 1204.

Actually, this is not quite right. Plain and simple. There is no such thing as "The Turks", at least when talking about medieval history and society, same as there was no such thing as a "French" knight back then. It was way more difficult.

Lets we forget that war is still fucking stupid.

This I believe was the original true purpose of Remembrance Day. It has turned into a diluted War Rah Rah - Go Veterans Hallmark Holiday. Lest We Forget - how stupid it is to kill each other in a large scale, not just remember the people who did go fight.

Good call man.

This I believe was the original true purpose of Remembrance Day. It has turned into a diluted War Rah Rah - Go Veterans Hallmark Holiday. Lest We Forget - how stupid it is to kill each other in a large scale, not just remember the people who did go fight.

Good call man.

The First World War was a war that was unprecedented - and it was a shock for most of the fighting men, not necessarily for the leaders, generals or officers, be it British, French, German, Russian, Austria-Hungarian or (later) American.

The scale of the killing was not known and could not have been imagined in their worst nightmares. It took some of the military years to actually acknowledge the Shecll-shock Syndrome. Te German General Ludendorff reportedly said that to beat the enemy a "bloodmill" would have to be created by more men, superior fire power and unbending morale.
No wonder that the German militarists and nationalists were supporting the Nazis from an early stage on.

It truly was _the _catastrophe of the young 20 century, for every nation involved.

But to say that there was no other alternative than a Nazi Germany bend on a Second World War is wrong. It is not that easy. The treaty of Versailles was one single step in a series of failures and catastrophes, both minor and major.

My history is pretty rusty unfortunately, I am just semi-remembering the words to all the hymns and speaking that the veterans did at the cenotaph each year when I used to always go. It definitely wasn't about bravery and honor, it was more about loss and well, remembering.

To everyone who thinks saying I was forced to go was terrible, maybe I didn't mention that it usually was a day filed with 2 or 3 ceremonies and it was always because of money, not about the veterans. I also am more speaking to the fact that the vast majority of people my age didn't even give a second thought about the day. The select few that did only did so because it was trendy to post lest we forget on their face book wall.

"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est

Pro patria mori."

- Wilfred Owen

you get to live the life you choose because of the sacrifices that our Vets made for us generations ago.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

But, I'm so fucking sick of people saying that our participation in the two world wars is why we have freedom today. You honestly think that Canada, the insignificant country it was (and really, still is), was going to be invaded and our democracy was going to fall?

Our participation in the two world wars was purely political - by helping our allies, it put Canada on the map as an international player. You think Canada cared about the plight of the Jews? Our government turned them away when they tried to immigrate here as refugees!

L Ron is right - war is abysmally stupid. There's nothing to celebrate. I did take a minute of silence today, though, to remember those men and women who did die for Canada, thinking they were doing the right thing. And yes, lest we forget, we (Canada) should avoid putting our citizens into harms way for all the wrong reasons.

You're right, stopping the extermination of an entire race of people, and the domination of a continent by one single dictator was a bad idea. We would have been much better off as a society had Hitler succeeded.

How can you take that from what I said? A little too emotional perhaps?

The fact that millions of people had to die to preserve freedom is fucking stupid, no way around it. The fact that a single dictator was trying to exterminate entire races is fucking stupid.

The fact that I had one German grandfather and one British grandfather who I will never meet because they both died fighting each other's countries is fucking stupid.

Since when does saying "I wish world war 2 had never happened" = saying "I wish the nazis had won"?

"oh, you miss your grandpa? well fuck him! if millions hadn't died hitler would have won you insensitive prick|!!!!!!!"

hahaha this was so inevitable.