Storming The Beaches

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
- Bob Dylan

The wind was blowin along the D-Day beaches yesterday, but I'm not sure if the answers were. Sixty years after World War II there is still plenty of violence across the globe, much of it caused or excacerbated by those same countries that saved the world from Nazism. Governments, corporations, and individuals are still generally self-centered, trying to gain more power, more resources, more money. And so the rich take advantage of the poor - not being evil or sadistic, just to further their own interests. But the consequences are astouding. Each year, African countries as a whole pay more on their debts than they receive in aid; meanwhile more than 6,000 African die each day from AIDS (http://www.data.org/whyafrica/issueaids.php), and big pharmaceutical companies won't sell AIDS treatment drugs at a low price to these countries.

We westerners certainly aren't killing these people, but we may be contributing to their plight by keeping poor countries in debt, not paying much attention in general, and exploiting them for their resources. These thoughts were running through my mind yesterday as we visited the Normandy beaches that American, British, and Canadian troops stormed after four years of German occupation of France. We also visited the Canadian WWII cemetery, where about 4,000 souls lie. It hit me harder than I was expecting; most of the soldiers were in their 20's, many of them younger than I. It's not fun to think of such unpleasant events, past and present, but sometimes it's important to remind myself of the bigger picture. We live in a world filled with unimaginable pleasure and wealth as well as widespread suffering. If some of that suffering is avoidable, then perhaps more should be done to help mitigate it.



(Josh) On the upside, it has been a fun few days. We visited some chateaus in the middle of the Loire Valley, and made our way north to visit my good friend Geoff who is living in Caen, right next to the beaches of Normandie. I wont go on for too long, but i would like to say I had one very Ironic moment when I saw an American who had just been staring at one of the Beach monuments, get into his rented Mercedes Benz and drive away with the the though of tears in eyes.
After the beaches, we went to a WWII museum, where there was all sorts of allied and Nazi memorabilia. very interesting, but I was a bit confused about one thing that got me thinking a bit about human nature, in that we are always attracted to the crude and evil in ways we cant understand. The Nazi memorabilia is about 10 times as expensive as any other memorabilia. I asked the proprietor why this was so, and he said becuase it is rarer. But why is it rarer? Odd if you ask me that people would rather have something from the losing side who has been deemed as evil, rather then something from the winning side to glorify their own ancestors, and the people who have been deemed as the saviors by history.

I didnt buy anything from either side, as it seemed to me this guy was profiting off other peoples confused feelings either way. Overall the main thing that stuck with me was that wars in the past it was much easier to distinguish, kinda like old movies, that the bad guys are obviously bad, and the good guys are obviously righteous. These days on the playing field, the jerseys all seem to be grey to me, and it seems more a matter of opinion whos right and whos wrong, whos winning and whos losing. The propaganda machine has always been great at convincing us one way or another, but with so much information at our fingertips, it gets harder and harder every day to be sure. I guess that is why wars arent world wars anymore on large country scales, but rather becoming what we (will) call terrorist wars. Governments wont publicly go against the super powers very often anymore, but there will always be a large group of nonbeleivers who will keep fighting for their cause.

terrorism n.the act of terrorizing;use of force or threats to demoralize, intimidate, and subjugate, esp. such use as a political weapon or policy. Websters New World Dictionary