Memorial Day thoughts from France.

[GoneOffShore]

Today is not a holiday in France. The memories of World War One and World War Two are not as distant here, because it is still possible to see the evidence of those times in certain places. VE Day - 8 May is celebrated, as is Armistice Day - 11 November. The sense of being closer to those conflicts is ever present. These are solemn occasions, not marked with 'Armistice Day Specials!' in stores or 'VE Day Sales'.
A friend of mine, living in Paris, yesterday went, along with other American veterans, members of the American Legion's Paris Post 1, to various American war cemeteries to honour their fallen comrades. He went to the Aisne-Marne cemetery, which sits at the foot of the WWI Belleau Wood battle site and contains the remains of 2,289 American war dead, and the nearby Oise-Aisne cemetery, which contains the remains of 6,013 American war dead.
At the Aisne-Marne cemetery, the tradition is to take the Paris Post 1 wreath and place it on the grave of one of the fallen.

The Eric Bogle song, No Man's Land (Green Fields of France) is appropriate.

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[Leland Ray]

1. Memorial day is white supremacy.

WWII was white supremacy. Obviously Germany murdering jews and invading other nations. And the US attacking Japan. All white supremacy.

All wars can be traced to white supremacy.

[Shiny Happy Person]

2. Look deep and see that this is correct

It might be easy at first to dismiss the OP as making a facile generalization in saying that "all" wars can be traced to white supremacy. But it's pretty much spot-on. Of course, MAGA types will immediately go racial and point out wars like the civil war in Rwanda. But right below the surface of even that war you'll find toxic whiteness being enacted by Hutu and Tutsi alike, both in their privileging of white militarism over long-standing peaceful indigenous conflict resolution strategies, and in the overt support given by white colonialists whose interests were served by the genocide of a people.

Memorial Day should be a time of land acknowledgment wherever whites gather for a holiday barbecue. It is important to remember that their barbecues are taking place on land that was not only stolen from indigenous people, but also has been repurposed as a tool of continuing oppression of BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ persons. For shame!

[pfitz59]

4. Your first post is a sweeping generalization along racial lines?

Blanket condemnations and generalizations get short shrift on DU. We try to stick with facts, not feelings. Occasionally DU gets 'disrupters' who like to stir up the hive mind. They are usually found out, post haste.

[GoneOffShore]

8. Welcome to DU - Enjoy your stay, however short it is.

Here's something else for you -

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[sarisataka]

16. Will there be a second post?

[gopiscrap]

17. welcome to DU

[pfitz59]

3. I beg to dissent. 'All wars'?

Japan conquered Korea and invaded China. Doesn't fit your model? Japan defeated Russia in 1905. The Zulus were conquering other tribes before a single white man set foot in South Africa. The Mongols, who conquered half the world were anything but white. The Sri Lanka Civil War had nothing to do with white supremacy. Don't forget the Aztecs and Incas building huge empires via warfare. I see you have 5 posts. DU rules prohibit insulting other members. We try to deal with facts here. No sweeping generalizations.

[Leland Ray]

5. where did I insult anyone?

[Ford_Prefect]

10. I think the biggest problem is your lack of perspective. Clearly you have a limited set of facts and a very narrow view

of the relevant history. By no means do I defend racial bias in American history. Some of the argument you wish to make can equally be made about financial empires shaping American, German, and Japanese politics, foreign policy and military conquest.

My father, along with millions of others, fought in that war. He went to France and then to the Netherlands to help stop their oppression by the Nazi empire. In Germany his infantry division liberated Nordhausen and the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp. They found the terrible aftermath of Hitler's Final Solution, as a number of other units also discovered during the fall of Germany.

Japan saw all other races as inferior. They included the Chinese in this distinction, along with any other group from the Russian border to the Indian border and all over the Pacific Islands. This is a view they had held for several centuries.

Blanket blame based upon a revisionist view of history is simply a fool's errand.

[FSogol]

11. Saying the US attacking Japan was because of white supremacy

Is an insult. An insult to the US and to everyone here's intelligence.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. WWII was a result of a punitive end to WWI.

WWI was a result of a Serb (white) shooting an Austro-Hungarian (also white).

And then the US attacked Japan at Pearl Harbor? Where is John Belushi when we need him?

[GoneOffShore]

7. Point missed, but welcome to DU.

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[Duncan Grant]

9. The OP is thoughtful and reverent. Your reply? Not even close.

Yeah, white supremacy is real. White people built it and white people must disassemble it.

However, your understanding of white supremacy trivializes the original post and every nuance contained therein. We used to call this “thread-jacking”.

[Cha]

12. Pearl Harbor.. What was that?

[yagotme]

18. That's where we bombed Germany.

Or they bombed us. Whichever...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

14. About Leland Ray

About Leland Ray
I am passionate about Social Justice! I run a social justice forum called Camp Idiot.

Appropriately

[sarisataka]

15. I suppose the Sudan genocide is white supremacy?

It's been a while since we've had someone come forth to say the allies were no better than the Nazis.

Should we have stayed out of the war, let Germany have Europe and Japan could own the Pacific?

[Rhiannon12866]

13. It's different for countries where World Wars were fought on their own land, citizens felt the war violence personally