About
Learn More about our progressive online community for the Granite State.

Create an account today (it's free and easy) and get started!
Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?


Search




Advanced Search


The Masthead
Managing Editor
Mike Hoefer

Editors
elwood
susanthe
 William Tucker
The Roll, Etc.
Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch paper
Democracy for NH
Granite State Progress
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Pickup Patriots
Re-BlueNH
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
New Hampshire Labor News
Chaz Proulx: Right Wing Watch

Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Landrigan
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes

Campaigns, Et Alia.
NH-Gov
- Maggie Hassan
NH-01
- Andrew Hosmer
- Carol Shea-Porter
- Joanne Dowdell
NH-02
- Ann McLane Kuster

ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC

National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo

50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

Armistice Day

by: elwood

Fri Nov 11, 2011 at 15:41:02 PM EST
"The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" commemorates the end of World War I, described by some as the conflict that finally ended any romantic view of war.

Even the Civil War in the United States - the conflict that killed more Americans than any other -  is often seen more as a noble undertaking, less as a bloody waste of lives and families. Matthew Brady's daguerrotypes weren't enough to end that romance. Somehow that sugarcoating disappeared in the War to End All Wars. Maybe it was the industrialization of war, maybe the sense of inevitability and forces beyond our control. If it did not end all wars, it did end the myth of war as a Great Game or Heroic Adventure.

So when my grandfather came home from the gas and the trenches, the country celebrated Armistice Day. Not "VE Day", not "Glorious Doughboys Day." The eleventh day of the eleventh month was set aside to welcome the end of a war and its slaughter, and the promise of peace.

I'm not sure when and how we came to rename it Veterans Day. Perhaps it was a move for inclusiveness as the World War I veterans passed on and new veterans earned our gratitude and commemoration. And whether or not that was the reason: Thank you, to all veterans - we owe you.

But I still think of this as Armistice Day, when we join those veterans in celebrating the end of slaughter and outbreak of peace.

It happened in 1918. It will happen again.
elwood :: Armistice Day
Tags: (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email
Armistice Day | 3 comments
The Great War (0.00 / 0)
Currently reading "To End All Wars" by Adam Hoschild. He addresses the peace movement in England at the time. And facts like that the British govt bought thousands of binoculars from Zeiss in Germany and the Germans bought rubber for tires from the Brits--during the war. Just a tad bloody ironic.

And a time when men in very close facing trenches had mainly stopped firing at each other. They'd notify the Germans when an officer was coming and both sides would shoot high above each other.

And I heard (not sure of this) that the war ended out of total exhaustion, that the Germans, thinking they'd won, when they were in France tore into wine cellars and got drunk and were hung over when the French at that point rolled over them to reach an armistice. Which began the long weekend until 1939 when it began again.  

No'm Sayn?

The new Pinker book (4.00 / 1)
argues that the outbreak and continuation of almost all war is a random process. It's sort of like the business "cycle" -- there's not really a cycle -- just every year you're up, the dice get rolled to see if you're coming back down. A Poisson process. People, policy, politics, and culture all feed into the process, and set the base odds of the rolls, but at heart it is random.

WWI is an example of that -- it could have ended any year before it did. Vietnam too, Korea, Iraq.

The good news is that (at least according to Pinker) we are becoming less violent as a species, and there is a possibility that we will never fight on a WWI/WWII scale again. It can happen again, of course, but it doesn't need too -- it's not inevitable. If the trend continues, every year we go without a world war, a world war is less likely to happen.

I know this sounds overly comforting -- maybe it is -- but it beats the other meme --- that somehow war and a certain amount of death is inevitable, and the longer you go without a war the bloodier the next war will be. That's pretty easily proved false -- the one thing that the stats show unambiguously is that a war not fought is not a war postponed, but is in fact a war avoided.

If we could just get that much through our heads, we might stand a chance of getting to the next century without the grand mistakes of the last one.


Veterans Day (4.00 / 1)
Fitting that you speak about this.  I gave a little history lesson on Veterans Day last night at the Grover Cleveland Dinner hosted by the Carroll County Democrats!

Veterans Day became Veterans Day in 1954 when veterans of both Korea and WWII lobbied Congress to change the name to reflect the service of all Veterans.

It has seen some changes even since them. I am sure many of you will remember the 70's when Veterans Day was celebrated on the 4th monday of Oct.

https://secure.actblue.com/pag...

Armistice Day | 3 comments

Connect with BH
     
Blue Hampshire Blog on Facebook
Powered by: SoapBlox