I was supposed to get together with Roger Ames, but my writer personality and lack of understanding of my plans prevented me from locking in a time, and then all the windows of opportunity suggested evaporated.<\/p>\n
However, when I was in the bowels of the Imperial War Museum, Roger’s assistant rang me with a time, but the message didn’t show until I got upstairs, my mobile not working underground where I was experiencing the blitz.<\/p>\n
I wouldn’t have been that late.\u00c2\u00a0 The tube runs at light-speed.\u00c2\u00a0 But whether they’re not used to people taking the tube, or they figured Lambeth North was just too far from Kensington High Street, upon being questioned by Sue Roger said there wasn’t enough time.\u00c2\u00a0 So I continued my assignation in the Holocaust exhibit.<\/p>\n
There’s a line in a Laura Nyro song, "In my mind I can’t study war no more".\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re of my generation, you’ve heard it.\u00c2\u00a0 "Save The Country" was covered by the Fifth Dimension.\u00c2\u00a0 But there’s a power in Laura’s original.\u00c2\u00a0 When she sings this line it comes from deep in her heart, her whole body is emoting, she’s representing all the angst we felt about the Vietnam War.\u00c2\u00a0 Angst that doesn’t seem to be felt about the Iraq debacle.\u00c2\u00a0 Probably because it just doesn’t seem real.\u00c2\u00a0 Although the Yahoo News leads with the body count every day, it’s not featured in other media.\u00c2\u00a0 Just go to the Google News for proof.\u00c2\u00a0 For the latter is assembled by machine rather than hand.\u00c2\u00a0 By link rather than importance.\u00c2\u00a0 And it appears that the body count just isn’t that important.\u00c2\u00a0 You know you don’t want to ruin everybody’s day.<\/p>\n
But in the sixties there was a draft.\u00c2\u00a0 And you had to think about your ass getting shot.\u00c2\u00a0 And if today’s youth were confronted with this same dilemma there would be chaos in the streets of the U.S.\u00c2\u00a0 Karl Rove would have no control.\u00c2\u00a0 Iraq would be THE story.\u00c2\u00a0 Because no one wants to die.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless their own life is threatened.\u00c2\u00a0 And very few people believe their lives were threatened by Saddam Hussein and his country, especially now.<\/p>\n
Driving down from Manchester Harry pointed out where he and Richard had had lunch.\u00c2\u00a0 Where Eisenhower and Churchill, or was it Montgomery, had plotted war strategy.\u00c2\u00a0 The Second World War is palpable in the U.K., and I wanted to find out more, about the country’s experience.<\/p>\n
After taking the bus from Barnes to Hammersmith, and then the District Line tube from there to Westminster, I took a bus to Lambeth North, since the Bakerloo line was down.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn’t register that when I got out of the station in Westminster the Abbey and Big Ben would be there.\u00c2\u00a0 And I thought of how exciting, how cool this was, how it must have an impact on locals, then I remembered how much of an impact Washington, D.C. has on Americans…not much.<\/p>\n
In front of the museum were two large guns.\u00c2\u00a0 Which functioned in BOTH World Wars.\u00c2\u00a0 They were moved from ship to ship.<\/p>\n
And after hitting the bathroom downstairs, I went into the Trench, the World War 1 replica.\u00c2\u00a0 And although a bit hokey, and filled with teenagers, it did bring up the reality of living in a hole for seemingly ever.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a whole world down there.\u00c2\u00a0 Even a store in the ground.<\/p>\n
And then I went upstairs to where two blokes were watching an interactive movie display about the six aircraft hanging in the sky.\u00c2\u00a0 And after watching the info on the last two, I fired up the movies on the first four.\u00c2\u00a0 I learned about the U.S. Mustang.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Sopwith Camel, very hard to fly.\u00c2\u00a0 But then I pushed to read about the German fighter jet, the first and only such aircraft flown in the Second World War.<\/p>\n
The engine was built by BMW.<\/p>\n
I drove BMWs.\u00c2\u00a0 How could I?<\/p>\n
I remembered when Jews wouldn’t drive German cars.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, most of the Nazis are gone from those companies now, but when I bought my first Bimmer in ’74, they were probably RUNNING the company!<\/p>\n
The plane hung in the sky.\u00c2\u00a0 Looking like something from a futuristic cartoon.\u00c2\u00a0 It was creepy.<\/p>\n
And after investigating the tanks, and the submarine, I caught up with the V2 rocket.\u00c2\u00a0 I was impressed with the inner plumbing.\u00c2\u00a0 And the fact that there was NO DEFENSE against it.\u00c2\u00a0 NO DEFENSE!\u00c2\u00a0 As in you could do NOTHING ABOUT IT!\u00c2\u00a0 You just had to let it fly, and experience it.\u00c2\u00a0 Hope it didn’t hit you, and kill you.<\/p>\n
We’re so used to answers, responses.\u00c2\u00a0 But what if this was beyond your purview?\u00c2\u00a0 What if you wanted to respond, but didn’t have the power?<\/p>\n
That’s what I learned in the basement.\u00c2\u00a0 England was pissed that Germany annexed Poland.\u00c2\u00a0 But didn’t have the power to do anything about it.\u00c2\u00a0 Couldn’t really stop Germany’s taking of Norway.\u00c2\u00a0 English and French troops had to be evacuated at Dunkirk.\u00c2\u00a0 Germany was a JUGGERNAUT!\u00c2\u00a0 That the English beat with pluck and luck in the bombing raid of 1940.\u00c2\u00a0 It was creepy, and scary, and ultimately terrifying.<\/p>\n
But not as terrifying as the Holocaust exhibit.<\/p>\n
Oh, there were videotaped testimonies of survivors.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was the explanation, the line by line historical story, the coming together of the facts, that was so frightening.<\/p>\n
Germany hated the Jews.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, wasn’t a Jew part of the Communist regime that lorded over them?\u00c2\u00a0 Hitler gained power via a government compromise.\u00c2\u00a0 Then books were burned.\u00c2\u00a0 They had film.\u00c2\u00a0 Burning books?\u00c2\u00a0 WHY?<\/p>\n
Very quickly Hitler tightened control and moved against the Jews.\u00c2\u00a0 They had a wall detailing every law against the Jews, of which there were a plethora, enacted starting in 1932.\u00c2\u00a0 I told myself those who remained were stupid.\u00c2\u00a0 Until I saw the exhibit about the conference in Evian, where the remaining world powers decided not to admit more refugees, their economies couldn’t handle it.\u00c2\u00a0 It got worse and worse and worse.\u00c2\u00a0 The yellow stars on clothing.\u00c2\u00a0 The ghettos.\u00c2\u00a0 And eventually the Final Solution.\u00c2\u00a0 Put forth as a euphemism so the outside world, those doomed, wouldn’t know.<\/p>\n
Anti-Semitism is very real.\u00c2\u00a0 I know, because a couple of weeks ago two callers on my KLSX show railed on about all the problems in the world being attributable to Jews.\u00c2\u00a0 That the Jews controlled the media, that’s why Bob Dylan’s album hit number one.\u00c2\u00a0 That Rupert Murdoch is a Jew, it’s on the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 My jaw dropped.<\/p>\n
I wondered if I would have gotten out.\u00c2\u00a0 I tend to have difficulty acting.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m either immediately impulsive, or hold back…<\/p>\n
I’m hoping my sister Jill would have worked the angles.\u00c2\u00a0 Or my father before her, he would stand in line, he would get us out.<\/p>\n
But what if not.\u00c2\u00a0 I imagined being in those railroad cars.<\/p>\n
The hatred.\u00c2\u00a0 The public furor.\u00c2\u00a0 This is what we have in the United States right now.\u00c2\u00a0 A President who wants to torture.\u00c2\u00a0 Go to a war museum and read about torture, man’s inhumanity to man.<\/p>\n
And the intolerance after 9\/11.\u00c2\u00a0 Where Bill Maher becomes a public pariah.\u00c2\u00a0 This is serious stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 Not new, but straight out of history.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, there are many dissenters, but there were dissenters originally in Germany too.<\/p>\n
I don’t know what happens when people die, can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try.\u00c2\u00a0 But although I am a member of the Jewish faith, the tribe, I really don’t believe in an afterlife.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re here, and then you’re gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Should some other person be able to snuff out your life, on a whim?<\/p>\n
Eventually, after a long ride home, I went to Riva with Harry and Serena.\u00c2\u00a0 As Andrea said, our meal was a walk in the woods.\u00c2\u00a0 With food appropriate to the season.\u00c2\u00a0 The dessert was again phenomenal.\u00c2\u00a0 Ice cream drenched in vinegar and honey.\u00c2\u00a0 On a base of fudge and nuts.\u00c2\u00a0 Forget how it reads, it TASTES spectacular.<\/p>\n
And I guess this is what life is about.\u00c2\u00a0 Good times with friends.<\/p>\n
I’m not sure Iraqis are having such good times with friends right now.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’re fighting the evil force, in the name of religion.\u00c2\u00a0 One bombing of east coast towers has our country in a frenzy.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, those close to the World Trade Center who survived have been traumatized.<\/p>\n
But it seems in our fervor we’ve lost all humanity.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve let our emotions overrun our hearts and minds.<\/p>\n
We don’t live in a world of love your brother, we’ve just got a planet of warring adolescents, trying to illustrate how big their dicks are.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to pay attention.\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise you end up a victim.<\/p>\n
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