*********************
In the morning they return
With tears in their eyes
The stench of death drifts up to the skies
A soldier so ill looks at the sky pilot
Remembers the words
“Thou shalt not kill.”
Sky pilot,
Sky pilot,
How high can you fly?
You’ll never, never, never reach the sky.
–Sky Pilot, Eric Burdon and the Animals
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I watched a National Geographic documentary this past week, Heroes of the Sky: The Mighty Eighth Air Force, about that unit’s service during WW II. While it is a story that has been well documented and one with which I was familiar, it was well done and served as a reminder of the horror of war and the great loss it inflicts on those who serve and sacrifice. Fitting stuff for a Memorial Day weekend.
The 8th was based in England during the war and was the group responsible for the many US missions into continental Europe, including raids into Germany. Early on, when they first began sending raids into France and then Germany, their bombers were escorted by British fighter planes until their own planes, the P-47’s, were ready for service. However, the P-47’s had a major liability, a limited range. This meant that they could only escort the bombers so far into Europe before having to turn and head back to refuel which left the bombers exposed for the approach to their targets sites.
This fact meant that the casualties suffered in those early sorties were staggering. Hearing the numbers now, with hundreds of planes and thousands of airmen lost in a single month, one is left to wonder if we would have the stomach to bear such a sacrifice now, even in the face of the possibility of being defeated and overtaken by a cruel Nazi/Fascist regime?
I certainly don’t know the answer to that question, especially in these changed times where the minds of many could be swayed via divisive misinformation into an acceptance of the beliefs of those regimes we might otherwise be opposing. After all, even during WW II the Nazi cult had plenty of supporters here in the states, Americans who by race or belief fell under their spell.
I hope we never have to find out. And I suspect we won’t.
My belief is that those who seek to rule over us in a repressive fascist state have long realized that such a thing cannot be achieved via direct war and conflict. No, it will be an insidious and incremental effort, one that seek to infiltrate our branches of power and sources of info, seeking to control the power of the nation by dividing the people into many opposing factions, thereby confusing and thwarting their will to resist. Any sort of national unity would be fractious, at best.
Even a military that is massive and powerful would not be able to stop such an effort. In fact, it might act as a sort of tranquilizer, making the citizens believe that so long as they have such a powerful force protecting them they would be safe and secure, that there would be no possibility of any sort of attack on their country.
I fear that it is already well underway. The tools to do so are in place and easily accessible and it seems that we have the mentality and an environment that is ripe for such an effort.
Look at how easily minds are now swayed into disbelieving facts and accepting ridiculous conspiracy theories. Would it be a stretch for these same minds to fall into the belief that maybe a fascist regime would be acceptable, even preferable?
I hope I am way off base here, that it is just the product of a runaway imagination. But on this Memorial day weekend, it’s something I want to consider and keep in mind, if only for the responsibility we bear for those who have fallen in combat in our past against the forces of tyranny, despotism, and hatred.
We owe that to those who have sacrificed their lives for this nation. We, the living, are their witnesses. We bear testimony to their efforts, their experience and their existence.
For me, that’s the part of Memorial day I try to keep in mind. Hope you will at least consider it this weekend.
For this week’s Sunday morning music, here’s Sky Pilot from Eric Burdon and the Animals. From 1968, it’s one of those songs that holds lots of different meanings. At its core, it’s about a chaplain who blesses troops before they set out on a mission then goes to bed awaiting to learn their fate. It’s an interesting song, set into three parts and including a variety of sounds and effects. You’ve even got some bagpipes playing Garryowen thrown in along the way.
Have a good day.
Redtree Times 
I love that song. Never heard it on the radio, and only discovered it by chance several years ago. Great stuff. Eric Burden is often great.
I’ll have to watch that documentary. I just finished a 10-part documentary on Netflix about WWII, so I’m in a WWII sorto of mood.
Are we facing fascism, or some sort of authoritarian regime? That’s what the conspiracy wingnuts would have use believe, though there’s undoubtedly truth in it, especially if one already doens’t live in a democracy.
We’ll have to see what history does with this COVID pandemic. Do we learn from it, clamp down on corruption, put more emphasis on health and the environment, and see appreciated that the virus wouldn’t have spread to the world if a totalitarian regime hadn’t covered it up and fumbled the ball in the first place.
All those strains of authoritarianism share that the powerful gain and maintain power. This can happen any number of ways, and if we look at the results, it’s already here even in America, where a tiny sliver of the population has as much as everyone else put together. It’s a radical power imbalance, though it allows for certain freedoms. It’s only because technology has made everyone’s lives so much easier, and raised the standard of living, that we don’t notice we are to the elite of today what the peasants were to the aristocracy of the past. We are peasants with gadgets.
Just my opinion. As always I could be wrong.
I pretty much see this in much the same light as you, Eric. I think we are facing a possible authoritarian autocracy, one that has crept upon us as we have allowed ourselves to be lulled into disinterest. Peasants with gadgets is a good way of putting it. There’s always the danger that this authoritarian strain takes an even darker turn, especially if the people are ever aroused enough to challenge it. That’s when the attempt to transition to a more overtly fascist form of rule might take place.
Like you, that’s just an opinion. I have been wrong before and I hope to be wrong this time as well. Thanks for the observations, Eric!
Which authoritarian autocracy? In which country? And coming from the right or left? We always hear about fascism, but Pol Pot was a communist educated in an elite French university. Are worried about Trump or sharia law? Do we fear the Chinese Communist Party with it’s social credit system and massive censorship, or are we afraid of Big Tech censoring people it doesn’t agree with, tweaking out algorithms, and collecting our personal information. Is it the conservatives in America who deny climate change, or the left that is demanding equality of outcomes, and appeals to mob “justice”?
It seems to me that we are prone to excesses and extreme ideology on all sides, and it’s very, very difficult to not get sucked into this or that confirmation bias echo chamber. Everyone is hammering home a narrative they want everyone else to believe.
If the Germans weren’t the bad guys of WW2, or the American for Hiroshima, it would have been the Japanese for their “rape of Nanjing” war atrocities, or the Russians under Stalin.
We may be the most coddled people in history, and a sign of this is when people get worked up about “microaggressions” and need “safe spaces” because history or biology or whatever is too painful or difficult to contemplate. What about living through it? Right now some of the people screaming about the threat of “fascism” are most closely associated with fascism. And the anti-fascists employ the same tactics.
So when you say you are worried about authoritarianism, I wonder which one. There’s really a lot of competition out there among people vying for power and to impose their own self-serving order on everyone else.
I like to think we are learning as a species, and Steven Pinker has written extensively about all the gains we truly have made. We aren’t likely to descend into the kind of hell of WWII and its aftermath.
Oh well, just thinking abut this stuff, and how there’s no easy answers, and not just one way we can go wrong.
Well, you’ve given me a lot to unpack there. I don’t have the time to go into greater detail so forgive me if I don’t touch every point and if this is a little scattershot. You’ve made a lot of great points and I certainly agree that there is more than just one way in which we can go wrong.
Maybe I am being a bit too loose in using the term authoritarianism. I am probably talking more about my fears of a plutocratic oligarchy, something like that seen in Russia of recent decades. A small group of the ultra-wealthy guides the nation in ways that are almost completely self-serving. The use of some authoritarian tactics that are necessary to maintain this structure, though they are always presented in a way that makes them appear less heavy-handed.
Like you, I would like to think we continue to learn and advance as a species. That means, as you say, we are unlikely to witness the likes of WW II again. But for every lesson of progress learned there are also lessons learned by those who have little interest in the advancement of the species. Those who have felt the lure of power and possess the desire to obtain and maintain it have learned as well. They have learned to employ nuance and subtlety. Diversion and division. Appear to be one thing while being another. To twist the rule of law. To slowly transform behaviors once thought unacceptable into an acceptable normality. Even the microaggressions you mention serve a purpose in that it keeps people from focusing on larger issues.
Like your example of Pol Pot, one’s pedigree and learning does not necessarily align with what they may do once someone has obtained ultimate power. Power corrupts and complete power corrupts completely, as the saying goes.
Many might say that this country has been a plutocracy for much of its existence with short intermittent blips of true democracy and real human progress. The wealthiest among us have always had a larger say in where this country is headed than the average citizen. And they have always benefited greatly from this influence. Maybe this is just the so-called Iron Rule of Oligarchy in play, the one that says that every organization that is democratically ruled eventually evolves naturally into an oligarchy.
Maybe we are just at that point here, where the idea of a true democracy becomes something from the past and the plutocrats openly exert their power. It seems to me that there has been a concerted acceleration over the past forty years towards a form of true oligarchic rule here. Trump is not the starting point nor is he the endpoint. He is simply the current byproduct of this slog towards oligarchy and the measures required to maintain that system. Maybe we have been fortunate that he has been so ham-handed in his approach. A more subtle politician might have moved us in the same direction without our coddled citizens barely raising their voices.
I do believe, like you, that we are a coddled people though I think much of it is illusory. I go back to your peasants with gadgets.
I am not sure I addressed many of the issues you raised, Eric. But time is not on my side this morning and this is off the top of my head. Thanks for engaging. All my best to you.
“But for every lesson of progress learned there are also lessons learned by those who have little interest in the advancement of the species. Those who have felt the lure of power and possess the desire to obtain and maintain it have learned as well.”
I think you nailed something there, and that’s something I definitely agree with. Why wouldn’t people who have excess money and power want to craft legislation and influence the public in ways that would benefit themselves? And your idea about democracy (or capitalism, I’d add) slowly metamorphosing into an oligarchy seems right as well. Once people get far enough ahead, everyone else is left behind and the elite just continue to eclipse us. We can see that clearly happening in America, where the 0.1% has shot up while the middle class and poor are flat-lined.
There’s a level of advantage that can’t even help being oppressive, because it’s impossible to compete against. Selfishness and being self-centered are universal human weaknesses, and the more one has the more insatiable one is. I find myself wondering why Mark Zuckerberg, who is already worth over $70 billion needs to plaster Facebook with ads and apply an algorithm that bottlenecks my public page unless I pay to promote a post. Why compromise the platform to the point of being a cliché when he doesn’t need an more money? I guess he does need it psychologically.
I think something’s going on where the internet used to be a place where an individual could have a voice, but now it’s switching back to the old ways where only the big platforms have a voice, and the independent voices can’t compete, again.
As much as I can’t stand David Icke or Alex Jones, I’m not pleased that social media platforms can squelch anyone they choose at any point. [Incidentally, if you look at the details of our agreements with WordPress.com, they can remove our blogs at any time “without or without a reason”.] We already see some meddling going on with search results, personal information being leaked or sold, etc.
There may be some malevolence, but at this stage it’s not even necessary. The average person can be oppressed without even trying, and doesn’t stand a fighting chance from the get go. Only a little tinkering here and there, and for ostensibly the right causes, could lead to us losing more freedom and independence.
Just thinking out loud. In a darker strain, the world may look at China and it’s social credit system as a very handy way to use technology to maintain power and contain and control the populace.
More valid points, Eric. I think you might be right that at this point it might be without malevolence. It feels like we are in the midst of an entrenchment that has a structure that naturally oppresses and limits opportunity and advancement for much of the citizenry while, at the same time, transmitting the illusion that these things exist. I don’t know that there is a simple or viable answer or way out. One thing I have observed is that we have learned as a people (speaking of learned behaviors) to argue each and every point ad infinitum, to the point that we are rendered totally inert. Every word and sentence is often parsed and, as a result, grand gestures are hard to form, let alone carry out. It might sound like rhetoric but we often seek the perfect outcome and, in the process, reject the imperfect better. Okay, Eric, time for me to get to work! All my best and, again, thanks for the thoughts. Always appreciate them.