Bullseye. This describes the freedom the Deplorables crave - before it kills them and the neighbors.

[Mira]

[Faux pas]

1. Kickin'

[Maraya1969]

2. Here is some more information about the Blitz - it lasted 6 years!

The government planned the evacuation of four million people—mostly women and children—from urban areas, including 1.4 million from London. It expected about 90% of evacuees to stay in private homes, conducted an extensive survey to determine the amount of space available and made detailed preparations for transporting evacuees. A trial blackout was held on 10 August 1939 and when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September, a blackout began at sunset. Lights were not allowed after dark for almost six years and the blackout became by far the most unpopular aspect of the war for civilians, even more than rationing.[53] The relocation of the government and the civil service was also planned but would only have occurred if necessary so as not to damage civilian morale.[54]

[The King of Prussia]

27. The blackout lasted for the duration of the war

But the Blitz itself lasted less than year, which explains the unpopularity of the blackout i guess. Raids on civilians continued off and on - notably the famous Baedecker raids ( which didn't include London). And of course London was targeted by the flying bombs to which the blackout was no defence.

The aftermath of the bombing was apparent for decades after. We moved to Norwich in the 70s ( which had been heavily bombed) and there were still vast numbers of prefabricated homes that had been thrown up to replace the permanent ones that had been destroyed. On our windows you could still see the marks of the tape that had been there to stop the blasts blowing glass into the house.

[NotANeocon]

44. Unfortunately there are still some Brits left around -

- who will still insist that the Irish, who were a neutral nation, kept their lights on as a guide for German bombers - despite the unmanned rockets hitting London with deadly accuracy.

You couldn.t cure stupid then either!

At least they did mask up because they could definitely understand the freedom to breathe mustard gas.

[The King of Prussia]

48. There's so much mythology surrounding the war

I've not heard that one before, but it sounds like just the sort of thing the racist right would circulate.

At the start of the pandemic the racist right invoked the "Dunkirk Spirit". That stopped when it was pointed out that their hero, Churchill, described Dunkirk as "a colossal military disaster". So then they invoked the "Blitz Spirit".

[enough]

3. If that happened now, they'd be saying that the blitz wasn't real. NT

[calimary]

4. Pathetic! And undoubtedly true.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

8. More likely they'd be cheering the Luftwaffe. NT

[Hassin Bin Sober]

17. A lot of them did...

[lagomorph777]

29. Where did you hear that?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

30. Hear what? That there were pro Nazi Brits and pro Nazi Americans?

[lagomorph777]

34. As the bombs were falling on them?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

36. Not everyone lived in London

And a lot of wealthy Conservatives (and a few Labour) were more than sympathetic.

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/99w0p17j#main

How deeply did sympathy for German fascism run in the British establishment in World War Two; and to what extent were pro-Hitler members of the British political and military ruling classes willing to betray their country to the Nazi regime and its Axis allies ? Drawing on primary source material contained in previously-classified MI5 and Government files, this paper adduces evidence that, contrary to the conventional history of a country united in opposition to Hitler, right-wing British MPs, Peers and senior figures in the military clandestinely worked – individually and collectively – to hasten a German victory, and to supplant the elected British Government with a pro-Nazi puppet regime. The activities of this ‘Fifth Column’ included espionage, sabotage, unlawful private attempts to broker peace deals between Germany and Britain, sending military and political intelligence to Berlin, and plans to launch armed fascist coups d’état on London’s streets.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

37. Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson were pro-Nazi.

Britain was horrified at their sucking up to Nazi Germany, and everyone was terrified that they would surrender to Germany, b/c the Mountbattens(Battenbergs) and Windsors(House of Hanover) were German.

My dad said that Edward VIII abdicated b/c he didn't want to go to war against his literal cousins in Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Where Victoria & Albert were from). The story about wanting to marry Wallis was just a cover story to make it look more acceptable. My parents were young adults during World War II. It's nice to get some perspective on history from people who were alive then.

[luckone]

40. + After their marriage they went to meet with hitler, goring, and goebbels and

visited a training school for future members of the deadly SS guard
https://www.biography.com/news/edward-viii-wallis-simpson-nazi-sympathizers-hitler

[msfiddlestix]

41. Did you happen to see the British tv series SS-GB?

I just finished I think the first season streamed on Hoopla.

It was an interesting alternative scenario with Nazi occupation in LONDON. Had I seen it before 2016, I would have scoffed at such a notion. eyes wide open now, though.

[luckone]

39. Yes! Some provided targets for German bombers Below one gave the info to a double agent

In 1943, she sat down in a flat in London to tell her friends about a daylight bombing raid she'd been caught up in in Brighton a few days earlier. 'I'd no sooner sat down in Ward's to have my coffee when suddenly: 'Crack! Crack! Crack!' And everybody dived to the back of the shop because they felt quite sure the bullets were coming in at the windows. And then 'Boomp!'' – she banged the table – ''Boomp! Boomp!' And the windows blew in and out and the doors blew in and out. And when we came out we could see great columns of smoke coming up.'

Though dramatic, Brown's experience was commonplace enough. What made her perspective unique was that she thought the attack was the result of her work. Brown, a council worker in her early twenties, believed herself to be a Nazi spy.
Brown had given Roberts hand-drawn maps of Brighton, and picked out the places to attack. Now that an attack had happened, was she horrified by the result? Were her friends? Quite the opposite. 'I looked in vain at the faces of these three women for any signs of contrition,' Roberts wrote in his report afterwards. 'Nancy Brown looked a fine, healthy specimen of an Englishwoman, but it was obvious that the deaths of these people meant absolutely nothing to her. She sat there pleased and happy to think that the news she had given me resulted in the deaths and damage of that last raid.'

By the end of the war, Roberts was providing information on more than 500 people who were, to different degrees, actively sympathetic to Nazis. Some, like Brown, were former supporters of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, but many weren't. Among them was one of the country's most senior diplomats, William Strang, who privately viewed 'the Bolshevists and the Jews as the two great enemies of all that was decent'. A few, like Brown, were willing to act on their beliefs


https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/britains-forgotten-nazi-sympathisers-42194

A lot of wealthy wanted Jews out of England

[LanternWaste]

33. Oswald Mosely wasn't the hero to a "lot" of Brits...

merely to a fractional minority of dissidents.. by objective measure.

"A lot..."

[fwvinson]

13. They would be leading the Blitz

[jaxexpat]

21. That's because they think the blitz is something done to quarterbacks.

[machoneman]

23. And those Nazi Heinkel bombers were dropping flowers!

[TreasonousBastard]

5. That did happen in Atlantic City when the gummint ordered lights out because...

German U-Boats could see American ships heading out taking goods for Lend-Lease, and later for our invasions.

We lost a lot of cargo ships because so many ignored the order.

[malthaussen]

47. Right, and not just Atlantic City.

The seacoast towns didn't want to harm their tourism dollars. Yay for the "Greatest Generation," huh?

-- Mal

[Marcuse]

6. "No gubermint can make me stay home in the dark because freedum!"

[Hassin Bin Sober]

31. It's not a law! It's a mandate! Mandates aren't laws!

Whaaaaaaa whaaaaaaaaaa

[NotANeocon]

45. And carry your mask kit with you at all times -day or night.

Neither will Covid!!!

[Ligyron]

7. Think of the blackouts here back in WWII.

And forget rationing and the draft. That would have been Impinging on their freedumbs.

What a bunch of weenies.

[paleotn]

9. We had that here....

East coast cities and towns refused to follow night time blackouts for months. German u-boat crews called it "the happy time" and "American shooting season." Burning tankers and freighters became a regular nightly occurrence from Florida to Maine before sanity finally prevailed.

[wendyb-NC]

10. Great analogy

They are doing all they can to defy the instinct for self preservation, that of their offspring and loved ones.

[MiHale]

11. KnR

[marked50]

12. Just a point of context for this.

This is a great analogy. It is totally applicable to today's craziness.

The thing that I want to point out is that it resonates for those who have a knowledge or sense of history for the times of WWII.
For many (most) of our citizens today there is no connection. They are most likely to pass it by because of that.

We are in a time of crisis that past historical references have a limited impact, sad to be sure, but we must frame our concerns to focus on what is in the knowledge base of those here and now.

I would like it to be different but we are in the time where those who have those memories and knowledge of the horrors of WWII and even those at this time who were so involved in the Civil Rights Movement are now passing from our experience. All of these trials in our past are re-emerging partially due to our intimate connections leaving our presence- our grand parents, our parents, our past.

We need to somehow shift from our past references of our own knowledge to what exists today and what it will mean for the future.
I do not have any great suggestions on how to do this but we need to know that drawing upon the past has it's limits without those who we wish to influence having their own personal experiences, like with their family.

[ZERTErYNOthe]

15. Thank you marked50

Thank you marked50

I guess I am lucky to be of an age where my father told me stories about blackouts in Chicago, and the challenges my grandparents went through just trying to bathe their kids in the dark. A thousand miles away my mom was collecting scrap metal for the war effort. In both cases they had to deal with war rations, and victory gardens were vital. I could go on, but the selfishness of people today, compared to what my parents and grandparents went through to support the good of our country, is embarrassing, which is the nicest thing I can say about it.

[machoneman]

24. Gasoline was strictly rationed. Dad was lucky as his job was considered war related and he...

..had a top X ration card, which had to be displayed on the vehicle. Still, one had to be careful to not violate driving rules or your card could be pulled.

https://carcoachreports.com/gas-rationing-gas-ration-stickers/

[CrispyQ]

26. When my mother passed we found books of ration stamps from when she was a little girl.

We will never have ration stamps today. Rationing will be first come, first serve, & the rich will be able to buy everything first, leaving everyone else without. I recall a story about some rich asshole in California where water is scarce, but used whatever he wants cuz he could afford a $3,000 water bill. It's wrong, but that's the kind of society we have now. There is no appreciation of community, the Commons.

I remember asking my right wing cousin, back when the ACA was being hammered out, "Why are you willing to risk the well-being of the entire community over the cost of basic healthcare for everyone? That's just stupid." He never answered & I stopped talking to him a few years ago. I wonder if he's vaxxed? My other right wing cousin was happy to be first in line to get his vax.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

32. Someone pointed out during the 2008 market crash that a lot of the deregulation was ..

… allowed due to people who remembered the last crash were dead.

It made a lot of sense then and it makes a lot of sense now.

My mom would’ve slapped the shit out of the first anti vaxxer who got in her face. My parents were kids during ww2 - they dealt black outs and rationing. They took part in scrap/rubber drives. They also lived through polio (one of my mom’s doctors was absolutely convinced her walking problems late in life were due to an undiagnosed mild polio infection as a child).

I remember my dad fighting to allow African American kids from the next town over in our Cub/Boy Scout pack (the kids were mostly from the “poor” section of the more affluent next town over. The rich folks didn’t want them and the blue collar folks from my town thought they didn’t belong).

…. Now I have to argue with my rural in-laws (who hardly ever met a black person) who insist there is no such thing as racism. And my in-laws are from a historically listed “sundown town”

[msfiddlestix]

42. Exactly what I have been thinking, and trying to figure out what I can say or do to bring the

historical context in play... It's tricky.. If the subject matter is Covid response, masks/vaccinations etc, I try to remind people of polio, which was a really horrible thing before vaccinations, I try to remind people of typhoid, of scarlett fever, small pox, etc.


I don't have the data points solidly in hand, like the difference between a pandemic and epidemic etc.

somehow a brief, to the point summation which brings in historical context with current crises, and the notion of Civil Defense.

Which was a thing when I was a kid. It's not now. I don't understand why not.

Anyway, I'm so with you on great points you make here... needs to be repeated I think.

[barbtries]

14. a good analogy

but the deplorables by and large won't get it. history schmistory

[iluvtennis]

16. Exactly! n/t

[Blue Owl]

18. ME ME ME first, good of the country second

What patriots!

[Mike Niendorff]

19. #ExactlyThis

Thank you for posting this!


MDN

[Nexus2]

20. "The presence of your face is infringing on my right to wildly fail my arms while I walk."

FREEDOM!

[CCExile]

22. Interesting that more than 100 times more Americans died of Covid19 than

Brits did in the Battle of Britain, and yet Trumpism isn't nearly dead yet, and may yet be a threat.

[llashram]

25. ++

[Soph0571]

28. This is from James O' Brian

It's great isn't it.

[Hassler]

35. Yep and along the Pacific Coast there were both blackouts and sound bans at night.

[captain queeg]

38. America First was a pro nazi movement back in the 30s

Still is today

[PatrickforB]

43. This is a really good post because it focuses on the utter selfishness of

these rugged individualists.

Sometimes, we really have to forego a small amount of our own freedom for the sake of others.

I mean, think of your family. If you are a head of household, are you 'free?' No. Not at all. Why? Because you have responsibilities. Keep a job, keep food on the table, keep a roof over your head.

Janis Joplin said it when she covered the Dylan song: Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

None of us are really free, and we have a web of responsibilities and reciprocal obligations to one another and to this earth.

WHEN WILL WE GROW UP?

[malthaussen]

46. Oh, you mean like in the US when the U-boats came...

... to the East coast to sink shipping, and all of the coastal cities refused to turn off their lights (which silhouetted the ships at sea, making lovely targets) because it would affect tourism? The Germans called this period "The Second Happy Time."

-- Mal