#Redefining the Anti-War Film

[t0rschlusspan1k]

A realistic depiction of violence also serves to show that even if you do survive a war, you probably won’t feel like a hero. In fact, the impact of combat can be so traumatic that the toll it takes on your mental health can end up destroying exactly what you thought you’d protect, and leave you as a mere shell of your former self that’s neither heroic, nor victorious over evil, nor death-transcending. War don't ennoble men. It turns them into dogs. What is important to remember is that in hero systems, violence and suffering can be redeemed as long as they serve a greater purpose. As Becker wrote; “What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance.” And so when we’re discussing the cinematic depiction of combat and trauma, this nuance is precisely the reason why many war films stumble in their message. One popular war film that exemplifies this is Saving Private Ryan. The film opens with the invasion of Allied soldiers at Normandy. The 20 minute or so sequence, which is filmed in a realistic-looking documentary style, features graphic violence, terrified soldiers, and the overall chaos and destruction of combat. But after that, as Agnieszka Monnet explains in her essay “Is There Such a Thing as an Anti-War Film?”, the conventions of Hollywood storytelling re-emerge and ultimately frame the violence and cost of human life as heroic, and renders it all meaningful. This is most notably demonstrated as our main hero falls at the end, which could have left us wondering if the sacrifice to save Private Ryan was worth it or not. But instead, the film provides us a clear answer with its epilogue in which Ryan lives to be a good man and beloved grandfather, who remembers and honors the men who died for his sake. In doing so, we are reassured that all is well, that all the sacrifices eventually served a heroic purpose, and death has successfully been transcended to achieve greater significance. To emphasize; this doesn’t make Saving Private Ryan a bad film, but it does make it a comfortable one, and as such, it greatly detracts from its effectiveness as a true anti-war statement. In his review, David Walsh also draws attention to the film’s heroic leaders. “The implicit stance taken by the film” – he writes - “is that only the authorities in Washington concerned themselves with ideological matters, while the men in the field were unthinkingly doing the dirty work.” By looking closer at the representatives of what we could see as the film’s hero system, we indeed see that they are portrayed as righteous, rational, and deeply concerned with the suffering of soldiers and their loved ones. The point is not so much if leaders were actually like this or not, but that it doesn’t at all question the hero system that is driving the violence. The film states the sacrifices were costly, but then assures us they were laid upon the altar of freedom. And this sentiment of meaningful suffering echoes throughout the entire film, and in doing so, redeems it. What it comes down to is that despite showing the gritty reality of combat, war films can still romanticize instead of criticize if they do not question the general function of their hero systems.

— Like Stories of Old, Lies of Heroism. Redefining the Anti-War Film

[archangeltwins]

@star-that-howls the show was overshadowed by spn, and the fandom is extremely niche, scattered. very few antis ( usually ), and you can pretty much ship everybody with everybody ( except uriel ). despite the plot holes and revised material, its still cheesy as hell & extremely fun. ask me anything about it & i'll be able to give you a good explanation

Legion ( 2010 ) is the loose prequel film to Dominion's ( 2014-2015 ) television show. God becomes disillusioned with humanity and plans to wipe them out. Given numerous chances and squandered them all. Of five archangel children, He enlists his youngest sons, the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, to kickstart the apocalypse by killing a chosen child.

One that much later plays a pivotal role.

Michael, having seen the goodness and faith humanity holds, defies his Father. He breaks the halo keeping him to Heaven ( a metal collar ), and cuts off his wings. Choosing to side with humans against his heavenly kin.

Demanding the babe be given up, God tests the inhabitants of a diner in which Michael finds himself. The "site zero" of the apoc, and the child's birthplace. Born to a mother whose husband left her, and a man who selflessly loved the woman with all he had, even though she may not love him back. The dogs of heaven and all manner of pestilence assailed them.

Through the ultimate sacrifice, Michael goes against his own brother. Gabriel arrives with the sounding of his horn and the breaking of the seventh seal, the gates of Heaven close for good. Their Bond is broken, their connection severed. They, in this universe, redefined what it means to be loyal to a cause. The extremes some are willing to make.

The child yet survives as the world crumbles. Michael dies, but is soon resurrected.

Gabriel's hordes swept across the surface of the earth, bringing the 21st century to a standstill. His minions lacked their own bodies, so their first line of defense were to steal ours. They were, again, the angels of the Lower Sphere. With grotesque, black-veined skin, sharpened teeth and wicked intent. Brother turned on brother, friend on friend, and so on, and so forth.

Pockets of survivors fought back, but losses grew. Over the next five or so years, more than six billion lives were lost. In late 2018, an assault on the eastern seaboard wiped out every heavy metropolitan area. Communications with Europe went completely dark in 2022, with Russia and the rest of Asia the year after.

In his blind arrogance and misguided belief that humans were the root cause of God's disappearance, Gabriel underestimated what mankind was capable of. Small battles devolved into guerilla retreats in the southwestern United States. From the northwest and east, all able-bodied fighters were spearheaded under General Edward Riesen, who marched towards Hoover Dam.

Split between the angel army, Riesen ordered his troops to envelop their enemy. A last stand by cracking the Dam's foundations. Deaths were severe, less than a billion, roughly sixteen thousand after triumph. Altering the landscape in a deluge, they had ended Gabriel's ability to wage large-scale war, and Riesen was awarded accordingly. Retiring to Las Vegas as a Lord, he renamed the city to Vega, appointing Michael as protector, rebuilder and advisor. 

Twenty five years' worth of climbing from the ashes yielded a new hope. Rumor had it that Michael has saved the child and placed them within the confines of Vega's V-System. Waiting for the time to reveal the savior and have them inherit God's Markings -- a last message left by the deity.

One that would guide humanity to coexist with the angels, or destroy them all outright.

[mariacallous]

Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine has caused unimaginable suffering for millions of people and overturned Europe’s security architecture. With little end to the fighting in sight and Ukraine’s armed forces poised to go on the offensive with more arms coming from the West, there is a silver lining to the conflict. Warsaw and Kyiv have become strong allies.

The declaration that “there’s no free Poland without a free Ukraine”—often attributed to Poland’s founding father, Jozef Pilsudski—that bound Poles and Ukrainians to stop Soviet imperialism in 1919 rings equally true today. At the time, the Red Army was planning on igniting world revolution but was stopped and turned back by Polish and Ukrainian forces.

Then, as today, the slogan proves that the notion of a Europe without a sovereign Ukraine is no longer conceivable. For Kyiv and Warsaw, the prosperity of one is pinned to the success and stability of the other. The opening lines of the two countries’ national anthems are nearly identical: “Poland/Ukraine is not yet lost,” conveying a unique characteristic of national obstinacy to survive partition, occupation, or enemy aggression. Both were penned in defiance of Russian imperialism.

Despite episodes of friendship, relations between Poles and Ukrainians in the 20th century were marked by animosity and ethnic cleansings. Soviet and Nazi German occupations turned borderlands into bloodlands, with mutual grievances and stereotypes leaving lasting scars. After 1945, the communist regime in Poland internally displaced Ukrainians to fulfill objectives set out to “resolve the Ukrainian problem once and for all.” Civilians, suspected of nationalistic tendencies, were regarded as sympathizers of “bestial” Ukrainian insurgents, who slaughtered thousands of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943-44.

Collective responsibility was applied in 1947, when more than 140,000 Ukrainians were driven from borderland regions in the southeast to postwar territories in the north and west (onetime German lands that had become part of Poland). The goal of this military operation (code name ‘Vistula’) was to destroy Ukrainian identity and culture in communist Poland.

Regime propaganda in film and literature cultivated a harmful image of Ukrainians as bloodthirsty fascists. Even though Poland was the first country, along with Canada, to recognize Ukraine’s independence in 1991, public polling showed that negative views toward Ukrainians lingered throughout the 1990s. This difficult history makes Poles’ solidarity with Ukraine today even more remarkable.

Poland knows that when given the tools and know-how, Ukraine will quickly shift from being a consumer of Western security to a critical provider of it for the Euro-Atlantic community. These like-minded anti-imperialists not only threaten to upend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s revanchist drive once and for all but are accelerating the shift of Europe’s political and military center of gravity east, something that will redefine the European Union and NATO for decades to come. The West should prepare for contingencies following the fall of Putin’s empire—one of which is a postwar Europe underpinned by a Polish-Ukrainian strategic alliance.

Nothing irritates Putin more than close relations among the nations of East Central Europe that were once part of the Soviet bloc, opposed Russian expansionism in the past, and contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Putin bemoaned was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” Strategic measures such as the recent joint declaration by the presidents of Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine reaffirming their readiness to continue strengthening Kyiv’s defense capabilities and promoting more support in NATO and the EU drive him mad.

In his eyes, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Belarus constitute a gray zone of small states within Moscow’s sphere of influence, the so-called near abroad, that remain up for grabs in the global contest between superpowers. Putin regards their Euro-Atlantic membership and aspirations as a dangerous impediment to overcome; without keeping them under Russia’s boot, he doesn’t see a way to rebuild and expand Moscow’s influence.

It’s no surprise then that these countries are the targets of Russian cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, political meddling, and armed aggression. To counter Putin’s ambitions, they have launched various multilateral frameworks. These include the Lublin Triangle, a trilateral platform designed to build stronger political, economic, infrastructure, security, defense, and cultural links among Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine, and the Riga Format between the Baltic states and Poland. Given Hungary’s pro-Russian attitude and France and Germany’s initial wavering on helping Ukraine, these multilateral forums have eclipsed the influence and importance of previous Eastern European blocs, such as the Visegrad Group.

Strategic ties between Warsaw and Kyiv are developing pragmatically. Criticized at one time by partners as a political laggard, Poland recognized the threat posed by Putin’s neoimperialist rhetoric to Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic alliance, in which Warsaw is securely anchored. It is Europe’s leading security entrepreneur, modernizing its armaments to meet its commitments of defending allies and deterring threats—rising to the rank of key ally against a revanchist Putin.

The outpouring of solidarity shown by everyday Poles toward Ukrainians seeking refuge from war goes without saying. Since Feb. 24, 2022, more than 9 million Ukrainians have entered Poland, with as many as 1.5 million to 2 million staying and others returning home. While millions fled to Poland seeking safety, there was no need for refugee camps. Instead of makeshift tents and temporary U.N. campgrounds common during refugee crises, Poles opened their homes to their Ukrainian neighbors. Considered an outlier by some European partners on its refugee positions in the past, Poland is now the continent’s unquestioned humanitarian giant, suggesting a sense of moral obligation that coincides with a fraternal affinity with Ukraine.

More than 1.3 million Ukrainians have received the Polish equivalent of a Social Security number, which allows them to find legal employment. They are given access to public health care, kindergartens, schools, and direct financial assistance. According to the Polish Economic Institute, between January and September 2022, 3,600 companies with Ukrainian capital and 10,200 Ukrainian sole proprietorships were established in Poland; 66 percent of the businesses surveyed declared that they would continue operating in Poland regardless of the situation in Ukraine.

Moreover, individuals returning to Ukraine after the war are likely to remember the hospitality shown to them by Poles and will be influenced not only by Russia’s war of extermination but also by positive experiences in Poland. Having been part of the workforce, a large number of adults will be able to communicate in Polish, while their children will be fluent after having spent a few months or years in Poland’s educational system. Already, the number of Ukrainians interested in learning Polish is rising (36 percent) and will continue to do so.

Developing social bonds will likely affect future political relations between the two states. Findings of a public opinion poll conducted in Ukraine by the Mieroszewski Centre indicate that while 40 percent of respondents think Poland and Ukraine should simply be good neighbors, 58 percent of Ukrainians believe that the two should forge closer ties beyond that: 29 percent prefer an alliance where both support each other while coordinating on foreign policy, and another 29 percent believe that relations should take the form of a commonwealth with a purely symbolic border and a common foreign policy.

Try as he may, Putin’s war machine has been unable to successfully do what Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union did in the past—exploit animosities to divide Poles and Ukrainians. Russian propaganda spread throughout the war about Poland’s purported secret plans of regaining western Ukrainian territories that belonged to it in the past is unconvincing. If anything, it’s having the opposite effect.

Of course, Poles and Ukrainians have mutual grievances about tragic events of the past, especially in the 20th century. For the sake of the victims’ memory, events such as the murder of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943-44 and the forced resettlement of Ukrainians in 1947 should not be swept under the rug but rather studied and commemorated. A good sign is how more emphasis is being placed on what unites rather than divides the two countries—namely, the existential threat of Russian neoimperialism.

The Polish and Ukrainian presidents laying flowers side by side at a military cemetery in Lviv, a city the two nations fought over in the early 20th century, became an iconic image galvanizing how history isn’t standing in the way of pursuing strategic ties. The more time younger generations who don’t live with past scars and memories spend together, the more likely reconciliation over historical events is possible.

An outspoken defender of Ukraine’s territorial integrity on the global stage, Poland is seen by more and more Ukrainians as not only a friend but a crucial ally: 87 percent of Ukrainians trust Polish President Andrzej Duda more than any other Western leader, including U.S. President Joe Biden (79 percent). Poles also have a favorable view of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In one poll, he topped the list of foreign leaders whom Poles trust most (86 percent), with Biden coming in second (74 percent).

To commemorate Poland’s Independence Day last November, Zelensky recorded a message in which he said, “Ukrainians will always remember the help they received from Poles. You are our allies, and your country is our sister. We have had our differences, but we are kin, and we are free.” That same day, Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, posted a spot depicting a Ukrainian woman and her children leaving their home, finding shelter in Poland, and receiving comfort in the arms of a Polish volunteer. When her husband dies in the war, she says: “When I realize that I’ll never see him again, you cry with me. When I don’t have the strength to go on, you help lift me up. I am Ukraine. You are Poland. And our hearts beat together.” It is difficult to recall a moment in history when Poles and Ukrainians were this close.

Putin’s aggression and the atrocities committed against innocent civilians have permanently turned Ukrainians away from Russians and any idea of pursuing postwar ties with Moscow, let alone forgiving them. Soldiers on the front lines and victims in towns such as Bucha are creating a new generation of heroes and martyrs that the entire nation—and world—calls their own. Their sacrifices automatically reaffirm Ukrainians’ national consciousness and identity around strong anti-imperialist sentiments—something they share with their closest allies Poland and the United States. Kyiv’s natural trajectory in the future is to gravitate closer to Poland and the West.

This process shouldn’t be treated by either country as a make-or-break moment for the bilateral relationship but as a genuine desire by both to prove authoritarian bullies like Putin wrong.

In his groundbreaking work Imperial Ends, Alexander Motyl notes that empires end not when the core ceases to control the peripheries but when the peripheries begin to significantly interact with one another. This process is now underway between Poland and Ukraine. With Poland firmly ingrained in the Euro-Atlantic community and Ukraine aspiring to join its formal structures, their postwar relationship can’t be superficial but must be dynamic.

A strong partnership built around the Warsaw-Kyiv nexus, backed by stakeholders like Canada, Britain, and the United States, will underpin Europe as it goes through the painstaking process of reprioritizing political, economic, and defense agendas. If the West fails to champion this strategic partnership that could hasten Putin’s defeat, there is a dangerous possibility of leaving Europe vulnerable to a hostile Russia and future instability.

[f1yogurt]

Someone made a post about how All Quiet on the Western Front and Top Gun: Maverick share award nomination categories for the Acadamy Awards / BAFTAs despite one film being anti-war and one being pro-war, and yet I also realized that those are my two favorite movies of 2022. I have reasons to like both and enjoy the message of both, which seems so odd since they're polar opposites.

I actually recently watched a super good video essay called Lies of Heroism: Redefining the Anti-War Film and I highly recommend it if you're interested in the war genre.

[leatherylook1212]

Leather Jackets Through the Ages: A Style Evolution

The Timeless Journey of Leather Jackets: From their humble beginnings as utilitarian apparel to becoming iconic symbols of rebellion and style, leather jackets have woven their way through the fabric of fashion history. In this deep dive, we explore the transformative journey of leather jackets, tracing their evolution across the decades and examining their undying appeal in modern fashion.

1. The Early Days: Military Beginnings and Aviator Aces

Leather jackets took flight in the early 20th century, initially crafted as rugged outerwear for military pilots. The need for warmth and durability in open cockpits during World War I gave rise to the first aviator jackets, known for their thick leather and shearling linings. This section explores how these practical garments laid the groundwork for the leather jacket's robust, enduring design.

2. The 1950s: Hollywood Rebels and the Birth of Cool

The 1950s marked a pivotal turn for leather jackets as they transitioned from military gear to cultural icons, thanks largely to Hollywood. With Marlon Brando in The Wild One and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, the leather jacket became synonymous with youth rebellion and nonconformity. This era cemented the leather jacket’s role as a symbol of cool, forever changing how it was viewed in the eyes of the public.

3. The 1970s and 1980s: Punk Rock and Pop Culture

As the spotlight shifted from the silver screen to the music scene, leather jackets embraced punk and rock 'n' roll. Bands like The Ramones and artists such as Debbie Harry of Blondie championed leather jackets, aligning them with an edgy, anti-establishment vibe. This section will delve into how leather jackets were not just clothing but a statement against societal norms, embellished with studs, patches, and graffiti.

4. The 1990s to Today: High Fashion and Mainstream Adoption

As the decades progressed, so did the leather jacket's style. Explore the various iterations, from the tailored elegance of the 1960s to the bold experimentation of the 1980s. Witness how designers infused new materials, colors, and silhouettes into this classic garment, redefining its place in the fashion landscape.Entering the 1990s, the leather jacket found a new home in high fashion. Designers such as Jean Paul Gautier and Versace re imagined the leather jacket, incorporating it into haute couture collections. Today, leather jackets are omnipresent across all fashion spectrum's, from luxury designers to street wear and everything in between. We'll explore the current trends and how technological advancements in materials and dyes have expanded the range of styles available.

5. Iconic Moments: Leather Jackets in Film and Celebrity Culture

This section highlights iconic moments that have defined the leather jacket's status in popular culture. From Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator to the cast of The Matrix, leather jackets continue to be a go-to for filmmakers looking to convey toughness and mystique. Additionally, we will look at how celebrities today wear leather jackets on and off the red carpet, influencing fashion trends worldwide.From rock stars to fashion moguls, delve into the closets of cultural icons who have made the leather jacket their signature look. Analyze how figures like David Bowie, Madonna, and Kate Moss have personalized and elevated this wardrobe staple, cementing its status as a timeless fashion statement.

6. The Future of Leather Jackets: Sustainability and Innovation

As the fashion industry faces increasing scrutiny over its environmental impact, the future of leather jackets is entering a new phase. This section will address innovations in sustainable leather production, including vegan leather and other eco-friendly materials, and how they are shaping the next generation of leather jackets without compromising on style.

Conclusion: A Timeless Staple in the World of Fashion

Leather jackets have proven to be one of the most enduring pieces in fashion history, continuously evolving while maintaining their core appeal. From rugged practicality to high fashion statement, the leather jacket remains as relevant today as it was a century ago. As we look forward, it’s clear that while styles may change, the love for leather jackets surely will not, making them a permanent fixture in wardrobes around the world.

Final Thoughts: Your Personal Journey with Leather

As you reflect on the vast history of leather jackets, consider your own journey with this iconic piece. Whether it’s a vintage biker jacket that tells a story or a sleek new design that speaks to modern innovation, a leather jacket is more than just a piece of clothing—it’s a narrative of personal style and expression through the ages.So, our exploration of leather jackets through the ages, we are reminded of its enduring appeal and cultural significance. From its humble beginnings as a utilitarian garment to its status as a symbol of rebellion and style, the leather jacket remains an icon of fashion history, continuing to inspire and captivate generations to come.

[rockislandadultreads]

Nonfiction Recommendations: National Vietnam War Veterans Day

In honor of all those who served in the Vietnam War, check out one of these books documenting the war’s history. 

The Vietnam War by Geoffrey C. Ward & Ken Burns

More than forty years after the Vietnam War ended, its legacy continues to fascinate, horrify and inform us. As the first war to be fought in front of TV cameras and beamed around the world, it has been immortalized on film and on the page, and forever changed the way we think about war.

Drawing on hundreds of brand new interviews, Ken Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward have created the definitive work on Vietnam. It is the first book to show us the war from every perspective: from idealistic US Marines and the families they left behind to the Vietnamese civilians, both North and South, whose homeland was changed for ever; politicians, POWs and anti-war protesters; and the photographers and journalists who risked their lives to tell the truth. The book sends us into the grit and chaos of combat, while also expertly outlining the complex chain of political events that led America to Vietnam.

Beautifully written, this essential work tells the full story without taking sides and reminds us that there is no single truth in war. It is set to redefine our understanding of a brutal conflict, to launch provocative new debates and to shed fresh light on the price paid in ‘blood and bone’ by Vietnamese and Americans alike.

Honorable Exit by Thurston Clarke

n 1973 U.S. participation in the Vietnam War ended in a cease-fire and a withdrawal that included promises by President Nixon to assist the South in the event of invasion by the North. But in early 1975, when North Vietnamese forces began a full-scale assault, Congress refused to send arms or aid. By early April that year, the South was on the brink of a defeat that threatened execution or years in a concentration camp for the untold number of South Vietnamese who had supported the government in Saigon or worked with Americans.

Thurston Clarke begins Honorable Exit by describing the iconic photograph of the Fall of Saigon: desperate Vietnamese scrambling to board a helicopter evacuating the last American personnel from Vietnam. It is an image of U.S. failure and shame. Or is it? By unpacking the surprising story of heroism that the photograph actually tells, Clarke launches into a narrative that is both a thrilling race against time and an important corrective to the historical record. For what is less known is that during those final days, scores of Americans--diplomats, businessmen, soldiers, missionaries, contractors, and spies--risked their lives to assist their current and former translators, drivers, colleagues, neighbors, friends, and even perfect strangers in escape. By the time the last U.S. helicopter left Vietnam on April 30, 1975, these righteous Americans had helped to spirit 130,000 South Vietnamese to U.S. bases in Guam and the Philippines. From there, the evacuees were resettled in the U.S. and became American citizens, the leading edge of one of America's most successful immigrant groups.

Into this tale of heroism on the ground Clarke weaves the political machinations of Henry Kissinger advising President Ford in the White House while reinforcing the delusions of the U.S. Ambassador in Saigon, who, at the last minute, refused to depart. Groundbreaking, page-turning, and authoritative, Honorable Exit is a deeply moving history of Americans at a little-known finest hour.

Road to Disaster by Brian VanDeMark

Many books have been written on the tragic decisions regarding Vietnam made by the young stars of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet despite millions of words of analysis and reflection, no historian has been able to explain why such decent, brilliant, and previously successful men stumbled so badly.

That changes with Road to Disaster. Historian Brian VanDeMark draws upon decades of archival research, his own interviews with many of those involved, and a wealth of previously unheard recordings by Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford, who served as Defense Secretaries for Kennedy and Johnson. Yet beyond that, Road to Disaster is also the first history of the war to look at the cataclysmic decisions of those in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations through the prism of recent research in cognitive science, psychology, and organizational theory to explain why the "Best and the Brightest" became trapped in situations that suffocated creative thinking and willingness to dissent, why they found change so hard, and why they were so blind to their own errors.

An epic history of America’s march to quagmire, Road to Disaster is a landmark in scholarship and a book of immense importance.

The Vietnam War: A Graphic History by Dwight Jon Zimmerman & Wayne Vansant

When Senator Edward Kennedy declared, “Iraq is George Bush’s Vietnam,” everyone understood. The Vietnam War has become the touchstone for U.S. military misadventures—a war lost on the home front although never truly lost on the battlefront. During the pivotal decade of 1962 to 1972, U.S. involvement rose from a few hundred advisers to a fighting force of more than one million. This same period saw the greatest schism in American society since the Civil War, a generational divide pitting mothers and fathers against sons and daughters who protested the country’s ever-growing military involvement in Vietnam. Meanwhile, well-intentioned decisions in Washington became operational orders with tragic outcomes in the rice paddies, jungles, and villages of Southeast Asia. Through beautifully rendered artwork, The Vietnam War: A Graphic History depicts the course of the war from its initial expansion in the early 1960s through the evacuation of Saigon in 1975, and what transpired at home, from the antiwar movement and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. to the Watergate break-in and the resignation of a president.

[herkingmentality-shesunbreakable]

Lies of Heroism – Redefining the Anti-War Film

[kaxenart]

Just kind of a mess of WIPs at the moment because I am distracted by everything. Here are some of them.

Like Stories of Old's two videos, "Lies of Heroism - Redefining the Anti-War Film" and "The Troubled Relationship Between Video Games and War" have probably had an effect on my mind about Handsome Hussars.

Friendship braidlets

The 5th Lejeune for my wall is gonna be a pastiche of Draner.

I spent 15 hours on printing the upper half of the leg.

[sleepysera]

1.21.22 Headlines

WORLD NEWS

Yemen: Airstrikes kill 70 people and knock out internet (CNN)

“At least 70 people were killed and more than 130 injured when an airstrike hit a detention center in Yemen on Friday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said, as the Saudi-led coalition continued to ramp up its deadly offensive on rebels in the war-torn nation. Another airstrike early Friday hit a telecommunications building in the strategic port city of Hodeidah, causing a nationwide internet blackout, according to NetBlocks, an organization that tracks network disruptions. At least three children were killed in that attack, Save the Children said.”

Ghana: Almost entire town leveled after explosives delivery truck crash (CNN)

“At least 17 people were killed in a blast in western Ghana on Thursday after a motorcycle collided with a vehicle carrying explosives, according to officials. "The reports that I'm getting from the bureaus, hospitals, is that [there are] roughly about 17 people that have passed away," Isaac Dasmani, the municipal chief executive for the Prestea Huni-Valley Municipal Assembly, told local media. An additional 59 people were injured in the explosion, according to AFP.”

Kazakhstan: ‘If you protest again, we’ll kill you’ (BBC)

“The armed men in uniforms checked every ward, shouting that they were looking for people wounded in mass unrest that had left scores dead. Asel, who had been shot in the violence and was being treated in the hospital in Kazakhstan's biggest city Almaty, recalled the chilling encounter. "One of them shouted, 'if you go out to protest again, we will kill you'." She believes the men with guns were from the special police forces or security services and were rounding up anyone who had taken part in anti-government protests.”

US NEWS

Covid: Boosters provide the best protection against Omicron, CDC says (CNN)

“Three large new studies from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlight the importance of getting a booster shot to provide the best protection against the Omicron coronavirus variant. This is the first real-life data to examine the effect of boosters against Omicron, which now accounts for more than 99% of coronavirus cases in the United States. The studies, released Friday, raise the question of whether people with just two vaccine doses should still be considered fully vaccinated. "I think we have to redefine fully vaccinated as three doses," said Dr. William Schaffner, a longtime CDC vaccine adviser who was not involved with the studies.”

George Floyd: Jury in federal trial in Floyd killing appears mostly white (AP)

“The jurors chosen to hear the case against former Officers Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Kueng appeared to include one person of Asian descent among the 12 jurors who would deliberate if no alternates are needed, and a second person of Asian descent among the six alternates, with all others appearing white. The court declined to provide demographic information. Thao, who is Hmong American; Lane, who is white; and Kueng, who is Black, are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority as Derek Chauvin, who is white, used his knee to pin the Black man to the street. The videotaped killing triggered worldwide protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing. Opening statements are scheduled for Monday.”

Louie Anderson: Comic dead at 68 (CNN)

“Louie Anderson, an Emmy winner whose career spanned from stand-up and game show host to starring roles in TV and film, died Friday in Las Vegas from complications related to cancer, his publicist Glenn Schwartz confirmed to CNN. He was 68.”

[treethymes]

i watched almost every video essay i could from this list of 170 video essays and here are some of the ones i liked in a playlist of five pairings:

(the first pair consists of the only two videos on the list that i had seen before. they’re by the same person and i didn’t rewatch them. im including them based on a relatively distant memory of having enjoyed them.)

Coco's Feel-Good Oppression Brave was a Disappointment

In Search Of A Flat Earth we're already ded || Zack Snyder, Part 2

Lies of Heroism – Redefining the Anti-War Film Once Upon a Screen: Explosive Paradox

Feeling and Thought as They Take Form: Early Steadicam Labor, Technology, and Style, 1974-1985 The Elephant Man’s Sound, Tracked.

The “Wind in the Trees” from Early Cinema to Pixar Herbarium

[t0rschlusspan1k]

The real significance of Arendt’s report, and of Becker’s concept of hero systems, is that the emergence of evil is not tied to any specific people or to some malicious, villainous attitude, but to greater social structures that envelop us and blind us to their implications. And we all exist in such structures, structures that promise heroic victory to those on the inside, and makes evil into something external. After the Second World War for example, there were many who believed that by achieving victory over the Nazi’s, we also achieved victory over the evil they represented, which unfortunately isn’t the case. But it goes to show that there is a fine line between recognizing a real threat to one’s self or community, and using that threat to delude ourselves into believing that we can erase the shadow of our own light by violently putting out someone else’s.

— Like Stories of Old, Lies of Heroism. Redefining the Anti-War Film

[96thdayofrage]

WAR DAY 7️⃣1️⃣8️⃣1️⃣ 🍬 "That the lie of Israel continues to be embraced by the ruling elites—there is no daylight between statements in defense of Israeli war crimes by Nancy Pelosi and Ted Cruz—and used as a foundation for any discussion of Israel is a testament to the corrupting power of money, in this case that of the Israel lobby, and the bankruptcy of a political system of legalized bribery that has surrendered its autonomy and its principles to its major donors. It is also a stunning example of how colonial settler projects, and this is true in the United States, always carry out cultural genocide so they can exist in a suspended state of myth and historical amnesia to legitimize themselves.

"The Israel lobby has shamelessly used its immense political clout to demand that Americans take de facto loyalty oaths to Israel. The passage by 35 state legislatures of Israel lobby-backed legislation requiring their workers and contractors, under threat of dismissal, to sign a pro-Israel oath and promise not to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a mockery of our Constitutional right of free speech. Israel has lobbied the U.S. State Department to redefine anti-Semitism under a three-point test known as the Three Ds: the making of statements that 'demonize' Israel; statements that apply 'double standards' for Israel; statements that 'delegitimize' the state of Israel. This definition of anti-Semitism is being pushed by the Israel lobby in state legislatures and on college campuses.

"The Israel lobby spies in the United States, often at the direction of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, on those who speak up for the rights of Palestinians. It wages public smear campaigns and blacklists defenders of Palestinian rights–including the Jewish historian Norman Finkelstein; former U.N. Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories, Richard Falk, also Jewish; and university students, many of them Jewish, in organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine.

"The Israel lobby has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to manipulate U.S. elections, far beyond anything alleged to have been carried out by Russia, China or any other country. The heavy-handed interference by Israel in the American political system, which includes operatives and donors bundling together hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in every U.S. congressional district to bankroll compliant candidates, is documented in the Al-Jazeera four-part series 'The Lobby.' Israel managed to block 'The Lobby' from being broadcast.

"In the film, a pirated copy of which is available on the website Electronic Intifada, the leaders of the Israel lobby are repeatedly captured on a reporter’s hidden camera explaining how they, backed by the intelligence services within Israel, attack and silence American critics and use massive cash donations to buy politicians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secured the unconstitutional invitation by then-House Speaker John Boehner to address Congress in 2015 to denounce President Barack Obama’s Iranian nuclear agreement.

"Netanyahu’s open defiance of Obama and alliance with the Republican Party, however, did not stop Obama in 2014 from authorizing a 10-year $38 billion military aid package to Israel, a sad commentary on how captive American politics is to Israeli interests."

—Shift to the Far-Right

"The investment by Israel and is backers is worth it, especially when you consider that the U.S. has also spent over $6 trillion during the last 20 years fighting futile wars that Israel and its lobby pushed for in the Middle East. These wars are the greatest strategic debacle in American history, accelerating the decline of the American empire, bankrupting the nation at a time of economic stagnation and mounting poverty, and turning huge parts of the globe against us. They serve Israel’s interests, not ours.

"The longer the mendacious Israeli narrative is embraced, the more empowered become the racists, bigots, conspiracy theorists and far-right hate groups inside and outside Israel. This steady shift to the far right in Israel has fostered an alliance between Israel and the Christian right, many of whom are anti-Semites. The more Israel and the Israel lobby level the charge of anti-Semitism against those who speak up for Palestinian rights, as they did against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, the more they embolden the real anti-Semites.

"Racism, including anti-Semitism, is dangerous. It is not only bad for the Jews. It is bad for everyone. It empowers the dark forces of ethnic and religious hatred on the extremes. Netanyahu’s racist government has built alliances with far-right leaders in Hungary, India, and Brazil, and was closely allied with Donald Trump. Racists and ethnic chauvinists, as I saw in the wars in the former Yugoslavia, feed off of each other. They divide societies into polarized, antagonistic camps that only speak in the language of violence. The radical jihadists need Israel to justify their violence, just as Israel needs the radical jihadists to justify its violence. These extremists are ideological twins.

"This polarization fosters a fearful, militarized society. It permits the ruling elites in Israel, as in the United States, to dismantle civil liberties in the name of national security. Israel runs training programs for militarized police, including from the United States. It is a global player in the multibillion-dollar drone industry, competing against China and the United States.

"It oversees hundreds of cyber-surveillance startups whose espionage innovations, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, have been utilized abroad 'to locate and detain human rights activists, persecute members of the LGBT community, silence citizens critical of their governments, and even fabricate cases of blasphemy against Islam in Muslim countries that don’t maintain formal relations with Israel.'

"Israel, like the United States, has been poisoned by the psychosis of permanent war. One million Israelis, many of them among the most enlightened and educated, have left the country. Its most courageous human rights campaigners, intellectuals and journalists—Israeli and Palestinian—endure constant government surveillance, arbitrary arrests and vicious government-run smear campaigns. Mobs and vigilantes, including thugs from right-wing youth groups such as Im Tirtzu, physically assault dissidents, Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and African immigrants in the slums of Tel Aviv. These Jewish extremists have targeted Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, demanding their expulsion.

"They are supported by an array of anti-Arab groups including the Otzma Yehudit Party, the ideological descendant of the outlawed Kach party, the Lehava movement, which calls for all Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories to be expelled to surrounding Arab states, and La Familia, far-right soccer hooligans. Lehava in Hebrew means 'flame' and is the acronym for 'Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land.' Mobs of these Jewish fanatics parade through Palestinian neighborhoods, including in occupied East Jerusalem, protected by Israeli police, shouting to the Palestinians who live there 'Death to the Arabs,' which is also a popular chant at Israeli soccer matches.

"Israel has pushed through a series of discriminatory laws against non-Jews that echo the racist Nuremberg Laws that disenfranchised Jews in Nazi Germany. The Communities Acceptance Law, for example, permits 'small, exclusively Jewish towns planted across Israel’s Galilee region to formally reject applicants for residency on the grounds of “suitability to the community’s fundamental outlook.”' Israel’s educational system, starting in primary school, uses the Holocaust to portray Jews as eternal victims. This victimhood is an indoctrination machine used to justify racism, Islamophobia, religious chauvinism and the deification of the Israeli military.

"There are many parallels between the deformities that grip Israel and the deformities that grip the United States. The two countries are moving at warp speed towards a 21st century fascism, cloaked in religious language, which will revoke what remains of our civil liberties and snuff out our anemic democracies. The failure of the United States to stand up for the rule of law, to demand that the Palestinians, powerless and friendless, even in the Arab world, be granted basic human rights mirrors the abandonment of the vulnerable within our own society."

_____

🍬 Chris Hedges: Israel, the Big Lie. Israel is not exercising “the right to defend itself” in the occupied Palestinian territories. It is carrying out mass murder, aided and abetted by the U.S. Original to ScheerPost, republished in Consortium News, May 14, 2021.

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/05/14/chris-hedges-israel-the-big-lie/

[jamesginortonblog]

He's just broken the nation’s hearts as the tragic anti-hero of BBC One’s Sunday-night sensation The Trial Of Christine Keeler – but James Norton’s next role has made the heartthrob actor “proud to become an honorary Welshman”.

In the title role of new film Mr Jones, Norton – already a favourite with bookmakers to be the next James Bond – takes on one of the most challenging projects of his career, playing a real-life yet forgotten hero from Wales who dared to combat and uncover one of history’s most shameful episodes of “fake news” from nearly a century ago.

James Norton at the Mr Jones screening at the London Film Festival

“Playing Gareth Jones was sometimes a tough call,” says 34-year-old Norton, known to millions from small-screen hits Grantchester and Happy Valley.

“In fact, when I first got the part and they told me it was going to be a Welshman who spoke both fluent Welsh and Russian, and all of it in a Welsh accent – that felt a bit scary!”

He needn’t have worried. As Gareth Jones, the mild-mannered young Western Mail reporter who travelled to Russia in 1933 and ended up blowing the whistle over the appalling truth about Stalin’s “Utopian” regime – and a hushed-up famine that killed untold millions – Norton presents us with a charming, softly-spoken hero with just a hint of a refined Welsh lilt.

It’s a million miles from those cliched, grating attempts at Welsh accents so often taken on by other English actors. ( Stephen Graham’s DCI “Taff” Jones in ITV’s White House Farm, anyone?).

Reports have emerged this week of Gareth’s great-nephew attacking the film for having “invented multiple fictions” – but as far as Norton is concerned, he feels the film stands as an honest and heartfelt reflection of Gareth’s character and incredible yet fatefully short life.

“We decided it was important to respect and honour Gareth’s journey – this Welshman from a small coastal town who ended up on this huge, bizarre and brave mission taking on one of the pillars of the 1930s political landscape in a very dangerous, pre-war Communist Russia,” says Norton, who worked with two Welsh dialect coaches to perfect his accent.

“So it made sense that Gareth would have maybe intentionally softened his Welsh accent, having been educated at Cambridge, in order to ingratiate himself in the community and then travelling the world. We wanted to keep it there without making it too distracting.”

Nevertheless, Norton – London-born but raised in North Yorkshire – was still required to speak Welsh in a few scenes, and Russian as well.

“I’ve never spoken either language before and I’m not a linguist – so I had my work cut out,” says Norton, who can also currently be seen on the big screen in the Oscar-nominated hit movie Little Women.

“But for those few months, I was very proud to become an honorary Welshman. My scenes with Julian Lewis Jones as my dad – when Gareth goes home to Barry – were challenging, but Julian was amazing helping me with my Welsh.

“Julian occasionally texts me in Welsh now, which is hilarious, as I think he’s forgotten I don’t actually speak a word!

“It’s pretty nerve-racking doing scenes where you’ve got to speak in a particular accent opposite someone who’s completely fluent in that language, so to have Julian put his hand on my shoulder and say, ‘You’re doing good, kid!’ was so reassuring.”

Learning dialogue for his Russian scenes was even harder.

“I had to learn all the Russian phonetically – it’s like learning music,” he explains. “I’d spend hours walking around wearing earphones and I’d look like a crazy person talking to myself, repeating phrases animatedly. But now I have Russian people coming up to me in the street, speaking Russian at me!

“Weirdly, I’ve done three jobs where I needed to speak Russian – War And Peace, McMafia and now this. I seem to have become the go-to guy for English-speaking Russian roles!”

The new film Mr Jones, directed by internationally-renowned Polish film-maker Agnieszka Holland, begins with Gareth Jones gaining fame in the early 1930s after his report on being the first foreign journalist to fly with Hitler.

Gareth, who’d graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1929 with a first-class degree in French, German and Russian, has also landed the job of foreign affairs advisor to former Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

With the Russian “utopia” all over the news, Gareth is intrigued as to how Stalin is financing the rapid modernisation of the Soviet Union and in March 1933 he decides to travel to Russia in an attempt to get an interview with Stalin himself.

However, on hearing murmurs of a government-induced famine – a secret carefully guarded by the Soviet censors – Gareth travels clandestinely to Ukraine, where he witnesses the atrocities of man-made starvation, as all grain is sold abroad to finance the Soviet empire’s industrialisation.

Deported back to the UK, it’s the Western Mail that publishes Gareth’s article revealing the horrors he has witnessed, but the starvation is denied by Western journalists based in Moscow, all under pressure from the Kremlin. As death threats mount, Gareth has to fight for the truth – and, meeting a young author called George Orwell, Gareth shares his findings... helping to inspire Orwell’s great allegorical novel Animal Farm.Gareth’s great-nephew Philip Colley made headlines recently, accusing the film’s scriptwriter of “inventing multiple fictions”, including wrongly suggesting he was an accidental cannibal.

Colley told the Sunday Times: “In the film, they have got [Gareth] up a tree eating bark, eating human flesh, tripping over dead bodies. They’ve made Gareth a victim of the famine, rather than a witness.”

Norton, however – interviewed prior to Colley’s remarks – says he received plentiful support from a number of Gareth’s surviving relatives, who came to early screenings of the film.

“They were all lovely in their support and they gave us their seal of approval, which was very touching,” recalls Norton.

“Our film’s screenwriter, Andrea Chalupa, was in touch with a lot of them early on. There’s so much literature and academia about Gareth’s work as a journalist, but Andrea found out some lovely titbits about his more private character.

“For example, when he went home to Barry he’d love being with his nieces and nephews and he became a big kid. His great-aunt told Andrea about one day when he came back home and he was rolling around with them like a labrador. That kind of story was invaluable to me.

“He wasn’t just this very earnest, principled man, there was a childlike, playful quality to him and he was almost a little bit gauche, a little bit awkward. You also want to honour his memory for his family.”

The main source of the film is a biography of Jones entitled More Than A Grain Of Truth, written by Gareth’s niece Dr Margaret Siriol Colley (Philip’s mother) and his great-nephew Nigel Colley (Philip’s brother), both of whom share a credit as the film’s historical advisors.

The book sparked Chalupa’s interest and she started corresponding with Margaret Colley soon after its publication. When Margaret died in 2011, aged 85, Chalupa remained in contact with her son Nigel, who became “heavily involved” in discussing ideas for the film. Nigel died in 2018.

Filmed predominantly in Poland, homeland of Warsaw-born director Agnieszka Holland, Mr Jones does contain some breathtaking snowbound scenes shot in Ukraine, where Gareth gets first-hand sight of the horrendous famine.

“We filmed in a tiny little place called Doch, which is three hours north of Kiev, in the middle of nowhere,” says Norton. “We’d drive for hours on these very unsafe roads, jangling your bones around. It was freezing cold in the snow.

“It was so remote that we had to put the word out to local farmers to come along as extras and we had a strict cut-off time – we had to wrap up at 5pm because they all had to go back and feed their animals!”

When it came to filming the scenes in Wales – notably Barry and the Western Mail’s offices in the film’s gripping finale when Gareth’s whistle-blowing scoop hits the presses – Norton reveals: “I’m really sorry to say they’re all filmed in Scotland! About an hour north-east of Edinburgh. A lot of those villages there have a quality of that small fishing town, for the Barry scenes.

“The other reason is that the film is partly funded by Creative Scotland and there’s that responsibility you feel to film there. But I think it worked well. It was a shame not to film in Wales, but we had a fantastic collection of Welsh players there, including Julian, so it felt home from home.”

Agnieszka Holland, of course, is not the first female director to work with Norton. He acted under the helm of Greta Gerwig on Little Women and with a largely female crew on the six-part TV drama The Trial Of Christine Keeler, which finished last Sunday, earning him rave reviews for his heartbreaking performance as Stephen Ward, the tragic scapegoat figure in the Profumo affair which brought down the UK government in the early 1960s.

“I’ve not gone out of my way to work with female directors, but I have great agents who always look for the best projects – but I really hope it’s a sign of the times,” he says. “The Christine Keeler story has never been properly told from a female perspective before, so that was the real attraction. Agnieszka, meanwhile, is the best of the best – the fact that she’s a woman is almost irrelevant.”

How does he feel about the fact that Greta Gerwig has been denied a Best Director Oscar nomination for her lauded version of Little Women, in which Norton plays eligible suitor John Brooke to Emma Watson’s Meg March?

“I can stand as witness to Greta’s brilliance and the fact that Little Women is up for Best Film and Screenplay is testament to her brilliance,” says Norton. “She singlehandedly redefined the story for a modern generation and it would have been wonderful to honour that in the nominations for direction – so it’s a horrible and unfortunate omission.”

It was while starring in McMafia, the gritty 2018 BBC1 thriller series with scenes of him bow-tied and gun-toting, that Norton’s name was first added to the list of contenders to play James Bond when Daniel Craig retires from the role after the next 007 movie No Time To Die. Remind him of that now and he laughs it off.

“It’s very humbling, it’s lovely and bizarre to be included in that conversation, but beyond that it’s all very speculative,” he says. “I think at the moment everyone’s concentrating on Daniel Craig in his final Bond film – for me, he’s a fantastic Bond and I’m sad he’s retiring.”

Right now, however, it’s Mr Jones and the legacy of that film’s largely unsung Welsh hero that are uppermost in Norton’s agenda. Tragically, Gareth Jones’ life was cut short on the eve of his 30th birthday in 1934, when he was allegedly shot by Mongolian bandits while travelling in Japanese-occupied China on a fact-finding tour.

“There’s much speculation about Gareth’s death at such a young age and there was a lot of evidence suggesting that it was orchestrated by the Soviet forces as revenge for his blowing the whistle on the hidden famine,” says Norton.

“His stories in the Western Mail were incredibly important. The more we can learn about Gareth Jones and recognise his extraordinary legacy, the better. And the fact is that right now, as politics becomes more polarised, we need more people like Gareth – investigative journalists to uncover the truth, with no ideological agenda attached.

“If this film encourages any future young Gareth Jones, then that’s fantastic. It’s a crime we don’t know more about these forgotten events and hopefully this film will remedy that.”

[cscclibrary]

[Color photograph: Lighting candles in remembrance at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC, during Days of Remembrance, 2014. Image via the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.]

January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  The 20th century has been called “the century of genocide,” but for many, it is specifically the Holocaust--the persecution, imprisonment, and mass-murder of Jews, Romani, sexual minorities, and people with mental, intellectual, and physical disabilities--that first comes to mind when they hear that word.  For the average American, certainly, the Holocaust is the touchstone by which genocide is understood.  Three-quarters of a century later, it lingers in our collective consciousness.  We return to it in film, fiction, scholarship, and personal reflection. Most of us ask ourselves: how could such a thing happen?  Why did people allow it to occur? Can it happen again?

Most of us learned about the Holocaust and the events surrounding it only briefly, perhaps in a high school history class. Today we’re presenting a variety of sources that can help readers gain a fuller understanding of how the Holocaust, and other genocides, came to be.

Never Again, Again, Again...: Genocide: Armenia, The Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Darfur, by Lane H. Montgomery .  Request via OhioLINK. Photographs and text discussing some of the primary genocides of the 20th-21st centuries, many of which are rarely addressed in American K-12 history classes. [Note: There are many books available that discuss these genocides, as well as previous genocides, in greater detail.  Although they are too numerous to list here, you are welcome to contact our reference librarians if you’d like help researching any of these topics in greater depth.]

The Routledge History of Genocide; Cathie Carmichael and Richard C. Maguire, editors.  Request via OhioLINK. A worldwide history of genocide from the Iron Age to the recent past.

Colonialism and Genocide; A. Dirk Moses and Dan Stone, editors.  Request via OhioLINK.  Addresses the links between European colonialism and genocide.

Redefining Genocide: Settler Colonialism, Social Death and Ecocide, by Damien Short.  Request via OhioLINK.  Proposes expanding our understanding of genocide to include systematic methods of population destruction that are less obvious, and more insidious, than mass murder.

Confronting Humanity at Its Worst: Social Psychological Perspectives on Genocide; Leonard S. Newman, editor. E-book.  “Explores the psychological and emotional predispositions for extreme intergroup violence, the genocidal mindset, and the roles of obedience and social influence.” --from publisher

Economic Aspects of Genocides, Other Mass Atrocities, and Their Preventions; Charles H. Anderton and Jurgen Brauer, editors.  E-book.  “Demonstrates theoretically, empirically, and with case study evidence how microeconomic incentives (e.g., looting opportunities, survival motivations) and macroeconomic environments (e.g., low growth, negative economic shocks) can dramatically affect genocide risk and prevention.” --from publisher

The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, by Henry Friedlander.  E-book.  Examines the often-overlooked Nazi atrocities towards disabled people, and how the segregation and mass murder of disabled people normalized such policies towards ethnic minorities in Nazi Germany.

Forgotten Crimes: The Holocaust and People with Disabilities, by Suzanne E. Evans.  Request via OhioLINK.  Explores the Nazi atrocities towards disabled people; interviews with disabled Holocaust survivors.

Deaf People in Hitler's Europe; Donna F. Ryan and John S. Schuchman, editors.  CS Library 3rd floor, 940.5318 D2786. 

Women in the Holocaust: A Feminist History, by Zoë Waxman.  E-book.  Focuses on gender roles and the narratives of women during the Holocaust.

The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944, by Radu Ioanid.  CS Library 3rd floor, 940.5318 I641h. Details anti-Semitic and anti-Romani violence in Romania during World War II.

Antisemitism Before and Since the Holocaust: Altered Contexts and Recent Perspectives; Anthony McElligott, Jeffrey Herf, editors.  E-book.  Discusses the contemporary conspiracy theories of Holocaust denialism and their cultural/political roots.

The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Genocide, by Wolfgang Benz. CS Library 3rd floor, 940.5318 B479h.  Details the gradual process by which anti-Semitism became normalized as a political policy in Nazi Germany, culminating in mass murder.

The Nazi Conscience, by Claudia Koonz.  Request via OhioLINK.  Explores the systematic process by which ordinary Germans were carefully inculcated with nationalist, white-supremacist ideals, culminating in the normalization of violence towards certain populations.

[karmaalwayswins]

Like Stories of Old “Redefining the Anti-War Film” (2020)

Long but excellent analysis of the underlying psychology and messaging of war films. Highly recommended.

[silmarildust]

Redefining the Anti-War Film

this one’s pretty good