Sunday School

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

The Nazis made The Channel Islands the most heavily fortified spot on the Planet. Couldn’t the British Empire have made the Islands at least well armed and fortified enough to keep them away?

And it wouldn’t have to be The Channel Islands vs. the whole war effort, but rather The Channel Islands as part of the whole war efort. Securing The Channel Islands would have meant one less platform for Nazis launching possible land invasions or V-2 Rocket attacks. Also one less Nazi venue for slave labor and death camps.

The way Putin could and would use this sad historical failure as propaganda is to say: “See? The British support the “Nazis” in Ukraine! Why they let Nazis use their Islands to build forced labor camps filled with P.O.W.s from Mother Russia!”

A stich in time saves nine.

[UnseenParticipant]

@Enco

Monday morning quarterbacking decisions Churchill and his government made are fun, aren’t they? Especially when we don’t have access to the decision he and his cohorts had.

As for how Putin might use the Channel Islands to say the Brits favor Nazis, as a matter of fact, not just Great Britain but all of NATO are fighting side by side with the Western Ukrainian neo-Nazi Asovs, no Channel Islands argument needed.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Noel,

When I was a boy, I associated Beethoven’s Ninth “Ode To Joy” with Sunny Slope Farms, a local apple orchard near Shelby, NC. They used the work as part of their radio ad jingle with lyrics to match the notes:

🎶”Sun-ny Slope Farms
Come and see us,
For the ap-ples ooooof your eye!” 🎶 🍎🍏🙂

I know music snobs would call such a commercial use “crass,” “vulgar,” and “exploitative,” but the hungry and apple-lovers would beg to differ. And it certainly shows that religious works can be co-opted for worthy worldly purposes.

[NoelParticipant]

Ode to Joy is big at Christmas in Japan.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

Friendly? Maybe on the face to deal with a fact of life, but are you implying they were actually pro-Nazi? I doubt it. More likely it was an understandable attitude aimed at self-preservation.

The Nettles documentary pointed out that most Citizens were friendly to the Germans in the streets, served them in pubs and stores, and Government authorities on the Island went along with identifying and creating files on Citizens, including identifying who was Jewish.

According to the documentary, 18 Jews were identified and either committed suicide or were sent to death camps in Auchwitz-Birkenau and elsewhere. One was a nanny for a wealthy family who couldn’t escape to Great Britain ironically because she had an enemy German passport.

Further research reveals other awful things, like that many Channel Islanders willfully gave up their arms, radios, cars, boats, civil liberties, and other nice things of free people when ordered by the Nazi occupiers and also turned in fellow Citizens who kept these contraband items.

German Occupation of the Channel Islands–Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_the_Channel_Islands

And Channel Island women must have been terribly short on bed-knobs and broomsticks to pine for their Nazi occupiers.

*Forcing back a little throw-up in the mouth.* 🤢

All Channel Island resisters duly noted and honored, but they were too few and resistance was too little and too late.

Courtesy is only for the courteous. You don’t extend it to those who would casually enslave and murder you. If you can’t fight the enemy at the moment, at least don’t speak to them; don’t look them in the eye; close your windows, doors, and shades; don’t serve them or if you have to, serve them shoddily; make everything trouble for them.

And this isn’t Monday Morning Quarterbacking, but Next Saturday’s Coaching, so the next war is never fought like the last war.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendum of "don't."

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

Much as I enjoy fireworks on Independence Day, here’s one Fireworks Stand I won’t be frequenting. Gunpowder, Cordite, and, Tannerite just don’t mix well with Apocalyptic churchin’ up!

The Sawyer Brown cover is even creepier! Those poor kids! I hope they grow out of that!

[UnseenParticipant]

@Enco

Thank you. Now I see why the Channel Islanders were abandoned. LOL

[NoelParticipant]

@pope
“I get goosebumps from a lot of religiously driven music, while not feeling it has anything to do with God (or e.g. Nationalism). I feel lucky that way. 🙂”

John Coltrane wrote the music to his album “A Love Supreme” soon after getting clean off heroin. The entire album is a letter of gratitude. Gratitude to self and to his conversion to Islam and Allah.

I’m just happy that he wrote, performed, and produced it. Grateful he took me on his journey no matter the religious content. Grateful for his epiphany and his ability to transport us through his music and his gift.

The fact that it was spiritual or religious doesn’t subtract from its ability to move us despite our atheism.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

Naturally those who evacuated and those who resisted can’t be blamed for collaboration, and since Great Britain gave on defending The Channel Islands, nor can they be blamed for evacuating. But it’s all a terrible piece of history that didn’t have to be. It’s good it didn’t happen here.

[UnseenParticipant]

@Enco

“It’s a good thing it didn’t happen here.”

Well, since it didn’t happen here, that’s all speculation.

The Japanese did take an Aleutian Island, and we did drive them out, yes, but that did not require a massive effort as freeing the Channel Islands would have. Plus, the occupation didn’t place the American mainland in peril. The Japanese were there as a distraction and we almost fell for it, but in the end it would not have been worth a major effort, so it took a year mainly of harrassment efforts to get them out. Nothing like the operations going on down south.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

Noel wrote:

Ode to Joy is big at Christmas in Japan.

I learned this when married into a Japanese family. Elvis is big there, too. I got goosebumps from Ode to Joy long before I looked into its religious motivations, so maybe that was the first hint that I plan not to let the artist’s motivations influence my enjoyment.

Coincidentally, yesterday while speaking with a fairly religious black friend I mentioned to him my religious music goosebumps and played the Yellowjacket’s song Revelation, live version. I enjoy watching black singers and congregations get so sincerely into gospel music, and I definitely don’t judge humans who grow up attaching themselves to faith in a culture that pushes religion. I’m especially empathetic toward those growing up in theocracies.

The feelings I get listening to some religiously-motivated music can run deep and can feel profound, which proves to me that these feelings that almost all of us share are evidence of motivations and feelings that can bring us together, in spite of our disagreements and other differences. I even think those feelings that evolved in us were an emerging form of beneficial fitness to societies. (Just as some aspects of religion were at one time.)

IMO speaking in tongues is an example that brings people together in a similar manner, so I’m not saying it always makes sense, or that the good feelings themselves are necessarily always “beneficial” to the species or to all societies.

[NoelParticipant]

@ Pope: Love telling this story.

In 1978, on my first Naval cruise to the Pacific, we pulled into Yokuska, Japan. A buddy of mine, also from New York, talked me into taking a train ride to Tokyo. I know, it’s a ways but we did have two days Liberty.

We board the train and immediately start comparing the differences between mass transit in Japan and New York City. At the time the seats were cushioned. A stark difference from the Japanese made cars in New York City with their hard plastic seats. The ride was comfortable and a lot quieter than our New York City subways.

As we tool along train stops and doors open in come four Japanese boys. I would think they were around 12 to 14 years old. There was a row of empty seats and they all sat. Meanwhile my shipmate and I are probably looking around with our mouths open. One of the boys says something to his neighbor, bends down, takes his shoes off, and kneels on the seat to look out the window. I look at my friend and asked him, “you watching this?”. Phil grew up in some pretty hard places in Brooklyn. He stood a good 6’4″ and was a pretty big African American but the gentlest soul. He smiled looked at me and said, “Discipline.”

Not too much of that going around in the New York City subway system.

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