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D-Day in perspective 75 years hence, for our time; plus your Guide to D-Day on TV. June 6, 2019

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This is  an unconventional presentation,  a very different account than you're likely to see elsewhere. Yes, it is historically accurate -- we wouldn't waste your time with something that did not meet that standard. But it's different,  for two reasons:  First , because it consciously offers perspective on what D-Day means to ordinary people in our time. Second , because it's about the  anonymous  ordinary people who made it happen -- the people to whom we can all surprisingly relate -- without a single name of a past-or-present general, head of state, or any other political or historical or military celebrity to clutter or derail your experience.   With America's Commander-in-Tweet attending this week's events on the world stage, and therefore causing everyone to hold our collective breath for fear he will embarrass us, many are avoiding knowing anything about the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Let's change that. ______________________________
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Memorial Day 2019: a Challenging Perspective

by Lawrence Wines  It really bothers me that "honoring the service of our veterans" has become a door-opener for lemming-like support of the warconomy. Memorial Day was devised as a way to support widows and orphans of Union dead from the Civil War. By extension, because we keep having wars and so many people show-up to get killed in them, Memorial Day continued its purpose to honor the fallen of all our wars. That's not meant to diminish recognition of the necessity of military response to global fascism in the Second World War, when the outcome would determine what kind of world we would have. Nor can we be deluded into believing that valor, bravery, and sacrifice were unique to that war. Those human traits can be found in every generation, and we should recognize how problematic that is: because battlefield sacrifices are made, at terrible cost, in all manner of conflicts that influence nothing greater than which group of rich manipulators will be given the upper ha
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