Corsair fuselage: The next step

Chuck sure has his priorities straight. My guess is that his top priority right now is to spite Nobu. In a chummy sort of a way, I’m sure.

Somehow the whole idea of WW2 rivalries reminds me of a scene during my stay abroad in Tokyo. An American, a Brit, a Japanese and me, an Austrian, were sitting and having a beer together. It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it was a profound experience for me, because we were talking about how great it is that we all can be friends, when only a few decades ago our grandfathers used to fight each other in WW2. To me personally, it shows that hatred for other peoples and countries is not something innate, but something that is instilled from above.

The Roman empire is long gone, but their strategies, in particular “divide and conquer” are alive and well. Black against white, Christians against Muslims, East against West, rich against poor, French against Brits, Cowboys vs. Redsins (I mean the American football teams) etc. alll our petty rivalries serve the main purpose to focus our energies on people like us and topics which ultimately will not change or have no real significance. Only just don’t look up or at the man behind the curtain!

It makes me sad. Because when you travel you can see that 99% of all people would get along with each other well. Everybody wants to live a peaceful and happy life and be left alone. I think the best way to “fight the system” is to not perpetuate the stereotypes and hate and be loving and kind to everybody. If you feel like you hate a certain group, think twice, or preferably even more often about where that hatred comes from. It’s not from within you.

There, now you know it, I’m a Hippie at heart! Sorry for going all philosophical on you guys! Somehow this blog got a bit out of hand…

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7 comments on “Corsair fuselage: The next step
  1. JP Kalishek says:

    The old guy who plays Taps at the Arizona Monument in Pearl Harbor (if he is still there, those WW2 vets are getting way up there) also puts flowers on the water for the dead … the flowers are/were paid for by one of the Japanese pilots who bombed the Harbor. The pilot always felt guilty that the declaration was delayed and feels this is his atonement.(again, I don’t know if the gentleman is still with us, this story is from quite a few years ago)

    Two of the bigwigs in the company my Dad used to work for were a German who was on a U-Boat and the other who was always traveling with him (one of several two man teams that went about doing what ever) was on a sub chaser at the same time “Your lucky we missed with that depth charge!” “Ach, your lucky we missed that time with the torpedo”

  2. RG2Cents says:

    If one must hate, then hate bigotry. For it is the enemy of us all.

  3. Awesome says:

    Ah, but people who scream bigotry are usually the bigots themselves.

    People love to say “why can’t we all just get along,” but man’s nature is not good at heart. Quite the opposite. That is why crime exists in the first place. It’s the reason for every war, every murder. It’s easy to ask the question, but you must face reality when you do.

  4. stef says:

    That’s a pretty bleak assessment. It probably depends if you look at people as mobs or as individuals. I think that the individual human is basically good at heart, and that evil is learned. Bad things are done by people who had bad things done to themselves, who had the wrong role models or who are under pressure of some sort (a mob, for instance).

    Just look at children. They can be cruel and selfish, but they are not evil. If you treat them right, they all have the potential to become peaceful and loving people.

    Saying that mankind is bad at heart is just a cynical excuse to not having to think or do anything about the circumstances that made some people evil.

    There will always be bad apples, a certain percentage that will commit crimes. But I challenge anybody out there to show me one single person who was born evil.

  5. Awesome says:

    Well, unfortunately a comment box is not the place to get into it, but I argue that not one person has ever been born good. Yes, we have a conscience, and morality is instilled into us, but our definitions of evil differ. You would define evil as someone wanting to kill everyone they see. That is evil, but evil also extends to the soul.

    Evil, at its root, is man’s desire to ignore and disobey God. That is why there will always be Christians out there trying to educate people. It is also why those same Christians will always be ignored or laughed at by most.

    Saying that man is good at heart is just an excuse to ignore the existence of – or need for – God. 😉

    It’s not bleak, it’s simply looking at reality without the rose-coloured glasses. My views would be much the same as yours, had I not “taken off the glasses,” so to speak.

  6. stef says:

    My definition of evil is different to what you suggest. It has more to do with enjoying others’ suffering than wanting to kill. And I still think children aren’t born with that desire. Yes we may be born as more or less a blank slate, but I think as social beings, we’re hardwired and biased towards empathy and love. I also believe that children are born without any concept of god or religion. But although I have my views and strong convictions in that respect, I will not start talking about religion on my own website. Hope you understand!

    I don’t claim to be 100% right. I’m sure I wear glasses of some sort. Everyone does. But mine certainly aren’t rose-colored. I see a lot of evil in this world, I just attribute it to different causes than you apparently do.

    But I absolutely agree with you on one point: This is not the best place for a discussion like that. It’s a subject to be discussed at a campfire with a couple of beers! 😉

  7. Kopets says:

    Is it legally allowed to paint the “shotdown planes” symbols if that battle has not really taken place? Isn’t there a law against fake veterans?

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