[Marxism] Follow-up on Valkyrie: personal conscience and responsibility

["Hunter Gray" <hunterbadbear@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Re some of the discussion on Redbadbear:

I have no German forbears on which to fall back for direct, personal knowledge. 
My maternal grandmother spoke German fluently but that came from her father, a 
Swiss immigrant [who was also a radical social justice activist in Kansas, 
beginning in the Territorial days.]

So I'm not a personal authority on German society and culture -- though I am 
aware that, for various historical and sociological reasons, among them 
monarchial principalities in the pre-unification period and patriarchal family 
structures, authoritarian strains have traditionally been more pronounced in 
Germany than in many other settings. Traditionally, again, the German military 
subordinated itself to -- authoritarian -- civil government.

Long before I ever arrived in Mississippi ['61], I had learned via observation 
and experience that fundamentally good people can not only do bad things -- 
but, much more commonly, can "look away" rather than directly at nefarious and 
often downright sanguinary actions initiated by their leaders and even their 
fellows. I've always recalled the comment made by a colleague of mine, a Jewish 
refugee from South Africa, who observed that in a "choice" academic setting in 
that country, "the more intelligent the mind, the more intricate the 
rationalizations."

With all due respect, I'm not inclined to be too harshly judgmental in 
situations where complex individuals [and all of us are complex] are enmeshed 
in the complexities of totalitarianism. True, as we fight for social justice, 
we do have to classify -- even usurp God's role in "sorting souls" -- as we 
carry our campaigns, large and small, along the Trail. [For all of its many 
internal challenges, the United States is a vast and diverse country with 
almost all Americans still recognizing that they are born into a tradition of 
personal liberty. I have never seen this country -- despite, say, the last 
eight years -- as even being close to a totalitarian incarnation.]

The "road to Damascus" [speaking, of course, in the New Testament sense] is a 
longer trek for some than for others. I suspect many German officers in the 
Nazi regime were increasingly troubled by the policies of the Third Reich. I 
understand Rommel, in North Africa, insisted on good treatment for British 
prisoners of war and did not honor Hitler's general stricture to murder Jews. 
There were numerous plots to kill Hitler and I have no problem giving credit 
for conscience-emergence and great courage on the part of those German 
officers, depicted in Valkyrie, who tried desperately to fulfill a worthy 
mission.

Hunter Gray [Hunter Bear]


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'

Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm
[The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm

For a good feel for some of the civil liberties challenges faced by an effective
organizer, see this cluster of four related pages:
http://hunterbear.org/a_bizarre__1979_fbi_smear_effort.htm

And see Hunter's Movement Life Interview:
http://hunterbear.org/HUNTER%20BEAR%20INTERVIEW%20CRMV.htm
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