"There Are None So Blind..."

 

I'm not sure if Banksy has explained the significance of the recent statue that had been stealthily erected in the middle of the night in London. The idea of art is to find your own interpretation. So, here is mine.

"There are none so blind as those who will not see." - John Heywood.

It certainly seems to fit what we are witnessing  today- the MAGA mentality, who voted for a man they believe exemplifies patriotism, who truly epitomizes of the American flag waver. "One nation, under God..." People choose to see only what they want to see and this phenomenon is nothing new.

I became interested in reading about eight Germans who snuck onto American soil via u-boats during WWII after reading another book, "Shadow Divers," by Robert Kurson. It's about a group of deep sea divers who find a German u-boat at the bottom of the Atlantic near New Jersey in the early 90's. It took them seven years to identify its long held secrets. I found it absolutely fascinating that these submarines were so close to our coast. The ocean is still unexplored territory when it comes to wartime activity during the 40's. It is littered with a thousand stories of heroism, heartache and the will of powerful men.

I had heard many years ago about the sabotuers who actually made it to land by u-boats, who managed to roam the East coast and Midwest for longer than they should have because the Americans were fairly lax regarding protecting our shoreline. In fact, when a Coast guard member came upon a group of strange men as he carried out his nightly security check on the shoreline of Amagansett, he was mocked and disbelieved by his fellow guards when he ran back to describe what he had seen, which allowed the first four Germans to sneak away. The infamous J. Edgar Hoover was director of the FBI at that time. You think Trump's cabinet is filled with weird curiosities!? Hoover was an odd fellow who wrapped himself in faux self righteousness. Like our favorite attorney general, Pam Bondi, he kept a burn book. He too, went after men and women who had differing viewpoints from his own. He used his power and position to blackmail and threaten them into submission. Perhaps the title of this post should have been, "Deja Vu," or, "Why the hell don't we learn anything from history?"

The book I'm now reading, "Saboteurs; the Nazi Raid on America," by Michael Dobbs, is fascinating. There was one particular passage in the book which caught my eye and honestly made me sick to my stomach. With the exception of a few of the sabotuers who had planned on wreaking havoc, mainly planting bombs in munitions plants, the majority of these men had little interest in fighting for the Nazis. Most had lived in the US before, hence the reason they were chosen by Hitler's thugs to come back and create chaos and destruction. The men had family here; mothers, fathers, wives. They also had loads of American money the Nazi officials had given them to get situated and assimilate themselves back into American society. The first few days back after their u-boat drop off and having gotten as far as New York and Chicago, they spent lavishly, buying suits, watches, booze and babes. They weren't thinking anything about blowing up aluminum plants. Because one saboteur decided to tell all, hoping to be a hero who brings down Hitler, he was tricked into believing he'd have a nice, cozy life in America. He soon realized the truth after he was arrested along with the remaining seven aimless anarchists. As the feds and Hoover interrogated the captured men, they heard stories about what was going on in the streets of Germany. Jews were being rounded up and disappearing. One saboteur even mentioned, Jews, Romanians, or anyone deemed impure, were being transported by trains to concentration camps. Germans had heard the rumors, they noticed neighbors disappearing. They looked the other way. Many German citizens still believed in Hitler's rhetoric even as gas was scarce and food was even harder to find. As the sabotuers confessed and described what was happening to create an Aryan society by eliminating people Hitler considered, "parasitic vermin," Hoover dismissed the information as hyperbole, just a few dramatic Germans wasting time telling tall tales. So, our very own governmental officials knew what was fomenting in Hitler's inhumane attempt for an Aryan nation and chose to proclaim it as nonsense. 

It's not difficult to connect the similarities we see today where Trump's supporters are blinded by loyalty - one country, one flag- one color. One leader. No matter the massive amount of evidence of insider trading by those in the Trump circle who are turning a profit off a senseless war. No matter rising food and gas prices, redacted files, voices of victims, mass detention centers, false arrests and the murders of innocent people. We are getting a taste of the helplessness and mental fatigue people in war have experienced because we are living through a similar event- a lesson from which we seem to have learned nothing.