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It is nearly 80 years after the seeming end of World War II, the war Americans like to call the Good War, the war that left much of Europe in ruins, a war that killed over 50 million people — most of them civilians, a war that featured a horror show of atrocities — the Holocaust, the dropping of atomic bombs, the firebombing of German and Japanese cities, the siege of Stalingrad, the Blitz, etc., a war ignited by the insane megalomania of one man, Adolph Hitler, a war still called the Good War by Americans, in spite of the colossal suffering, because the Nazis were defeated, a war that destroyed the threat of fascism.
Not so fast! Looks now like historians and diplomats may have jumped the gun — literally. The Axis powers — Germany, Italy, Japan — are on the verge of winning that war without having to fire a single shot, drop a single bomb or launch one more V2 rocket. In fact, those once hostile powers have no interest in this ultimate reversal of fortune. But the U.S. is intent on willing capitulation, and the process of defeat will be, ironically, nonviolent. It will be democratic. The U.S. may elect a fascist government.
Some people may ask if, then, the Good War and all that death and destruction was for nothing? If we had been clairvoyant, should we have embraced fascism back in 1941? Or, 1936? And avoided all the death. What about democracy has failed so badly that fascism appears preferable? These are difficult questions.
Robert Shetterly
Brooksville
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