imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Friday, January 06, 2006
COME THE REVOLUTION
This picture is a scene from the movie The Garden of the Finzi-Continis: Two wealthy Jewish families fall victim to Fascist reactionaries as terror grips the country during World War II. One family patriarch is a noted attorney, and the son of the other family joins the Italian Army. Because he is Jewish, he is sent to the Russian front and dies in battle. The others meet their fate in concentration camps at the hands of Nazis. Whatever side the families decide to join to save themselves fails because of their Jewish ancestry in this wartime tragedy.The movie and this picture remind me of a scene in Dr. Zhivago in which Yury returns to the once-magnificent mansion to find that during his absence it had been confiscated and divided into living quarters for numerous families and, as a result, has become a hovel for the masses. He replies to the angry-looking residents that it was good since the rich had too many rooms anyway.
Before the Revolution, most of the wealthy Russians probably thought they were immune from the proletariat's fate primarily because of their money. The same can be said for the arrogant political asses today. They vote and talk as though they will somehow be spared should the terrorists win this war. They're not impervious; their heads will roll as easily as everyone else's.
Shrinkwrapped has written a great piece on the subject in
Do We Now Return to the Garden of the Finzi-Continis?
I have written before (in "Good Muslims" and "Good Germans" and again, in A Ticking Clock) that in our war on Islamic fascism, we are in the late 1930's. We can stop Hitler/al Qaeda/Islamic fascism/Iran now at some indeterminate, possibly terrible cost, or stop them later, at horrific cost.
Of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Roger Ebert describes the family and its reaction to the approaching storm:
Giorgio's father says of the Finzi-Continis: "They're different. They don't even seem to be Jewish." They're different because wealth and privilege and generations of intellectual and social position have bred them into a family as proud as it is vulnerable. The other Jews in the town react to Mussolini's edicts in various ways: Giorgio is enraged; his father is philosophical. But the Finzi-Continis hardly seem to know, or care, what is happening. They are above mere edicts; they chose to live behind their walls long before the Fascists said they must.
The Finzi-Continis were insulated by their wealth from the realities of the world that was crashing down around them; it seems today that our liberal elites, equally insulated from the world by their wealth and success, believe if they continue to behave as if time has stopped, then they need do nothing to prevent the coming disaster. However, we are clearly approaching a pivotal moment.
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The Palestinians have only slowed their genocidal attacks in order to turn their rage on themselves, for now, yet once the Iranians have their bomb, Israel's existence will be at risk both from the air (Iranian missiles) and from the land (Palestinian suicide bombers). Al Qaeda has taken up residence in Gaza to facilitate the mass death and destruction they hope to rain upon the hated Jews.
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