Stupid? or Evil?

So....Little Juvat and LJW are back in the SandBox after visiting some beaches (No, Beans that's not the Southern pronunciation of sons of female dogs) in Northern France.  Did I mention that, among many other talents, he's a fairly talented photographer?

Well, he is.  He started the hobby with a disposable camera when Mrs J and I took him on vacation to the PI, Singapore, Bangkok, and Hong Kong when he was about 5.   In any case, he's got a better camera now.  Much better.  More better than I can afford.

But...I'm cheap.

In any case, he said he had 3 x 64 GB sim cards and a 3 TB portable HD with him on the trip.  Needless to say, downloading his pictures has taken is taking a bit of time.  But I've included a few for your enjoyment.

I had misunderstood his travel plans,  he was at Normandy until the 5th.  For some strange reason, there was no room at the inn, or anywhere else within reasonable driving distance, on the 6th so didn't get any pictures of flyovers and other ceremonies.

I haven't actually spoken to them yet, so you'll have to endure MY photo interpretation.

My guess is they started on Utah Beach.  I base that opinion on the Time Date Stamp of the above  photo.  That ID'd the photograph as having been taken immediately before this one. 

My apologies if I have inadvertently "triggered" anyone.  But then again, you probably wouldn't be on this blog if you were in that group of psychotic children.

As both Little Juvat and LJW graduated from Texas A&M (Whoop!), they necessarily visited Pointe du Hoc next to see where Lt Col James E. Rudder (Fightin' Texas Aggie Class of '32 Whoop!) came ashore.

This should be Pointe Du Hoc from the western edge of Utah.  Pretty commanding terrain if you've just come ashore and are still on the beach. It would be hard to hide.

Down in the bowl in the center of the picture is where his Rangers came ashore and scaled those cliffs.

Little Juvat got a lot closer to the edge than I did when I was there in '09.  That's a long and steep climb even when no one is shooting at you.

And it's not like the battlefield wasn't prepped by fire before hand.  Those are man made depressions in the soil caused by all sorts of unpleasant weaponry.

LJW has decided to venture down into one of the impact craters.  Given her height, I'd say, after 75 years it's still 15 to 20' deep.

BTW, this wasn't LtCol Rudder's only battle.  He also fought in the Battle of the Bulge and Hurtgen Forest.  Then came back and was President of Texas A&M (Whoop!) before passing away in 1970 at 59.

They next visited another beach, named for some place in Nebraska.  As one can see, the weather is turning a bit nasty, but there are more folks here.  BTW that's Pointe du Hoc in the back ground.  As I said "Commanding ground".

Thankfully the weather got a bit better.  This is the view of Omaha from a very special place.

I got nothing to add.

They then returned to Paris and spent a couple of days there before returning to their home away from home.

One of the remaining photos, other than the expected nee' required pictures of the Eifel Tower and other Parisian landmarks was this one.

I had no clue what this photo was about.  I texted him the question and he sent this link Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation. 

I knew that Jews throughout Nazi Occupied Europe were rounded up and sent to Germany, including from France.  What I didn't know was that the French Government ordered their own citizens to be arrested.  According to this article, 200,000 French People were transported to German Concentration Camps.

Where virtually all were murdered.

The bars on the doors represent the prison doors, the light at the end of the tunnel is literally "the light at the end of the tunnel". There are urns at each end containing ashes from the Ovens at the camps.  Each of the gold dots on the walls is a single backlit crystal that symbolizes one of the people that was murdered in Germany.

Why do you continue to use that word, juvat?  Isn't that a bit harsh?

Absolutely not, in fact, it's not harsh enough.

They didn't "Die" or they weren't "executed".  Both those words denote something less than the evil that happened to them.  All people "die".  Criminals are "executed", implying a just punishment.  No these people, approximately 75,000 Jews, while the rest were run of the mill French people who had somehow done something that caused the French Government to have them rounded up and eventually murdered.

Which brings me to the point of this rant. Recently there have been a few people in Congress that are saying that the United States is running concentration camps on the Southern Border.  They do this deliberately to draw a comparison to the Nazi Concentration Camps.

I don't know if anyone has died while in custody of the border patrol.  It's possible, I suppose, and if so is tragic.

But...If that happened, it was not Murder.

Unfortunately a lot of people seem to think one of the elected officials who is spouting this comparison is just an idiot.  Indeed, there are lots of internet meme's made out to make her look like a fool.

IMHO, that is wrong.  Nobody can be that dumb. Portraying her as dumb plays into her hands and gives her an out.  She may not use these words exactly but when called on something she said, the comeback "Everyone knows she's an idiot, right?" gets her off the hook.  And people can and will say," thank goodness this alternative legislation (which is a little "less bad") passed and not hers". We, as a Country, however will have moved a little bit closer totalitarian socialism.

No, I believe she knows exactly what she's doing  and that makes her Evil.  Her "comment of the week" this week is preparing the battlefield by numbing people to the reality of Concentration Camps. Who knows what next week will bring, but it will push a socialist agenda.

And there are others like her.

"There are camps and people are being concentrated."

Words matter.

I bring you back to the fact that the French Government, not the Germans, ordered those people off to be murdered in concentration camps.

One should keep that in mind when they say  "No middle ground" as they attempt to sway people to a socialist agenda where the government controls  virtually everything.  If a government can control virtually everything, what's to stop them from doing virtually anything?