[extropy-chat] The Trouble With Democracy

[Olga Bourlin]

From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>

> I cannot speak for all POW camps here in the US, but can speak of one,
> located in Stark, NH, an area with terrain very similar to southern
> Germany. Prisoners spent the war logging, and were able to get to know
> local residents well, so much so that after the war there were several
> marriages between former prisoners and local girls. Former prisoners
> still travel to NH from Germany to visit and have reunions, and a few
> have immigrated to live in this area. I know of no similar experiences
> by Americans held prisoner by Germans.

Well, how sweet.  But how sad and ironic that in the United States at that
time we had a segregated army, and black men (particularly) risked their
lives sometimes even looking at "local girls" (... if those girls happened
to be white).

> I also know that prisoners travelling by train were greeted at
> trainstops across the US with lunches and refreshments made by locals ...

How very sweet.  But how sad that black citizens in many parts of the United
States couldn't go to restaurants (hotels, etc.).  And speaking of
refreshments - in veteran civil rights activist James Forman's book "The
Making of Black Revolutionaries," he details how he rather unwittingly found
out that the U.S. Army was more than simply segregated.  He was assigned to
the "white" Army for a time (because of a special duty he was asked to
perform), and in the "white" Army, much to his surprise, he was served ...
real eggs (whereas in the "black" Army he was used to being served powdered
eggs).

Just want to keep certain things in perspective, here ...

An aside on James Forman (who just turned 75, and is living in Washington,
D.C.) was that for a time his mother-in-law was Jessica Mitford (author, and
one of the famous "Mitford" sisters, one of whom - Diana - was a pal of none
other than Adolf Hitler's)
:http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/13/1060588457054.html).  Until
Jessica Mitford died, Forman would visit her whenever he got to Oakland,
California.  During a visit to Seattle in the mid 1990s my husband and I
were having breakfast with Forman, when he mentioned that he had just
visited his ex-mother-in-law.  I asked him "Who was she?  What does she do?"
(just the usual curious-type social questions)  Between mouthfuls of eggs
Forman said, "Jessica Mitford."  And continued eating.  (I had read "The
American Way of Death" as a teenager, and stopped eating my own eggs just
long enough to look around the restaurant and remember this little moment -
I took a "mental snapshot," you know?)

Forman was married to Jessica Mitford's daughter, Constancia Romilly, whose
father was Esmond Romilly, a nephew of Winston Churchill.

Churchill and Adolf Hitler and democracy and civil rights all in one little
uniquely American family.  Interesting, huh? (end of aside)

Olga