Odds, Ends, Sods And Such(Part Three)

Some would say that that's the exclusive province of the Left, to which I say "Banana Oil".

The Nazis, first with the German and Austrian Jewish communities, and then, during World War Two, engaged in one of the

biggest, if not the biggest, mass robberies seen in European, if not world, history, in which whole countries' lands, labour,

and other resources were grabbed wholesale and used to enrich Germany, and especially the German elite. In turn, those

Europeans who collaborated with the Nazis found, at least for a short time, that their masters' "Aryanisation" policies could

be quite profitable, even if not as profitable for them as the good German boys and girls above them.

That's just one example of such large-scale larceny in world history, and, anyway, is kinda beside the point, except to maybe

illustrate another, and that's any dirty deed, whether theft, murder, whatever, can be done and even glorified, given the

right ideological justification, and it doesn't matter from which part of the political spectrum, nationality, race,or

wherever else it comes.

The history of the Americas shows that even ostensibly liberal democracies, like the US, Canada, Argentina and a number of

others, can and have engaged in campaigns of mass murder, rape and theft(just ask any member of the various Amerindian tribes

found in the American Hemisphere about that), just as conservative, or, much more rarely, if only because there have been so

few of 'em, left-wing dictatorships have. Even the various Amerindian groups, especially large-scale civilisations like the

Mexica(or Aztecs, if you prefer)and the Inca engaged in such practises for religious reasons, among others.

The principles at work here are psychological, at least partially so, in that one has to either feel hard done by another,

or, from the other end, feels that one's neighbour's so utterly and irredeemably inferior to oneself, family and friends,

hard-pressed, which is as much a matter of perception as fact, and that the course in which one engages is the only sound,

"logical" and "just" one available that coshing one's neighbour's head in becomes, at least in theory, the best and easiest

one at hand.

God knows, I've struggled with that part of myself in the past, and do so, from time to time, even now. It's the meanest,

most ungenerous part of ourselves, rooted in our basic survival instincts and biological needs, and which come out, in

generally more elaborate forms, in human beings whenever they are, or at least feel, pressed up against the wall.

These are uncertain times, to grossly understate it, and people, like any other variety of animal, can and will respond to

uncertainity with fear, and, depending on the individual, even panic, in one form or another.

Fear and panic, like any emotion, can be useful survival tools for getting oneself or one's group out of a dangerous

situation.

But, particularly when used by politicians, media figures and outlets, and even so-called ordinary people, it can make an

already bad situation far worse than it is.