by Frank Erickson
The Letter to the Editor, “Omissions and distortions abound in libraries, too,” by Berman Sanford in The Alley Newspaper February 2019 is an admirable undertaking; to have things listed at libraries under a heading that truly represents what they were.
Berman, who is a member of the American Library Association, uses the example of trying to search any library catalog under the subject of “Native American Genocide” and you will be unsuccessful.
Yet, he falls into his own trap when he brings up “World War II” and he does not use quotation marks when referencing the “war.” Just as Berman states, “history is euphemistically masked, hidden, under subjects like Choctaw Indians””Relocation,” but so is the case with “war.”
Murder is masked and hidden under the title of “war.”
Now in libraries and schools all over the Western world, people are reading about the 2003 attack on Iraq by the U.S. as a “war” and not murder. By calling it “war” and attacking people in a “war” manner, the aggression by the U.S. is seen as legitimate. Many will say the “war” was wrong, but will not see it as murder, because it was a “war.”
Viewing it this way is to believe that “war” can exist by itself, this is not possible. “War” cannot be a contest like a basketball game that exists by itself. Every single basketball game ever played was a basketball game, yet how could every single “war” ever fought be a “war?” We have this misguided belief because we define “wars” the same way we define sporting events, from only the physical act of doing it.
Sorry, “war” cannot create itself from doing “war,” this means “war” cannot exist by itself; knowing this, how can one be started?
