The Jesse Owens Mentions at the WC

the 'sub-human' rhetorical references of the time applied to 90% of the world population not the negro.

And yes, it is important to know the history of what America was like when Owens went home and that history included America fighting and battling the most aggressively racist regimes in history, right after Owens returned home.

Within 5 years of the Berlin Olympics America started a decades long campaign battling Socialist Russia and China, Fascist Japan and Islamo-leftists/totalitarians or whatever term one prefers; all murderously racist and genocidal regimes.

By all means, tell the whole story but tell the entire story. (quote)

A somewhat blinkered (and typically American) view of America’s relationship with the other countries inhabiting our planet.

America had no problems with the activities of Hitler during the early years of WW2 - that war commenced on 3 September 1939 and the US only became actively involved after Pearl Harbour in December 1941.

No Pearl Harbour - no war American war against the ‘fascists’.

Although we, Britain and the US were the ‘good guys’ in WW2 - certain incidents as with the bombing of Dresden, deliberately targeting and killing thousands of innocent civilians with the war practically over, is a stain on both sides.

The end result is death whether one dies in a concentration camp or being deliberately targeted by bombers - although to give the US their due, they did spend most of the war in Europe attacking military targets, unlike our Bomber Command who aimed at the civilian population from the start.

Was dropping the atomic bomb on defenceless Japanese cities justified?

I can’t argue against that - yes.

Korean war?

Again yes, but then a reckless American general, who took the law into his own hands and didn’t understand the limits of his mission, took the UN armies up to the border of China ensuring their entry and prolonging the war for years.

And it‘s been downhill from there.

I recently bought a pair of Nikes made in Vietnam.

How ironic - you dropped 4 times the total bomb load of WW2 on that unfortunate country, not to mention 20 million gallons of herbicide, killing about 10 million people - so that Nike could manufacture shoes there?

Remember the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics because of the Soviets ‘invasion’ of Afghanistan - and arming the mujahideen to the teeth to fight them.

What goes around, comes around it seems - those very resistance warriors you armed are the amongst the resistance fighting the American forces that have taken the place of the old Soviets.

And don’t mention that nonsense about ’bringing democracy’ to the Afghans, we British and the US are shedding blood prop up Karzai's hideous regime of thugs and thieves.

And I haven’t even mentioned the disastrous, illegal invasion of Iraq, the alarming consequences of which we’ve yet to experience.

No, all in all, since Korea, the US ( and it’s satellite Israel) has been the world’s most dangerous loose cannon.

This might surprise you, but the Germans are actually pretty good at dealing with their past. The lessons of the 30s and 40s are very present in all aspects of public life in Germany today and you can barely go a week without being confronted with them by the German media themselves. They tell the story of Jesse Owens as often as the US media. He was a hero in Europe while he was still a "******" in America.