Funny thing about history.
Most countries, when they finally get the big stick, they use it like your drunk uncle at a summer cookout. They swing it around until somebody is bleeding.
One country beats another country and then comes the revenge parade. Burn the city, loot the silverware and humiliate the losers. Make sure their grandchildren are still apologizing for existing. Human beings are very creative when it comes to punishment.
Then along comes America after World War II. Now understand something. In 1945, the United States was sitting there holding all the cards. Europe was rubble and Japan was cooked, literally. Half the world looked like the alley behind an old Southside tavern after closing time. America had the atom bomb. Not only did they have it, they used it.
That meant America could have done what countries usually do when they get too much power. They could have stomped Germany and Japan into permanent mud holes and hung a KEEP OUT sign over the final operation.
History would have understood it too. Because that is what history expects from winners.
Instead, America did something so odd it almost sounds made up now. It rebuilt the countries it defeated.
Try explaining that to a Roman emperor sometime.
“Congratulations Caesar, after crushing Carthage, you will now help them rebuild factories and highways.”
The old boy probably would have fed you to lions for being drunk, but that is what happened. The United States pumped money into Europe. They helped rebuild Germany after the nazzies nearly destroyed it and they protected Japan from a thirsty Chikity China. America turned old enemies into trading partners.
Not because America suddenly became a saint, countries aren’t saints. Countries are more like precinct captains. They do favors because they expect something back in return.
America understood something after World War I that the rest of the world apparently missed. If you humiliate people long enough, eventually some maniac comes along promising revenge, and everybody starts marching again.
That is how you get another war. So, after World War II, America decided maybe it was smarter to build refrigerators in Germany than graveyards. Maybe prosperous people are easier to deal with than starving angry people.
Turns out that was good business too. Germany and Japan became an ally. American soldiers ended up protecting the same countries they had been shooting at a few years earlier.
Historically speaking, that’s nuts, but maybe that decision saved America from becoming another rotting empire held together only by fear and bullets.
Because fear works great for a while. So does a baseball bat, but eventually somebody bigger shows up with a bigger bat. The countries that last are usually the ones that figure out how to make other people want to stand next to them instead of hiding from them.
America wasn’t perfect then and sure as hell isn’t perfect now. Anybody telling you otherwise is either selling vacuum cleaners or running for office, but after World War II, America did one thing most powerful nations never do.
It won the war and then resisted acting like history’s usual thug. America has a chance to do the same act today.
A little Latin in the Grabber Section. It means Peace through Strength.
There might be the first bout with humidity and heat today. For you Chalkheads with Hip Hop Thighs, like me….
…. GoldBond those luscious lambchops and stay copacetic
