I think Paul's speech towards the end about "dying for your country" and how stupid it is should be shown in every single school in this country. I'd like to show it to our president and to every single military idiot I've met. The irony is that if I did this I'd be called "unpatriotic" and "a coward," just like Paul is in the film.
The REAL irony is while most Westerners were lapping up this book & movie, MOST Germans were reading Ernst Junger's 'Storm of Steel' or even 'Mein Kampf'...no mooning or whining in that book..nosiree....
NM
I seem to remember an event called "WW2" after WW1...clearly 'All Quiet' didn't quite have the same effect....a large number of Germans didn't spend time being traumatized about how they 'wasted their lives' in the war;
Oh and RE: the current dustup: The bad guys have said on more than one occasion they pray that THEIR children can join the fight & become martyrs....that's quite different from all the hand-wringing that goes on in the West as they worry about 'their boys & girls';
NM
Aside from Junger, etc., Germany suffered hugely under the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Couple that with a long-standing, respected intellectual tradition of abjuring parliamentary democracy and exalting a Great Man Hero, you have a witch's brew. Recall that even the German Jewish War Veterans asked to be included in the new Wehrmacht [they were rejected, of course, but over 200,000 men of part-Jewish ancestry served in WW2, each and every one having his "request" personally approved by Hitler!].
share@ CalvinValjean Very well said. Couldn't have agreed more except it applies to whole world not only US. Although US is big bad bully starting needless war the victimization of soldiers and common people under glorified themes is very common to the whole world.
shareCould not agree with you more.
Patriotism is the world's oldest con game, it's Three Card Monte played on a global scale. If only we honored teachers, social workers, and nurses with a tenth of the fervor that we slaver on men-with-guns, then this world would be a paradise.
It is six years since the O.P. posted his comments and now we can look back at the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and ask, "Were they worth it?"
shareto answer your question, emphatically no, great original post and discussion, just saw the movie and it truly moved me
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