Journal #3 - Will the past ever leave us alone?

William Faulkner, a great American writer of the first half of the 20th Century wrote:
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

I got to thinking about this quote as we're coming up to our unit on World War II and all of the awful things that happened during that war. The death toll is staggering. An estimated 62 million people were killed, 37 million civilians and 25 millions soldiers. There were crimes against humanity - the Holocaust visited upon Europe's Jews and other outsiders; 7 million Chinese civilians killed not only by the Japanese but also in a bloody civil war; and Allied soldiers brutally kept in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps in Asia.

It has been over 60 years since this war ended, yet we still see reminders of this war in many places that we go.

1. The United Nations Security Council is based upon the winners of the war and hasn't changed to reflect the world as it is today;

2. Japan has little to no armed forces;

3. Germany still pays reparations to the survivors of the Holocaust;

4. A distrust between the Soviet Union and America during the war carried over into a 46 year Cold War which we will continue to pay for until many of us are old and gray;

5. The cloud of Japanese internment camps hangs over America as a gross violation of Japanese-Americans civil liberties;

6. And we all live under the specter of a nuclear blast because of the race for the atom bomb in the 1940s that America won in July 1945 when we detonated one successfully in Trinity, New Mexico. One of the biggest threats to world peace, if not the biggest threats, is the spread of nuclear weapons.

So, my questions for you, as we approach World War 2, are:

1. What should our approach to the war be? Do we look at it just as another American war which expanded our military, economic and political power across the globe? Or was there a greater purpose involved in fighting the war?

2. When do we let go of the legacy of the past? When is enough enough? Or are there some things that should never ever be forgotten? Specifics would be great for this answer
(150 word minimum, please).

Article on Japan's apology for its WW2 legacy - http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-08/2005-08-15-voa6.cfm

Casualties stats - http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

Movie Review extra credit

You can do a movie review of a movie made about the Great Depression: Seabiscuit or Cinderella Man.

You will be responsible for giving me the following:

1. A minimum one-page summary of the movie's plot/story including a description of the main characters.

2. Minimum 1/2 page summary of the historical elements in the movie - what historical events, people, or moments in time does this movie portray? Are these characters real, fictional? Describe the clothes, transportation, technology (yes, they do have their own version of technology - it's just Outdoor Plumbing 1.0), historical attitudes and beliefs, etc. Provide at least four specific examples with explanation.

3. Minimum 1/2 page on how this movie has expanded your historical awareness of the topic we have already studied. Make sure you describe in this section how the movie connects with an era that we have studied with specific examples from the movie.

4. Keep It or Ditch It - This is where you rate the movie on a true teenager's interest scale. After watching this movie, would this movie might have been something you would have picked out on your own to watch? Why or why not? For a school-related history movie, on a scale of one to five (one being "Good God, don't ever show that again!" to five being "I'm getting on Amazon to buy the DVD"), give a rating for the movie with an explanation.The assignment is worth a maximum of 10 points.

For my U.S. History classes, submit your review to www.mydropbox.com , use 62629 as the login and wickersham as the password.

** The password is lower case.