Claudio Arena
Mr. Roe
English 3cp
27 May, 2011
Holocaust: The Inaction of the Allies
In history there have been unfortunately many genocides, or killing of an entire population. One of the biggest genocides in history was the killing of European Jews by Nazis, the Holocaust. While studying the Holocaust, it may be normal to ask some questions which are not usually asked: How much about the Holocaust was known by the allies while it was happening? Was Anti-Semitism present in allied countries as well during World War II? Did the allies have the possibility of stopping the Holocaust? Was information about the Holocaust fairly reported by the allies’ media? If stopping the Holocaust was possible, was the cost of it worth it? The Allies extensively knew about the holocaust while it was happening and for different reasons took almost no direct action to stop it.
Before the end of World War II, different reports from concentration camps gave the Allies information about what was happening. Witold Pilecki, a Polish soldier during World War II, entered the concentration camp of Auschwitz in 1940 under the name of Tomasz Serafiński for a secrets-gathering operation. After escaping Auschwitz in 1943, Witold furnished the first intelligence report about the concentration camp, a long document known as the Witold`s report. In this document Witold extensively talks about the killing and its methods, saying that “in already finished gas chambers, first mass gassings of people were started” (229). He also says that “We were building the crematorium for ourselves” (30). This report was transmitted to the allies’ governments, as well as other reports about the concentration camps, like the Vrba-Wetzler report from two Auschwitz’s escapees. Mark Grimsle, a member of the Ohio State Department of History, says that “By the summer of 1944, escapees from Birkenau had supplied the Allies with detailed, accurate information about the facility. The crematoria and gas chambers could be readily identified in aerial photographs” and so “Both Churchill and Roosevelt were briefed on the industrialized killing under way at Birkenau”. Also, the “[New York] Times published 1,186 stories about the Jews of Europe” (Grimsle), even if, not much attention and some distortions was brought to these stories. For these reasons, in “December 17, 1942, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union issued a public statement” (Fischel) saying that “the German authorities . . . are now carrying out into effect Hitler’s often repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe” (qtd. in Fischel). It’s then self-evident that the governments had plenty and detailed records of what was happening in the concentration camps, and this knowledge was also public, thanks to public statements of allied countries. Information was also given about the different facilities of the concentration camps and their construction, especially in the Witold’s report, making planning for possible attack extremely simple. Lack of information about the concentration camps then cannot be the cause of the inaction by the allied countries and the US.
One of the main reasons why the allied forces didn’t take any direct action to stop the Holocaust isn’t merely a practical problem, but a problem lying in the social atmosphere in the allied countries and especially in the U.S. during World War II. Indeed, in these countries strong Anti-Semitism was diffused in the population, army and government as well. During the late 19th and early 20th century, “U.S. army officers tended to see themselves as the guardians of the ‘true’ America – white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant – against the tide of immigrants crowding the nation’s cities. They subscribed to the concept of Social Darwinism . . . [and] Students at the Army War College studied the pseudo-scientific writing . . . about the superiority of the Nordic (or Aryan) race” (Medoff, “Anti-Semitic Politics”). The Jews, historically persecuted almost everywhere, were a perfect target for this new generation of army officers. “US Army Major Charles E. Woodruff, whose Social Darwinist writing and lecture helped provide his military colleagues with a ‘scientific’ basis for racism, wrote that Jewish ‘parasitism and ethnic disease’ threatened to turn America into another ‘Poland.’ It was no wonder, Woodruff wrote, that other nations had always persecuted the Jews: ‘European nations have repeatedly undergone disinfection in this regard . . . It is not a persecution of Jew as Jew, but an extermination of an invading disease’” (Medoff, “Anti-Semitic Politic”). These thoughts, which were much diffused in the army, sometime also influenced the government. For example, in 1921 the US government established the quota system to contrast immigrants arrival. General George S. Patton “favor[ed] the Germans and detested Holocaust survivors” and Benderrsky said that to him, their appearance and habits were manifestations of their hereditary racial traits of mental, moral and physical inferiority and degeneracy. Patton characterized the Jew as being lower than animals (qtd. in Medoff, “Anti-Semitic Politics”). This shows how Anti-Semitism was spread everywhere, even in the U.S. and how many generals actually supported the Holocaust. The comprehension of this social atmosphere is fundamental in understanding the reasons for the inaction of the U.S. and the allied countries, which otherwise would seems meaningless if we don’t take in consideration practical problems for a possible action.
However, practical problems were not the cause for the inaction of the Allies either. Indeed ,as Grimsley says “The Auschwitz complex was well within range of the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force, based on Foggia, Italy” and also the “Allied bombers did bomb Auschwitz—five times” (Medoff, “New Evidences”). As Medoff says “On August 20, 1944, a fleet of U.S. bombers dropped more than one thousand bombs on the factory areas of Auschwitz, situated less than five miles from the gas chambers” (“New Evidence”). Many bombings near the concentration camp of Auschwitz took place between 1944 and 1945, and B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers actually bombed the German synthetic oil factories at Auschwitz and more than 2,800 B-17s and B-24s struck oil factories at Auschwitz and several other locations within 45 miles of Auschwitz concentration camp (Medoff, “New Evidence”). So bombing of Auschwitz concentration camps, as well as others, was indeed possible and not very difficult. “The real question is not whether Auschwitz could or should have been bombed, but rather why the Allies, despite knowledge of the Holocaust, made only perfunctory attempts to stop it” (Grimsley).
Another important factor in understanding allies’ response to the Holocaust is to understand how information was passed from the camps. Although information like the Witold’s report were available, lots of comments and interpretations of them have been done. Maybe due to the anti-Semitic clime in the allies, people often underestimated the reports, or said the news was exaggerated or propaganda. Even in the New York Times, “editors buried stories about Nazi outrages against Jews in the middle sections of their newspapers” and the events of the Holocaust “made Times front page only 26 times, but in only six of those stories were Jews identified on the front page as primary victims” (Fischel). Also, many magazines refused articles about the holocaust saying “get a less Jewish story” (qtd. in Medoff, “Anti-Semitic Politics”), and normally tried to omit the fact that the Jews were the main target of the Holocaust. When they talked about it, Times referred to the victims as refugees or persecuted minorities. The Time’s publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, said that articles focused too much on Jews would be suspicious to American Citizens. Sulzberger says they would create fears that American Jews had dual loyalties and would cause protest against the excessive attention for the Jews (Fischel). Miscommunications didn’t happen just in the medias, as “Military attaches at the American embassy in Berlin reported back to Washington that foreign media reports about the mistreatment of Jews were exaggerated” (Medoff, “Anti-Semitic Politics”). Also “in 1944, the War Refugee Jewish Board . . . was reprimanded by the director of the Office of War Information for giving the press details about the death camps. OWI claimed the information was unconfirmed and might be the result of a conspiracy by the Germans to embarrass the Allies” (Medoff, “Anti-Semitic Politics”). Also, studies were presented to the president about the impossibility of a bombing on Auschwitz concentration camp that has never been compiled (qtd. in Medoff, “New Evidence”).
One last thing we need to consider is if stopping the Holocaust would have been worth the price to pay. People argued that a bombing on Auschwitz might have been a diversion on the war intent, but the allies already diverted other actions like a bombing on Kyoto in order to save the city’s artistic treasures, a bombing on Rothenburg to save his Medieval architecture, and in April 1945 General George Patton diverted U.S. troops to rescue 150 prized Lipizzarner horses (Medoff, “New evidence”). Senator Robert Wagner said that “if horses were being slaughter as are the Jews of Poland, there would by now be a loud demand for organized action against such cruelty to animals” (qtd. in Medoff, “new evidence”). It’s then argued that even if camps were destroyed, “The Nazi could simply revert to earlier methods of slaughtering the Jews” (Grimsley). However, concentration camps were highly efficient and complicated structures, and the rate of deaths with earlier methods would have been incredibly lower. This is confirmed by the death toll, which is accepted to be of 960,000 Jews (Piper 68-72), of which a big percentage (70% - 80%) were caused by gas chambers, as many studies reveal. The argument that the attack would not have had any important effect is also false, since it would have been a strong symbolic attack, and the Allies had made symbolic attacks on other occasions. FDR ordered the April 1942 attack on Tokyo primarily to raise the American public morale. Churchill ordered air drops in support of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, an expensive diversion of effort that have scant assistance to the embattled Polish Home Army (Grimsley). “Even if bombing Birkenau had failed to slow the progress of the Final Solution, it would have sent a powerful message to the inmate of Auschwitz” (Grimsley).
In conclusion, the real reasons for the inaction of the allies are simple. Saving the Jews didn’t contribute much to the war effort, and so the Allied and the U.S. in particular didn’t care much for what was happening. Also, some generals feared a protest from the public opinion if actions would have been taken to help Jews, and some other allies generals were even in favor of the Holocaust itself. Allies had basically no interest in helping the Jews, or even supported the Holocaust, so it is no surprise that no action was ever taken to stop it.

Works Cited
Fischel, Jack. "Sins of omission: how the New York Times didn't report the Holocaust." The
Weekly Standard 11 Apr. 2005: 38+. General Reference Center Gold. Web. 21 Apr. 2011.
Grimsley, Mark. "... The allies had bombed Auschwitz?" World War II Jan.-Feb. 2010: 83+
General Reference Center Gold. Web. 21 Apr. 2011.
Medoff, Rafael. “New Evidence Concerning the Allies and Auschwitz." American Jewish
History 89.1 (2001): 91. General Reference Center Gold. Web. 21 Apr. 2011.
---. "The 'Jewish Threat': Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army." Midstream 47.3 (2001): 41.
General Reference Center Gold. Web. 21 Apr. 2011.
Pilecky, Witold. “Report by Captain Witold Pilecky.” Translat. Jacek Kucharski. PDF file.
Piper, Franciszek. The Number of Victims in Gutman and Berenbaum, 1998. Print.


Reflective essay



The meeting that changed my mind






When I was young, I was a very immature boy, somewhat like a baby.
I took everything for fun, and I was never serious about anything. I never thought about my life, or my dreams, or what I really wanted to do. I were just living my days, without any reason.
After some months in high school in Italy, I joined a school program, called the EPMagazine. I joined it to make some friends and to try to change how awful my life was in middle school. I also joined because the teacher that runs the project, was in my class. Some better grades can go out of this I thought.
Little did I know that in the end, a decision that was made for the wrong reasons, gave me the best result I could ever have imagined.
A few months after I joined the magazine, I was at one of the Editorial Board meeting.
We were all seated when our teacher began to talk.
“Guys, in two months there will be a congress in Greece. You have to go there and present at least one lecture, and it has to be done in English”
We stared our teacher, with fear in our eyes.
We were just fifteen, without a worry in our heads and so immature…
I was hardly breathing. A cold chill went all over my body, and I could tell that everybody else was feeling the same emotions.
We were all still little boys, and so we didn’t pay so much attention at the paper we signed when we joined the magazine, but in that moment our minds went back to that piece of paper.
It told us that the magazine has some meetings, and that we had to participate.
And in that moment another thing went back to our minds: we had to be hosted by an host family, some complete strangers.
We didn’t ask any questions, and some minute after we go out of the room, somehow, as the meeting ended.
I took the bus home, and I didn’t realise I passed my stop, and the one after too.
The next months before the meeting we were all working on the lecture.
We didn’t know what to do, so we took a computer and start working on the power point.
We wrote on that many times, over and over, but we didn’t realise how to write something really good. Every time we wrote something, thought it was great, and then, reading that, realising it was a crap.
And then, we started following our teacher's advices. We wrote a check-list, organised the things to do, and just after work on the power point, but we wrote the check-list in Italian.
“Why are you doing this?” our teacher asked us.
“Because is more simple!!”
“Listen to me, it is not. You will have problem when you have to talk in English” our teacher warned us.
We didn’t followed his advice, and continued to work.
Months went by, and our lecture grew. We continued to ask ourselves: if this will be good? And if it isn’t? What can I do? O god, what if I fail?”
The day before the departure, I didn’t sleep well. I first stayed in my bed, reviewing the lecture in my head, over and over. Then I fell asleep, but it was even worst.
I was dreaming of being there, on the stage, and I couldn’t remember the words to say. The public was laughing at me, making fun of me, and I couldn’t escape. The attention of everybody was on me.
The day after I had to wake up very early. Our plane departed at 6 in the morning, and we had to be at the airport two hours before.
We were all carrying our luggage somehow like zombies. Our minds were not there in that moment, even if it was a great moment.
We were leaving our city for the first time without our parents.
“Why did I choose this magazine? I wish I’d never done this.” I was saying inside me, but it was too late.
We arrived in Greece at night, and we met the host family right after. We were left in the hands of these strangers, and put in their houses.
That night, was probably my worst night ever.
Lying in that unknown bed, I was wondering about the lecture, that was the next day.
I thought about my house, and my comfortable bed.
Finally, I fell asleep. I’ve done that because I realised that I was there, there was no way to escape and it was not so bad at the end. “I can do it” for the first time I told to myself.
The day after I woke up, but I stayed in my bed, looking I was still sleeping, until my host sister woke me up. I tried to eat my breakfast, without really watching what I was eating.
We went to school, and I was wondering what I was going to do.
Finally, I don’t know how, I found myself in a room with a lot of people. I looked at them, and they were staring at me. My teacher presented me and pushed me on the stage.
I couldn’t breathe. I stammered for some minutes, hoping not to be there.
The eyes of lots of students and teachers were staring at me. I could feel how they waited for something, something from me.
I had troubles breathing, and my heart became an heavy drum in my chest.
Suddenly, I thought about what my teacher has keep telling me for the last months.
I hoped to had wrote the check-list in English, I hoped to had followed the advices.
Then, I started to follow them: All that I’ve studied for the speech went off, and I became to speech, trying to remember all the things I had learnt for the preparation of that speech.
My words were coming out like a little river now, even if the fear was still there.
It seemed to me that those eyes that first were so scaring, now were looking encouraging me.
At the end I ran away from the stage, sat on a chair, and finally take a sigh. My body relaxed, as I realised that I made it.
When at the end of the week we left Greece, I knew that that experience was strong, but I didn’t realised how much.
The next year, we were doing another lecture, for another meeting. We were surprised of finding ourselves doing a check-list in English now, instead of Italian.
When I came back, for the first time I was serious talking about the experience.
I began to have moments in which I thought about my life, about my future and my dreams.
During the years that passed, I was always wondering why my schoolmates looked at me like a crazy person when I suggested them to join the magazine.
For me, that was the best advice.
“What? We’re not crazy. We are good here, we don’t need a crazy teacher to make our life interesting” the always tell me.
I just don’t understand how other people don’t look at this like a great experience to do.
It’s important to experience this kind of thing, because they make you more open-mind and ready to face even bigger experience.
Don’t run away from big things, saying they are impossible, but run up to them, and at the end you will be satisfied of what you’ve done.


Claudio Arena
The real California

When over a year ago I received a call from AFS, an organization for exchange students, I was sweeping and stutterer all of a sudden. I expected them to tell me where I would be placed for my exchange year, and I remember that in those days I kept the telephone in my hand all day long, putting it away, but still next to me, just to sleep. When that day the voice on the other side said the word California, I almost passed out and asked her to please repeat it. California seemed the most unlikely place for spending an exchange year, and I started to wonder if that was not one of the many dreams I already had about the call. In my mind, the name California evoked image of beaches, sun and surfers. It took months living there for my mind to replace those images with different, and far better for me, memories about the place where I was going to spend a whole year.

I arrived in the US in Los Angeles, a name that for me had the same effect of California. Films, movie stars and skyscrapers were in my mind, but after a night of sleep we went away without seeing any of that. We took the train to Fresno and Modesto, where we started driving to my final destination, Sonora. We were driving up the hill, and as the elevation increased hill and trees and cold weather soon replaced what the word California evoke in the minds of many. That was not what I expected at all: maybe that was what somebody going to Montana or Washington might have expected, but not someone going to California. Before I realized it, we were in my final destination, Sonora. It came through the hills unexpected, as if my mind was waiting for the hills to pass, and for something to call again California to appear after them, and not to find that my final destination was just there, into those hills.

The house where I was going to spend my year was up one of those hills, far away from downtown Sonora. Surrounded by trees and, as I would soon discover, located under one of the most clear sky I’ve ever seen, it was the perfect location for a film like little red riding hood or Show white and the seven dwarfs. Deer and squirrels looked at you to say hi and welcome you to that place, as if you were actually part of that forest, and they were your friends. Day after day my school bus drove me, and the green filled my eyes, and clear water passed under the street now and then. Everywhere there was water there. A little bit there, refreshing the ground it passed near to, and softly caressing the roots of some trees, making their tops watching all over the others, and a little bit here, passing on your hand changing the gentle flow. All that water arrived at the end to a lake that was near there, and you would wonder what it would all look nice if you could just go up in the air and look down. I can see in my head the blue spot of the lake surrounded by green hands holding it, as if to not drop the water in it, and then the little city near, as if living together with the rest.

This Garden of Eden surprised my mind, and California all of a sudden didn’t seem like the right word, and every time some of my friends asked me how was California, I felt the need to tell them how reality was different and to describe as if I was guilty of living someplace that was not California. I felt somebody would have told me I was a cheater if I would have told them we had snow. Actually, we had snow five times, and quite a bit. One evening, after clouds made the sunset came earlier, a white hand shake and then impolitely completely covered the green hand, making the panorama than finally was usual for me, became again unusual. The thin grass now was white, and new colors were added to the normal ones, until they finally substituted them with a pale and monotone shining white. Amusement was in my mind as the branches outside my window started to have a thin layer on their top part. That same scenario represented it again other times, and every time I felt the same amusement, the same delight and surprise in looking at the white hand coming to say hello once more.

What a wonderful place I’ve come to! Sun, beaches and surfers are too normal and boring; this forest can always surprise you with tricks and details you’ve never notice before. Even the place with the better stereotype in the world has a bad stereotype. It took months to understand how reality surpass them and dreams as well, and how at the end the tremble you have in front of Sonora’s green forest is better than the tremble you have in front of the Hollywood sign. It took me months to learn how to spell California correctly, but finally my memories can spell it vividly and correctly.

THE SUN RISING.
by John Donne


        BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
        Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
        Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
        Late school-boys and sour prentices,
    Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
    Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

        Thy beams so reverend, and strong
        Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
        If her eyes have not blinded thine,
        Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
    Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
    Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

        She's all states, and all princes I ;
        Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
        Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
        In that the world's contracted thus ;
    Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
    To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

Today a note about where stupidity can arrive...a stupidity that can be even dangerous. Here is an email that arrived to me:

In a press conference last week Obama was not wearing his wedding ring nor was he wearing his watch. When noticed, his staff said his ring was out for repairs. No reason was given for the missing watch.

*So it's just a coincidence that Muslims are forbidden from wearing jewelry during the month of Ramadan. *
*Can't possibly be that, because although he hasn't gone to a Christian church service since entering the White House, we know he's a committed Christian "cause he said so during the campaign!" ...........And I've got a bridge to nowhere to sell you also.*
*This is the same president that spent the Christmas holidays in Hawaii to avoid religious obligations as PRESIDENT at the White House. His children do not receive Christmas presents.*
*Let's just face the facts and quit trying to tell the truth, we have a Muslim for president in the White House, and he has no knowledge of American history.*
*Hey guys, we're not paying attention, Muslims will soon rule the world.*
*Put God first in your life... above all others.... Regardless of who they are!

PASS THIS ON TO BELIEVERS OF WHAT IS HAPPENING IN OUR COUNTRY AND TO THOSE
WHO ARE STILL IN DENIAL!!


By the way, no one thing is true. In the Ramadan you can bring jewelry, Ramadan is not in this period and Obama had his ring on. Not one thing is right, even the ones that can be without difficulties (as for the date). The problem is that this hate for others religion, is too scaring. Too similar to the crusade and to the hate for the Jews during WWII. I just hope people will remember history and be man. The Americans always talk about freedom and democracies, it would be a huge mistake to hate Muslims or anyone else the same time. Freedom is not just a word you can say when it's useful. Freedom means freedom of everyone to do whatever they want (in certain limits) and think whatever they think. And as far as a leader don't put religion into the state, I don't care about his religion. If he's a Christian and put his faith into politic, I would criticize him as much as I can, but otherwise it doesn't matter his personal belief. I wish more people would accept the others instead of think what the think is the absolute truth...

And by the way, Islam is a better religion that Christianity in my opinion.
And one of the best leader ever was from Turkey. Ataturk. And what was so nice about him was that the state was not influenced by religion.

P.s. Who wrote this letter thinks Muslim don't put god in the first place, or even worst, that their God is not the real one...how many arrogant people in the world...

This is a great poesy I love..It's a Greek poesy, but here I also have an English translation. Enjoy!

For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It's clear at once who has the Yes
ready within him; and by saying it,

he goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction.
He who refuses does not repent. Asked again,
he would still say no. Yet that no - the right no -
drags him down all his life.

Translated by Christos

Che fece .... il gran rifiuto

Σε μερικούς ανθρώπους έρχεται μια μέρα
που πρέπει το μεγάλο Ναι ή το μεγάλο το Όχι
να πούνε. Φανερώνεται αμέσως όποιος τόχει
έτοιμο μέσα του το Ναι, και λέγοντάς το πέρα

πηγαίνει στην τιμή και στην πεποίθησί του.
Ο αρνηθείς δεν μετανοιώνει. Aν ρωτιούνταν πάλι,
όχι θα ξαναέλεγε. Κι όμως τον καταβάλλει
εκείνο τ’ όχι — το σωστό — εις όλην την ζωή του.

(Από τα Ποιήματα 1897-1933, Ίκαρος 1984)

The Title "Che fece...Il gran rifiuto" come from Dante's Inferno and refers to a pope who refused his office because "scared".

Here you have a little bit of nice quotes about religion, or better Atheism:

"Religion provides the solace for the turmoil that it creates." (Byron Danelius)











''Prayer Won't Cure AIDS. Research Will.'' (American Foundation for AIDS research)

"No one is more dangerous of he who thinks his thoughts are God's thoughts" (Pino Caruso)

"If we had right men, we wouldn't need God."

"When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing there is) has these vices much more. The Church has been cruel; but the world has been much more cruel. The Church has plotted; but the world has plotted much more. The Church has been superstitious; but it has never been so superstitious as the world is when left to itself." (Chesterton)

"Religion was invented by man just as agriculture and the wheel were invented by man, and there is absolutely nothing in it to justify the belief that its inventors had the aid of higher powers, whether on this earth or elsewhere....There is no purpose here to shake the faithful, for I am completely free of the messianic itch..."  (Henry Louis Mencken).










"The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers." (Denis Diderot)












"What worries me about religion is that it teaches people to be satisfied with not understanding."  (Richard Dawkins)

"Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." (Ambrose Bierce)

"Science does not deny God; it does better; it renders Him useless." (Paul Lafargue)

"How many Christs which sacrificed people treat badly just to pray to a woody Christ. How many sacrifices forgot to remember one. If I could enter into a church I would scream: stop pray to that empty woody Christ. Start love each other" (Stefano Benni)

Today I want to talk a little bit about what I think is one of the more underrated quote.
I'm talking about Karl Marx and this quote:

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

The quote is usually reduced to "Religion is the opium of the people", and many people, to explain it, basically just say the meaning is "Religion is bad".
In this quote there is far more than that. Everybody can say religion is bad, and it would be just one of the thousand of voice saying that, against thousand saying the opposite. But Marx was a philosopher, and meant something else.
That quote is maybe the best analysis of religion from a social science aspect.

Religious suffering is real suffering, but to another dimension. You protest against the real suffering by going somewhere else. Marx calls the man an oppressed creature because the man is oppressed by the world!
For now, we are on the hands of "faith" (defined as the things that may happen), without any real power against nature. We are oppressed by what's going on in the world, we are oppressed by our sorrow, our pain, the bad things in our life. So we chose religion as our sight, to see what we what to see and not see what we don't want to.
Religion gives us a reason to live, an heart to a world that otherwise, would be meaningless, as it actually is. Man can not stand the greatness of a world without heart, without emotions and pain. We can not just be a random possibility of an heartless thing as the universe.

Religion gives people a refuge, a place to feel safe. Religion, as a drug, make people feel OK and don't care for what's the reality around them. Like an anaesthetic, it doesn't make them feel the pain. Which may be good sometimes, but hides from reality.
We need to have a soul, the earth can not be without soul. If we look at things as they really are, we will be shocked. We can't accept that.
So we have to find an alternative true, in which our fairy tails are real and in which everything has a reason. It's just human nature.

Humans need an opium as religion to live without killing themselves. Is the only way. Well, actually there is an other way. Realize truth and learn to accept it as it is.

From what I wrote it seems that such a thing that gives you hope is great. Everyone's happy with it, right? Right.

There is just one little thing. Accept religion is saying that mankind is still weak and childish. Is saying that we are not ready yet for reality, and we need an illusion or a fairy tail. Faith is good, but is like virginity.
Sooner or later, you have to loose it. You have to live and experience. Trying to keep faith for too much don't make you go anywhere.
Faith is like believing in Santa Claus too. It's good to believe in Santa, but when you're little. If you still believe in him when you're adult, there is a problem.
You don't want to accept reality and be an adult. You still want the world of the children, perfect.
An adult man that believe in Religion is like an adult man that believes in Santa Claus.

A perfect world would be great, but unfortunately, the world is far from being perfect.
So here it is: what will you choose?
The lie that make you feel good and stay in your perfect world, cutting out reality, or a firstly painful truth that with time will become the realization of being ready to accept the world, his good and bad things, a realization that you opened your eyes, you're out of the cave, and you can see the splendid sun of reality outside?


p.s. : the final reference is to the allegory of the cave of Plato.

In one of the film I like the most, with a lot on meanings on it, V for Vendetta, the protagonist, V, says: "Beneath this mask there is more than Flash. Beneath this mask there are Ideas, and Ideas are bullet-proof!"
For sure this is a thing that many times we repeat. You can kill a man, but his idea can walk on some others' legs, and go on. And even if a man can die and fail, an idea can not.
But is true? For sure words and Ideas are strong, and can't be killed by a bullet.
But be careful, they can be killed, as education, literature, culture, can be killed. Not with bullet, and not as easily, but they can.

If people don't remember Ideas, if they are not strong enough to pass them forward, they can be lost, and the sacrifice of many may be in vain. Every time someone don't remember what happened in the past, how people died for ideas, they die again. It's not easy, it's not simple, but we have to remember. If we really want ideas to be bullet-proof, we all have to make them so. Together, many are very strong. One can fail, his idea can die with him. But if all of us, not just one, remember them, the ideas will never die.

So please, remember, remember everything. Remember the Italian people that fought Mafia as a way of thinking and died, remember their revolution, remember people who did this worldwide. Remember those who fought for freedom and rights, remember how died in the war. Remember how fought against dictators, for their ideas. Don't make their sacrifice be in vain.
You don't have to fight and die, want I ask of you is little. Just remember. Inside yourself, with no big action. It will be enough for keep the idea alive.

An idea just need a warm heart in which to live and not be forgot.

The Egg

By: Andy Weir



You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time.

“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.

Be careful in saying "this happened in the past". It could be true, but when you say that, you're putting the facts away, leaving no thoughts to the fact that what happen in the past, may still be present in today's world.

The reference is to the Church power in the middle age, the awful things that happened in US in the 1850s and during both the red scares. It's a reference to suppression of individuals' and workers' liberties, which happened in the "more democratic" nation of the world. But it's not just history. It shapes today's world, and in a little part could still be there. It's up to you to see it and avoid it gets bigger. Just be aware

Dehumanisation is necessary, both in war or internal protests. How can you kill somebody like you, with giving him any defence, if not thinking he is not like you, he's a middle Easter terrorist and Islamic, wanting war and not democracy, someone awful, the worst person in the world, maybe even not a person.

No, you have no other choice. In the same way, if you don't say that the protesters are violent, drug addicted boy, extremist, people will look at them and see they are like them, with the same idea and just a little bit more courage. No, if you don't Dehumanise people will all became once, all united, and that's scaring for every government, not just north Africa but US, Italy, France, all Europe and all the world. If we can see how the low and middle class are all the same, that we all have the same ideas, we would fight for something higher that wars for oil.

Government are scared, and so they divide. Propaganda. All groups that have new ideas are dangerous. All of them are to be avoid, even without looking at them. We say they are crazy, and you have to think like this too.

Just think of the world Communism. It's strong, it sounds "bad", we don't even care about it. When we hear it, we all very careful about what's going on. We have do protect ourself. But really Communism in his principles is just the best way of govern. the problem is that people are not perfect, and there will always try to take advantages. Is not communism the danger, is the uman nature.

But that doesn't mean we can't take something positive and possible from Communism.

Be aware we are in 1984. Be aware of the power of the words, and be aware that changing them, or giving them different meanings from the real one, is very dangerous, and didn't happen just in Dictatorial Russia (dictatorial, not communist), but it's happening today, in our "great democracies".

Be always aware. When a word gives you a feeling of danger, try to compensate by regarding at it like a possible very positive thing.



Be aware of the power of dehumanisation. All mankind are the same, even if for some purposes thinking someone is not is the only way to achieve the goal.





P.S. Why does it sound so bad to say "suffering people and workers of all the world, unite!"? Most of us is not the really rich class, and so the idea of more wealth to middle class should sound great to the most and very bad to the few rich one. Are you sure in some idea you have, you are not saying "I wants the rich to became more rich and me to became more poor, because this is the nature"?

Seems like you should say the opposite...playing the game of your class. Interesting.

Life is like a Dan Brown's book: wonderful, full of action and events. It's wonderful to live, to read about it. But when you reach the end of it, you may think: what was the meaning? what was the reason?

And as in a Dan Brown's book, you realise that there is no meaning. Is it just a story without reason, meaningless.

But what happen if, while you are reading the book, you ask yourself what's the meaning? You may decide to stop reading the book, or accept it's just for fun.

It's the same with life. You realise that's meaningless. We were nothing, and we'll be nothing. Our mind will die, and everything will stop. No heaven, nothing. Just nothing.

Some then decide to stop a meaningless thing. It's fine. But to accept to end in nothing is scaring and stop us. And you are just turning away from the interesting fact of a meaningless life.

But to decide to continue is more difficult, and the most important choice. You accept to live just for fun, just to live a meaningless thing, even if it's nice to live it. And when you make this choice, then you start to think for the first time.

Is not true that we are not different. The minorities are different form the Majority. At the end, everybody is different. And this is an incredible bless if we remember that different doesn't mean worst or better, just different.
Don't say "they are like us, we are all the same, we are all brother". Just say: "They're are different l...uckily. But they are not better or worst, just different" :)

At the airport: "We are pride of you".
Yes, we are pride that our son went to that country of people that don't deserve to live, and don't make us have that gusher that they've stolen and put in their territory.

Oh yes, thank to gave us more military and political power over some country and people that would like some freedom, but found in the superior occidental countries not help for democracy, but war and help for avoid democracy. Because money... is stronger. And the excuse of bring democracy works dam good with the population. Oh yeah, everybody believe that we have the right to say that we know what's the solution, no one else. Thanks for kill so many people that just ask for something they never saw thanks to us, peace. We are pride of you

A thing that I like about USA is smoking. It's not just prohibited by law for young, but it's also morally prohibited. I saw a students be very rude to another students because there was a suspect that he smoked, and say bad things to him... With this environment, not so many people smoke, young and adult too. It's not a law that will take off from society bad things. It's the population response that take off bad things. The problem is that some things are not morally wrong for everybody, and so the church and moralists fight, and so in many place you can't have legal abortion or euthanasia. They should be legal, everybody should chose., and any case is different. Just society can judge if something is wrong in any case, and society, without any law, will make the thing really illegal. 

One who believes as I do, that free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism as much as to the Church of Rome. The hopes which inspire communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically and are as likely to do as much harm.
—Bertrand Russell, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, 1920, pg. 118


Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.


« The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell's teapot, religion is powerful, influential, tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools don't exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot. Teapot-believers don't stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates, teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don't warn their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don't kneecap those who put the tea in first. »

(Richard Dawkins )

My name is Claudio Arena. I'm a student, and I'm currently on an exchange year in California. I usually attend school in Italy though. I'll try to put on this blog my vision of the word, and my thoughts, hoping they will be useful to somebody. I'll try not to put details about my life, since probably nobody would care, except when they are related to thought and reflections. Hope you can enjoy it and comment. Any suggestion would be very helpful to me, and hopefully to anyone else. Thanks and good luck (to myself)!

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