Tiger Beatdown: Remembering the dead: what have we learned 67 years after the end of WWII?

I wrote about current affairs in Europe in view of this week’s commemoration of the end of WWII. From the post intro:

This week, Europe commemorates the end of World War II, the event that marks a breaking point in contemporary history, the event that faced us with this reminder of humanity’s capability for evil. I don’t need to re-visit the significance of this war or the importance of the event as others have done it (and continue to) much better than I ever would. Instead, I’ve been thinking a lot about the legacy of this war, the Holocaust and how we have moved forward after the concerted and life long efforts of so many activists to never repeat anything remotely similar again.

While thinking about this loss of life and the ensuing continuum that leads us to today, May 1st 2012 (coincidentally or not, International Workers Day), I end up with a few snapshots, a few seemingly disconnected events that offer a landscape, a view from the margins if you will, which is, after all, the only view I am ever capable of.

Spoilers alert: we don’t seem to have learned much (or at all). As a matter of fact, Europe seems to be repeating some dangerous patterns.