Of course not, because then you would be hindering their sobriety! And Bill W knows, nothing is more important than their sobriety! AA allows selfish people to keep being selfish. There are exceptions of course, but many of them are prime examples of "piece of shit at the center of the universe" syndrome.

I completely agree with you. I think there are some people who have a physiological reaction to alcohol, and those folks really do have an issue that is somewhat disease-like. For those people, like Bill W himself, AA probably great for them. But for most? You're right, they drink/use to deal with pain. Deal with the…

True, but they're few and far between. And it's nearly impossible to find a rehab facility that's not entrenched in 12-step. I live in a major city and its been very hard to get any real non-12-step help.

It makes me so sad because I hate to think of all the people who have nowhere to turn because AA doesn't help them.

Yeah, 12-step programs have totally derailed the conversation regarding addiction treatment. I'm pretty sure they'll be seen as the "apply two leaches and call me in the morning" approach to addiction in another hundred years. I'm glad people are finally studying it with, ya know, actual scientific methods.

Completely agree.

My point was that the reason it became an international issue is because Westerners didn't look at it through a wider lense. It got picked up because 'Ah Hitler' + the assumption that it was an extremely controversial act as opposed to kids doing crap research and just using Google Image Search without looking any…

I'm not saying they didn't screw up. Truly, I'm not. It's shitty that they did it but I'm not outraged or offended because of the context. If a bunch of Ukranian Freshman had done this I would be appalled. I just don't think this indicates any malice or anti-Semitism. Just plain old shoddy scholarship.

I totally agree that they would know all about the Pacific Theater, I just don't think they would know much about Hitler. It's called a world war, but it was really two different wars happening at the same time. Japan and Germany agreed to leave eachother alone, that was the extent of their alliance. The European…

Fair enough. This conversation has become so much larger than what I first thought about. I don't understand why we let Germans govern themselves after the Third Reich, so I'm certainly not going to fight this battle. I figured that a group of kids deserved the benefit of the doubt. That was it.

I know I totally asked for it, but it messes with my head that I'm defending kids for being dumb over Hitler when I'm someone who rips the Denial crowd to shreds at every opportunity. I really wish they'd researched more.

You were right, I always try to be nice or at the very least constructive. So with that in mind I ask you to read the Jezebel post again. It states that the students who gave the salute were mimicking the banner and the students who made it were freshmen sending off the seniors.

And if that was what they did I would agree with you. They made a banner. Do I wish they'd researched more? Absolutely. But it's the ignorance they display that makes me inclined to not judge. I dedicated four years of my academic career to studying Europe in the WWII period, I promise I don't take this lightly. I…

Well, he wasn't elected, but apart from that I agree with you. But that's a lot of nuance for most folks and it would make current international relationships ... tricky.

What I was trying to say is that I don't know their history so why get mad they don't know mine. That was all. I don't think they're better or worse, it's just reality that folks learn their own history and then stop if they aren't history nerds. Heck, I'm a huge history nerd, but I know zip about Thailand's history…

I really adore the history stories. Thank you!

Except that the Pacific Theater was really quite separate. Japan and Germany really just agreed to leave each other alone, they didn't organize troops together or anything like that. It was really more like two different wars happening at the same time.

Personally I think it's because the Holocaust is a shorthand for the madness that gripped Germany. It really shows the depravity of that regime. And, honestly, without it I'm pretty sure that the universal code for evil would be a crazy big caterpillar mustache and a comrade coat instead of jackboots and natty Hugo…

I believe that Thailand was occupied by Japan, so they really weren't impacted. Yes, WWII had many ripples, but the two theaters were so different and had many different factions. I'm not at all surprised that when Germany lost their damned mind Thailand was a bit too busy trying not to get munched by the Japanese war…

Well, in the age of Wikipedia, no. But I was never taught one shred of Thai history in school or university, so I'm not mad that Thai schools aren't teaching our history.