This will be my blog post for the week, I guess.

I'll be out of town this week, so just in case I figured I would write this for class. I haven't been getting a ton of page views, so I don't think anybody will read this. You never know, I guess.

  
I don't know what the prompt this week is supposed to be, but I have a lot of stuff to get off my chest. I'm not sure how I will process a lot of those things yet, so I'll start with the basic stuff. I've been reading a lot lately. I just finished the book "Mother night" by Kurt Vonnegut. It was great. It made me sad, but laugh really hard too. It's a good philosophy book, I suppose. It made me look at public perception differently.

 Without giving too much away, the main character, Howard Campbell, was an undercover Nazi during WWII, and relayed messages to the American soldiers via radio broadcast. After the war, he returned to New York and lived quietly until he was caught by a group that brought ex-Nazi's out of hiding.  [Spoilers ahead]

 Howard lives a life of utter confusion. The only people who love him he has disdain for, and the people who hate him, he can't really fight back against. His life is being beloved by those he hates, and hated by those he understood. Howard doesn't really seem to care, since he lost his wife in Germany, but the problem is that he may be guilty despite his double-agency. 

  The question arises, what would he have done if America had lost? Would he continue his life as a nazi, or would he fight back until he died? The fact is, Howard would've stayed a nazi. He is not even a secret hero. He is subconsciously a coward, who find a way to play for both sides.  In the end, he hangs himself. I guess he knew.

  I don't see myself as weak, but I have a hard time publishing my opinions in front of people I don't know very well. Apart of this is just courtesy, I don't want to just fight people. But there are some instances where I realize that when it comes to just going with the flow or standing for my beliefs, I usually choose the former, and regret it about an hour later.

 For example, in my trip to Germany last summer, I encountered some Neo-Nazis. No joke. There was no swastika, but that's only because it's illegal in Germany. They did the goose step, they had the chants, and they had the blanket on the steps of the train station. I was 15 and scrawny, there was no way I could take them. I just went on my way. 

  I guess I can justify this all I want. If it were a large party trying to take over my country, surely I would rebel in a more strategic way. I couldn't do anything because they would've destroyed me. It's not my country, I have no say in the matter. The list goes on.

 But the fact is, in the face of evil, I looked in the other direction and walked away.

I don't plan these things out ahead of time, so that last sentence kind of gave me a lot to think about. Thanks for reading, or whatever.