Roots of Evil

Oh God, I enjoy watching the History Channel. I have often nicknamed it the "Hitler Channel" because it's all World War II, all the time. The History Channel's main audience are post-war Baby Boomer males who are infatuated with the blood hungry period immediately prior to their births. Not being heroes themselves, they enjoy the heroic feats of their fathers and hope that by watching the Hitler Channel they can somehow become more heroic.

Anyway, last night's installment was called "Roots of Evil: Hitler & Stalin." I was quite pleased to see the two mustachioed villains portrayed side by side, with our beloved American love of analysis thrown in for good measure. Some interesting tidbits? Hitler was still painting water colors while he was commanding his wehrmact. He consumed an daily cocktail of amphetamines to keep him going, and then took barbituates to sleep. They even had film of Hitler's shaky hand (due to amphetamines usage). He also had his hometown shelled - including the church, lest anyone discover that his father may have been the illegitimate son of a Jew! In fact, given the choice between allocating resources to win Stalingrad or kill more Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals - Hitler chose the latter. They also said the drugs affected is judgement and that his diaries reveal that he may have had early stage Parkinson's disease.

Stalin's portrayal was more about the extent to which he erased his political enemies. Sure the mass deportations and executions were discussed, but the show enjoyed showing photos that had been doctored to "erase" the existence of political opponents. These people, it was said, died two deaths - the first being real deaths, the second being a historical death - being eliminated from public memory. There is a special focus on how the man of Steel tracked down Trotsky - who was living it up eating fried bananas in Mexico - so that he could be ice-picked to death. Though Trotsky was a communist expansionist ideologue, he has gone down in Western memory as a curly-haired intellectual - much prefered to the hitman Stalin. Apparently, old Josef was also planning another deportation when he died in 1953. Tough luck!

All of this comes to a head today, where, the Estonian parliament rejected a proposal by Res Publica and Isamaaliit to honor the Estonians who fought with the SS to keep the Soviets out of Estonia in 1944, and those who continued fighting into the 1950s.

From Interfax:

TALLINN. March 30 (Interfax) - The Estonian Cabinet on Thursday rejected an opposition proposal to designate Estonians who fought for the Nazis, together with members of the Forest Brotherhood, as "fighters for the liberation of Estonia."

The Cabinet agreed with the opinion of the Justice Ministry that the adoption of the resolution in its present form "is highly likely to provoke enmity between people who fought on different sides."

The people who fought on different sides are mostly octogenarians today. And since they spent their formative years trying to kill one another, I have a feeling enmity - hatred, ill will, hostility - already exists between the two and has for quite some time.

What I would like to see Estonia do is solve all of its problems on television. This is the American in me talking, but I think a genius television show that featured two neighbors - one an old Estonian man who fought for the 20th SS, and the other an old Russian man that retook Narva - living next to each other in post-1991 Estonia would be great.

The running gaglines on the show would be that both are drunks, neither knows what they are talking about, they both are living in abject poverty while young, well-off politicians argue about their deeds, and they consistently get into the kind of stupid fights only old grumpy neighbors could get into. Of course, the show is bilingual - the neighbors yell at each other in different languages but understand most of what the other is saying.

In this mix is the younger generation of yuppie Estonians, who are, of course, all divorced with children from different relationships. There would also be some teenage characters who are obsessed with www.rate.ee and mobile phones and clothing - you know, typical Estonian (and by Estonian I mean all people who live there regardless of where their parents are from) kids. The adult generation - my generation in the show - would be ridiculed by playing with ridiculous attempts to remain trendy - stupid hairstyles, leather pants, etc.

Anyway, that's my TV show idea of the day. And no, I wouldn't call it "Roots of Evil." I would call it "Oma ja Hea" - (Ours and Good). Any ideas for plots, characters?