> I do, however, admit to dreaming of a universe wherein it is possible to discuss the German role in World War II without receiving a deluge of links to highly predictable Bitchute documentaries from grumpy internet people
This is one of the funniest things I've ever encountered and I want to share it.
If you ever find yourself in a discussion with a Wehraboo (you know, one of those "maybe Germany was actually the good guys" guys), you can shut them down with this one simple comment (and a simple follow-up if needed). It goes like this:
"Hitler was a shit leader. He couldn't even win the war he started"
The smarter (relatively) ones will say something like "well, you try winning a war with the whole world against you", at which point you say
"Part of being a good leader is not taking risky gambles with the lives of millions of people. He should have had a plan to stop that from happening before he started the war, and he should not have started the war if he wasn't confident in that plan"
It absolutely drives them insane. Because they're so used to the extremely hyperbolized, moralistic anti-fascist rhetoric about how Hitler was a bad leader because he was _evil_, they don't know how to respond to you when you evaluate Hitler like he was just a regular leader, and highlight his very real failings. It's just hilarious. Fucks with their brains every time
You are 100% correct. Wars need funding, Dictators need funding and the Funders reap the rewards. Hitler, Marx, Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin were funded and created. The question is who funded them and what is the goal. If the same group funded these individuals to bring about conflict then Hegelian philosophy may be in play. You can easily find online the Book by Charles Higham -Trading with the enemy exposing the Wall Street backers
like Rockefeller , Ford, Dupont, Bush . The Eugenics movement USA started around1900 which is supported to this very day by the backers of the WHO the Rockefellers, was simply transplanted to Germany via substantial funding and via their investments into I G
Faben built Auschwitz to provide labour for their factory. The Books by Professor Anthony C Sutton. Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution expose the funding. His books expose the massive Wall Street funding of the USSR to initiate the Cold War . Importantly he later introduces us to the Secret Societies whose agenda is a NWO . The Yale Order of the Brotherhood of Death or Skull and Bones for globalist pirates. They are linked to the Illuminati . He has some old interviews on Youtube. He has a series of informative books some of which can simply be read online . John Kerry is a bones man operating on one of their key propaganda narratives the fear of CO2. He previously stood as a Democrat against G W Bush but they were both Bones men .They control the Political Left and Right. They have no loyalty to the USA just the Order and Satan. Agenda 2030 is their current Hegelian synthesis and they have their paid up politicians on the left and the right working in 100% harmony, just as they did during their Pandemic. Unfortunately the globalist hands are everywhere and into everything . Wars are just one of the many tools Globalist use to manipulate us and crucially they manage to avoid being held to account for their atrocities. In the 1850's
they were taking over the Education system , which also explains why thinking is not encouraged. Worth checking out in my opinion
I pretty much agree that that conspiracy is both real, and a major negative impact on my life and the lives of the people I care about.
But yeah. Let's take it at face value that Global Marxist Zionist Bankers actually do run the world and actually are trying to destroy us. Let's further take at face value, purely for the sake of argument (I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS, TO BE CLEAR) that Hitler was actually just a decent guy trying to save the rest of us.
It doesn't change the fact that he came at the king and missed, and his people paid a grave price for that. It doesn't matter if he had the moral high ground (he did not), that doesn't change the fact that he fuckin lost. That doesn't change the fact that he did not have a viable plan to take them on, and yet he did anyway, and the result was almost 10 million Germans dead, almost every major German city razed to the ground, and 100 years of de-facto GAE occupation/control of Germany.
Like, the Allied bombing campaign of Germany was a horrendous war crime, but at the end of the day, Germany started that war, and Germany didn't have a plan to stop such bombing campaigns, and so Germany / The Nazi Party bears the brunt of moral culpability for all those deaths, in a way that they would not have born it, if they shot down those planes instead
You are correct. Hitler's hubris and narcissism utterly overwhelmed and ruined any good intentions he may have had - if he had any at all. Had Hitler offered the French, Scandinavians, Slavs, and other Europeans a vision of a Pan-European Reich, things might have turned out differently. However, he was much too small-minded for that, and Germany paid the price.
To be clear, I do not think that Hitler had good intentions, _at all_.
First off, in general, I categorically believe that all politicians are evil, because the good ones get either murdered or corrupted by the evil ones before they ever amass any power. Hitler was categorically evil just by virtue of being a head of state.
Secondly, it's pretty clear from even the Nazis own documentation that he was a ruthless motherfucker who wrought untold suffering on the people of Germany. You don't need holocaust propaganda to come to that conclusion.
And then finally, I don't really believe that peoples' intentions matter. Like, the standard commie line is that the Holodomor was an unfortunate accident caused by policies with good intentions. As if "well we didn't _mean_ to murder ten million people" makes it ok? No it does not, in fact, it makes it worse just because you thought it made it ok!
I agree with you. I don't think that people's intentions matter, only the results. Ideology is always used as an excuse for these kinds of things, even seemingly moral ideologies. However, I think that labeling nations good or bad is a futile exercise that only perpetuates the problems. If the outcomes were bad, then we need to recognize this so we can learn from them and avoid them in the future. Politicians mostly seem to follow Voldemort's law: "There is no good or evil, only power, and those with the will to use it". They must have taught Nietzsche at Hogwarts.
I once engaged in a ... discussion of communism with someone inclined to the woke way of thinking. He dropped that "but they had good intentions" line on me, and I replied that if intent doesn't matter when it comes to accidentally hurting someone's feelings with a microaggression, it definitely doesn't matter when it results in mass famine and cannibalism.
You will be shocked to hear that I did not receive a response. 🤣
Both of you are wrong. Hitler had NO good intentions for anyone else other than Aryans. All were to be treated in the standard Socialist model: kill them all, and steal everything they owned. The goal of both Hitler and Marx was identical.
And to no surprise, all socialisms, National or Marxist, have degenerated into mass murder with no exceptions.
The Allied bombing campaign was fully justified. It was a necessary act to end the war as rapidly as possible. The longer that National Socialism remained in existence the more millions would perish because of it.
Hitler was not "just a decent guy" nor was Stalin, Mao, Lenin or Pol Pot. They were all mass murderers with their victims counted in the many millions.
I especially like it when those who agitate for war finally get their way. When hapless civilians are killed and maimed, their property bombed, and their country and future destroyed, the same people justify the death and misery with this excuse: "You have to remember, this is WAR!"
That's right. The same war they lied to get us into.
Germany had invented the concept of indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations by air. They started it in WW1. They practised it with the Condor Legion with the terror bombing of Guernica and a number of aother places in Spain. They continued it with the terror bombing in WW2. The deliberate murder of civilians was done to Warsaw, Rotterdam. It was attempted against London. The use of air power to murder civilians was done deliberately by Generaloberst Richtofen at Stalingrad.
And you want to complain when your own invention was inflicted back on you? Germans deserved what they got.
Another warsplainer. Please reread the comments. We made NO ASSERTION that Hitler was right. You'd think that after reading the article you'd at least TRY to understand it. Please stop moralizing for maybe 60 seconds.
I've noticed a lot that when I introduce hypotheticals and counterfactuals a lot of people don't understand what I'm saying, and think I'm supporting that position.
It really makes me think about that one 4chan greentext. https://www.reddit.com/gallery/s5drf0. "How would you have felt yesterday if you had not eaten breakfast or lunch". Almost 40% of the American population lacks the ability to understand this question.
The contrarian in me wants to double down and say "no that actually makes him a shit leader" but no I think there's a meaningful difference.
And that is, the fundamental job of a leader is to act in opposition to enemy leaders. A disease is not a person that you can reason with, predict, negotiate, coerce, invade, etc. Other leaders are.
If you as a leader are going to enact a plan that you know or can reasonably predict that other leaders will try to stop you from doing, your plan needs to be robust in the face of that opposition or else you're not a good leader.
Incidentally this same line of reasoning applies to Trump, almost verbatim
Me: "Trump was hilarious, and I loved how butthurt the liberals were, but realtalk, he was a shit leader he didn't get anything done"
Them: "Yeah well you try getting stuff done when the entire country sabotages you"
Me: "That's my point. We all saw from a mile away that they were going to do this. So he should have had a plan to stop it, and he didn't. Or he did but it didn't work. Either way, shit leader"
Nah. Trump accomplished a massive amount. We now see the Dems for who they are. It is not a one term fight; it is a twenty year war. He didn’t fail. He won. But the war isn’t over.
Alexander the Great did get sick and died. He was dead at the age of 33. In person, he was a paranoid, psychotic mass murderer who also happened to be an out of control alcoholic. And he was incestuous to boot, so he was a thoroughly vile person even by the standards of the day.
His method of conquering what is now Afghanistan was to exterminate the population. When his army mutinied in India, Alexander's response was to deliberately lead them on the retreat through one of the world's worst desert with no food and no water. Naturally they died in thousands.
Some leader. Their only reward for serving in Alexander's army was a premature miserable death by thirst or starvation or freezing to death in the Pamir Mountains. The world would have been a better place if this mostrosity had been strangled at birth.
I do that with Trump all the time - not sure if it works. (I don't feel I need to discredit Biden - he is doing that himself better than anyone else could).
People forget:
"Trump had four years. What did he achieve? Did he drain the swamp? The sawp played him to perfection during operation Wrap Speed."
"Trump was one of the few loser presidents that didn't manage to win a second term (despite all the advantages a sitting president had.) He lost against old man Biden. Why would you vote for such a loser again?"
......but, but he was cheated. The elctions was stolen.
"Says loser Trump. Besides, a smart, clever president would not have allowed that to happen...."
I don't think Bobby Kennedy is perfect - no man is, especially politicians. But how Trump or Biden can even be considered if you have the Kennedy option is beyond me.
but, but.....I might waste my vote....he won't win....
Who knows? Stranger things have happened. Besides, it doesn't make any sense to cast your vote for a bad candidate in order to not waste it. That's when you really waste your vote.
You can trust my judgment. I am unbiased. I live half around the world from the USA and I can't vote there and it ultimately doesn't matter much to me who wins, Just looking with the clarity of distance and shaking my head in disbelief that anyone even considers thinking of Biden or Trump.
It is absolutely everything people need to know as soon you see the jabs not as a medical procedure but as the symbol of totalitarian oppression.
All the other points of politcs - economy, foreign politics, border wall, abortion etc. are insignificant when compared if we are going to live in a totalitarean system controlled by an elite private-public partnership controlled by a handful of powerful bankers.
If you don't understand the true meaning of the Covid plandemic with its unwarranted deliberate totalitarian overreach (still unpunished), you will be in a world of hurt very soon. If the totalitarian victory is permanent, your concerns about the economy, border, abortion or whatever other political dechchairs you are moving around will vanish very rapidly. Totalitarism are no deckchairs. It is the Titanic and it will hit the iceberg and it will be horrible.
Do you know any of his other positions? Not that he will be allowed anywhere near but on every other issue he's basically a Berkeley social justice professor in a suit. Personally I think he is either capable of truly astonishing levels of cognitive dissonance or he's full of crap.
No, and I don't care to be honest. He is the only one talking about what is really going on......for example when he talked about Blackrock the other day.
The man is risking his life. If he gets anywhere near winning and they can't find a way to make him lose, he will be killed. I think this man totally identified with a hero status that is beyond his personal life. If anyone can turn this around, it is him. It is fascinating how extreme situations always bring out the worst and best in people.
Once again, you do not realize the gravity of the situation we are in. That you are concerned about something like "Berkeley social justice professor" shows that. All that is insignificant political jousting he has to do to get the votes of the many people on the left that don't get it. Strategically, those votes are easier to steal from the left than from the right as the Trump camp is deeply entrenched. And Biden is a much weaker target than Trump. That's all what he is doing....trying to win an election.
But the real issues are the approaching total rule of undemocratic globalalist forces with the help of never-seen-before surveillance and control techniques that will succeed. It is 3 min to 12. You eihter get it, or you don't.
If you don't get it now, you will get it soon. Or you go to the dark side and work with them and sell your soul for some breakcrumbs under the table. The truth is hard to stomach, I get that. It needs courage to look into the abyss. A good spiritual foundation helps you cope with it.
The issue being that I'm not sure Kennedy is even going to be on the ballot in enough states to have the potential to win. I think he's a better person than either of the other two but if he is mathematically incapable of winning, well, then that really is a wasted vote. If the only two possible options are Biden or Trump, I'm voting Trump. If it's actually possible for Kennedy to win, I'll probably go that route instead. Or really throw my vote away on the Libertarian again... 🤣
Oh I think you haven’t really engaged with intelligent people on this topic. Probably because intelligent people naturally shy away from appearing sympathetic to the Nazis. But since this is anonymous internet land, I’ll give it a whack!
The steelman argument is something like this: Hitler believed the coming world would be defined by a Darwinian, ideological clash between continental-scale powers (he was correct about that) and he wanted Germany to be one of them. To achieve sufficient scale and resource, Germany needed Poland and to deprive the Soviet Union of Ukraine (a strategic goal the Wilhelmine state had shared, incidentally).
If you accept his priors, not doing anything isn’t an option - it only condemns your civilization to slow death between grinding superpowers.
So how to get from Point A (a crushed, humiliated Germany in 1933) to Point B (a Germany-dominated Mitteleuropa)? Well you have to take some big risks! And that’s exactly what he did. With the resources arrayed against him, first domestically then internationally, he came pretty freakin’ close to pulling it off.
So was he a “shit” leader? Well, I don’t know. He was, as Clarendon said of Cromwell, “a great, bad man”. And that’s probably true of most world-historical figures.
(eugyppius please feel free to delete this if you believe it runs afoul the Federal Republic’s thoughtcrime laws)
Sounds like very basic arguments, for arguing with children or something.
Hitler indeed was a shit leader, especially shit war leader.
But that's irrelevant to whether Germany had a legitimate grievance from WWI, or whether the other side was also scum. Germany was left out of the colonial plundering, and wanted their own. They just went with typical German idiocy and clumsiness about it (like they still do). The British, the French, the Belgian, "good guys" enslaved half the planet, fucked over whole nations, and run "human zoos". Even when they left they still kept their local strongmen and influence there, and arranged the post-colonial-exit state and borders for massacre and bloodshed to divide and conquer.
They could not give a rat's arse about "freedom and democracy" themselves.
I agree with you. Wehraboos serve no purpose whatsover except for their endless atttempts to distort history and cloud any sensible understanding of what happened and why.
The worst part is that I think that there is useful information from 'their side' and I think there are some things for which it would be much much better if we could talk about them. But the typical (real) nazi you meet online is just stupid. It almost makes me wonder if it's like, agents-provocateur deployed to discredit that position even more.
But yep, you get idiots. Like, I'm pretty sure I've told this story before, but a long time ago, out of idle curiousity, I infiltrated an _actual_ nazi discord group. They had a vetting process. The vetting process, I shit you not, was to hop on vc with me and ask me if I knew what the holodomor was. This is the level that these people operate at: their process to stop _FBI infiltration_ is to ask if they know about something you can look up on wiki fucking pedia
The worst of the Wehraboos are those who got their lies accepted by the western world after the war. Of particular note are the memoirs of Erich Von Manstein, Franz Halder and Heinz Guderian. They created the myth that the murders of Nazi Germany were all to be blamed on Hitler, when they and the Wehrmacht itself were active and eager participants in the murder of millions.
It still amazes me that most people believe what they know about any topic - let alone the vast compexitites of WWII and Hitler - or any other topic - is based on any facts or so-called "truth". Haven't we learned anything from "Operation Covid"? It is all narratives, stupid. It is all postmodernism narritive construction:
"The people in power, the people that control the distribution of narratives, define and control the truth. This an extension of the old saying: The winners write the history books.
We know nothing of any truth or substance. We are just stupid silly parots repeating what they want us to repeat.
To realize that we know nothing and disregard our "opinion" as just that - an opinion of a nobody - signifying fucking nothing (to losely quote Shakespear) - is the first step of freedom to disenange from all propaganda.
Only when we admit that to ourselves can start to find real truth which is always within us and of spiritual nature. Everything else is a planne distraction to keep our minds and heart hynotized by their narratives. They literally stealing our energy that way. As soon we realzie that we can redirect this energy wasted on the outsided and find ourselves and everlasting truth and peace - totally independent of the foolsplay on the public stage.
I was a missionary for the Mormon church for a year and a half starting in Munich, 1982. During that period I rang somewhere between 60-85,000 doorbells, mostly in Bavaria, and experienced a warsplaining continuum. Being a student of history but young and seeking converts, I only asked questions and refrained from voicing or even fully forming my opinions. How I wish it had been my job to chronicle stories and perspectives. It was flat-out fascinating.
I met survivors of Stalingrad, the wounded, widows of those who didn't and never re-married, the atheist Archbishop in Bamberg, US Army officers, parents who didn't want Reagan's rockets in their country, former and regretful Nazis, avowed and proud Nazis, resisters, a few closet communists, refugees from the East, and one actual war criminal without a country. He was a Ukrainian volunteer for the GrossDeutshland, who had to go fight with the French Foreign Legion in Burma for ten years to get a new identity. He chose the name Ivan Snova and settled in Freiburg to sell used books with very mixed feelings. Over many objections, I baptized him into my church.
The difference was, an overwhelming cataclysm was still first-hand and fresh for the majority of people. There was gratitude for having fresh bread and good butter and a general consensus that it was a damned stupid thing to have gone through.
I served a mission in France in ‘72. The old people loved us, our fathers liberated them. The young people hated us, “Vietnam!” , not realizing we were in Vietnam only because DeGaulle wanted to keep his colonies. Of course, every Frenchman over the age of 40 said he was in La Résistance when in reality fewer than 2% of the population actively resisted.
If all the blokes who said they were on the balcony of the Iranian embassy during the SAS assault actually *were* there the bloody thing would've collapsed under the weight
Fresh? Well, everybody in their mid-40s on up remembered. It was not uncommon for buildings to still bear shrapnel and gunfire marks, even in the upscale suburb of Munich (Laim) where I was first assigned.
My landlord there was an affable, semi-retired Diplom Ingenieur named Kurt Mantler. His favorite pastime was gardening, usually early morning and nude except for sandals and gloves. He had been a colonel in the war commanding an 88mm Flak unit on the Eastern Front and in France. I would not have thought this, as he seemed 70 or so, but there were a couple pictures hanging on the wall of their kitchen nook, one of him in officer garb and one of an 88 with smiling crew, barrel at a low trajectory.
I asked Herr Mantler how many Russian tanks he'd blown up, but his wife "Bamps" (also a nude gardener, though somewhat bashful) interceded and said he didn't like to talk about it. From what I could tell he preferred not to talk, except about flowers. He smiled and mumbled something about us being nice boys, went back to sipping his coffee.
From Frau Mantler I later learned some details. He had been taken prisoner by the Soviets, if I recall in Silesia(?) and was held for quite a number of years. While there he worked on engineering projects, making bridges and power plants. By the time he got back she was too old to have children, so they had lived alone, devoted to each other in their big house raising beautiful flower gardens ever since.
I think one of the greatest downsides to the mass media age (Yes of course there are also upsides) is the emergence of what I call War as Entertainment. The best thing that people who are not directly fighting (or suffering the consequences of) a war somewhere in the world can do is to refrain from opinionising about it on the basis of ad hoc media-driven click-bait stories about the conflict. War is and has always been ugly and messy - rogue atrocities, mishaps etc. That they just didn't used to be televised is the big difference. [So as to head off the possibility of being misunderstood (wilfully or otherwise) the horrific October 7 massacre is NOT what I mean by a media-driven, click-bait story.]
The shift in public opinion due to Israel's genocide is entirely good and is largely a consequence of mass participation in the debate. Where there's no participation the prevailing propaganda narrative just goes unchallenged.
War guilt in large part was an invented concept of Woodrow Wilson and the attempt to pin responsibility for World War 1 on imperial Germany. It imposed a huge financial liability on Germany, which Germany never paid. And it created rage and justification in Germany, ensuring that the Great European War of the 20th century would be continued in another 20 years. They were essentially one war with a two-decade time-out in the middle.
As for Woodrow, this was what could be expected from one of the worst, moralizing Presidents of the United States. Woody's good intentions directly led to the horror of what would happen starting in 1939.
War, and all other foreign relations for that matter, should be addressed by Realpolitik, not moralizing. We should be thinking in terms of why it occured and what the outcome means rather than "I am right and you are evil". I am of the opinion most of the people who are in control of governments don't give a rat's ass about the morality of their conflicts. Moral justification is just something to get the the support of the masses.
Every king in WWI told his generals, “God is on our side!” And the generals told the colonels. The colonels told the captains, the captains told the privates, and the privates died.
Sure but if you want peace it's necessary to arrange things such that the Realpolitik doesn't incentivize aggressive war, and rooting out the cancerous arrangement that do the opposite is largely a cultural project that necessarily involve moral considerations.
It makes no difference. Moral considerations have been used for millennia to justify wars. At least with Realpolitik we can be a little more realistic and prevent the worst outcomes. It's greed and the desire for power that plans wars, but it's ideology that carries it out. A leader can't just say "I want more power over more land and people" and expect the citizens to go along with it. No, you need a "moral" reason.
I'm not clear what you're arguing for here. As you say the plebs tendency to apply moral precepts to questions of war and peace is a major break on aggression, so wouldn't replacing it with universal realpolitik be bad?
The application of moral precepts is also used as a justification for war, and more than cancels out any efforts at peace. Compare the numbers of people who use morality to justfy war vs those who use it to end war. Righteous Soldiers always outnumber Conciencious Objectors The problem with moral justifications is that promotes very little questioning of war as a human action. War has been around as long as there have been organized humans, so there must be underlying reasons and causes for it. That is what realpolitik is designed to do. I don't advocate replacing all moral application with realpolitik, but I think that realpolitik should be considered before moral precepts are applied.
Hitler was just another "cog" in the "well designed machinery" that led us to where we now are ... and it is running at an ever faster pace ... without any remorse or shame ... because "the end" justifies any means ...
No. Hitler was a monstrosity who shows what happens when Socialism reaches its logical conclusion. It's a future of mass murder of all those who disagree with Socialist government.
Read “The Politics of War,” a book by Walter Karp. It’s very hard to find, but worth the effort. He details Wilson’s efforts to drag America into the war, for his own glorification, without a care about the damage it would cause or the morality of intervention. Good intentions my foot.
I agree, but only to an extent. Wilson's military policy left the United States completely ill prepared for entry into WW1. This was in part because of his opposition to the interventionists under the Republicans and Teddy Roosevelt. Despite his moralizing about self determination, Wilson intervened militarily in a host of Central American nations. His Fourteen Points proposal to end the war was opposed strenuously by both the Allies and the Central Powers.
I agree with you about the vanity of his "good intentions" foreign policy. Wilson's breakup of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires simply ensured that the peace after 1918 would simply be a short truce. France's Ferdinand Foch remarked grimly about Versailles that, "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years". Everything that happened to the disadvantage of Europe and the Middle East was largely the result of the forced breakup of these two empires.
In short, every one of Wilson's policy efforts was an abject failure by his own intentions. The League of Nations was a disaster and failed completely to function to reduce European military aggression and colonial expansion. His repatriation of the US army after the war produced the worst racial violence ever seen in the United States in the rioting, murders and burning in Tulsa in 1922.
I agree with you about his vanity in this regard. Wilson wanted the European powers to come cap in hand to him and the United States to form the peace in Europe in 1916. It showed how little he understood that Germany was now a military dictatorship under Ludendorf, and that any pretence of civilian control of the Central Powers had vanished. And as long as Ludendorf was de facto dictator, Germany was going to fight to the last dead conscript. Naturally Wilson understood none of this.
Its remarkable, isn't it? Wilson is supposedly one of the most revered Presidents of the United States. Yet everything he did was an utter failure.
I think you miss my point. Wilson's reluctance to enter the war was a sham, a lie. His personal correspondence and other evidence show that he wanted the US in the war so that he could help broker the peace, as Theodore Roosevelt had done with the Russo-Japanese war. Like Roosevelt, he wanted a Nobel Peace Prize. That's how shallow and vicious he was.
Let’s not forget the income tax and the federal reserve. Oh, and racially segregated federal services. One of the more vile humans to inhabit the white house.
We can do that when the idea of getting goodies by aggressive war goes on the scrap heap, and it mostly has. Unfortunately there are a few hold-out countries (Israel in particular) that are still pretty much on a right-of-conquest system.
You're right, I did misrepresent it. I've even written elsewhere that there was a long middle period in which it was genuinely hoped that the horrors of the founding could be swept under the rug (as they are everywhere else) and a genuine peace established, and been annoyed at commentators who jump straight from the present to the Nakba. It's unfair to characterize Israel as taking a right-of-conquest position during it's middle period.
Ben-Gurion's "maximum land minimum Arabs" maxim grates unpleasantly on modern ears, but given the project it makes sense. Unfortunately after 67 his inferior successors fucked everything up, and here we are. I have educated intelligent friends who explicitly say "Israel won that land in a war" (wrt the occupied territories). Because what else can they say? It's an absolutely shitty anachronistic argument but it's the only one they've got. I fail to believe that their view isn't representative.
It's time to recognize that both a. the dream of a normal liberal Israel was real and b. that dream is now dead as a door nail
There are a number of distortions in your response. David Ben-Gurion has been dead for about 50 years. His comment on "maximum land" was overturned in Yom Kippur 1973. It was rejected again when Israel returned all of the Sinai to Egypt in 1979 in the Camp David Accords. It was rejected again when Yitzhak Rabin agreed to the formation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank.
"his inferior successors fucked everything up" Wrong. Rabin was NOT an inferior successor and attempted his best to fix things. But the vanity revolt of Yasser Arafat in launching the Intifada put an end to that.
A host of countries have had a chance to come to terms with Israel and normalize relations. All of Israel's neighbors have done so, excepting only thei insane regime in Syria and Lebanon dominated by Iran's mercenaries in the form of Hezbollah.
And the other nations coming to acceptable peace treaties include Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Only the Palestinians have refused to come to terms with Israel. And for their troubles they are now governed by the merciless terrorist organization and Iran proxy Hamas. Egypt shuns the Palestinians. Jordan fought a bloody civil war against them and has NEVER asked Israel for the return of the West Bank.
So, since after 80 years, the Palestinians are largely the authors of their own misfortunes, screw 'em. They are getting what they deserve. And by acting as purveyors and funders for armaments against Israel, so is UNWRA and the UN.
My husband was listening to some moving music and songs written about and during the Vietnam war yesterday and then decided to read some of the commentary. He got choked up by reading a woman saying her husband was severely damaged by the “agent orange” used, we already knew about the horrors of napalm, and then to read how the soldiers after enduring all of that were treated badly by their own countrymen when they returned home because of disapproval of that war in the first place… no wonder they felt suicidal.
Commenting while reading, idk if you address this immediately following
> Should you discuss a war anywhere in the world while failing to demonstrate the right allegiances, the warsplainers will come for you.
IDK which _specific_ warsplainers you're talking about, but if you mean eg people on social media, I am utterly convinced that _every single one of those_ is either a glowwie, or a bot run by glowwies. They're not real people
I saw a video of the extreme right wing domestic terrorist group ‘The Patriot Front’. It was absurd. They were so obviously FBI. Ear buds, khakis, blue jackets. They were being filmed and one of them began talking to the filmer and you could not sound MORE like an officious cop if you tried. The only truthful thing is YES, they are a domestic terrorist group! Just not the one the media is portraying.
>Do not pick a side when looking at a war. Look instead for reasons why a state of war exists, all reasons within reason. Looking for causal processes leading to war is not picking a side, nor does it excuse or rationalise anything - unless you the student is the one doing it. Facts on their own do nothing, they just are.
The below may be in conflict with the above, but an intelligent person can consciously hold paradoxical or conflicting ideas in his mind at the same time, and can also switch positions when analysing in order to see how switching affects the conclusions drawn:
>How does the conflict affect you personally? Which side do you prefer? Which side is a threat to you? Why? Performing this mental exercise helps you stay honest vis a vis your own bias and tendency for picking sides. Remember also to try to understand any side in a conflict the way that side understands itself; doesn't mean you share their beliefs or opinions or anything, it just means you are honestly endeavouring to actually understand.
The two principles outlined above, if I may use such a lofty term as principles, combined is in my experience - professional as personal - pretty much the only way to avoid devolving into mindless "warsplaining" as you call it.
Doesn't mean I wouldn't or don't pick a side in a conflict, of course. What it does mean is, that if I am to pick a side, first thing is to determine if the conflict is of such a nature that my picking a side is even relevant in the first place. Take the eternal war between arabs and jews - I care not who is in wrong or right more than the other. I care about three things:
Which group constitutes the greater threat to me and my people?
How do the respective parties behave and what socio-cultural values are evidenced through their chosen actions?
Does the conflict actually involve me, or threaten to involve me and my people?
To a modern human it may seem calluous, but only an islander safe behind his mental and physical moat of oceans can afford himself the delusion of thinking himself above conflict.
Contradictory? Welcome to the world of studying conflicts.
I can simplify your tools dramatically. I'll even do it in flow chart form:
Are you currently directly affected by the war, (eg are you restricted from moving around your town? Are you at direct risk of physical harm? etc)
If yes: support whichever side is _not_ doing that.
If no, continue
Are you currently an active duty member of an armed force involved in the conflict?
If yes: support whichever side your commander tells you to
If no, continue
Are you currently a person in a position of significant power or social authority? Anything from a relevant world leader, down to a respected local community leader
If yes: support whichever side you think would best benefit you and your people, if and only if you have a meaningful ability to change the outcome
if no: then shut the fuck up, it's none of your goddamn business, and anything you say will be wrong and just contribute to making everything worse
Sure, except the last part. Studying the whys of conflicts, especially how they were resolved, is a crucial part of political science and history and economics (or it used to be at least). Just look at Sweden and Denmark:
So what do you call the wars of Italian and German unification in the 19th century? Or the Crimean war? Or the gigantic holocausts of WW1 and 2? A stable peace?
> Sure, except the last part. Studying the whys of conflicts, especially how they were resolved, is a crucial part of political science and history and economics (or it used to be at least).
My basic point is, unless you're a politician or historian or economist, those things are not relevant to one's daily life, and "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen."
There's nothing wrong with having a passion and interest and looking into these things for its own merit, but a) you're not doing anything good in the world, you're just having fun; and b) if you then start trying to advocate/influence people on that issue, you'll probably get it wrong and make things worse. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent
1. Israel and it's not close. They're the ultimate irresponsible client, and irresponsible clients are the likeliest route to Armageddon.
2. They're both utterly rotten albeit in different ways.
3. Indirectly it sure does, both because of the significant possibility of catastrophic escalation and also because the current genocide and the degree to which the public tolerates it sets an important limit (arguably the only important limit) on government behavior generally.
"Surely nothing could be more ridiculous than imagining ancient warsplainers distributing leaflets on the justice of the Roman cause in the Gothic wars."
Cato the Elder enters the chat: "Carthago delenda est."
well yes, the good Cato described how it was in the interests of Rome to destroy Carthage. the warsplaining I’m talking about is somewhat different - it would be premised in arguing how Rome was objectively justified in destroying Carthage, devoted to adducing prior Carthaginian warcrimes, explaining how destroying Carthage would further the general welfare of everyone in the world, including ‚liberated‘ Carthaginians, and so on.
Well, that is a somewhat more narrow sense of "warsplaining" than I got from your original essay -- and one highly tinted, it seems, by a certain universalizing Christian morality that was probably very foreign to Cato the Elder.
You might find interesting reading in the letters of Hernan Cortes. There is a wholesome measure of 16th century warsplaining there: he'll save Indian souls for the Catholic Church and stamp out the abomination of human sacrifice and just make the world a better place overall.
“On the other hand, I will admit that it is often a great pleasure to read warsplainers whose opinions I agree with. I come away from their elegant arguments confirmed in all of my prior beliefs, and so I begin to suspect that herein lies the real purpose of warsplaining. (Of course, if we are honest with ourselves, this is the case with almost all political commentary, and that is not even a bad thing.)”
---------------------
There is truly nothing more lovely in all the world of words than an elegant explainer who confirms one’s own opinions.
I enjoy the experience tremendous; so much so that I have parted with my tiny moiety of filthy lucre on occasion to ensure I get full access to those lovely confirmations.
> I’m merely noticing that there appears to be a great disconnect, between the urgency most warsplainers attach to your beliefs, and the actual significance of these beliefs for the political consequences of past wars or the prospects of present-day belligerents
This makes me think about an one of Moldbug's ideas, one that I think bears a lot of explanatory power: America's culture is a pathological mutation of Christianity that removed Jesus but kept most of the other parts.
In particular, the emphasis on your internal state is a pretty particularly Protestant Christian thing. For almost every other religion that has ever existed, they don't actually care what you think, they only care what you do. You talk to a buddhist (a _real_ one, in Asia) and ask them about their _beliefs_ and they'll just look at you confused. What do you mean _beliefs_? These are traditions and habits. _Behaviours_."
But Protestant Christianity, for whatever reason, cares a great deal about your _secret private internal beliefs_ in a way that most other structures of power never have.
Incidentally, the only other structure of power I can think of that ever cared about this was Communism, and isn't that interesting.
Joseph Stalin modeled the structure of the Soviet Communist Party structure after that of the Roman Catholic Church. He was seeking a model which would last for centuries, and in the RC Church he fould what he was looking for.
I think there is a pretty direct intellectual line from Christianity to Communism, but I did not expect it to go through Catholicism. Communism was much more of a protestant/anabaptist thing. But it's _definitely_ there
I mean, a lot of Jesus' shtick was basic bitch communism. Come on everyone, fight the power and let's share our food. He's even got communist hate mobbing and shunning involved:
Luke 14:25-26
"Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.
I didn't pick a good translation so the 'hate' comment requires a little explanation but basically, in context, his point is "if your family is getting in the way of you following me, you have to abandon them because God is more important".
Catholicism was about centralizing church control in the person of the Bishop of Rome. After the Crucifixion, the Christian Church was splintering into a host of different cults, some of them indistinguishable from Judaism and many of them borrowing sometimes heavily from existing religious cults in the Roman Empire such as Mithraism. These cults were frequently extremely violent in their "conversion" methods to the point where in some places such as Alexandria they constituted most of the high level of civil unrest.
The centralizing effect of what became the Roman Catholic Church was to put an end to all this internal fracturing by ensuring there was one supreme religious authority in the Church only - the Pope.
That's precisely why Stalin adopted the RC authority structure. There was one supreme authority only in communism. None of this absurd questing for leadership among the international Comintern community. The supreme authority in all Communism everywhere was the General Secretary of the Central Committee. Structurally, Stalin was no different than any RC Pope. Both were the supreme authority within their organizations.
For both, "it's about power," as Buffy the Vampire Slayer once famously stated.
Yes and no. There are natural leaders. They aren’t all psychopaths. Stephen Harper was a Canadian PM for 9 years. Ran the country well. He saw his role as being a good administrator, not an ideologue to foist his views on Canada. Personally he was a Christian, but also a Libertarian. He never once tried to convert Canada. Although the press wrote about him as if he were right out of Westboro Baptist. Paul Martin, a non ideological Liberal saved Canada. He was finance minister under Chretien. We were fully into debtmageddon and he broke that. He was a short lived minority leader PM. If he had had a majority he would have been fine. Neither Harper, a conservative, or Martin a Liberal saw the role as much more than running a large business well. There are okay leaders out there. But add in ‘I will lead my people to the promised land!’ and it goes downhill from there.
Surely, I can trust the Martians to be more transparent! Your use of “terra incognito” made me smile. Thank you for using English with a cogency that native speaking intellectuals (pseudo and otherwise) uniformly lack. I now find myself guilty of “warsplaining”, but have yet to decide if it’s a vice.
Excellent piece, well done. I would add 3 comments: 1. Often the warsplainer thinks his values, his ethical paradigm is superior to everything else and needs to be applied. So for example, democracy is good by definition and idealistically needs to be applied everywhere immediately, even in tribal societies. Africa and the Middle East are there to prove the fallacy of this approach. 2. They assume that taking down a bad guy means automatically getting a good guy. Exactly the contrary of a realistic approach…better a devil you know…3. They are scared of wars because wars often reset the right priorities in life. Of course we all want to live in peace but a long peaceful period is at odds with the human brain that normally focuses on relative value (today many people spend time in feeding stray cats, good, but during WWII there were apparently no cats in the Rome Colosseo).
With that settled, now let's tackle Islam.
And hold it under until the bubbles stop.
Gotta find another way.
It normally lives in very arid locals. Ha!
It's better to address the entire scope of Judeo-Christian-Islamic values.
Yes! Please do, that would be very interesting. I'm glad E is now turning more and more to matters other than Corona.
> I do, however, admit to dreaming of a universe wherein it is possible to discuss the German role in World War II without receiving a deluge of links to highly predictable Bitchute documentaries from grumpy internet people
This is one of the funniest things I've ever encountered and I want to share it.
If you ever find yourself in a discussion with a Wehraboo (you know, one of those "maybe Germany was actually the good guys" guys), you can shut them down with this one simple comment (and a simple follow-up if needed). It goes like this:
"Hitler was a shit leader. He couldn't even win the war he started"
The smarter (relatively) ones will say something like "well, you try winning a war with the whole world against you", at which point you say
"Part of being a good leader is not taking risky gambles with the lives of millions of people. He should have had a plan to stop that from happening before he started the war, and he should not have started the war if he wasn't confident in that plan"
It absolutely drives them insane. Because they're so used to the extremely hyperbolized, moralistic anti-fascist rhetoric about how Hitler was a bad leader because he was _evil_, they don't know how to respond to you when you evaluate Hitler like he was just a regular leader, and highlight his very real failings. It's just hilarious. Fucks with their brains every time
The Wehraboos I've encountered always seem to need the Global Marxist Zionist Bankers conspiracy to make their arguments work.
You are 100% correct. Wars need funding, Dictators need funding and the Funders reap the rewards. Hitler, Marx, Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin were funded and created. The question is who funded them and what is the goal. If the same group funded these individuals to bring about conflict then Hegelian philosophy may be in play. You can easily find online the Book by Charles Higham -Trading with the enemy exposing the Wall Street backers
like Rockefeller , Ford, Dupont, Bush . The Eugenics movement USA started around1900 which is supported to this very day by the backers of the WHO the Rockefellers, was simply transplanted to Germany via substantial funding and via their investments into I G
Faben built Auschwitz to provide labour for their factory. The Books by Professor Anthony C Sutton. Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution expose the funding. His books expose the massive Wall Street funding of the USSR to initiate the Cold War . Importantly he later introduces us to the Secret Societies whose agenda is a NWO . The Yale Order of the Brotherhood of Death or Skull and Bones for globalist pirates. They are linked to the Illuminati . He has some old interviews on Youtube. He has a series of informative books some of which can simply be read online . John Kerry is a bones man operating on one of their key propaganda narratives the fear of CO2. He previously stood as a Democrat against G W Bush but they were both Bones men .They control the Political Left and Right. They have no loyalty to the USA just the Order and Satan. Agenda 2030 is their current Hegelian synthesis and they have their paid up politicians on the left and the right working in 100% harmony, just as they did during their Pandemic. Unfortunately the globalist hands are everywhere and into everything . Wars are just one of the many tools Globalist use to manipulate us and crucially they manage to avoid being held to account for their atrocities. In the 1850's
they were taking over the Education system , which also explains why thinking is not encouraged. Worth checking out in my opinion
I pretty much agree that that conspiracy is both real, and a major negative impact on my life and the lives of the people I care about.
But yeah. Let's take it at face value that Global Marxist Zionist Bankers actually do run the world and actually are trying to destroy us. Let's further take at face value, purely for the sake of argument (I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS, TO BE CLEAR) that Hitler was actually just a decent guy trying to save the rest of us.
It doesn't change the fact that he came at the king and missed, and his people paid a grave price for that. It doesn't matter if he had the moral high ground (he did not), that doesn't change the fact that he fuckin lost. That doesn't change the fact that he did not have a viable plan to take them on, and yet he did anyway, and the result was almost 10 million Germans dead, almost every major German city razed to the ground, and 100 years of de-facto GAE occupation/control of Germany.
Like, the Allied bombing campaign of Germany was a horrendous war crime, but at the end of the day, Germany started that war, and Germany didn't have a plan to stop such bombing campaigns, and so Germany / The Nazi Party bears the brunt of moral culpability for all those deaths, in a way that they would not have born it, if they shot down those planes instead
You are correct. Hitler's hubris and narcissism utterly overwhelmed and ruined any good intentions he may have had - if he had any at all. Had Hitler offered the French, Scandinavians, Slavs, and other Europeans a vision of a Pan-European Reich, things might have turned out differently. However, he was much too small-minded for that, and Germany paid the price.
To be clear, I do not think that Hitler had good intentions, _at all_.
First off, in general, I categorically believe that all politicians are evil, because the good ones get either murdered or corrupted by the evil ones before they ever amass any power. Hitler was categorically evil just by virtue of being a head of state.
Secondly, it's pretty clear from even the Nazis own documentation that he was a ruthless motherfucker who wrought untold suffering on the people of Germany. You don't need holocaust propaganda to come to that conclusion.
And then finally, I don't really believe that peoples' intentions matter. Like, the standard commie line is that the Holodomor was an unfortunate accident caused by policies with good intentions. As if "well we didn't _mean_ to murder ten million people" makes it ok? No it does not, in fact, it makes it worse just because you thought it made it ok!
I agree with you. I don't think that people's intentions matter, only the results. Ideology is always used as an excuse for these kinds of things, even seemingly moral ideologies. However, I think that labeling nations good or bad is a futile exercise that only perpetuates the problems. If the outcomes were bad, then we need to recognize this so we can learn from them and avoid them in the future. Politicians mostly seem to follow Voldemort's law: "There is no good or evil, only power, and those with the will to use it". They must have taught Nietzsche at Hogwarts.
I once engaged in a ... discussion of communism with someone inclined to the woke way of thinking. He dropped that "but they had good intentions" line on me, and I replied that if intent doesn't matter when it comes to accidentally hurting someone's feelings with a microaggression, it definitely doesn't matter when it results in mass famine and cannibalism.
You will be shocked to hear that I did not receive a response. 🤣
I think intentions matter. What does not matter is "stated" intentions.
Almost every time terrible results arise from actions done with good intentions, those allegedly good intentions were fake.
Both of you are wrong. Hitler had NO good intentions for anyone else other than Aryans. All were to be treated in the standard Socialist model: kill them all, and steal everything they owned. The goal of both Hitler and Marx was identical.
And to no surprise, all socialisms, National or Marxist, have degenerated into mass murder with no exceptions.
The Allied bombing campaign was fully justified. It was a necessary act to end the war as rapidly as possible. The longer that National Socialism remained in existence the more millions would perish because of it.
Hitler was not "just a decent guy" nor was Stalin, Mao, Lenin or Pol Pot. They were all mass murderers with their victims counted in the many millions.
"The Allied bombing campaign was fully justified. It was a necessary act to end the war as rapidly as possible."
You can justify any and every war crime using this logic.
And every escalation as well.
I especially like it when those who agitate for war finally get their way. When hapless civilians are killed and maimed, their property bombed, and their country and future destroyed, the same people justify the death and misery with this excuse: "You have to remember, this is WAR!"
That's right. The same war they lied to get us into.
That's your opinion that it was a warcrime and nothing more than that. You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts.
I'm not sure what you think I was saying but I agree with your position here.
Well, except the bombing campaign. My family came from Dresden. You can take your atrocities and shove em up your ass
Germany had invented the concept of indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations by air. They started it in WW1. They practised it with the Condor Legion with the terror bombing of Guernica and a number of aother places in Spain. They continued it with the terror bombing in WW2. The deliberate murder of civilians was done to Warsaw, Rotterdam. It was attempted against London. The use of air power to murder civilians was done deliberately by Generaloberst Richtofen at Stalingrad.
And you want to complain when your own invention was inflicted back on you? Germans deserved what they got.
Dresden's been rebuilt to perfection, so I don't see the issue.
Another warsplainer. Please reread the comments. We made NO ASSERTION that Hitler was right. You'd think that after reading the article you'd at least TRY to understand it. Please stop moralizing for maybe 60 seconds.
I've noticed a lot that when I introduce hypotheticals and counterfactuals a lot of people don't understand what I'm saying, and think I'm supporting that position.
It really makes me think about that one 4chan greentext. https://www.reddit.com/gallery/s5drf0. "How would you have felt yesterday if you had not eaten breakfast or lunch". Almost 40% of the American population lacks the ability to understand this question.
It is like saying Alexander the Great was a shit leader. A good leader wouldn`t have gotten sick and died.
The contrarian in me wants to double down and say "no that actually makes him a shit leader" but no I think there's a meaningful difference.
And that is, the fundamental job of a leader is to act in opposition to enemy leaders. A disease is not a person that you can reason with, predict, negotiate, coerce, invade, etc. Other leaders are.
If you as a leader are going to enact a plan that you know or can reasonably predict that other leaders will try to stop you from doing, your plan needs to be robust in the face of that opposition or else you're not a good leader.
Incidentally this same line of reasoning applies to Trump, almost verbatim
Me: "Trump was hilarious, and I loved how butthurt the liberals were, but realtalk, he was a shit leader he didn't get anything done"
Them: "Yeah well you try getting stuff done when the entire country sabotages you"
Me: "That's my point. We all saw from a mile away that they were going to do this. So he should have had a plan to stop it, and he didn't. Or he did but it didn't work. Either way, shit leader"
Nah. Trump accomplished a massive amount. We now see the Dems for who they are. It is not a one term fight; it is a twenty year war. He didn’t fail. He won. But the war isn’t over.
Plus, unlike with Germany under Hitler, America was thriving under Trump.
Alexander the Great did get sick and died. He was dead at the age of 33. In person, he was a paranoid, psychotic mass murderer who also happened to be an out of control alcoholic. And he was incestuous to boot, so he was a thoroughly vile person even by the standards of the day.
His method of conquering what is now Afghanistan was to exterminate the population. When his army mutinied in India, Alexander's response was to deliberately lead them on the retreat through one of the world's worst desert with no food and no water. Naturally they died in thousands.
Some leader. Their only reward for serving in Alexander's army was a premature miserable death by thirst or starvation or freezing to death in the Pamir Mountains. The world would have been a better place if this mostrosity had been strangled at birth.
I do that with Trump all the time - not sure if it works. (I don't feel I need to discredit Biden - he is doing that himself better than anyone else could).
People forget:
"Trump had four years. What did he achieve? Did he drain the swamp? The sawp played him to perfection during operation Wrap Speed."
"Trump was one of the few loser presidents that didn't manage to win a second term (despite all the advantages a sitting president had.) He lost against old man Biden. Why would you vote for such a loser again?"
......but, but he was cheated. The elctions was stolen.
"Says loser Trump. Besides, a smart, clever president would not have allowed that to happen...."
I don't think Bobby Kennedy is perfect - no man is, especially politicians. But how Trump or Biden can even be considered if you have the Kennedy option is beyond me.
but, but.....I might waste my vote....he won't win....
Who knows? Stranger things have happened. Besides, it doesn't make any sense to cast your vote for a bad candidate in order to not waste it. That's when you really waste your vote.
You can trust my judgment. I am unbiased. I live half around the world from the USA and I can't vote there and it ultimately doesn't matter much to me who wins, Just looking with the clarity of distance and shaking my head in disbelief that anyone even considers thinking of Biden or Trump.
Sorry, got a bit off topic for the article.
It stuns me that people hear Kennedy talk about the jabs and somehow decide that's absolutely everything they need to know.
It is absolutely everything people need to know as soon you see the jabs not as a medical procedure but as the symbol of totalitarian oppression.
All the other points of politcs - economy, foreign politics, border wall, abortion etc. are insignificant when compared if we are going to live in a totalitarean system controlled by an elite private-public partnership controlled by a handful of powerful bankers.
If you don't understand the true meaning of the Covid plandemic with its unwarranted deliberate totalitarian overreach (still unpunished), you will be in a world of hurt very soon. If the totalitarian victory is permanent, your concerns about the economy, border, abortion or whatever other political dechchairs you are moving around will vanish very rapidly. Totalitarism are no deckchairs. It is the Titanic and it will hit the iceberg and it will be horrible.
Do you know any of his other positions? Not that he will be allowed anywhere near but on every other issue he's basically a Berkeley social justice professor in a suit. Personally I think he is either capable of truly astonishing levels of cognitive dissonance or he's full of crap.
No, and I don't care to be honest. He is the only one talking about what is really going on......for example when he talked about Blackrock the other day.
The man is risking his life. If he gets anywhere near winning and they can't find a way to make him lose, he will be killed. I think this man totally identified with a hero status that is beyond his personal life. If anyone can turn this around, it is him. It is fascinating how extreme situations always bring out the worst and best in people.
Once again, you do not realize the gravity of the situation we are in. That you are concerned about something like "Berkeley social justice professor" shows that. All that is insignificant political jousting he has to do to get the votes of the many people on the left that don't get it. Strategically, those votes are easier to steal from the left than from the right as the Trump camp is deeply entrenched. And Biden is a much weaker target than Trump. That's all what he is doing....trying to win an election.
But the real issues are the approaching total rule of undemocratic globalalist forces with the help of never-seen-before surveillance and control techniques that will succeed. It is 3 min to 12. You eihter get it, or you don't.
If you don't get it now, you will get it soon. Or you go to the dark side and work with them and sell your soul for some breakcrumbs under the table. The truth is hard to stomach, I get that. It needs courage to look into the abyss. A good spiritual foundation helps you cope with it.
The issue being that I'm not sure Kennedy is even going to be on the ballot in enough states to have the potential to win. I think he's a better person than either of the other two but if he is mathematically incapable of winning, well, then that really is a wasted vote. If the only two possible options are Biden or Trump, I'm voting Trump. If it's actually possible for Kennedy to win, I'll probably go that route instead. Or really throw my vote away on the Libertarian again... 🤣
Oh I think you haven’t really engaged with intelligent people on this topic. Probably because intelligent people naturally shy away from appearing sympathetic to the Nazis. But since this is anonymous internet land, I’ll give it a whack!
The steelman argument is something like this: Hitler believed the coming world would be defined by a Darwinian, ideological clash between continental-scale powers (he was correct about that) and he wanted Germany to be one of them. To achieve sufficient scale and resource, Germany needed Poland and to deprive the Soviet Union of Ukraine (a strategic goal the Wilhelmine state had shared, incidentally).
If you accept his priors, not doing anything isn’t an option - it only condemns your civilization to slow death between grinding superpowers.
So how to get from Point A (a crushed, humiliated Germany in 1933) to Point B (a Germany-dominated Mitteleuropa)? Well you have to take some big risks! And that’s exactly what he did. With the resources arrayed against him, first domestically then internationally, he came pretty freakin’ close to pulling it off.
So was he a “shit” leader? Well, I don’t know. He was, as Clarendon said of Cromwell, “a great, bad man”. And that’s probably true of most world-historical figures.
(eugyppius please feel free to delete this if you believe it runs afoul the Federal Republic’s thoughtcrime laws)
Now do Napoleon.
That made me laugh out loud at the breakfast table.
Sounds like very basic arguments, for arguing with children or something.
Hitler indeed was a shit leader, especially shit war leader.
But that's irrelevant to whether Germany had a legitimate grievance from WWI, or whether the other side was also scum. Germany was left out of the colonial plundering, and wanted their own. They just went with typical German idiocy and clumsiness about it (like they still do). The British, the French, the Belgian, "good guys" enslaved half the planet, fucked over whole nations, and run "human zoos". Even when they left they still kept their local strongmen and influence there, and arranged the post-colonial-exit state and borders for massacre and bloodshed to divide and conquer.
They could not give a rat's arse about "freedom and democracy" themselves.
most people will concede Hitler's madness in regards to Operation Barbarossa, even if they won't in moralistic terms
Churchill said something like the following: "Even military idiots will find much wanting in Hitler's war 'strategy.'"
I agree with you. Wehraboos serve no purpose whatsover except for their endless atttempts to distort history and cloud any sensible understanding of what happened and why.
The worst part is that I think that there is useful information from 'their side' and I think there are some things for which it would be much much better if we could talk about them. But the typical (real) nazi you meet online is just stupid. It almost makes me wonder if it's like, agents-provocateur deployed to discredit that position even more.
But yep, you get idiots. Like, I'm pretty sure I've told this story before, but a long time ago, out of idle curiousity, I infiltrated an _actual_ nazi discord group. They had a vetting process. The vetting process, I shit you not, was to hop on vc with me and ask me if I knew what the holodomor was. This is the level that these people operate at: their process to stop _FBI infiltration_ is to ask if they know about something you can look up on wiki fucking pedia
The worst of the Wehraboos are those who got their lies accepted by the western world after the war. Of particular note are the memoirs of Erich Von Manstein, Franz Halder and Heinz Guderian. They created the myth that the murders of Nazi Germany were all to be blamed on Hitler, when they and the Wehrmacht itself were active and eager participants in the murder of millions.
It still amazes me that most people believe what they know about any topic - let alone the vast compexitites of WWII and Hitler - or any other topic - is based on any facts or so-called "truth". Haven't we learned anything from "Operation Covid"? It is all narratives, stupid. It is all postmodernism narritive construction:
"The people in power, the people that control the distribution of narratives, define and control the truth. This an extension of the old saying: The winners write the history books.
We know nothing of any truth or substance. We are just stupid silly parots repeating what they want us to repeat.
To realize that we know nothing and disregard our "opinion" as just that - an opinion of a nobody - signifying fucking nothing (to losely quote Shakespear) - is the first step of freedom to disenange from all propaganda.
Only when we admit that to ourselves can start to find real truth which is always within us and of spiritual nature. Everything else is a planne distraction to keep our minds and heart hynotized by their narratives. They literally stealing our energy that way. As soon we realzie that we can redirect this energy wasted on the outsided and find ourselves and everlasting truth and peace - totally independent of the foolsplay on the public stage.
So true.
I was a missionary for the Mormon church for a year and a half starting in Munich, 1982. During that period I rang somewhere between 60-85,000 doorbells, mostly in Bavaria, and experienced a warsplaining continuum. Being a student of history but young and seeking converts, I only asked questions and refrained from voicing or even fully forming my opinions. How I wish it had been my job to chronicle stories and perspectives. It was flat-out fascinating.
I met survivors of Stalingrad, the wounded, widows of those who didn't and never re-married, the atheist Archbishop in Bamberg, US Army officers, parents who didn't want Reagan's rockets in their country, former and regretful Nazis, avowed and proud Nazis, resisters, a few closet communists, refugees from the East, and one actual war criminal without a country. He was a Ukrainian volunteer for the GrossDeutshland, who had to go fight with the French Foreign Legion in Burma for ten years to get a new identity. He chose the name Ivan Snova and settled in Freiburg to sell used books with very mixed feelings. Over many objections, I baptized him into my church.
The difference was, an overwhelming cataclysm was still first-hand and fresh for the majority of people. There was gratitude for having fresh bread and good butter and a general consensus that it was a damned stupid thing to have gone through.
I served a mission in France in ‘72. The old people loved us, our fathers liberated them. The young people hated us, “Vietnam!” , not realizing we were in Vietnam only because DeGaulle wanted to keep his colonies. Of course, every Frenchman over the age of 40 said he was in La Résistance when in reality fewer than 2% of the population actively resisted.
I read that they called those who pretended they were in the Resistance, "the moth-balled ones"
That is correct! Similar to today in the US: about 250 Navy SEALs served in Vietnam; so far I’ve met 1,500 of them.
If all the blokes who said they were on the balcony of the Iranian embassy during the SAS assault actually *were* there the bloody thing would've collapsed under the weight
What’s that old saying, something like “Success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan”?
Paris?
Yes indeed
C'est si bon.
Still fresh in 1982??
These are fascinating anecdotes, thank you. Would love to hear more.
Fresh? Well, everybody in their mid-40s on up remembered. It was not uncommon for buildings to still bear shrapnel and gunfire marks, even in the upscale suburb of Munich (Laim) where I was first assigned.
My landlord there was an affable, semi-retired Diplom Ingenieur named Kurt Mantler. His favorite pastime was gardening, usually early morning and nude except for sandals and gloves. He had been a colonel in the war commanding an 88mm Flak unit on the Eastern Front and in France. I would not have thought this, as he seemed 70 or so, but there were a couple pictures hanging on the wall of their kitchen nook, one of him in officer garb and one of an 88 with smiling crew, barrel at a low trajectory.
I asked Herr Mantler how many Russian tanks he'd blown up, but his wife "Bamps" (also a nude gardener, though somewhat bashful) interceded and said he didn't like to talk about it. From what I could tell he preferred not to talk, except about flowers. He smiled and mumbled something about us being nice boys, went back to sipping his coffee.
From Frau Mantler I later learned some details. He had been taken prisoner by the Soviets, if I recall in Silesia(?) and was held for quite a number of years. While there he worked on engineering projects, making bridges and power plants. By the time he got back she was too old to have children, so they had lived alone, devoted to each other in their big house raising beautiful flower gardens ever since.
Wow, thank you for sharing.
Thank you for asking. It took decades for me to realize why they rented their place out to young Mormon missionaries.
I think one of the greatest downsides to the mass media age (Yes of course there are also upsides) is the emergence of what I call War as Entertainment. The best thing that people who are not directly fighting (or suffering the consequences of) a war somewhere in the world can do is to refrain from opinionising about it on the basis of ad hoc media-driven click-bait stories about the conflict. War is and has always been ugly and messy - rogue atrocities, mishaps etc. That they just didn't used to be televised is the big difference. [So as to head off the possibility of being misunderstood (wilfully or otherwise) the horrific October 7 massacre is NOT what I mean by a media-driven, click-bait story.]
Documentaries of murders and murderers too.
Yes and the goryer the better. A distasteful voyeuristic appetite.
An outward sign of the times we are living in sadly.
The shift in public opinion due to Israel's genocide is entirely good and is largely a consequence of mass participation in the debate. Where there's no participation the prevailing propaganda narrative just goes unchallenged.
Great analysis. Would that the whole concept of "war guilt" would be thrown to the scrap heap of history. War, is not good. It's not bad. It just IS.
War guilt in large part was an invented concept of Woodrow Wilson and the attempt to pin responsibility for World War 1 on imperial Germany. It imposed a huge financial liability on Germany, which Germany never paid. And it created rage and justification in Germany, ensuring that the Great European War of the 20th century would be continued in another 20 years. They were essentially one war with a two-decade time-out in the middle.
As for Woodrow, this was what could be expected from one of the worst, moralizing Presidents of the United States. Woody's good intentions directly led to the horror of what would happen starting in 1939.
War, and all other foreign relations for that matter, should be addressed by Realpolitik, not moralizing. We should be thinking in terms of why it occured and what the outcome means rather than "I am right and you are evil". I am of the opinion most of the people who are in control of governments don't give a rat's ass about the morality of their conflicts. Moral justification is just something to get the the support of the masses.
Every king in WWI told his generals, “God is on our side!” And the generals told the colonels. The colonels told the captains, the captains told the privates, and the privates died.
Sure but if you want peace it's necessary to arrange things such that the Realpolitik doesn't incentivize aggressive war, and rooting out the cancerous arrangement that do the opposite is largely a cultural project that necessarily involve moral considerations.
It makes no difference. Moral considerations have been used for millennia to justify wars. At least with Realpolitik we can be a little more realistic and prevent the worst outcomes. It's greed and the desire for power that plans wars, but it's ideology that carries it out. A leader can't just say "I want more power over more land and people" and expect the citizens to go along with it. No, you need a "moral" reason.
I'm not clear what you're arguing for here. As you say the plebs tendency to apply moral precepts to questions of war and peace is a major break on aggression, so wouldn't replacing it with universal realpolitik be bad?
The application of moral precepts is also used as a justification for war, and more than cancels out any efforts at peace. Compare the numbers of people who use morality to justfy war vs those who use it to end war. Righteous Soldiers always outnumber Conciencious Objectors The problem with moral justifications is that promotes very little questioning of war as a human action. War has been around as long as there have been organized humans, so there must be underlying reasons and causes for it. That is what realpolitik is designed to do. I don't advocate replacing all moral application with realpolitik, but I think that realpolitik should be considered before moral precepts are applied.
BRILLIANT !!! 👍👍
Hitler was just another "cog" in the "well designed machinery" that led us to where we now are ... and it is running at an ever faster pace ... without any remorse or shame ... because "the end" justifies any means ...
No. Hitler was a monstrosity who shows what happens when Socialism reaches its logical conclusion. It's a future of mass murder of all those who disagree with Socialist government.
BINGO !!!
A monstrosity very well backed financially (and who knows what else) by the US and other fascistic "elites" ...
It all converges in total oppression of the plebes by a minute, narcissistic, psychotic minority.
Read “The Politics of War,” a book by Walter Karp. It’s very hard to find, but worth the effort. He details Wilson’s efforts to drag America into the war, for his own glorification, without a care about the damage it would cause or the morality of intervention. Good intentions my foot.
I agree, but only to an extent. Wilson's military policy left the United States completely ill prepared for entry into WW1. This was in part because of his opposition to the interventionists under the Republicans and Teddy Roosevelt. Despite his moralizing about self determination, Wilson intervened militarily in a host of Central American nations. His Fourteen Points proposal to end the war was opposed strenuously by both the Allies and the Central Powers.
I agree with you about the vanity of his "good intentions" foreign policy. Wilson's breakup of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires simply ensured that the peace after 1918 would simply be a short truce. France's Ferdinand Foch remarked grimly about Versailles that, "This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years". Everything that happened to the disadvantage of Europe and the Middle East was largely the result of the forced breakup of these two empires.
In short, every one of Wilson's policy efforts was an abject failure by his own intentions. The League of Nations was a disaster and failed completely to function to reduce European military aggression and colonial expansion. His repatriation of the US army after the war produced the worst racial violence ever seen in the United States in the rioting, murders and burning in Tulsa in 1922.
I agree with you about his vanity in this regard. Wilson wanted the European powers to come cap in hand to him and the United States to form the peace in Europe in 1916. It showed how little he understood that Germany was now a military dictatorship under Ludendorf, and that any pretence of civilian control of the Central Powers had vanished. And as long as Ludendorf was de facto dictator, Germany was going to fight to the last dead conscript. Naturally Wilson understood none of this.
Its remarkable, isn't it? Wilson is supposedly one of the most revered Presidents of the United States. Yet everything he did was an utter failure.
I think you miss my point. Wilson's reluctance to enter the war was a sham, a lie. His personal correspondence and other evidence show that he wanted the US in the war so that he could help broker the peace, as Theodore Roosevelt had done with the Russo-Japanese war. Like Roosevelt, he wanted a Nobel Peace Prize. That's how shallow and vicious he was.
Let’s not forget the income tax and the federal reserve. Oh, and racially segregated federal services. One of the more vile humans to inhabit the white house.
The specific jargon dates from then but the concept not at all
We can do that when the idea of getting goodies by aggressive war goes on the scrap heap, and it mostly has. Unfortunately there are a few hold-out countries (Israel in particular) that are still pretty much on a right-of-conquest system.
All you are doing is showing that you understand nothing of Israel's history or government policy over the past six decades.
Well that's a totally vacuous insult with exactly zero actual content to reply to, well done
Not my problem if you misrepresent a century of Middle East history.
You're right, I did misrepresent it. I've even written elsewhere that there was a long middle period in which it was genuinely hoped that the horrors of the founding could be swept under the rug (as they are everywhere else) and a genuine peace established, and been annoyed at commentators who jump straight from the present to the Nakba. It's unfair to characterize Israel as taking a right-of-conquest position during it's middle period.
Ben-Gurion's "maximum land minimum Arabs" maxim grates unpleasantly on modern ears, but given the project it makes sense. Unfortunately after 67 his inferior successors fucked everything up, and here we are. I have educated intelligent friends who explicitly say "Israel won that land in a war" (wrt the occupied territories). Because what else can they say? It's an absolutely shitty anachronistic argument but it's the only one they've got. I fail to believe that their view isn't representative.
It's time to recognize that both a. the dream of a normal liberal Israel was real and b. that dream is now dead as a door nail
There are a number of distortions in your response. David Ben-Gurion has been dead for about 50 years. His comment on "maximum land" was overturned in Yom Kippur 1973. It was rejected again when Israel returned all of the Sinai to Egypt in 1979 in the Camp David Accords. It was rejected again when Yitzhak Rabin agreed to the formation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank.
"his inferior successors fucked everything up" Wrong. Rabin was NOT an inferior successor and attempted his best to fix things. But the vanity revolt of Yasser Arafat in launching the Intifada put an end to that.
A host of countries have had a chance to come to terms with Israel and normalize relations. All of Israel's neighbors have done so, excepting only thei insane regime in Syria and Lebanon dominated by Iran's mercenaries in the form of Hezbollah.
And the other nations coming to acceptable peace treaties include Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Only the Palestinians have refused to come to terms with Israel. And for their troubles they are now governed by the merciless terrorist organization and Iran proxy Hamas. Egypt shuns the Palestinians. Jordan fought a bloody civil war against them and has NEVER asked Israel for the return of the West Bank.
So, since after 80 years, the Palestinians are largely the authors of their own misfortunes, screw 'em. They are getting what they deserve. And by acting as purveyors and funders for armaments against Israel, so is UNWRA and the UN.
My husband was listening to some moving music and songs written about and during the Vietnam war yesterday and then decided to read some of the commentary. He got choked up by reading a woman saying her husband was severely damaged by the “agent orange” used, we already knew about the horrors of napalm, and then to read how the soldiers after enduring all of that were treated badly by their own countrymen when they returned home because of disapproval of that war in the first place… no wonder they felt suicidal.
Commenting while reading, idk if you address this immediately following
> Should you discuss a war anywhere in the world while failing to demonstrate the right allegiances, the warsplainers will come for you.
IDK which _specific_ warsplainers you're talking about, but if you mean eg people on social media, I am utterly convinced that _every single one of those_ is either a glowwie, or a bot run by glowwies. They're not real people
there is a huge amount of manipulation here, no doubt.
What is a “glowwie”?
Internet slang for infiltrators and agents provocateurs from some intelligence agency. They stand out so much they glow in the dark, hence "glowwie".
I saw a video of the extreme right wing domestic terrorist group ‘The Patriot Front’. It was absurd. They were so obviously FBI. Ear buds, khakis, blue jackets. They were being filmed and one of them began talking to the filmer and you could not sound MORE like an officious cop if you tried. The only truthful thing is YES, they are a domestic terrorist group! Just not the one the media is portraying.
I recommend the following two "mental tools":
>Do not pick a side when looking at a war. Look instead for reasons why a state of war exists, all reasons within reason. Looking for causal processes leading to war is not picking a side, nor does it excuse or rationalise anything - unless you the student is the one doing it. Facts on their own do nothing, they just are.
The below may be in conflict with the above, but an intelligent person can consciously hold paradoxical or conflicting ideas in his mind at the same time, and can also switch positions when analysing in order to see how switching affects the conclusions drawn:
>How does the conflict affect you personally? Which side do you prefer? Which side is a threat to you? Why? Performing this mental exercise helps you stay honest vis a vis your own bias and tendency for picking sides. Remember also to try to understand any side in a conflict the way that side understands itself; doesn't mean you share their beliefs or opinions or anything, it just means you are honestly endeavouring to actually understand.
The two principles outlined above, if I may use such a lofty term as principles, combined is in my experience - professional as personal - pretty much the only way to avoid devolving into mindless "warsplaining" as you call it.
Doesn't mean I wouldn't or don't pick a side in a conflict, of course. What it does mean is, that if I am to pick a side, first thing is to determine if the conflict is of such a nature that my picking a side is even relevant in the first place. Take the eternal war between arabs and jews - I care not who is in wrong or right more than the other. I care about three things:
Which group constitutes the greater threat to me and my people?
How do the respective parties behave and what socio-cultural values are evidenced through their chosen actions?
Does the conflict actually involve me, or threaten to involve me and my people?
To a modern human it may seem calluous, but only an islander safe behind his mental and physical moat of oceans can afford himself the delusion of thinking himself above conflict.
Contradictory? Welcome to the world of studying conflicts.
The first casually of war is always the truth.
I can simplify your tools dramatically. I'll even do it in flow chart form:
Are you currently directly affected by the war, (eg are you restricted from moving around your town? Are you at direct risk of physical harm? etc)
If yes: support whichever side is _not_ doing that.
If no, continue
Are you currently an active duty member of an armed force involved in the conflict?
If yes: support whichever side your commander tells you to
If no, continue
Are you currently a person in a position of significant power or social authority? Anything from a relevant world leader, down to a respected local community leader
If yes: support whichever side you think would best benefit you and your people, if and only if you have a meaningful ability to change the outcome
if no: then shut the fuck up, it's none of your goddamn business, and anything you say will be wrong and just contribute to making everything worse
Sure, except the last part. Studying the whys of conflicts, especially how they were resolved, is a crucial part of political science and history and economics (or it used to be at least). Just look at Sweden and Denmark:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dano-Swedish_War
From the 3rd century AD until 1809, we had war after war after war. Since 1809, we've had a very stable peace. Why?
"A stable peace after 1809."
So what do you call the wars of Italian and German unification in the 19th century? Or the Crimean war? Or the gigantic holocausts of WW1 and 2? A stable peace?
Oh please. Now pull the other one.
That comment was in reference to Sweden and Denmark.
Learn to read:
"Just look at Sweden and Denmark:"
So you yourself admit that there was no stable peace after 1809? Denmark in the 19th century was Bismarck's first war of aggression and conquest.
Learn to read something about history. Or learn to code. Either way I don't give a rat's a** what you do.
> Sure, except the last part. Studying the whys of conflicts, especially how they were resolved, is a crucial part of political science and history and economics (or it used to be at least).
My basic point is, unless you're a politician or historian or economist, those things are not relevant to one's daily life, and "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen."
There's nothing wrong with having a passion and interest and looking into these things for its own merit, but a) you're not doing anything good in the world, you're just having fun; and b) if you then start trying to advocate/influence people on that issue, you'll probably get it wrong and make things worse. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent
Answers Israel/Palestine:
1. Israel and it's not close. They're the ultimate irresponsible client, and irresponsible clients are the likeliest route to Armageddon.
2. They're both utterly rotten albeit in different ways.
3. Indirectly it sure does, both because of the significant possibility of catastrophic escalation and also because the current genocide and the degree to which the public tolerates it sets an important limit (arguably the only important limit) on government behavior generally.
>>>> Warsplaining, like all discourse, is subject to vast gradations in quality and professionalism.
Yes, back in the day, warsplainers were *real* warsplainers. 😎
'grumpy internet people'
😂
The only just war was Cyrus's, and I'm only 90% sure on that.
"Surely nothing could be more ridiculous than imagining ancient warsplainers distributing leaflets on the justice of the Roman cause in the Gothic wars."
Cato the Elder enters the chat: "Carthago delenda est."
well yes, the good Cato described how it was in the interests of Rome to destroy Carthage. the warsplaining I’m talking about is somewhat different - it would be premised in arguing how Rome was objectively justified in destroying Carthage, devoted to adducing prior Carthaginian warcrimes, explaining how destroying Carthage would further the general welfare of everyone in the world, including ‚liberated‘ Carthaginians, and so on.
Well, that is a somewhat more narrow sense of "warsplaining" than I got from your original essay -- and one highly tinted, it seems, by a certain universalizing Christian morality that was probably very foreign to Cato the Elder.
You might find interesting reading in the letters of Hernan Cortes. There is a wholesome measure of 16th century warsplaining there: he'll save Indian souls for the Catholic Church and stamp out the abomination of human sacrifice and just make the world a better place overall.
“On the other hand, I will admit that it is often a great pleasure to read warsplainers whose opinions I agree with. I come away from their elegant arguments confirmed in all of my prior beliefs, and so I begin to suspect that herein lies the real purpose of warsplaining. (Of course, if we are honest with ourselves, this is the case with almost all political commentary, and that is not even a bad thing.)”
---------------------
There is truly nothing more lovely in all the world of words than an elegant explainer who confirms one’s own opinions.
I enjoy the experience tremendous; so much so that I have parted with my tiny moiety of filthy lucre on occasion to ensure I get full access to those lovely confirmations.
[deleted duplicate comment]
> I’m merely noticing that there appears to be a great disconnect, between the urgency most warsplainers attach to your beliefs, and the actual significance of these beliefs for the political consequences of past wars or the prospects of present-day belligerents
This makes me think about an one of Moldbug's ideas, one that I think bears a lot of explanatory power: America's culture is a pathological mutation of Christianity that removed Jesus but kept most of the other parts.
In particular, the emphasis on your internal state is a pretty particularly Protestant Christian thing. For almost every other religion that has ever existed, they don't actually care what you think, they only care what you do. You talk to a buddhist (a _real_ one, in Asia) and ask them about their _beliefs_ and they'll just look at you confused. What do you mean _beliefs_? These are traditions and habits. _Behaviours_."
But Protestant Christianity, for whatever reason, cares a great deal about your _secret private internal beliefs_ in a way that most other structures of power never have.
Incidentally, the only other structure of power I can think of that ever cared about this was Communism, and isn't that interesting.
Joseph Stalin modeled the structure of the Soviet Communist Party structure after that of the Roman Catholic Church. He was seeking a model which would last for centuries, and in the RC Church he fould what he was looking for.
I think there is a pretty direct intellectual line from Christianity to Communism, but I did not expect it to go through Catholicism. Communism was much more of a protestant/anabaptist thing. But it's _definitely_ there
I mean, a lot of Jesus' shtick was basic bitch communism. Come on everyone, fight the power and let's share our food. He's even got communist hate mobbing and shunning involved:
Luke 14:25-26
"Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.
I didn't pick a good translation so the 'hate' comment requires a little explanation but basically, in context, his point is "if your family is getting in the way of you following me, you have to abandon them because God is more important".
Catholicism was about centralizing church control in the person of the Bishop of Rome. After the Crucifixion, the Christian Church was splintering into a host of different cults, some of them indistinguishable from Judaism and many of them borrowing sometimes heavily from existing religious cults in the Roman Empire such as Mithraism. These cults were frequently extremely violent in their "conversion" methods to the point where in some places such as Alexandria they constituted most of the high level of civil unrest.
The centralizing effect of what became the Roman Catholic Church was to put an end to all this internal fracturing by ensuring there was one supreme religious authority in the Church only - the Pope.
That's precisely why Stalin adopted the RC authority structure. There was one supreme authority only in communism. None of this absurd questing for leadership among the international Comintern community. The supreme authority in all Communism everywhere was the General Secretary of the Central Committee. Structurally, Stalin was no different than any RC Pope. Both were the supreme authority within their organizations.
For both, "it's about power," as Buffy the Vampire Slayer once famously stated.
Pretty much everything is always about power, unfortunately
BINGO !!!
Therefore, anyone who seeks power outside his family and professional sphere is to be considered a narcissistic, highly dangerous psychopath.
Yes and no. There are natural leaders. They aren’t all psychopaths. Stephen Harper was a Canadian PM for 9 years. Ran the country well. He saw his role as being a good administrator, not an ideologue to foist his views on Canada. Personally he was a Christian, but also a Libertarian. He never once tried to convert Canada. Although the press wrote about him as if he were right out of Westboro Baptist. Paul Martin, a non ideological Liberal saved Canada. He was finance minister under Chretien. We were fully into debtmageddon and he broke that. He was a short lived minority leader PM. If he had had a majority he would have been fine. Neither Harper, a conservative, or Martin a Liberal saw the role as much more than running a large business well. There are okay leaders out there. But add in ‘I will lead my people to the promised land!’ and it goes downhill from there.
Yes.
Surely, I can trust the Martians to be more transparent! Your use of “terra incognito” made me smile. Thank you for using English with a cogency that native speaking intellectuals (pseudo and otherwise) uniformly lack. I now find myself guilty of “warsplaining”, but have yet to decide if it’s a vice.
Excellent piece, well done. I would add 3 comments: 1. Often the warsplainer thinks his values, his ethical paradigm is superior to everything else and needs to be applied. So for example, democracy is good by definition and idealistically needs to be applied everywhere immediately, even in tribal societies. Africa and the Middle East are there to prove the fallacy of this approach. 2. They assume that taking down a bad guy means automatically getting a good guy. Exactly the contrary of a realistic approach…better a devil you know…3. They are scared of wars because wars often reset the right priorities in life. Of course we all want to live in peace but a long peaceful period is at odds with the human brain that normally focuses on relative value (today many people spend time in feeding stray cats, good, but during WWII there were apparently no cats in the Rome Colosseo).
"The nineteenth century is terra incognita for the warsplainers,"
Only in Europe, my German friend.