We have a sad story about a troubled individual to share with you dear readers, who have not shunned us for speaking up for the innocent Palestinian citizens two weeks before the rest of the world did.
This is about a man who is delusional- he believes the former president won the last election and he bought into the fake stories that your favoritie lawyers like Sydney Powell and Jenna Eastman (now both convicted of crimes) peddled.
The man also doesn't believe that women should have reproductive rights- he frequently quotes scripture much like those sad people you see outside of the courthouse screaming at you to repent (which if you are a DeSantis Drone isn't a bad idea). He works to outlaw the rights of trans-people in general and trans-teens and trans-children in particular, believing such people are living against "God's will". In short, he is the type of person you would not want to share a cup of coffee with, or trust with any of your personal affairs.
And today- October 26, 2023, he is the new speaker of the House of Representatives.
We told you this was a sad story.
And the date makes it doubly sad and ironic because on October 26, 1951, another very different man- a man of inestimable greatness- Winston Spencer Churchill- became Prime Minister of England for a second time.
But that was Great Britian then, and this is the United States now.
A sad story indeed.
12 comments:
I've read your comments about Churchill many times before. Did he accomplish "great" things? Undoubtedly. Was he an unrepentant racist (and misogynist)? Undoubtedly.
For your younger readers:
He said that he hated people with “slit eyes and pig tails.”
To him, people from India were “the beastliest people in the world next to the Germans.”
He admitted that he “did not really think that black people were as capable or as efficient as white people.”
Churchill is on record as praising “Aryan stock” and insisting it was right for “a stronger race, a higher-grade race” to take the place of indigenous peoples. In 1911, Churchill banned interracial boxing matches so white fighters would not be seen losing to black ones. He insisted that Britain and the US shared “Anglo-Saxon superiority”. He described anticolonial campaigners as “savages armed with ideas”.
So, I disagree that he was a "man of inestimable greatness."
And I believe you, as many others do, have misused the word ironic.
KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.
This problem falls squarely at the feet of democrats for refusing to make a coalition with relative moderates. They could have saved McCarthy, who, for all his warts, was working within the limits of his caucus to do the business of the people. The democrats, like the republicans so often do, are putting party over country.
The Gaza strip citizens elected Hamas as their leaders years ago and have never replaced them. The Israelis are completely justified in taking whatever steps are necessary to remove Hamas form Gaza, remove missile batteries, and fill tunnels.
Churchill and George VI also saved Civilization. I doubt that he would have said all of those things today, and what he did for civilization saved all of those who he slighted.
2:35 what you lack - beyond smarts - is the understanding of historical context. You can find 100 racist things Lincoln said. Jefferson owned slaves. The attitudes against women, people of color, Jews etc 50 years ago and 100 years ago are Not as enlightened as they are today. And they still need more enlightenment. Gay people - who now can marry and run for president were basically outlawed in the 1800s and 1900s. The dsm for psychiatric illnesses as late as 1970 called homosexuality an illness. That doesn’t mean you and especially you shouldn’t see psychiatrist today. Yes Churchill said very inappropriate things about people of color. He was a rank colonialist and racist. And yet he saved civilization So deal with it. Just like Lincoln saved the union and yet considered sending Jews and blacks to an island in Canada.
2:35 here.
My Dearest Rumpole,
I was hoping I would not get a childish response from you. Alas, you start with a personal attack demeaning my intelligence and suggest I see a mental health professional. For what? Writing that Churchill did great things but was not a man of "inestimable greatness."
For you readers, my post did acknowledge that he did great things. We can quibble whether he "saved civilization," but I agree that Churchill was indispensable to Hitler's defeat and deserves all the praise we can muster for vanquishing that monster.
But he also was a racist, colonialist, and misogynist. By the way, while there were many people in those days who shared his views, there were many, many who did not. And, yes, Jefferson and Lincoln's actions detract from their greatness as well.
Finally, I'll happily "deal" and try to consider the fullness of a person's life—the good and bad—and not fall into the trap of blind hero worship.
Have a wonderful weekend.
I get a kick out of the nonsense like 9:37 wrote. "The blame falls on the Democrats...." Are you kidding me? McCarthy started impeachment hearings. McCarthy pushed a bill that would have slashed all government spending across the board by 30%. McCarthy was blasting the Democrats days before the vote for his speakership instead of even trying to make a deal with them.
The GOP and the MAGAts are perpetual victims who are incapable of taking responsibility for hteir actions or to govern. It is always someone else's fault. Reality is they created this mess and they have to live with it, and that will start with them losing the House in 2024.
Not least of all because of your patent and unalloyed Anglophilia (viz. "Rumpole"), I know this is an exercise in futility, but I'll give it one quick go, then let you have your last word:
Now, I hardly expect a fellow calling himself Rumpole to consider anything like the sweep of 700 years of English oppression, appropriation, slaughter, and cultural genocide in Ireland. That would be too grand and painful a task, I understand. I’d never want to importune you so.
Instead, to keep the task manageable, I’ll point you to a single month, March 1920, and ask you to weigh that month into your estimation of the “inestimable” Mr. Churchill. Indeed, if you wish, you may choose a single day of that month, the twenty-fifth to be precise. So diligent a student of history as yourself doubtless knows what the great man did that day of that month, what he unleashed on the people of Ireland with malice and intent – if not to say glee, giving him the benefit of the doubt.
So yes. Churchill distinguished himself for the ages in his conduct of the early days World War 2. Of course, as we both know, his real accomplishment was holding on until the Russians got serious about killing Germans and the United States got serious about cranking out materiel and the Germans began to run out of fuel. But that was no small thing, I grant you. As valiant a holding action as anyone ever organized from a bathtub.
And the fellow sure could make a speech. Among the best at it in his century.
But if you don’t regard Churchill and his legacy with at least some real ambivalence, well then Horace, you’re being either struthious or – and I don’t think this of you – disingenuous.
Alas I feel chagrined and put in my place by two very intelligent readers. Mr . Kuntz of course needs no introduction to his intelligent comments. And the initial Churchill detractor replied with a very good riposte designed to embarrass me for my childish and churlish ad hominem attacks.
Well done gentlemen.
Don’t say I don’t admit defeat when there is no way out. It’s just a rare occurrence Enjoy your victories, dare I suggest with a Churchill cigar?
Btw I used ironic 100% correctly.
Sorry, Rump old chap, but while Churchill help shore up support in the British populace and guided the Brits through the Battle of Britain , thus saving Britain from being concurred by the Nazis , Churchill & the British did not save civilization in WW 2. The Yanks, yes the USA , through Lend-Lease helped support Britain in the beginning of the War. Americans with their industrial might produced the arms , tanks, ships and ammunition. More importantly in N. Africa, The Mediterranean, the Europe theater and The Pacific theater of war it was USA soldiers, sailors and marines who fought and won WW 2 , thus the USA saved Western civilization.
I think Churchill leading Britain through its "darkest hour" and holding on against Nazi Germany was an important achievement for history and civilization and the outcome was definitely better than Germany winning. At least, that's what most of us in the "First World" think. In the rest of the world, they don't lionize Churchill and Britain so readily and they may not see the comparison between Britain and Nazi Germany so starkly.
Plenty of Indian intellectuals and politicians now argue that "Winston Churchill is no better than Adolf Hitler."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/winston-churchill-adolf-hitler-no-better-shashi-tharoor-indian-politician-post-colonialist-author-inglorious-empire-nazi-a7641681.html
And others argue that Britain committed the equivalent of multiple "holocausts" during its rule of India.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/24/india.randeepramesh
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/litfest/litfest-delhi/news/raj-was-worse-than-the-holocaust-tharoor/articleshow/55637603.cms
So for many formerly colonized people, their British colonial overlords not being defeated in World War II may not ring as some vitally important moral victory that made a dramatic difference in their lives or history worth celebrating. I guess we can point to the ways how Nazi Germany was more brutal. But expecting oppressed colonized peoples to be overjoyed about Britain's victory against Germany would be like expecting people who remained enslaved in 18th century America to all be overjoyed about the American victory over the British. Some people who suffered under British imperialism may have considered it "poetic justice" if the British ended up being vanquished and conquered by some rival expansionist power.
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