Left wingers are just stupid and hypocritical. They’re always waxing sentimental about mass murderers Lenin and Stalin put poor Vlad Putin, who is possibly associated with around four mysterious deaths, is a “thug, criminal and threat to world peace and human rights”.[1]I am not sure hypocrisy's involved. That presupposes conscious knowledge and an intent to purvey something that is contrary to what you know to be true. The basic knowledge simply is not there. It's willful blindness at best but blindness nonetheless. Dictatorial powers and unchecked centralization are seen as long-overdue, cost-free improvements. Said Woody Allen at this link:
The quotation at the top of this post reminds me of the Treason Class hypocrisy in Europe. Strengst verboten to utter a discouraging word to or about invading savages. It's ostracism, prosecution, and penury -- and possibly even loss of your children -- for anyone so unwise as to do that.I am pleased with Obama. I think he’s brilliant. The Republican Party should get out of his way and stop trying to hurt him. It would be good if he could be a dictator for a few years, because he could do a lot of good things quickly.
But it you're an important official and bring in foreign, hate-filled savages to rape, kill, assault, sponge off, and dispossess your putative countrymen, well then, it's the Coudenhove-Kalergi prize and lucrative employment for you.
Criticize your obvious enemies? Point out that they obviously don't belong in a European nation?
Misery.
Import and protect the enemies of your countrymen?
Prosperity!
I think now that the acid test for spending any time discussing the present danger with someone is whether they can correctly identify the single most disastrous event of the 20th-century, viz., the Bolshevik revolution. If someone can't tell you that that was the watershed event and why, you're wasting your time to discuss anything with them except recipes, the weather, and Whoopi Goldberg.
Notes
[1] Comment on "A Budget Without Russians. The Empire’s Nightmare." By Fred Reed, The Unz Review, 2/23/17.
I would argue that the most disastrous event was not the Bolshevik Revolution per se, but the return of Vladimir Iliych Lenin by the German government to Russia, which was in turn impelled by World War 1. One might therefore argue that Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian who shot Franz Ferdinand, was responsible for the deaths of a hundred million people or more, in addition to the Arch-Duke and his wife. But who inspired Princip? For that matter, Karl Marx inspired Lenin; is the responsibility properly his? What about Kant? Was the birth of Karl Marx the single greatest disaster in human history? Some might say 'yes', but collectivism predates Marx.
ReplyDeleteSerbian nationalism is around 600 years old or more. How far back do we trace the roots of conflict? It is fascinating to speculate upon might-have-beens; if sidewise travel between realities ever becomes possible, the study of crux points will become the most important scientific effort ever undertaken. But I digress. Rather than study history en mass, it is more productive for the individual to study individual decisions, and the individual impact of thise decisions on historical events. The interlocking system of alliances is widely blamed for making WW1 such an all-inclusive European disaster, but who were the architects of these treaties, and where did they go wrong? What principles for Liberty were violated? I've studied Russian history through 1917 in detail
What fools. Do they not understand there is no benevolent dictator ever? They are all Capt. Redlegs in their hearts and believe 'there is no end to doing good'. There will ALWAYS be an enemy.. it is only a matter of time before it is you good and faithful useful idiot.
ReplyDeleteAgain.. a failure to understand history.
Historian, I'll have to defer to your more detailed understanding of 1917.
ReplyDeleteHowever (embarking on exactly the opposite course), I'll say that Marx was not the sole purveyor of revolutionary solutions. The revolutionary spirit got started in 1789 and burst out in events in the mid 19th century. Lenin was an intelligent and driven man but I think he was only one of many people bent on turning the world upside down. Not the only Iskra.
Czarist officers in St. Petersburg were persuaded to do nothing at a certain crucial time, I understand. Was that Lenin or someone else who arranged that? If it wasn't Lenin then that's an example of other hands than his playing an important part.
Trotsky was a powerful influence in the founding and operations of the Red Army but there were plenty of others who would have taken his place. And Stalin was working his way up even before 1917.
The Bolshevik Revolution was the opening event in which many individuals and pathologies were unleashed. In fact, you seem to be arguing (respecting Russia) for the Gavrilo Princip theory of the origin of WWI when its origins were in a congeries of disparate events reaching a trip wire or critical mass.
Too, looking back 600 years for what might cause later events in Serbia seems a bit like the historian's version of the butterfly effect. I am sure today's Serbs are painfully aware of the Battle of Kosovo, a seminal event in their history. But does it really influence events today? It's not clear that it does. Were Russia to decide to reverse the excision of Kosovo, it might be a huge motivating factor. The correlation of forces plays a major part in which attitudes and memories can be influential.
Anonymous, my sentiments exactly. Even virtuous people will be seduced by power and in the unlikely event they are not there are still all the opportunists and sociopaths who seek out parts to play in government. The revolution betrayed is a sad but common refrain. Even the Bolsheviks attracted idealists who thought, without a shred of proof, that a new way of ordering human society was possible.
ReplyDeleteI hardly need to point that they were swept into the maw. “Journey into the Whirlwind,” by Eugenia Ginzburg is an account by one such woman.