Quotulatiousness

December 17, 2018

Sun Yat-sen – A Killing in Hong Kong – Extra History – #1

Filed under: China, History — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 15 Dec 2018

Growing up in Honolulu, Sun Yat-sen had an expansive, exciting education, which would inspire him when he moved to Hong Kong as a young adult ready to change the world as a doctor — and as the leader of the “Revive China Society” interested in overthrowing the Qing government.

Sun Yat-sen was a dangerous man. The Qing were right to fear him. After all, he’d bring 2,000 years of imperial rule crashing down.

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Miami has two really good plays in 41-17 loss to Minnesota

Filed under: Football, Wine — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Although the rest of the game may not be all that memorable for Dolphins fans, Minkah Fitzpatrick’s pick-6 in the second quarter and the 75-yard TD run to start the third were definite high points for Miami. Before Cousins threw that interception, Miami was down 21 points and the Vikings were threatening to run up the score. After the interception, the dreaded over-cautiousness came back to Cousins and he was clearly more worried about making mistakes than making plays. The Dolphins’ running touchdown was a fantastic effort that the football gods rewarded appropriately. Other than those two plays, however, there isn’t a lot of comfort for the team or the fans, especially when your quarterback ends up being sacked nine times.

The first quarter was practically flawless for the Vikings in new offensive co-ordinator Kevin Stefanski’s first game calling plays, with an almost perfect balance between passing plays and rushes. Dalvin Cook got his first rushing touchdown of the season and Latavius Murray ran in a second. Kirk Cousins was boasting a perfect passer rating at the end of the first fifteen minutes of play, and Miami didn’t have any answers at all.

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American Jeep vs German Kübelwagen: Truck Face-Off | Combat Dealers

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Technology, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Quest TV
Published on 23 Oct 2018

Bruce puts two iconic World War II trucks to the test: the iconic American Jeep and the German Kübelwagen. Which truck will come out on top? #CombatDealers

QotD: Woodrow Wilson’s repressive regime

Filed under: History, Liberty, Quotations, USA, WW1 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Not surprisingly, such intellectual kindling was easy to ignite when World War I broke out. The philosopher John Dewey, New Republic founder Herbert Croly, and countless other progressive intellectuals welcomed what Mr. Dewey dubbed “the social possibilities of war.” The war provided an opportunity to force Americans to, as journalist Frederick Lewis Allen put it, “lay by our good-natured individualism and march in step.” Or as another progressive put it, “Laissez faire is dead. Long live social control.”

With the intellectuals on their side, Wilson recruited journalist George Creel to become a propaganda minister as head of the newly formed Committee on Public Information (CPI).

Mr. Creel declared that it was his mission to inflame the American public into “one white-hot mass” under the banner of “100 percent Americanism.” Fear was a vital tool, he argued, “an important element to be bred in the civilian population.”

The CPI printed millions of posters, buttons, pamphlets, that did just that. A typical poster for Liberty Bonds cautioned, “I am Public Opinion. All men fear me!… [I]f you have the money to buy and do not buy, I will make this No Man’s Land for you!” One of Creel’s greatest ideas – an instance of “viral marketing” before its time – was the creation of an army of about 75,000 “Four Minute Men.” Each was equipped and trained by the CPI to deliver a four-minute speech at town meetings, in restaurants, in theaters – anyplace they could get an audience – to spread the word that the “very future of democracy” was at stake. In 1917-18 alone, some 7,555,190 speeches were delivered in 5,200 communities. These speeches celebrated Wilson as a larger-than-life leader and the Germans as less-than-human Huns.

Meanwhile, the CPI released a string of propaganda films with such titles as The Kaiser, The Beast of Berlin, and The Prussian Cur. Remember when French fries became “freedom fries” in the run-up to the Iraq war? Thanks in part to the CPI, sauerkraut become “victory cabbage.”

Under the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, Wilson’s administration shut down newspapers and magazines at an astounding pace. Indeed, any criticism of the government, even in your own home, could earn you a prison sentence. One man was brought to trial for explaining in his own home why he didn’t want to buy Liberty Bonds.

The Wilson administration sanctioned what could be called an American fascisti, the American Protective League. The APL – a quarter million strong at its height, with offices in 600 cities – carried government-issued badges while beating up dissidents and protesters and conducting warrantless searches and interrogations. Even after the war, Wilson refused to release the last of America’s political prisoners, leaving it to subsequent Republican administrations to free the anti-war Socialist Eugene V. Debs and others.

Jonah Goldberg, “You want a more ‘progressive’ America? Careful what you wish for: Voters should remember what happened under Woodrow Wilson”, Christian Science Monitor, 2008-02-05.

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