Quotulatiousness

August 8, 2020

The Cold War & Decolonization — History Summarized

Filed under: Britain, China, Europe, France, Germany, History, India, Military, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 7 Aug 2020

Keep safe and stylish with a Red-And-Blue facemask from Volante Design, or DONATE to help students in public schools receive high-quality masks for free — https://bit.ly/2DwE9O7

August of 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. So I wanted to make a video about that. That was a bad idea…

What do you get when a Classically-Minded historian ventures about 2,000 years outside of their comfort zone? A mess. A well-intentioned mess is what you get. BUT a mess that we can learn from! So join me as we dig into the aftermath of the Second World War to analyze the origins of the Cold War and the decolonization of European Empires.

SOURCES & Further Reading: The Cold War by Gaddis, The Wars of French Decolonization by Clayton, British decolonization, 1946-1997 by McIntyre, The Cold War’s Killing Fields by Chamberlin, The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction by McMahon, and “Crash Course European History [Parts 42-47]” by Green.

This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/kguuvvq

PATREON: https://www.Patreon.com/OSP

MERCH LINKS: https://www.redbubble.com/people/OSPY…

OUR WEBSITE: https://www.OverlySarcasticProductions.com
Find us on Twitter https://www.Twitter.com/OSPYouTube
Find us on Reddit https://www.Reddit.com/r/OSP/

From the comments:

Overly Sarcastic Productions
1 hour ago (edited)
Some clarifications:
North Africa did of course see conflict, the Pacific did get occupied — even the places that didn’t (eg: India) still paid for the war. Damn double-negatives.

That weird Romania-Hungary-Russia border is a holdover from WWII. The border lasted until 1946 and was changed in 1947. Later in the video you’ll see the more familiar borders.

Indonesia declared Independence in 1945 (Like Vietnam), but the Netherlands didn’t withdraw until 1949, hence my mention of ’49.

June 25, 2020

USA Starts the Atomic Arms Race | The Cuban Missile Crisis I Prelude 1

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Military, Russia, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TimeGhost History
Published 24 Jun 2020

When WW2 ends the former Allies find themselves at odds with each other over ideological and economic world domination. In an atmosphere of increasing escalation, the US pulls ahead in the nuclear arms race. While the Soviet Union tries to catch up, they are far behind, and yet humanity soon faces potential destruction many times over.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Spartacus Olsson
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Spartacus Olsson
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek Kaminski

Colorizations:
– Daniel Weiss

Sources:
– Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-30562-0001,
– Color by Klimbim

Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “Cold Eyes” – Elliot Holmes
– “Juvenile Delinquent” – Elliot Holmes
– “Nightclub Standoff” – Elliot Holmes
– “Scope” – Got Happy
– “Zoot Suit” – Elliot Holmes
– “Car Chase in Virginia” – White Bones
– “When They Fell” – Wendel Scherer
– “Kissed by Thunder” – Elliot Holmes

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

TimeGhost History
1 day ago
This is the first of two preludes before we will cover the Cuban Missile Crisis day-by-day in 13 episodes. Our hardcore fans might recognise this series, as these are a remake of the very first series that we ever did on this YouTube channel. Not only did we improve the set and the audio and video quality, also did we gain access to a lot more unique archive material. These episodes were also edited by dedicated editors (back then Spartacus had to edit them) and we have the help of Ryan who makes graphics and our coloriziation squad who bring history to life. We have come a long way since the old version of this was first published. We thank everyone for sticking around but especially those who joined the TimeGhost Army at www.patreon.com/timeghosthistory or https://timeghost.tv. We wouldn’t be here without them!
Cheers,
Joram

March 1, 2020

The Freikorps Marches On Berlin – The Kapp Putsch I THE GREAT WAR 1920

Filed under: Germany, History, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Published 28 Feb 2020

Sign up for Curiosity Stream and Nebula: https://curiositystream.com/thegreatwar

Dissatisfied with the new German Republic and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, parts of the new Reichswehr and the paramilitary Freikorps decide to take matters into their own hands. The Marinebrigade Ehrhardt marches on Berlin to topple the government: It’s the Kapp Putsch.

» SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thegreatwar
Merchandise: https://shop.spreadshirt.de/thegreatwar/

» SOURCES
Grevelhörster, Ludwig: Kleine Geschichte der Weimarer Republik. 1918-1933. Ein
problemgeschichtlicher Überblick, 2000.
Haffner, Sebastian: Die Deutsche Revolution 1918/1919. 2010.
Heiden, Konrad: Adolf Hitler: Das Zeitalter der Verantwortungslosigkeit. Ein Mann gegen
Europa, 2016.
Kotowski, Georg (Hrsg.): Historisches Lesebuch. 1914-1933, 1968.
Möller, Horst: Die Weimarer Republik. Demokratie in der Krise, 2018.
Pöppinghege, Rainer: Republik im Bürgerkrieg. Kapp-Putsch und Gegenbewegung an Ruhr
und Lippe 1919/1920, 2019.
Stackelberg, Roderick & Winkle, Sally (Ed.), The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts, (Florence : Taylor and Francis, 2003)
Ulrich, Volker: Adolf Hitler. Band 1: Die Jahre des Aufstiegs 1889-1939. 2013.
Sturm, Reinhard (2011). “Weimarer Republik, Informationen zur politischen Bildung”. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung.

» SOCIAL MEDIA
Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_great_war
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WW1_Series
Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/TheGreatWarChannel

»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Mark Newton
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (https://www.patreon.com/Zalezsky)
Research by: Markus Linke
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Alexander Clark
Original Logo: David van Stephold

A Mediakraft Networks Original Channel

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2020

January 31, 2020

How Hitler Won the Olympic Games – The Berlin Olympics | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1936 Part 3 of 3

Filed under: Germany, History, Sports — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

TimeGhost History
Published 30 Jan 2020

The Berlin Olympics in 1936 were a masterfully played piece of Nazi propaganda, where they framed their race as physically superior and their ideology as modern, organised and cultured while also ostensibly downplaying their anti-internationalism racism and anti-semitism. But the Germans didn’t embrace sports for friendly competition. They did so for something very different.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Joram Appel
Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek Kaminski

Sources:
Bundesarchiv_Bild:
183-G00372, 102-08105, 145_Bild-P017100, 183-R96374, 146-
1998-020-00A, 146-1976-033, 183-G00978, 183-1992-0421-500,
146-2005-0017, 183-G00352, 146-1976-116-08A, 146-1988-106-
29, 146II-728, 8076_Bild-0008
Modern Olympic Photos:
Photo from illang https://www.flickr.com/photos/ilan_sr…,
Photo by Agência Brasil http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/rio-2…

Colorizations by:
Daniel Weiss
Norman Stewart
Joram Appel

Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “First Responders” – Skrya
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Heroes On Horses” – Gunnar Johnsén
– “Split Decision” – Rannar Sillard
– “Not Safe Yet” – Gunnar Johnsen
– “Thunder Storm 01” – Fredrik Ekstrom
– “Dawn Of Civilization” – Jo Wandrini (1)
– “March Of The Brave 4” – Rannar Sillard
– “Magnificent March 3” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “Imperious” – Bonnie Grace
– “The Charleston 3” – Håkan Eriksson

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

TimeGhost History
2 days ago (edited)
The 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics and Garmisch-Partenkirchen Winter Olympics were the first true modern Olympic games. Many of the now staples of the Olympic games were introduced for the first time by the Nazis. But magnificent as they might have been, the intent of the Germans was not really to advance the vision of the internationalist and pacifist goals of the Olympic games. And while we do realise that many of the characteristics of the 1936 Olympics – how it was used to push a certain national image or to strengthen nationalism, could be said of more recent editions of the Olympics as well. And while sports and international institutions are still today being used to push alternate agendas, we’d rather not discuss them in the comment section here as this is a history channel – not a current affairs channel.
Cheers, Joram

November 11, 2019

The Berlin Wall – A Street Party With Sledgehammers – Extra History

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Politics, Russia — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Extra Credits
Published 9 Nov 2019

Thanks to World of Tanks for sponsoring this episode. Download the game on PC and use the invite code CHECKPOINTC to claim your $15 starter pack https://tanks.ly/2NoVfjx.

The Berlin Wall has become a symbol of the Cold War. It encircled West Berlin, separating it from the Soviet-controlled East Berlin, placed to try and stop the flood of skilled professionals leaving to the West. Multiple US presidents had penned speeches about tearing down the wall, to no effect. But the Wall did fall. As the USSR underwent massive reforms and the Velvet Revolution was underway, East Germany was undergoing its own reform. And one clerical oversight in a press conference will destroy the Wall for good.

Update: Austin Bay linked to a column he wrote in 2009 on the 20th anniversary of these events.

Many in the West, including the U.S., believed that the communists had history on their side. The wry debate reply from the defeatist lefties favoring unilateral U.S. nuclear disarmament was “better Red than dead.” For decades — I repeat, decades — this crowd had a media pulpit from which its self-proclaimed intelligentsia preached the moral equivalency of the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and at times dropped the all pretense and fingered the U.S. as the “fascist state” and global oppressor.

In the language of the defeatist left, the U.S. was the jailer, the warmonger, the threat to world peace.

The Berlin Wall’s collapse exposed that Big Lie, as did the documented moral, political, economic and ecological wretchedness of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, we still hear echoes of this “blame America” cant lacing al-Qaida propaganda and the lectures of hard-left reactionaries like Bill Ayers. The great anti-American lies of the Cold War are recast as the great anti-American lies of the War on Terror.

Breaching the wall in 1989 was bloodless, but the Cold War certainly wasn’t. World War III did not break out along the intra-German border and produce a nuclear conflagration, but the Cold War’s battles on the periphery (e.g., Greece, Korea, Vietnam, El Salvador, Angola, Afghanistan) were expensive, fatiguing and deadly.

October 2, 2019

That Downfall Scene Explained – What Is Hitler Freaking Out About? I 16 Days In Berlin

Filed under: Germany, History, Media, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Published on 1 Oct 2019

Thank you for your support for 16 Days in Berlin: https://realtimehistory.net/indiegogo

» SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thegreatwar
Merchandise: https://shop.spreadshirt.de/thegreatwar/

»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (https://www.patreon.com/Zalezsky)
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Alexander Clark
Original Logo: David van Stephold

A Mediakraft Networks Original Channel

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2019

July 26, 2019

“Attero Dominatus” – The Battle of Berlin – Sabaton History 025 [Official]

Filed under: Germany, History, Media, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Sabaton History
Published on 25 Jul 2019

The Sabaton song “Attero Dominatus” is about the Soviet advance on Berlin in the last months of World War Two. As the Soviets approach Berlin, two commanders, General Zhukov and General Konev, try their best to be the one to take the centre of the German capital. Meanwhile, thousands of Germans are raped or murdered by the Soviets in retaliation to the atrocities that the Germans committed in the east.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Listen to Attero Dominatus (where “Attero Dominatus” is featured):
CD: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusStore
Spotify: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusSpotify
Apple Music: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusAppleMusic
iTunes: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusiTunes
Amazon: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusAmzn
Google Play: http://bit.ly/AtteroDominatusGooglePlay

Check out the official videoclip for “Attero Dominatus” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNlRq…
Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
Official Sabaton Merchandise Shop: http://bit.ly/SabatonOfficialShop

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Maps by: Eastory
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editing by: Marek Kaminski

Eastory YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

Sources:
Colored portrait of W. Wenck by Ruffneck88
Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
Photos of Helmuth Weidling from ww2gallery on Flickr

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

May 31, 2019

“Hearts of Iron” – The Battle of Berlin – Sabaton History 017 [Official]

Filed under: Germany, History, Media, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Sabaton History
Published on 30 May 2019

The Sabaton song “Hearts of Iron” (on the Heroes album) tells the story of a German commander who is ordered to relieve Berlin in face of an overwhelming attack from the east and the west. Berlin is almost fully surrounded, but instead of following orders from his superiors who have clearly lost touch with reality, he decides to use his men to get as many civilians as possible out of Berlin.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Check out the trailer for Sabaton’s new album The Great War right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCZP1…

Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
Official Sabaton Merchandise Shop: http://bit.ly/SabatonOfficialShop

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Maps by: Eastory
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editing by: Marek Kaminski

Eastory YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.

Source:
– Colorization by Ruffneck88, Phot-colorization

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

From the comments:

Sabaton History
1 day ago
This episode is one of the few which shows the humanity in the German army. As with all conflicts, this was not a binary where it was the “good guys” versus “the bad guys”. And before anyone else says it – some people will probably complain how we frame the Soviets as the bad guys. We chose to tell this story from a neutral perspective, but fact is that many German civilians feared what the Soviets would do to them, and preferred to live under American occupation. This might be considered anti-Soviet, but it simply is how many Germans viewed the Soviet army and one of the reasons why Wenck and his 12th created a corridor for the civilian refugees to escape into American occupied territories. We’re happy to have a reasonable and research-based discussion in the comments, but we won’t tolerate any extremism or revisionism.

Another note: while this episode is about a moment where the German army thought for humanity instead of against it, it nowhere near proves any sort of clean-Wehrmacht myth – and we won’t tolerate any comments of that sort either.

And with that, I will leave you. Enjoy the video!
Cheers!

February 14, 2019

New Wars and Revolutions – Demobilisation I THE GREAT WAR January 1919

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Premiered 88 minutes ago

In our first new episode, our host Jesse takes a look at the German Revolution of 1918/1919 and how the Spartacists under Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg tried to take power. We also take a look at the new conflicts that emerge right after the supposed “war to end all wars” and explain how the massive armies of the great powers were demobilized.

» SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thegreatwar
Merchandise: https://shop.spreadshirt.de/thegreatwar/

» MAIN SOURCES [for Amazon links, go to the YouTube page]

Mark Jones, Founding Weimar. Violence and the German Revolution of 1918-19 (Cambridge University Press, 2016)

Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished. Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923 (Penguin, 2017)

» ADDITIONAL SOURCES
Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane and Annette Becker. 14-18, retrouver la guerre (Npp : Gallimard, 2000).

Bessel, Richard. “Post War Societies,” in 1914-1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online…

Cabanes, Bruno. “Démobilisations et retour des hommes,” in Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Jean-Jacques Becker, eds. Encyclopédie de la Grande guerre 1914-1918 (Paris : Bayard, 2013) : 987-1003.

Cook, Tim. Shock Troops. Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917-1918, vol. 2 (Toronto: Penguin, 2008).

Gerwarth, Robert. “The Continuum of Violence,” in J. Winter (Ed.), The Cambridge History of the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014): 638-662

» SOCIAL MEDIA

Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_great_war
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WW1_Series
Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/TheGreatWarChannel

»CREDITS

Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Motion Design: Christian Graef – GRAEFX
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (http://patreon.com/Zalesky)
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Alexander Clark
Original Logo: David van Stephold

A Mediakraft Networks Original Channel

Contains licenced material by getty images
All rights reserved – RTH – Real Time History GmbH i.Gr. 2019

From the comments:

The Great War
1 hour ago

WE’RE BACK! What did you think about our first new episode with a brand new concept and, of course, a brand new host? We’re glad you’re on this new journey with us and we hope you enjoyed our first step together in a new direction. If you missed our coverage of the Paris Peace Conference, you will just need to wait a little longer till our next episode.

We will be much more diligent about our sources and sourcing from now on. You can usually find sources for certain statements on screen or in the subtitles as well as all sources used for an episode in the video description

June 24, 2018

Berlin protest planned against EU’s proposed copyright changes

Filed under: Europe, Law, Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

If you’re a regular internet user and you’re anywhere near Berlin, you might want to consider supporting this protest:

On Wednesday, the Legislative Committee of the European Union narrowly voted to keep the two most controversial internet censorship and surveillance proposals in European history in the upcoming revision to the Copyright Directive — as soon as July Fourth, the whole European Parliament could vote to make this the law of 28 EU member-states.

The two proposals were Article 11 (the link tax), which bans linking to news articles without paying for a license from each news-site you want to link to; and Article 13 (the copyright filters), requiring that everything that Europeans post be checked first for potential copyright infringements and censored if an algorithm decides that your expression might breach someone’s copyright.

These proposals were voted through even though experts agree that they will be catastrophic for free speech and competition, raising the table-stakes for new internet companies by hundreds of millions of euros, meaning that the US-based Big Tech giants will enjoy permanent rule over the European internet. Not only did the UN’s special rapporteur on freedom of expression publicly condemn the proposal; so did more than 70 of the internet’s leading luminaries, including the co-creators of the World Wide Web, Wikipedia, and TCP.

We have mere days to head this off: the German Pirate Party has called for protests in Berlin this Sunday, June 24 at 11:45h outside European House Unter den Linden 78, 10117 Berlin. They’ll march on the headquarters of Axel-Springer, a publisher that lobbied relentlessly for these proposals.

If you use the Internet to communicate, organize, and educate it’s time to speak out. Show up, stand up, because the Internet needs you!

Original post, with embedded links, at BoingBoing.

April 20, 2018

Great Blunders of WWII: The Pilot Who Bombed London 3

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

Anthony Coleman
Published on 4 Nov 2016

From the History Channel DVD series Great Blunders of WWII

December 9, 2017

Berlin Airlift: The Cold War Begins – Extra History

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Germany, History, Military, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 7 Dec 2017

Tension between the Soviet Union and their former World War 2 Allies escalated into a hostile blockade of Berlin. All sides wanted to avoid another war, but the United States, Great Britain, and France refused to bend to Stalin’s pressure. They came up with a daring plan to supply Berlin by air.

August 6, 2017

Shock, horror – “local or organic food is … often available only in Canada to the wealthy”

Filed under: Cancon, Food, Germany — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Chris Selley just got back from a European vacation, where he observed some odd German activity:

Last month, on vacation, I happened across what might be the platonic ideal of a fancy urban farmers’ market. The smell of wood smoke led me to a quiet street in Berlin’s leafy Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood, where a man was smoking various kinds of fish in the middle of the road. As one does. There was a little mobile bicycle-powered coffee shop selling vastly overpriced espresso. There was the requisite improbably expensive produce and charcuterie and cheese. (My God, the cheese. Why do Canadians put up with our benighted dairy industry?) And to shock my Ontarian senses, there was a big booth selling local wines — which one could drink, out of glasses, in whatever quantities one saw fit, right there out in the open. Tipplers weren’t even confined to a secure pen. There wasn’t even a security guard!

Even more than at Toronto’s fancier farmers’ markets, it was abundantly clear this was a place for wealthy people with time to spare. And it never occurred to me that was a problem. A new study co-authored by Kelly Hodgins and Evan Fraser of the University of Guelph suggests it is, however — and a recent headline on the matter made my eyes roll so far back in my head I feared they might get stuck: “Access to ‘ethical’ food often available only to the wealthy, study says.”

“While eating local or organic food is often touted as superior from a health, environmental and oftentimes ethical perspective, such foods are often available only in Canada to the wealthy, with limited access for those living on lower or even middle incomes,” The Globe and Mail reported.

I know. I’m just as shocked as you are. Who would ever have expected that?

November 5, 2015

QotD: The Berlin Wall

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The Berlin Wall was a symbol of the depravity and viciousness of the Marxist idea. Karl Marx was a pure hate monger masquerading as a social philosopher. His ideas may, in the end, be summarized thus: wealth can be gained only by stealing from others, and thus successful people are evil, and thus it is okay to threaten or kill rich people (or even people who are just a bit better off than you are), to steal their belongings, and to threaten anyone who might in the future have more stuff than you do. If you somehow get more things than other people, it is okay for other people to take your stuff, and if you resist, it is okay to beat you up or kill you.

Even more succinctly, Marxism is the idea that envy is laudable, and should be turned into social policy with the use of pervasive violence.

I am putting this more bluntly and baldly than the average Marxist would. They prefer concealing their central idea beneath a heavy blanket of words. They dress up their “philosophy” in avant garde costumes, adding layers of verbiage, complicated and counterfactual claims about language and logic, bizarre ideas about the nature of history, etc., all in the service of keeping people from seeing what they’re actually suggesting. What lies underneath is nothing much more than hate of people who have more stuff than you do, justified by little or nothing more than wanting to take what they have for yourself.

When you base your beliefs on this sort of foundation, the violence that proceeds is not an accident or the result of an improper understanding or implementation of an otherwise fine program. The violence is the direct and intentional result of the underlying program. The violence is the entire purpose of the underlying program.

In spite of the claims of apologists, the Marxism that fell twenty five years ago was the true Marxism. You cannot force people to work whether they get any benefit of it or not if they can flee from you, so you have to build walls. The Berlin Wall was not an aberration, it was the the only way to keep the quite literal slaves from fleeing their bondage. You cannot take stuff from people who have it without goons with guns, since they will not want to hand their material possessions over, so you bring in goons with guns to scour your population. In a free market, you get ahead by making things people want like bread or telephones, but in a Marxist society, the only way to get ahead is through gaining political power, and so people who are exceptionally talented at deploying violence and thuggery and are ambitious rise to the top of your society. Stalin or someone like him was not an accident, he was an inevitability.

Perry Metzger, “A memorable anniversary, and those who would forget it”, Samizdata, 2014-11-09.

October 11, 2015

Compare and contrast – Berlin in 1936, and in July, 1945

Filed under: Europe, History, WW2 — Tags: — Nicholas @ 02:00

Open Culture posted these two films of Berlin, one from shortly after the Nazis came to power (the caption notes that there is footage from 1936 through 1939) and shortly after the allies took control of the German capital at the end of the war in Europe.

Here’s the “before” view:

Here’s the “after”:

I suspect I’ve posted the second video before, but I think it’s worth repeating.

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