Quotulatiousness

February 2, 2021

Well, it is a very, very cunning plan …

Filed under: Government, History, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the latest Libertarian Enterprise, Sarah Hoyt explains why the progressives’ cunningest of cunning plans may not be cunning enough:

The left has a plan so cunning that if it were a person, it would be teaching cunningology at Oxford. And the ones who get the reference will also know that their plan is about to go pear shaped in all sorts of interesting ways, and at the end of it there might very well be a turnip or two involved, but not as the only item available in the shelves of the grocery store.

Look, someone pointed out in the comments the left are trying to follow the “plan” for other communist revolutions round the world.

He’s right. They’re trying to follow it to the letter. Partly because it’s worked before, and partly, because to be fair, they’re a cult, and cults don’t know the reason for the ritual, they just follow it.

… but it’s already going wrong. And it’s only going to get worse.

You see, part of the problem is that the cult of communism and the procedures for “the revolution” were set in the early twentieth century. And it’s designed for the early twentieth century. To the extent they worked in places like Venezuela, it is because the underlying structures of the society were still very much “early twentieth century.”

The US? Well, not so much. In fact we never were much like the early twentieth century in Europe, which is why they’ve had a hell of a time getting a foothold here.

The communist revolution is designed to work in a country that is mostly urban, with a vast urban underclass that can’t rise above for reasons both internal and external despite working unreasonable hours. It’s designed for a country with a firm aristocracy of the hereditary sort (even if that aristocracy is often from trade), it is designed for a country with a conscript army where the plum assignments go to the “good families” as a matter of course, it is designed to work — most of all and very importantly — in a country where they ABSOLUTELY control all the means of mass communication and do so without the vast majority of the people being aware of it.

The last time they could have pulled that off in the US was in the mid seventies. And my guess, honestly, is that they tried. I don’t know for sure, since the news of the time were all reported by biased sources, and besides I’m too lazy and too busy […] to spend my day chasing down hints. I bet they did try, though. I bet they gave it a sporting try. And I bet part of the issue back then — as now, btw — is that they were pinning their hopes on a race war, having both not realized how much of a minority people of African descent are in the US (last estimate is what? 14%? Sizeable, sure, but not a large minority and certainly not a majority. Also, and seriously, a lot of that minority is middle class and whatever they voice from the mouth-out as uninterested as the rest of us in having the apple cart overturned. Apples are tasty. Genocide not so much.) Mostly because that sh*t was so successful in Africa, and again the left doesn’t think. It ritualistically applies “what worked” without being able to account for changed conditions.

Anyway, that was the last time they could have MAYBE credibly have followed their little red map to revolution and have it work. And even then Americans were just too darn contrarian. Why everyone and their parents were telling us that Republicans were so dangerous, that they were going to start the nuclear war, that — And we went and voted Reagan in. (Well, not me. I only worked towards it. I didn’t vote. I wasn’t a citizen and I’m not a democrat.)

In fact, America could have engraved on its door lintel “authorities can go f*ck themselves.” The left keeps forgetting that. And sometimes justifiably. Take their Covid-psy-ops. It worked. And it was all run on the “experts” and how important it was.

Uh uh. So, they think their control is back! They’re golden again, baby!

January 29, 2021

Ancient Aryans: The History of Crackpot N@zi Archaeology

Atun-Shei Films
Published 22 Nov 2019

Thanks to Indiana Jones, everybody knows that German archaeologists in the 1930s were searching for occult ancient artifacts … but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In this educational video, I explore how the N@zis turned the discipline of prehistoric archaeology into a cog in their propaganda machine, and how their crazy conspiracy theories about lost civilizations continue to haunt us to this day.

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January 27, 2021

Misunderstood Moments in History – The Spartan Myth

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

Invicta
Published 27 Oct 2017

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The Spartans are immortalized in history as super soldiers bred for war. However most of what we think we know about them is a lie. Today we will unmask the truth behind the Spartan Myth.

The Great Courses Plus is currently available to watch through a web browser to almost anyone in the world and optimized for the US market. The Great Courses Plus is currently working to both optimize the product globally and accept credit card payments globally.

Documentary Credits:
Research: Dr Roel Konijnendijk
Script: Invicta
Artwork: Milek J
Editing: Invicta
Music: Total War OST, Soundnote

Documentary Bibliography:
Paul Anthony Cartledge, The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-heroes of Ancient Greece
Nigel Kennell, Spartans: A New History (2010)
S. Hodkinson, Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta (2000)
J. Ducat, Spartan Education: Youth and Society in the Classical Period (2006)
S.M. Rusch, Sparta at War: Strategy, Tactics and Campaigns, 550-362 BC (2011)
E. Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (1969)
S. Hodkinson & I.M. Morris (eds.), Sparta in Modern Thought (2012)

December 30, 2020

This is why the word “unexpectedly” gets such a workout in media these days

David Warren on “unexpectedly” negative results from policies born of virtue-signalling “good intentions” by self-styled progressives:

The expression, “unintended consequences,” is a charitable dodge. It is what old-fashioned, polite, civic-minded people say about the fallout from progressive social policies. It implies that their authors have overlooked something, or made some innocent mistake. For unfortunately, the policies do the exact opposite of what was promised. Surely the “reformers” didn’t mean to force decent, reasonable people to do things that any decent, reasonable person would consider to be satanic. Yet somehow, that was the result.

By contrast, these reformers despise the tactics of the bourgeois. Rather than argue, they prefer to drown out their opponents with slogans. Rather than coherently reply, they characterize any asking questions as “fascist,” “misogynist,” “racist,” “hate criminals,” &c. Those who have exposed scandals are personally smeared, slandered, doxxed. This isn’t new. It is the way the Left has always “debated,” going back long before Lenin. Once they have the police working for them, opponents get the knock in the middle of the night.

There are, incidentally, two kinds of “reform,” corresponding to the two political persuasions. One happens without planning, and is an organic response to things no longer working properly. Try, in good faith, to make the old system work, and it will subtly change. The “problems” fix themselves, when they are allowed to. The other kind is “reform” according to a theory. A huge, mostly imaginary “problem” is created, so a “solution” may be imposed. Every tool must be applied, to get everyone onside for the task: fake news, fake science, fake history, and miscellaneous fakery. For as every godless person knows, “the end justifies the means.”

Luckier than most, raised in “liberal” environments, I was able to discern this from an early age. By chance I acquired many friends who were refugees from Communist (especially Soviet-occupied) countries. But it was not just that. Having been trained counter-culturally, by non-conformist “classically liberal” teachers, and also having learnt to read for myself, I was already fairly alert. The clincher for me was a native disposition, not only to think independently, but to resist being a putz. It was not in my nature to assume that the enemies of real liberalism (which requires honesty) had good intentions. Reason, and experiment, demonstrated that they had not.

For instance, I early realized that leftwing factions formed a Party of Privilege. Every policy they advanced favoured individuals with relatively more wealth and power, against individuals with less. Unions were a good example. They represented the better-paid. The labour laws they advocated were designed to exclude the young and the poor from labour-market competition. They secured the allegiance of thuggish union members through crassly self-interested schemes. They opposed legitimate rewards for labour; for skill and hard work. Instead they enforced universal mediocrity, and punished intelligent enterprise. Legitimate labour interests, once represented by cooperative and self-managing guilds, were replaced by the interests of (untalented) union organizers.

December 16, 2020

QotD: Distorting the history of America’s “Gilded Age”

Filed under: Economics, Education, Government, History, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

We study history to learn from it. If we can discover what worked and what didn’t work, we can use this knowledge wisely to create a better future. Studying the triumph of American industry, for example, is important because it is the story of how the United States became the world’s leading economic power. The years when this happened, from 1865 to the early 1900s, saw the U.S. encourage entrepreneurs indirectly by limiting government. Slavery was abolished and so was the income tax. Federal spending was slashed and federal budgets had surpluses almost every year in the late 1800s. In other words, the federal government created more freedom and a stable marketplace in which entrepreneurs could operate.

To some extent, during the late 1800s — a period historians call the “Gilded Age” — American politicians learned from the past. They had dabbled in federal subsidies from steamships to transcontinental railroads, and those experiments dismally failed. Politicians then turned to free markets as a better strategy for economic development. The world-dominating achievements of Cornelius Vanderbilt, James J. Hill, John D. Rockefeller, and Charles Schwab validated America’s unprecedented limited government. And when politicians sometimes veered off course later with government interventions for tariffs, high income taxes, anti-trust laws, and an effort to run a steel plant to make armor for war — the results again often hindered American economic progress. Free markets worked well; government intervention usually failed.

Why is it, then, that for so many years, most historians have been teaching the opposite lesson? They have made no distinction between political entrepreneurs, who tried to succeed through federal aid, and market entrepreneurs, who avoided subsidies and sought to create better products at lower prices. Instead, most historians have preached that many, if not all, entrepreneurs were “robber barons”. They did not enrich the U.S. with their investments; instead, they bilked the public and corrupted political and economic life in America. Therefore, government intervention in the economy was needed to save the country from these greedy businessmen.

Burton W. Folsum, “How the Myth of the ‘Robber Barons’ Began — and Why It Persists”, Foundation for Economic Education, 2018-09-21.

October 18, 2020

Panic in Moscow! The Germans are here! – WW2 – 112 – October 17, 1941

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

World War Two
Published 17 Oct 2020

Moscow panics as the Germans edge closer and take prisoners by the hundreds of thousands, even as the temperature drops far below freezing. At home in Germany, Josef Goebbels has a problem – he’s promised victory too soon and too often. And in Japan, a government falls.

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Sources:
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Archive.org

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

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
2 days ago
Japan’s immediate future seems decided with a new government that certainly has no issue with the war in China or with extending that war to the south, meanwhile Moscow panics as the Germans approach. What does all this mean for the men and women in the occupied territory? What does it mean for those at home?

To learn more about that check out our sub-series “War Against Humanity” and “On the Homefront”:

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October 8, 2020

Keeping up with the Bonapartes, Sino-German relations and Barbarossa news – WW2 – OOTF 018

Filed under: China, Europe, France, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 7 Oct 2020

What were the Bonapartes up to during World War Two? How were the German casualties of Operation Barbarossa reported, if at all, in Germany? And what exactly was the relationship between China and Germany in World War Two? Join Indy in the Chair of Infinite Wisdom to find out.

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Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Lewis Braithwaite, Ian Sowden, and Samir Mechel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Lewis Braithwaite, Ian Sowden, and Samir Mechel
Edited by: Monika Worona
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
Daniel
Mikołaj Uchman
Musvage

Visual sources:
Bundesarchiv

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

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

September 29, 2020

Modern Classics Summarized: 1984

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 24 Feb 2017

It’s the mother of all dystopias! Long before YA dystopia rose to power, before the age of Young Attractive Heroes who Rebel Against The State and Also Find Love, there was just Winston Smith — a middle-aged man in poor health who Rebelled Against The State and Also Found Love. It just ended much less prettily for him.

1984 codified most of the modern dystopia tropes — absolute control of the media, black-bagging people who spoke out, and a lot of popular terms like “doublethink”, “big brother”, and “thought police”. Unfortunately, a lot of those terms got stripped of context and thrown around for the sake of Extra Edge, and as a result they get used a little haphazardly. And there’s nothing Red hates more than misused terminology, so here’s the video outlining the ORIGINAL meaning of 1984!

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September 27, 2020

CHECKMATE, LINCOLNITES! Confederate DESTROYS Yankee with FACTS and LOGIC

Filed under: History, Humour, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Atun-Shei Films
Published 23 May 2019

Checkmate, Lincolnites! Debunking the three or four arguments Neo-Confederates always make when they talk about the Civil War.

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September 26, 2020

“… debate is an imperialist capitalist white supremacist cis heteropatriarchal technique that transforms a potential exchange of knowledge into a tool of exclusion & oppression”

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Andrew Sullivan‘s latest look at the ultrawoke:

If you’ve ever wondered why critical theorists and their popularizers never seem to actually expose themselves to direct criticism, this quote might help:

    I get regular invites to debate on various platforms. I always say no. Because debate is an imperialist capitalist white supremacist cis heteropatriarchal technique that transforms a potential exchange of knowledge into a tool of exclusion & oppression.

And also perhaps because debate is one of the most effective tools in rooting out ideological bullshit. Speaking of which, here’s an interview with Judith Butler, the patron saint of wokeness, in which she can actually say, with a straight face: “I am not aware that terf is used as a slur.” “Terf” is short for “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist.” It’s yelled routinely at any dissenter from critical queer and gender theory. Of course it’s used as a slur.

Meanwhile, the 1619 Project has begun finally to implode. Its core argument – that America’s true founding was in 1619 not 1776, because America is in its DNA a slavocracy built on “white supremacy” and not a democracy rooted in the unrealized principle of human equality — has been withdrawn by the editor. Here’s the best summary of the rank dishonesty of the entire thing, from the preternaturally reasonable Conor Friedersdorf. He attempted to engage Nikole Hannah-Jones in good faith, a concept she simply doesn’t comprehend.

I think it’s clear by now that a completely defensible — even important — airing of new scholarship about the evil of slavery, and its profound impact on America, became hijacked at the NYT by the ideology that insists that the United States is inherently white supremacist, that this explains everything about the country, that this has never changed, that no white people were involved in perfecting the union, and that liberal democracy is a front for racism and should be dismantled. Given the extremist politics and unethical behavior of Nikole Hannah-Jones, this is unsurprising. But that this confused, half-baked rant won a Pulitzer and is being used to indoctrinate school kids in critical race theory is a staggering indictment of how corrupted by left-racism American elite journalism now is. In my view, the Pulitzer Board needs to rescind its prize. Fat chance, of course.

But there is hope. There are still reporters at the NYT interested in the truth about woke culture and politics. Nellie Bowles’ dispatch from Portland is a must-read. It’s a glimpse into the totalitarian impulses behind so many on the far left. Chilling.

September 25, 2020

“In the Name of God” – The History of Terror – Sabaton History 086 [Official]

Filed under: France, History, Media, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Sabaton History
Published 24 Sep 2020

Terrorism might be one of mankind’s oldest weapons. Since antiquity, horrific violence and assassinations were used to overthrow supposed tyrants and strike fear into the heart of the public.

The French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, saw terrorism evolving into its modern form. Political opponents, counter-revolutionaries, or simply sympathizers of the “old order”, were targeted and eliminated in a wave of terror. Political murder became romanticized.

Throughout the centuries until today, terror persists as a weapon of the few against the masses, in an effort to change society by force. Nothing made that clearer than the terrorist attacks against the United States on 9/11 2001.

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September 20, 2020

The Lost Cause Myth in the 21st Century

Filed under: History, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Atun-Shei Films
Published 23 Feb 2019

A former Gettysburg tour guide talks about how the American Civil War is remembered today.

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September 1, 2020

QotD: The “envy of the world”, Britain’s NHS

No good crisis, including the present COVID-19 epidemic, should go to waste. In this respect, the high priests of Britain’s secular religion, its highly centralised National Health Service, have certainly not been sitting on their hands. There has been so much propaganda in favour of the Service during the epidemic that one might have believed that it was under central direction.

One morning, for example, I received an e-mail advertisement from a chain of bookstores (a near-monopoly in the British bookstore trade) of which I am an occasional customer, for an anthology of stories specially written in praise of the NHS titled Dear NHS: 100 Stories to Say Thank You. An anthology of poetry, These Are the Hands: Poems from the Heart of the NHS has also just been published. I will pass over in silence the emotional kitschiness of all this.

These books, of course, deliberately confound the NHS itself with the devotion and skill of the people working within it. They are not the same thing — very far from it — and it might well be that good results are often achieved despite the system rather than because of it.

The propaganda in favour of the NHS has been more or less continuous since its foundation in 1948, though it has become ever shriller, as propaganda tends to do, as it departs further and further from reality. Indeed, one might surmise that the purpose of propaganda in general is to forestall any proper examination of reality in favour of simplistic slogans convenient to political power.

I grew up, for example, in the inculcated belief that the National Health Service was, according to the slogan of the time, “the envy of the world.” Millions of people believed this, and indeed it was an assertion heard for many years whenever the subject of health care came up. The slogan was last wheeled out in any force in 2008 for the 60th anniversary of its founding.

Theodore Dalrymple, “Worshipping the NHS”, Law & Liberty, 2020-05-04.

August 30, 2020

Why Gods and Generals is Neo-Confederate Propaganda (and Objectively Sucks)

Filed under: History, Humour, Media, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Atun-Shei Films
Published 12 Aug 2019

Like if Ken Burns and Mr. Plinkett had a baby.

Gods and Generals (2003) is a four and a half hour long epic from the director of Gettysburg (1993), chronicling the first two years of the American Civil War in the Eastern Theater from the point of view of General Stonewall Jackson. In this video essay / review, I examine how the film is an insidious piece of pro-Confederate propaganda, echoing the inaccuracies and misconceptions of the notorious Lost Cause myth.

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August 19, 2020

QotD: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Media, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The CBC was conceived 90 years ago to give the country a national broadcaster and to help Canadian regions understand each other better. It has often lived up to that mandate and in places still does.

But it is an infestation of leftist biases, and is often grossly unprofessional. For decades, despite being almost entirely funded by Canadian taxpayers, it was the principal house organ of the Quebec separatist movement, to the point that former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, shortly before the 1980 Quebec independence referendum, threatened to shut the French network down; when asked what he would replace it with, he responded with his customary vivacity of wit: “Still pictures of Chinese and Japanese vases, at least they have some cultural value.” It is compulsively misanthropic and nasty, and almost always takes a snide leftist view of everything, including foreign affairs. Brexiters were cavemen, U.S. President Donald Trump is a racist, sexist crook and moron, and it is racism and xenophobia to assert that the coronavirus originated in China. Can’t we have better and more original insights than this?

Conrad Black, “Canada needs a much better CBC”, New English Review, 2020-05-02.

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