Quotulatiousness

September 11, 2021

Twenty years on

Filed under: History, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:12

Mark Steyn‘s observations:

We shall not resume our anniversary observances today. The war is lost, at home and abroad. On the domestic front, we doubled the rate of Muslim immigration to the west and began assimilating ourselves with Islam’s strictures on freedom of expression and the like. The decade-and-a-half since the Danish Mohammed cartoons has been one long remorseless surrender on core western liberties. When a school teacher gets beheaded in the street, there is no outrage at the act, just a mild regret that he should have been foolish enough to provoke his own fate. Even the milder jests from the immediate post-9/11 era — the cartoon of the woman trying on new burqas in the changing room and wondering, “Does my bomb look big in this?” — would not be published today.

In the broader society, our rulers quickly determined that it was easier to punish us than our enemies. The post-9/11 security state surely helped soften up western populations for the Chi-Com-19 lockdowns, in which entire nations have been reduced to TSA-administered airports.

As for the war overseas, it ended with a military that can do everything except win handing the keys to Afghanistan back to the guys who pulled off 9/11 — and apologizing for the two-decade inconvenience by gifting the mullahs with some of the most expensive infrastructure on the planet plus an air force, approximately five assault rifles for every Taliban fighter, and express check-in for the forty-seven per cent of the Afghan population that apparently served as US translators.

The position of the United States is far weaker than it was twenty years ago. Around the planet, the assumption of friends and enemies alike is that the American moment is over and the future belongs elsewhere. They are making their dispositions accordingly. It is not a question of wishing “the post-American world”, but of accepting the known facts.

David Warren reposted his thoughts from the fifteenth anniversary:

A generation or more is necessary to see any large event in some historical perspective. That the fall of the Berlin Wall was a “large event” we could see immediately, but not what it portended. The political world would be transformed, but the New World Order that George Bush Senior foresaw was a mirage. Ditto with events since 9/11.

Several thousand were killed on that day in 2001 — the anniversary of the Ottoman defeat at the Gates of Vienna. This was a comparatively small number, by modern standards. The rich symbolism of this Islamist operation was lost on the West, which no longer cares for history or legend. A brilliant assault of “asymmetric warfare”, it fulfilled all of its objectives. The torch has since been passed from the more moderate al-Qaeda to the more fanatic Daesh, and will be passed again in due course. Osama bin-Laden personally lost face by being hunted down and killed like a rat, but his vision of a restored Islamic Caliphate survives him. It inspires still the young in heart and mind.

The immediate intention was to humiliate the “Great Satan”; to awaken the sleeping giant and make him blindly thrash; to goad him into self-destructive behaviour as he struck against an enemy he could neither locate nor understand. Beyond this: to expose him as a paper tiger, tilting a balance of power, and transferring initiative from the mightily-armed “Crusader” to the nimble “Jihadi”. Within the Muslim world: to show that only the radical Salafist faction could get results, could change the direction of history and, as it were, “make Arabia great again”.

As I suggested above, we are still too close to this event to grasp its full significance; but after fifteen years we in the West are in a much worse position than we were on the 10th of September, 2001. We showed, as the Islamists predicted, that we did not have the stamina to prevail, even against weak adversaries; that America and allies could only fight “Vietnams”. Our will is shaken, and to Salafist delight, we have by now expressed contrition for fourteen centuries of Christian defence against Islamic aggression. We bow respectfully, as our culture is insulted, and as versions of Shariah are imposed. In disregard of our own security, we have thrown our borders open to massive Muslim immigration. We follow, at every junction, the course of sentimentality, and adapt to the certainty of defeat. After each hit we call for grief counsellors.

On MeWe, Byron Clark reposted a transcript of the call Todd Beamer made from United Airlines flight 93 that morning:

Todd: Hello … Operator … listen to me … I can’t speak very loud. – This is an emergency. I’m a passenger on a United flight to San Francisco. We have a situation here … Our plane has been hijacked … can you understand me?
Lisa: (exhaling a deep breath to herself) I understand … Can the hijackers see you talking on the phone?
Todd: No
Lisa: Can you tell me how many hijackers are on the plane?
Todd: There are three that we know of.
Lisa: Can you see any weapons? What kind of weapons do they have?
Todd: Yes … they don’t have guns … they have knives – they took over the plane with knives.
Lisa: Do you mean … like steak knives?
Todd: No, these are razor knives … like box cutters.
Lisa: Can you tell what country these people are from?
Todd: No … I don’t know. They sound like they’re from the mid-east.
Lisa: Have they said what they want?
Todd: Someone announced from the cockpit that there was a bomb on board. He said he was the captain and to stay in our seats and stay quiet.
He said that they were meeting these men’s demands and returning to the airport… It was very broken English, and… I’m telling you…it sounded fake!
Lisa: Ok sir, please give me your name.
Todd: My name is Todd Beamer.
Lisa: Ok Todd … my name is Lisa … Do you know your flight number? If you can’t remember, it’s on your ticket.
Todd: It’s United Flight 93.
Lisa: Now Todd, can you try to tell me exactly what happened?
Todd: Two of the hijackers were sitting in first class near the cockpit. A third one was sitting near the back of the coach section. The two up front got into the cockpit somehow; there was shouting. The third hijacker said he had a bomb. It looks like a bomb. He’s got it tied to his waist with a red belt of some kind.
Lisa: So is the door to the cockpit open?
Todd: No, the hijackers shut it behind them.
Lisa: Has anyone been injured?
Todd: Yes, they … they killed one passenger sitting in first class. There’s been lots of shouting. We don’t know if the pilots are dead or alive. A flight attendant told me that the pilot and copilot had been forced from the cockpit and may have been wounded.
Lisa: Where is the 3rd hijacker now Todd?
Todd: He’s near the back of the plane. They forced most of the passengers into first class. There are fourteen of us here in the back. Five are flight attendants. He hasn’t noticed that I slipped into this pantry to get the phone. The guy with the bomb ordered us to sit on the floor in the rear of the plane … oh Jesus. Help!
Lisa: Todd … are you ok? Tell me what’s happening!
Todd: Hello … We’re going down … I think we’re going to crash … Wait – wait a minute. No, we’re leveling off … we’re ok. I think we may be turning around … That’s it – we changed directions. Do you hear me … we’re flying east again.
Lisa: Ok Todd … What’s going on with the other passengers?
Todd: Everyone is … really scared. A few passengers with cell phones have made calls to relatives. A guy, Jeremy, was talking to his wife just before the hijacking started. She told him that hijackers had crashed two planes into the World Trade Center … Lisa is that true??
Lisa: Todd … I have to tell you the truth … it’s very bad. The World Trade Center is gone. Both of the towers have been destroyed.
Todd: Oh God — help us!
Lisa: A third plane was taken over by terrorists. It crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC. Our country is under attack … and I’m afraid that your plane may be part of their plan.
Todd: Oh dear God. Dear God … Lisa, will you do something for me?
Lisa: I’ll try … if I can … Yes.
Todd: I want you to call my wife and my kids for me and tell them what’s happened. Promise me you’ll call.
Lisa: I promise – I’ll call.
Todd: Our home number is 201 353-1073 … You have the same name as my wife … Lisa … We’ve been married for 10 years. She’s pregnant with our 3rd child. Tell her that I love her … (choking up) … I’ll always love her … (clearing throat) We have two boys … David, he’s 3 and Andrew, he’s 1 … Tell them … (choking) tell them that their daddy loves them and that he is so proud of them. (clearing throat again) Our baby is due January 12th … I saw an ultra sound … it was great … we still don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy … Lisa?
Lisa: (barely able to speak) I’ll tell them, I promise Todd.
Todd: I’m going back to the group — if I can get back I will …
Lisa: Todd, leave this line open … are you still there?
Lisa: (dials the phone) Hello, FBI, my name is Lisa Jefferson, I’m a telephone supervisor for GTE. I need to report a terrorist hijacking of a United Airlines Flight 93 … Yes I’ll hold.
Goodwin: Hello, this is Agent Goodwin … I understand you have a hijacking situation?
Lisa: Yes sir, I’ve been talking with a passenger, a Todd Beamer, on Flight 93 who managed to get to an air phone unnoticed.
Goodwin: Where did this flight originate, and what was its destination?
Lisa: The flight left Newark New Jersey at 8 A.M. departing for San Francisco. The hijackers took over the plane shortly after takeoff, and several minutes later the plane changed course – it is now flying east.
Goodwin: Ms. Jefferson … I need to talk to someone aboard that plane. Can you get me thru to the planes phone?
Lisa: I still have that line open sir, I can patch you through on a conference call … hold a mo …
Todd: Hello Lisa, Lisa are you there?
Lisa: Yes, I’m here. Todd, I made a call to the FBI, Agent Goodwin is on the line and will be talking to you as well.
Todd: The others all know that this isn’t your normal hijacking. Jeremy called his wife again on his cell phone. She told him more about the World Trade Center and all.
Goodwin: Hello Todd. This is Agent Goodwin with the FBI. We have been monitoring your flight. Your plane is on a course for Washington, DC. These terrorists sent two planes into the World Trade Center and one plane into the Pentagon. Our best guess is that they plan to fly your plane into either the White House or the United States Capital Building.
Todd: I understand … hold on … I’ll … I’ll be back …
Lisa: Mr. Goodwin, how much time do they have before they get to Washington?
Goodwin: Not long ma’am. They changed course over Cleveland; they’re approaching Pittsburgh now. Washington may be twenty minutes away.
Todd: (breathing a little heavier) The plane seems to be changing directions just a little. It’s getting pretty rough up here. The plane is flying real erratic … We’re not going to make it out of here. Listen to me … I want you to hear this … I have talked with the others … we have decided we would not be pawns in these hijackers suicidal plot.
Lisa: Todd, what are you going to do?
Todd: We’ve hatched a plan. Four of us are going to rush the hijacker with the bomb. After we take him out, we’ll break into the cockpit. A stewardess is getting some boiling water to throw on the hijackers at the controls. We’ll get them … and we’ll take them out. Lisa … will you do one last thing for me?
Lisa: Yes … What is it?
Todd: Would you pray with me?
They pray: Our father which art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive our trespassers,
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory
Forever … Amen
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want …
He makes me to lie down in green pastures
He leads me beside the still waters
He restores my soul
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for His name’s sake
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me …
Todd: (softer) God help me … Jesus help me … (clears throat and louder)
Are you guys ready? …
Let’s Roll …

September 9, 2021

QotD: Terrorism

Filed under: Middle East, Military, Quotations, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Others among the influential for a moment after the retaliatory strikes of October 7, 2001, talked of moral equivalency — the conventional wisdom that American precision targeting of an enemy in time of war carried the same ethical burden as the terrorists’ deliberate mass-murdering of civilians at peace. But billions worldwide knew that the selective wreckage of al-Qaeda safe houses in Kabul was not comparable to the smoldering crater that was once the World Trade Center. Why else were terrorists and the Taliban hiding in mosques and infirmaries to avoid American bombs while their own manuals instructed killers to commit mass murder in Jewish hospitals and temples? So the reality that average folk viewed on their televisions made them question the bottled piety of the last decades that they heard from a powerful and influential few. And in that moral calculus, September 11 shocked an affluent and at times self-satisfied American citizenry into confessing that it was no longer either too wealthy, too refined, or too sensitive to kill killers.

Victor Davis Hanson, Ripples of Battle, 2004.

July 20, 2021

Kurt Westergaard, RIP

Filed under: Europe, Liberty, Media, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Mark Steyn on the life and work of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard:

Kurt Westergaard and I were successive winners of the Danish Free Press Society’s Sappho Award. I was very flattered to find myself in his company, but couldn’t honestly say I deserved to be. Kurt was one of the bravest men of our time – not because he was inclined to bravery, but simply because, when it was required, he met the challenge and never backed down.

Sixteen years ago Flemming Rose of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten decided to conduct a thought experiment in public after an author casually revealed that he couldn’t find any Danish artist willing to illustrate his book about “the Prophet Mohammed” (as the BBC now routinely styles him). So Flemming called twelve cartoonists and invited them to depict the late Prophet. Kurt Westergaard’s cartoon was the memorable one, and the one you recall as the years roll by. It was a pithy visual jest: Mohammed’s turban as a bomb with a lit fuse. See picture at top right.

“I attempted to show that terrorists get their spiritual ammunition from parts of Islam, and with this spiritual ammunition, and with dynamite and other explosives, they kill people,” Kurt told my old newspaper The National Post a few years back. “I showed this in a cartoon and what happened? They want to kill me, so I think I was right.”

An otherwise courtly, cultured Dane, Kurt Westergaard had a somewhat arresting dress code, preferring le rouge et le noir, the colors of anarchists, although, as a practical matter, it’s hard for a man of advanced years to carry off red trousers, whatever his motivation. He would qualify his pantaloons by explaining that he was not a political anarchist but a cultural one. Still, one can gather from the garb alone that Westergaard was no “right-winger”. Like most of the men and women I have shared a stage with in Europe this century, he was an old Sixties radical sufficiently principled to think the same kind of jokes he’d applied to church, monarchy, parliament and every other societal institution should also be applied to Islam. He never wanted to be a “free speech hero”, but gamely bore the burthen once it had been dropped on him. He certainly never wanted to be world-famous, albeit more so in Mogadishu than Manhattan and Lahore than Los Angeles. It cost him a comfortable retirement, weakened his health, and an ever more craven culture denied him the consolations of monetary exploitation. When I expressed sympathy, he laughed and said he’d do the same cartoon all over again even knowing what he was in for.

The blood lust began with a trio of imams on the make shopping the twelve cartoons (plus three cruder fakes) round the Muslim world, and leaving it to the usual Islamonutters to take it from there: In nothing flat, over two hundred people were dead – which meant that CNN & Co were obliged to cover the story. They did so by modifying Westergaard’s cartoon, with Mohammed’s face pixilated, as if he’d entered the witness protection programme. If only. In reality, it was that dwindling band of people who believe in free speech – and, indeed, free speech itself – that found itself in the witness protection programme.

QotD: Lenin’s “Hanging Order”

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

Lenin is the same cold-blooded thug who famously wrote, “We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth[.] … We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.”

Elsewhere, Lenin declared that “The proletariat needs state power, the centralized organization of force, the organization of violence, for the purpose of crushing the resistance … and for the purpose of leading the great mass of the population … in the work of organizing a socialist economy.”

In August 1918, Lenin sent his now famous “Hanging Order” telegram. It instructed local Bolsheviks in the Penza region to deal harshly with the farmers (kulaks) who owned land there and were standing in the way of its nationalization. The British historian Robert Service discovered it in Soviet archives in the 1990s. It read as follows:

    Comrades! The insurrection of five kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. The interests of the whole revolution require this because ‘the last decisive battle’ with the kulaks is now underway everywhere. An example must be made.

    1. Hang (absolutely hang, in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, fatcats, bloodsuckers.
    2. Publish their names.
    3. Seize all grain from them.
    4. Designate hostages, in accordance with yesterday’s telegram.

    Do it in such a fashion, that for hundreds of miles around the people see, tremble, know, shout: “The bloodsucking kulaks are being strangled and will be strangled.”

    Telegraph receipt and implementation.

    Yours, Lenin.

    P.S. Use your toughest people for this.

That chilling telegram ushered in the “Red Terror” which murdered Russians by the tens of thousands over the next two years.

Lawrence W. Reed, “How Germany’s ‘Deal With the Devil’ Backfired and Changed History”, Foundation for Economic Education, 2021-04-16.

June 24, 2021

First Arab-Israeli War 1948 – Political Background – COLD WAR

Filed under: Britain, History, Middle East, Military, Religion, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Cold War
Published 31 Aug 2019

Our series on the history of the Cold War period continues with a documentary explaining the political background of the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

To learn about the military events of this conflict, go to the Kings and Generals channel

Consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thecoldwar

June 20, 2021

Is racism a bigger problem than terrorism?

Filed under: Britain, Law, Media, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

With Americans being urged to report on “radicalized” friends and family by the government and white supremacy being called the greatest threat, have we reached the point that being seen as racist is worse than allowing a terrorist to kill many people? The inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombing shows that’s exactly the state most of the western world is in:

“Manchester Arena Bomb (22 May 2017) – Daily Mirror – 19 dead in pop concert ‘suicide bomb'” by Bradford Timeline is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

The independent inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombing of May 2017, in which 22 pop fans were killed by an Islamist extremist, has published the first volume of its report. It makes for chilling reading. The inquiry has found there were numerous “missed opportunities” to confront Salman Abedi, the bomber, and potentially stop him from detonating the device in his rucksack. Most chilling of all is the reason given by one of the key security guards on patrol that evening as to why he failed to question Abedi. He was worried, he said, that asking a brown-skinned man why he was hanging around the arena might be construed as racist.

Take that in. There was a very shifty-looking young man around the foyer and mezzanine of the Manchester Arena towards the end of an Ariana Grande concert, carrying a “bulging” rucksack so large he “struggled” under the weight of it, and a security guard was reluctant to confront him lest he be accused of racism. In the words of the report, this was a significant “missed opportunity”. The “inadequacy” of the security guard’s response to the presence of a highly suspicious individual was one of the many misjudgements made on that black, fateful night, the report says. Is it possible that the fear of being thought of as racist is screwing up everyday life, and even hindering sensible action in threatening situations?

To be clear, the security guard who was cagey about questioning Abedi is not responsible for the failure to stop Abedi from detonating his device. The first volume of the inquiry’s report – which covers security at and around the arena on the night of 22 May 2017 – criticises certain individuals, including the security guard, for not doing their jobs diligently enough. But it says that it was the organisations responsible for security at the arena – the arena’s own security firm and also the British Transport Police – that were “principally” to blame for the “missed opportunities”. It also makes the reasonable point that it is impossible to know what would have happened if Abedi had been confronted. It proposes that there may still have been loss of life – if, for example, he had detonated his device while being questioned – but that it would have been less severe than the horrors that shortly unfolded.

It is disturbing to read the list of “missed opportunities”. Abedi was in the arena for more than an hour and a half before he detonated his bomb. He arrived at 20.51 and blew himself up at 22.31, as the concert attendees started to leave. In that time, this young man with a massive rucksack was seen by numerous people. He was described by some of them as “nervous” and “fidgety”. He looked out of place – his age “meant that he did not fit the demographic of a parent waiting for a child”, as the inquiry says. And yet as a result of individual and organisational failure – including, the inquiry says, insufficient training of the security guards on duty that night – the message didn’t get through that there was a fidgeting, agitated man with a bulging rucksack hanging around for 90 minutes at the exit area of a venue that was largely packed with children and teenagers.

Remarkably, some people at the arena who saw Abedi thought to themselves that he was a suicide bomber. Christopher Wild and his partner, Julie Whitley, who were picking up Whitley’s daughter, discussed the possibility that Abedi had a bomb in his rucksack. Wild actually did confront Abedi and asked him what was in his bag. Abedi nervously brushed him off. Wild reported his concerns to security guards at 22.15 – 16 minutes before the explosion – but he was “fobbed off”. Another parent said the security guards were “really quite dismissive” of Wild’s concerns. It is deeply disturbing that parents at the arena rightly suspected Abedi was a bomber and yet nothing was done to challenge or remove him.

June 12, 2021

QotD: The assassination attempt(s) on Bismarck

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

… 19th-century history, particularly the years from the 1848 revolutions to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The key was Bismarck, the Prussian minister-president who unified Germany. If you want to learn about Bismarck, you will probably pick up a book by some historian of international relations, such as A.J.P. Taylor. That’s the right place to start. But it means you can read a lot about Bismarck before finding out about the time in May 1866 when a guy shot him.

Ferdinand Cohen-Blind, a Badenese student of pan-German sentiments, waylaid Bismarck with a pistol on the Unter den Linden. He fired five rounds. None missed. Three merely grazed his midsection, and two ricocheted off his ribs. He went home and ate a big lunch before letting himself be examined by a doctor.

But even the books that condescend to mention this triviality may not tell you about the other time a guy shot Bismarck: A young Catholic tried to kill him in July 1874, during the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf Bismarck had engineered, but only managed to score his right hand with a bullet.

The point is not that Bismarck was particularly hated, although he was. The point is that this period of European (and American) history was crawling with young, often solitary male terrorists, most of whom showed signs of mental disorder when caught and tried, and most of whom were attached to some prevailing utopian cause. They tended to be anarchists, nationalists or socialists, but the distinctions are not always clear, and were not thought particularly important. The 19th-century mind identified these young men as congenital conspirators. It emphasized what they had in common: social maladjustment, mania, an overwhelming sense of mission and, usually, a prior record of minor crimes.

[…]

Bismarck was not much of a democrat, but his example is instructive. He was so phlegmatic about being shot that he obtained both of the guns he had been shot with. He kept them in his desk, ready for use against a third guy with the same bright idea.

Colby Cosh, “Those old terrorist tendencies”, Maclean’s, 2014-12-07.

November 19, 2020

White Lives Matter More – A Summer of Blood | BETWEEN 2 WARS: ZEITGEIST! | E.04 – Summer 1919

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

TimeGhost History
Published 18 Nov 2020

Technology promises a better and more connected world in the summer of 1919. But battles still rage everywhere over who will inherit it.

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

Subscribe to our World War Two series: https://www.youtube.com/c/worldwartwo…
Like TimeGhost on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TimeGhost-16…

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Indy Neidell and Francis van Berkel
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: Indy Neidell and Francis van Berkel
Image Research by: Miki Cackowski and Michał Zbojna
Edited by: Michał Zbojna
Sound design: Marek Kamiński

Colorizations:
Mikołaj Uchman
Spartacus Olsson

Sources:
From the Noun Project: bridge by Adrien Coquet, Delete by Kevin Eichhorn, Fire by Sweet Farm, Model T by Alex Valdivia, people by Anastasia Latysheva, peoples by Musmellow, revolt by Symbolon, Smoke by Krish, people by Nithinan Tatah, explosion by Aldric Rodríguez

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

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

TimeGhost History
21 hours ago
Four episodes into this new series and we think it’s going pretty well. Behind-the-scenes we have been getting ahead with our planning to make make things as laser-focused as possible and we have some pretty fascinating pieces of history we want to talk about.

But we know that there is always a learning curve with a new series and we care what our community thinks. It’s the TimeGhost Army who make our content possible so we’d like to hear from you what you think about Season Two of Between 2 Wars. What are you enjoying about it? Is there anything you think we should work on? How do you feel about Indy’s outrageous suits and ties?

November 12, 2020

The General Relativity of Revolution | BETWEEN 2 WARS: ZEITGEIST! | E.03 – Spring 1919

Filed under: Architecture, Germany, History, Media, Russia, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TimeGhost History
Published 11 Nov 2020

It is a springtime of revolution throughout the world in 1919 and not just the political kind. Era-defining advances in science and technology and iconic cinematography are made this season.

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

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Indy Neidell and Francis van Berkel
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: Indy Neidell and Francis van Berkel
Edited by: Michał Zbojna
Sound design: Marek Kamiński

Colorizations:
Klimbim
Mikołaj Uchman
Wayne Degan
metacolor.org

Sources:
Library of Congress
Bundesarchiv
Icons from The Noun Project:
– retro computer By Tinashe Mugayi, MY
– audio sound recorder By Vectors Point, PK
– Radio by Bill Denk
– Old TV By Pascal Heß, DE
– Radio Tower by Iris Sun

Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “British Royalty” – Trailer Worx
– “Flight Path” – Cobby Costa
– “Deflection” – Reynard Seidel
– “Flight Path” – Cobby Costa
– “A Single Grain Of Rice” – Yi Nantiro
– “Trapped in a Maze” – Philip Ayers
– “Symphony of the Cold-Blooded” – Christian Andersen
– “Rainy Landscapes” – Farrell Wooten
– “Ancient Saga” – Max Anson

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
J’accuse is one of the many iconic films we’ll explore in this series. The interwar period is when European cinema really starts to hit its stride again after some serious setbacks during the Great War. In those years, American cinema rocketed to the mainstream both at home and abroad, with revolutionary filmmaking techniques being developed that we still see today such as close-ups, huge cast lists, and realistic set design.

The post-Great War is set to be a great era in the history of cinema and not just because of the films themselves, J’accuse and other films are important as historical movers in their own right! They shape public perceptions, influence political change, and inspire whole social movements, so make sure you stay tuned to find out.

And in the meantime, are there any iconic interwar films you think deserve to be in this series?

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.

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

Listen to “In The Name Of God” on the album Attero Dominatus: https://music.sabaton.net/AtteroDomin…

Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
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September 20, 2020

Our World 100 Years Ago – September 1920 I THE GREAT WAR

Filed under: Africa, Britain, Europe, France, History, Japan, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

The Great War
Published 19 Sep 2020

Let’s take a look at our world 100 years ago, in September 1920.

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September 13, 2020

Irish War of Independence – WW1 Veterans In A New Battle I THE GREAT WAR 1920

Filed under: Britain, Government, History, Military, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

The Great War
Published 12 Sep 2020

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The conflict between the Irish independence movement and the UK government had been heating up since 1919. The summer of 1920 brought a new level of escalation with the arrival of the the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Former veterans of the First World War were brought in to quell the rebellion and get hold of the strongholds controlled by the IRA.

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» SOURCES
Hart, Peter: The IRA and Its Enemies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)

Harvey, A.D: “Who Were the Auxiliaries?” The Historical Journal, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Sep. 1992)

Hopkinson, Michael: The Irish War of Independence (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002)

Leeson, David: The Black and Tans: British Police and Auxiliaries in the Irish War of Independence, 1920-1921 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)

McMahon, Sean: The War of Independence (Cork: Mercier Press, 2019)

O’Brien, Paul: Havoc: The Auxiliaries in Ireland’s War of Independence (Cork: Collins Press, 2017)

Riddell, George: Lord Riddell’s Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and After: 1918-1923 (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1933)

Roxbourgh, Ian: “The Military: The Mutual Determination of Strategy in Ireland, 1912-1921” in Duyvendak, Jan Willem & Jasper, James M. (eds) Breaking Down the State: Protesters Engaged (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2015)

Townshend, Charles: The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence 1918-1923 (London: Penguin Books, 2014)

“Tubbercurry”, Manchester Guardian, 4 October 1920.

Hugh Martin: “‘Black and Tan’ Force a Failure”, Daily News, 4 October 1920.

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August 7, 2020

Aftermath of the Beirut explosion

Filed under: Middle East — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Kareem Shaheen, who lived and worked in Beirut for some years, reports on the devastation and the ongoing debate over causes and responsibility:

Part of a photo gallery posted by CNN shows the site of the explosion in Beirut harbour. Note the massive grain elevator structure has been partly demolished, but the buildings on the other side almost certainly suffered far less damage for being in the blast shadow of such a massive concrete shield.
Photo gallery – https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/world/satellite-images-beirut-explosion-before-after-trnd/index.html

The Lebanese prime minister and security officials said the explosion was likely caused by a 2,700 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate that had been abandoned in the port. By comparison, the Oklahoma City bombing was about 2.2 tons of the same substance.

Reports indicate that the ammonium nitrate had been seized years ago, and knowing Lebanon, it was left there either out of negligence, or because the self-interested ruling classes of the country — a mafia in its own right — could not agree on how to divvy up the profits from the stuff.

Naturally, America’s arsonist and conspiracy theorist in chief, Donald Trump, speculated in a press conference that the explosion looked like a bomb. His generals told journalists, anonymously, that they had no idea what he was talking about.

But in a country already on the verge of collapse, the damage of this speculation was done. Conspiracy theories are now rampant.

Donald Trump’s comment may have been ill-informed, but the conspiracy theorists — along with anyone who thinks they know anything about explosives — were busy spinning pet theories regardless of what he said.

One that made the rounds seized on a tweet by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a raid on pro-Iranian targets in Syria, and linked it to the Beirut explosion. The terrible size of the explosion prompted fears that it was a tactical nuclear strike. Independent Arabia — which licenses the British Independent newspaper brand and is owned by a Saudi Arabian publisher — reported, falsely, that the Canadian embassy said that the explosion’s fallout contained depleted uranium. Another media organization linked to the Lebanese president’s party claimed the explosive material was bound for terrorist groups in Syria.

The explosion could not have come at a worse time. Even before the blast, Lebanon was a failed state. Over most of the past year, it has suffered hyperinflation akin to the crisis in Venezuela.

Lebanon endured a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990 with an accord that divided power equally among its various religions and sects, while ensuring no accountability for the warlords who reigned over militias that carried out atrocities.

Many of these warlords, or their sons, are still in charge, and have built corrupt patronage networks to enrich themselves and their loyalists. Most are beholden to outside powers like Iran and Saudi Arabia, who have turned Lebanon into a proxy battleground for their own geopolitical interests. The most powerful military force in the country is Hezbollah, Iran’s favoured proxy militia, which was instrumental in keeping Syria’s dictator, Bashar Al-Assad, in power. The war drove a million Syrians to seek refuge in Lebanon, which had a pre-war population of just four million.

June 2, 2020

Antifa

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

Arthur Chrenkoff welcomes the move to designate the Antifa movement as domestic terrorists:

“antifa 8973ag” by cantfightthetendies is licensed under CC BY 2.0

President Trump’s decision to designate Antifa as a terrorist organisation is long overdue.

Whether you call them a terrorist organisation or a criminal organisation – or both – the underlying facts are the same: Antifa is a network of groups committed to a violent revolution to overthrow the democratic system of government and replace it with some sort of a communist “dictatorship of proletariat”, whoever the current proletariat is supposed to be (which does not in the end matter very much, because it’s all about the party organisation rather than “the masses”). To effect such revolution, Antifa uses tactics of violence against people it considers enemies as well as destruction of property. Remember, these people are not Scandinavian social democrats or even Bernie and AOC-style “democratic socialists” who advocate and follow a democratic and peaceful path of transformation to achieve their objectives of building what they consider a better and more just society. Antifa are thugs who desire to tear down and destroy the current political and economic order and erect their utopia on its ashes. They want to abolish democracy, capitalism, liberalism and all the other existing institutions in favour of a Marxist-Leninist state — or just for the fun of it if they are more of an anarchist rather than communist frame of mind. Groups whose the entire modus operandi is based on breaking law and criminal activity have no legitimate place in a democratic society. Antifa are the political organised crime.

The label Antifa has been used and abused too long to muddy the waters and confuse people — many of whom, granted, want to be confused. Because fascism is objectively bad (and considers so by an overwhelming majority of people), calling themselves “anti-fascist”, Antifa seeks to claim the moral high ground and the role of the good guys who stand up to white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other extreme element. But you cannot simply judge people by who their enemies are, or who they say their enemies are — you also have to judge them by their intentions, actions and aims. In the Second World War, the United States and the United Kingdom and their Western allies were anti-fascist, but so was the Soviet Union. Stalin hated fascists (except for a period of two years in 1939-41 when he collaborated with them). This did not make him a good guy, even if for the Allies at the time it made him the lesser of the two evils. Coincidentally, for Stalin the label “fascist” was a very broad one, applying not just to German Nazis and their sympathisers but to anyone opposed to communism and the Soviet Union and so in turn opposed by them, including at times even social democrats and other non-revolutionary socialists {“social fascists” in the Stalinist nomenclature). And so it is for Antifa — we are all fascists, from the few skinheads at the political fringes to all the mainstream parties and ideologies of both the right and the left. Just as in Russia in 1917 onward and all the other communist countries in history, your position on the democratic political spectrum can never give you an ultimate immunity, it only determines the order in which you will be shot (left-wingers and anarchists last, because they can be used the longest by the forces of revolution).

May 4, 2020

Government “problem solving” is an oxymoron

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Food, Government, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan explain why you should back away quickly when you hear a variant of “We’re from the government and we’re here to help”:

A central theme of our recent book, Cooperation & Coercion, is that all governments are hamstrung when they attempt to fix problems. Policymakers suffer from the knowledge problem: they don’t know enough to foresee every eventuality that will follow from what they do. Politicians see a problem, speak in sweeping statements, then declare what will happen, assuming their edicts will settle matters. But that is always just the beginning. More often than not, all manner of unintended consequences emerge, often making things worse than they were before their policies went into effect.

Consider the United States’ three high-profile wars against common nouns over the past half-century. Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty in the 1960s, Richard Nixon a War on Drugs in the 1970s, and George W. Bush declared a War on Terror in the early 2000s.

How are those wars working out? Because a back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates that we have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $23 trillion in our attempt to eradicate poverty, drugs, and terror. Not only have we not won any of these wars, it is unclear that any of them can be won. These three so-called wars have managed to saddle future generations of taxpayers with unprecedented debt. And, as is the case with all coercive endeavors, policymakers ask us to imagine how bad things would have been had we not spent the trillions we did spend. And then they ask for even more money. So now we have unwinnable wars along with institutionalized boondoggles to support them.

We see the same sort of thing happening now in the face of the COVID-19 threat that has induced the largest panic attack in world history. In the name of safety, policymakers have shut down myriad productive endeavors. And there will be a raft of unintended consequences to follow. We are already seeing them manifest, and they portend potential disaster as supply chains fail.

The first cracks in US supply chains appeared in the meat industry. Smithfield Foods, reacting to a number of workers contracting the virus, shut down its Sioux Fall plant. Kenneth M. Sullivan, President and CEO, explained in a press release that, “the closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply.” But it’s not just the meat plant that’s implicated. It’s everyone from the cattle farmer to the person who cooks dinner, and there are a number of people who have a place in that process who might first escape attention. The people who make packing materials needed to ship food, the maintenance workers who service machines up and down the supply chain, the truck drivers who move product from one place to another, the grocers who sell the product, the daycare workers who care for the grocers’ children so the grocers can work, and many, many more are all at risk.

[…]

In declaring some jobs “necessary” and others not, in focusing on one supply chain versus another, policymakers show how little they know about the nation’s economy. In their view, they can simply declare things they want to happen, and then those things will happen. But that is not how economies work. An economy is the sum total of everyone’s activities, and when the government declares that something must happen, all kinds of other things happen too.

Consider how all the “non-essential workers” have been sent home for the past two months. Who gets to declare which workers are non-essential to the economy, and by what standard? Most assumed that politicians had the correct answers to these questions. But, as we are discovering, there is no such thing as “non-essential” workers. All workers are essential. How do we know? Because their jobs existed. Profit-driven businesses do not create non-essential jobs. Those people’s jobs were essential to their employers. Further, those people’s jobs were incredibly essential to the people themselves. They need their wages to pay the rent, buy their food, make their car payments, and for everything else that makes their lives livable.

But policymakers simply declared them non-essential, as if there would be no fallout from that decision.

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