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The MoA Week In Review – OT 2019-10
Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:
The U.S. attack against Venezuela triggered riots in Haiti. Haiti received oil and credit from Venezuela under very preferential conditions. The money saved was supposed to go into a special PetroCaribe fund to be spend on social projects in Haiti. When the U.S. enacted sanctions against Venezuela, Haiti stopped paying and the cheap oil flow ended. The fund was looted by local politicians. When the government then supported the U.S. coup attempt against Venezuela the people had enough and took to the streets.
BajoElCieloDeMoscú @VuelvaLaURSS – 17:28 utc – 14 Feb 2019
Translated from Spanish
The Haitian people have been protesting for five days against the dictator who supports Guaidó in Venezuela, Jovenel Moises. In 5 days, the repressive forces of this criminal have murdered 52 Haitians and left 247 wounded. So you can see the streets of Puerto Principe, full of bodies.
The video attached to the above tweet shows five civilians, presumably dead, laying in the road.
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A former chief of staff Nicolas Maduro, now a professor at Science Po in Paris, warns in an interview that the situation in Venezuela could easily escalate into a civil war.
Q: One of the things that have been said by the opposition very clearly is that there will be new elections. That is part of their plan.
A: And what guarantees that the departure of Maduro doesn't create a civil war, for instance? The reality of Venezuela is that it is a very polarized country. It is totally unrealistic or irresponsible to think or to assume that there are all the guarantees for Venezuela to be in a peaceful situation. In order to be an election, you have to agree on the terms of that election. When will the election be held? Who can be allowed to run for those elections? And that's exactly the problem — saying there will be elections is assuming that the problem is solved before even addressing it.
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Greg Grandin on sovereignty and Latin America: What’s at Stake in Venezuela?
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Other stuff:
– "It's all about the Benjamins baby." That tweet by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and the reaction to it, put new focus on the Zionist lobby. M.J. Rosenberg: This Is How AIPAC Really Works – WSJ: Aipac raises more than $100 million a year, which it spends on lobbying politicians
– A longread by Matthew Hoh, who resigned over Obama's 2009 surge in Afghanistan: Time for Peace in Afghanistan and an End to the Lies
– A Chinese anime video series about the life and work of Karl Marx: The Leader (with subtitles in 7(!) languages)
Use as open thread …
Speaking of Marx:
Karl Marx’s London memorial vandalised for second time
What is interesting is the incription which states the USSR “killed” 66 million people. 30 million is the highest estimate from the killed during the so-called “forced collectivization” after the NEP was over and is an insane and anti-scientific extrapolation, based on two sensi taken in 1913 (if memory doesn’t fail me, the last Tsarist-era sensus) and another in the end of the 20s. Another 26 million died during the WWII — so the vandal apparently put those deaths on the bill of the Bolsheviks too (maybe, in his vision, Stalin should’ve simply capitulated… to an enemy who had already promised to exterminate all the Slavs to begin with). That’s 56 million. Another 10 million must be the one who allegedly died during the Revolution/Civil War itself.
Now, this is good to teach a good lesson for the people who read this blog: how do “historians” come to the number of deaths of some conflict?
There are essentially two trustworthy methods:
1) official sources: not that they are precise or trustworthy themselves, but we have to accept the fact that, in a conflict which envolves lots of people, the State is usually the only source with the resources to come to a good estimate;
2) huge swings in sensi — one before, one right after a conflict. This is only valid when there is a war and there’s a clear precipice between them.
How can we distinguish between an extermination and simply a tragedy? Again, two main methods:
a) mass graves. In this case, the ball is in the archaeologists’ court. Usually, for modern conflicts, they are found through a written source hint.
b) written sources that confirm there was some kind of State-sanctioned extermination policy.
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We can easily define the Third Reich’s policies as extermination, because you have the official policy and you have the mass graves. Nobody contest that.
But how about the Russian and Chinese Revolutions? After all, the liberals and the far-right love to state Mao Tse-tung is the greatest dictator of all time because he “killed 55 million people”. Is that really the case?
Well, the 30 million figure by the Polish “historian” is very easy to debunk: he took Stalin’s first sensus and did a simple subtraction in relation to the last tsarist sensus, minus the expected demographic rate. He concluded that 30 million people who should have been born didn’t, so he “concluded” Stalin killed them. This is insane. The whole thing is even more absurd because the Soviet population grew a lot during the period, and that the lower expected birth rate came from Stalin’s government itself, so it could have been easily the case of sub-par demographers. Birth rates can fall for many reasons — doesn’t mean the government is killing them. By the same logic, you could posit, e.g., any government that teaches sex education in the schools is commiting mass murder.
Besides, cyclical mass deaths by hunger, caused by cyclical bad weather, are endemic to Russia/USSR. Only 15% of the Soviet territory is usable for agriculture (most of it in the Ukrainian/South Caucasus region — hence the “holodomor” myth). In his novel “Dead Souls” (written long before the Bolsheviks even dreamt taking power, let alone do a revolution), Gogol does a humorous critic to the tsarist government, but, deep down, it is all about one thing: dead peasants, hunger and cold. This was always the normal in the Russian Empire. That a random Welsh “journalist”, who didn’t know nothing about the peculiarities of the Soviet territory, went to Ukraine SSR, saw the deaths of the peasants during one of those cyclical colds, and called it a Stalinist extermination camp doesn’t make it true.
The WWII’s 26 million dead I don’t even have to say anything: Hitler published a panphlet during the 30s, stating he would kill all Slav men and enslave the rest (in essence, killing them). He wanted to exterminate all the Slavs. The USSR had 190 million people in 1941, so, taking the situation into context, they actually saved 164 million.
The 10 million who must have died during the Revolution, all I say is this: the takeover of the Winter Palace (25/26 October 1917, Julian) only killed 7 people. That was the Revolution itself. What killed the millions was the counter-revolution (Civil War), financed by the then colonialist superpowers (UK, France and USA). That was the first modern style regime change/proxy war in history. Hadn’t those imperialist powers illegally intervened, seven people (plus some hundreds which surely would’ve died in street skirmishes as protest) would’ve been all.
The Mao numbers are even more insane. Anti-communist detractors use the sensus from before the “Great Leap” and the first from after. By “expected deaths”, they simply come to the conclusion he killed 55 million people (“excess deaths”). “Expected death” is the number of deaths a State expects to happen in a given year based on life expectancy. So, all this data showed was that there was, indeed, a drop in life quality during the “Great Leap” in relation to the 50s: people who should’ve been dying at 65 were dying at 60 etc. etc. etc.
The problem with this estimate are: 1) this drop was a result of a radical reform attempt. Mao didn’t pass an edict stating “I want to murder 55 million people”; 2) the number of deaths spiked… in relation to the peaceful period of 1950-58. They were still below the imperial China time (1940 back) and 3) by that methodology, the Brazilian government has just killed 29 million people with the new pension system reform, because life expectancy will drop with it.
Posted by: vk | Feb 16 2019 20:47 utc | 3
@ Posted by: Zachary Smith | Feb 16, 2019 6:08:15 PM | 10
Doesn’t matter who I am. The number given by Western “historians” are absurd, and wouldn’t even pass the undergraduate level of scientific rigeur.
You can posit, ex post facto, that policy x, taken in historical moment y, was a huge mistake, and cost, directly and indirectly, many lives. That’s interpretation.
But, the moment you put numbers in it, it’s fair game: you’re exposed to full rebutal.
The largest number of dead given by the forced collectivization period is 30 million (by a single Polish historian who I won’t name, google yourself). The number is so insane that even the real Western historians (mainly, Canadians and Americans) don’t consider it; they usually “estimate” around 10-15 million (depending on the mood of the “historian” — and in how much books he wants to sell). Even those numbers are insane, and are very crude, unscientific estimates.
What we have for sure — the Soviet archives are now open — is that 2.9 million people died with the blessing of the State (these are the people on their own side, not considering the enemy). It is a lot of people — but it’s not 30 million (neither 15-10 million, for that matter).
The USSR had circa 190 million people around that time. For a country of 190 million to kill 30 million of its own people in a non-civil war scenario… that’s very unplausible. There’s a physical limit even to the most delirious and powerful dictator. For a country to, on purely political terms, exterminate nearly one sixth of its own people, is basically euthanasia — it would be an economic swing that would throw that country back to the stone age. And we know that the USSR not only did not go back to the stone age, but it arose to superpower status after WWII, achieved military parity with the USA in the late 60s and made many technological breakthroughs. Seeing how well the USSR came out — from a second rate power in the beggining of the 20th Century, with many feudal characteristics, to a legitimate world superpower, which carved up the world with the USA — well, you’ll have to agree with me (whatever the ideologies involved) that it certainly didn’t commit euthanasia. It simply doesn’t add up.
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As for the Chinese case, there’s the problem of scale: China has a much bigger population than any single country in the West. If you compare the numbers of solidiers and killed in wars in China with Western analogous at least since the Middle Ages, you’ll see that in China the scale is at least ten times bigger. So, even thos 55 million “excess deaths” aren’t unreal for Chinese standards since the 19th Century.
Either way, Mao Tse-tung didn’t ordered a State-sanctioned murder of 55 million people, the fact on the field (what the historical evidence shows us) is this: there was a sudden fall in life quality during the “Giant Leap Forward”. Yes, Mao screwed up — even the CCP admits this — and that is so true he cancelled it. But that wasn’t the holocaust: in the holocaust, there was State-sanctioned mass extermination; infrastructure was built specially to exterminate people. Those exterminated people were selected. And we have the mass graves and the living witinesses to tell the story. To call Mao a genocidal is historically incoherent.
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To sum it up: the empirical evidence simply don’t corroborate with the Totalitarian hypothesis. If we adopt the same methodology we adopt for the USSR and the PRC to the rest of the world, then we’ll have to come to the conclusion mass exterminations are the rule and is happening now.
P.S.: for the people here who don’t know what the Totalitarian hypothesis is, it is a “theory” that states communism and nazism are essentially the same system, which, ultimately, depend on: 1) slavery (Solzhenytsin is used a lot by Westerners who want to claim the USSR was a slave society) and 2) on an all-emcompassing narrative that explains everything (a “total” narrative; hence the name of the term “totalitarianism”). According to Hannah Arendt (famous Cold Warrior and CIA collaborator), the “totalitarian” narrative of the USSR was that class struggle (!!); while nazism’s was the race struggle. Yes, people, that was the level of the madness and propaganda of the Cold War.
Posted by: vk | Feb 16 2019 23:34 utc | 10
@ Posted by: Sasha | Feb 16, 2019 6:52:45 PM | 12
Totalitarianism is still a very popular theory in the West (specially with countries directly involved in both WWs, such as the UK) for a very simple reason: they have to create a narrative where WWI as a “natural” event — a tragedy, but inevitable — while the WWII is an aberration, child of two mad men (i.e. Hitler and Stalin). They have to do that, otherwise: did our sons died in vain? Was the Cold War unecessary?
The totalitarian narrative as historical is particularly popular in the UK, and not by luck: they were the world superpower before 1914, and they know they caused the WWI (because they wanted to stop the rise of Germany, which was already the second industrial power by 1900, behind the USA; UK was already the third, but came first overall if you count the financial sector). Well, the Empire was a good thing for humanity, so WWI must’ve been inevitable, so say the British.
But WWII bring an end to the Empire. It should’ve not happened. That was not the natural course of things. The world woke up from WWII divided not only between two countries not named UK, but one of them (the USSR) was actually not even capitalist! Certainly an absurdity to the British mind.
Hence the narrative many British will tell you: Lenin was a crazy guy who lived in an ivory tower and killed peasants and orthodox priests (actually, that part was true, but it was for good reasons) and created a bogus system based on a philosopher (Marx) who wanted a system based on slavery. On the other side, a crazy Austrian (Hitler) created a similar system through a different route — never mind that the Third Reich, if you take out the bizarre concentration camps, was a perfectly normal liberal, capitalist economy; it was never centralized; Hitler never governed over the German industrialists: there are ample documentation showing he negotiated with them as equals.
So, long story short, that’s why many Western Europeans (specially the British) still use the totalitarian hypothesis historically. They have to justify the dead of 1914-1918; they also have to spread the underlying message that everything that isn’t capitalism is unnatural (that’s why we don’t call the Industrial Revolutions genocide; that’s why the British, until now, refuse to call the Bengal Famine a genocide, etc. etc.).
–//–
About the “alt-right” thing. One thing is certain: they are awash with money. My hint is that it is money from the CIA, but mainly from the American capitalist class, who, since at least Goldwater, has caught a taste for libertarianism.
Jane Meyer degenerated to a mere Russophobe after 2017, but her June 2016 book “Dark Money” is legit. I recommend reading it. Note that, albeit the book is about the GOP, she states the Democrats arrived late, but soon caught up with the same tactics.
In my opinion, the alt-right is a mirror move over the new left movement that was born after 1968. It was custom made to prey upon this post-modern left that became hegemonic in the First World countries. Their main thesis, however, was best summarized in a far-right Brazilian guy, who published in 2002 a book called “The Silent Revolution” (in Portuguese). In it, he states the post-modern left is a socialist underground operation based on the Gramsci model of revolution in a Western State, aimed at doing a socialist revolution slowly, in a three-phase process — the post-modern left (LGBT, women rights etc.) being the second phase (the phase where culture of the people change, eroding the concept of family, thus eroding the atom of private property). That’s why the far-right considers those “minority” political movements unadultered socialism: they consider the hyphotesis of capitalism dying of “old age” or by a thousand cuts.
The guy who wrote that book was a high-ranking military officer. The capitalist classes in the Third World know they are more vulnerable than their counterparts in the First World (where the people is happier), so it isn’t a surprise that those more creative insights of the problem are born there.
About the CIA/alt-right: there’s at least one documented case of the CIA trying to do a social engineering operation in the USA during the Cold War. This was the rehabilitation of Christianism in detriment to the then tendence of secularization of the USA. It begun I think in the 60s or 70s. I don’t know how successful it was. One thing is certain: Reagan had an evangelical priest as his “spiritual counselor” — pastor Graham — who was very powerful. By the time of George W. Bush, Southern Baptist Church received funds to the billions, marking the apex of interference of the Church in the State. By the time of Obama, the POTUS was already a de facto Protestant Pope, since not even the Democrats dared to state they were not Christians (i.e. Protestants).
Posted by: vk | Feb 17 2019 2:13 utc | 19
The Blind & The Blinding Light of Liberty
Where Scotland finds herself today, in this constitutional quagmire, is the inevitable outcome of the demographic inequities of the entity that calls itself, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the fact that the intrinsic instincts of the peoples of it’s four constituent nations, regarding how this country came to be, what it is and even what it is called, are fundamentally different.
The salient problem is not that 85% of British people are English people, it is that the vast majority of these English people, have since the Act of Union, used the name “England” and continue to use it as a synonym for Britain. That has allowed a psychological position to entrench itself over so many generations that by now they cannot think that England and Britain are not one and the same entity. They only look at the numbers (the demographics of the UK) and that much misused word, democracy, becomes their default position.
In 2014, the political leaders of the unionist parties, unanimously proclaimed that the Union was worth saving, as it was a testament to how equal, historic nations can work together as one, united by common interests and values. Their unhesitatingly speedy return to the ‘business as usual’ politics after their success in the independence referendum of 2014, clearly demonstrated that the accumulating evidence was correct, that their ‘Save the Union’ rhetoric peddled previous to the vote was just that, rhetoric. As the result of the Brexit referendum that followed two years later has demonstrated, perhaps painfully, to the many Scots who voted twice to remain in the existing unions, has revealed the hollowness and the insincerity of their promises, their platitudes and their position.
It is only in the minds of Scottish, Welsh and Irish unionists that there exists an equality of nations. Brexit demonstrated otherwise. When the aforementioned Celtic unionists consider the history of Britain, they proudly assert their country’s contribution to the whole. Their country’s contribution to the greatness of Great Britain. Neither of them assume that their nation is Great Britain.There is an assumption still, based on a willingness to understand that nations exist within nations, within nations. In England this is not the case because it has never been the case. Parents did not raise their kids to reflect this reality. They are English. Celtic contributors to the collective are considered to be English, without a second thought.
Language underpins our culture. What words mean, matters. When words can be reformatted to reflect one’s prejudices we are in troubled times. From that point onward, our history will be automatically reformatted, our assumptions will be reformatted by ourselves to account for this history. How we live our lives and understand the world, will be reformatted to take account of these assumed historical facts.
Almost all of us on the British Isles have undergone so much reformatting by the church, the state and ourselves that we no longer know who we are, from where we came, when we came or why we came. Even our history that we are aware of, or have an inkling of, we have no understanding of it’s depth. We have allowed that to pass from our memory and from our consciousness, indeed from our imaginations.
If the people of Scotland had retained the memory of their lives lived before the Union, indeed even from before the arrival of Christianity, we would not be where we are today. We should be confident of successfully overcoming any obstacles, because that is all we have ever done, since the tribes and clans amalgamated all those centuries ago to form the union that was Alba and Scotland. Beyond this ancient and successful union, of course we should have our friends and we will have our neighbours but international entanglements in organisations like the European Union and NATO are something to be avoided. We should be standing on our own two feet, living, working and trading under our own laws and by our own values, for it is the hypocrisy that arises from compromise that will always lead us to our doom. Integrity and principles can be respected, particularly when they are the values of egalitarianism, fraternity and brotherhood. The values of the enlightenment. Why to compromise on such high ideals? Why to dilute them? Genuine independence is the only logical and natural vehicle to deliver these Scottish ideals to the Scottish people.
Posted by: Steve D Keith | Feb 18 2019 3:50 utc | 91
A Letter to the Boss (2)
Dear Scotland,
Regarding the future foreign and defence policies that might be followed by an independent Government of Scotland. May I suggest a number of ideas that ought to see the legislative light of day. It could be said that a consequence of the British Imperial project, that defiantly continues to this day, is that two aspects of state policy, the two aspects that project a nation to an Earth of watching eyes and listening ears, are intrinsically interwoven. This has to end. Defence of the nation means just that. The country, once shod of the fantasy of empire, would be it’s and their own homeland. Essentially becoming a domestic matter, of course, by definition a domestic matter with an international, foreign dimension.
An independent non-nuclear Scotland must retain an adequate Navy and Air Force with vessels and aircraft appropriate to defending our territorial and maritime interests. Giving up the nuclear powered submarines that carry the murderous Trident weapon system of global destruction, the aircraft carriers and the battleships, all of which are used to maintain a global military presence and threat, allows a future Scottish Navy to retain the support and research vessels, the frigates and inshore boats that we require for protecting our offshore interests and our coastline. The next generation of carriers and auxiliary ships are either already built or are being built, therefore to ‘divvy’ up the vessels, all of which will be modern and up to date, should pose few problems. The political interests of Scotland and Britain diverge to such an extent, that the ships that each state would set out to retain for themselves after the divorce, they could do so without argument.
The current infrastructure would be retained for maintaining, refitting and building current ships and the vessels of the future. Our expertise in shipbuilding would be protected and expanded as the ports and docks currently utilised will continue to be so. Government contracts and diversification into the construction of commercial ships (ferries and fishing) and submersibles will guarantee long term employment and a stable future for the yards currently struggling under the senseless, anti-Scottish strategy being pursued by the Ministry of Defence and the Westminster Parliament. Our shipbuilding industry must be reinvigorated and restructured to work hand in glove with former military yards, sharing expertise, experience and enterprise.
The traditional regiments of Scottish infantry must be raised again, keeping the link between soldiering and the soil and never again deployed on foreign soil, other than at the behest of a sovereign government of Scotland operating under United Nations jurisdiction. All troops would be stationed within the country other than those on UN duty, who of course would be being paid for their service by the UN. The traditions and professionalism of the Scottish soldier would be a valuable asset, not only to Scotland, but to the international community as a whole. Where needed they could be sent and be relied on to serve assuredly and effectively. Battalions of Engineers could be put to work appropriately on infrastructure projects in conjunction with their civilian counterparts to achieve effective, efficient and cost effective outcomes both overseas and at home.
It is in the arena of foreign policy that effective defence of the nation is actually achieved. Once the fighting has started, nations have failed in their duty to protect their citizens. All sides end up as losers, one way or another. Diplomacy and the development of real and respectful relationships with international colleagues is the surest guarantor of our own security. Withdrawal from all international unions, whether they be economic or military, allows us to be independent and non-aligned. That action in itself would see our status in the world community rise. It is a non-threatening, positive position to adopt. Open to all sides, at all times, always. Membership of NATO condemns Scotland to being a part of the American neo-conservative imperialistic agenda, as it is seen by the majority of the world’s sovereign states and their populations. We have nothing to gain from participating in aggressive military adventurism, and that is precisely what NATO has engaged in ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the deconstruction of the Warsaw Pact. The western military alliance has now expanded numerically as well as territorially and advanced it’s troops and tanks up to the border of Russia herself, directly contradicting the public promises of George HW Bush that it would not do so and had no plans to do so in the future. Blatant and brazen lies. The United States went into ‘MAD’ mode in the 1960’s because Soviet missiles were in Cuba, less than one hundred miles away. The US/UK NATO alliance is today, less than one mile from Russian soil. The hypocrisy is rank and the provocation real.
The colonial history of many Asian and African countries is shared by Scotland. Of course not everything that happened within, and because of the British Empire was bad. But it happened and colonisation is morally wrong and unjustifiable. It has to be accounted for and made right. That can be achieved by an ethical foreign policy. A new nation state needs a new start, karmically speaking. The goodwill that would be generated from such an honest and sincere effort, would have ripple effects throughout our social and economic space and be a significant driver in the years that immediately follow our independence.
Let’s use our freedom wisely and use our diplomatic resources diplomatically, rather than as cover for militarism disguised as moderating and democratising countries that were all to often once coloured colonial red on the world map. Liberalism at home is one thing but to construct one’s foreign policy on exporting it, is a recipe for disaster. It is for others to determine how to live their lives in their own countries, not for us. It is for us to use our foreign policy to deal with these countries according to our values. Dealing with people and nations need not mean converting them to our social, religious and moral values. Live and let live would not be an inappropriate mantra to keep in mind at our new, clean, independent and sovereign Foreign and Defence Departments.
All the best for now,
Appreciatively,
@k_el_ph
Posted by: Steve D Keith | Feb 18 2019 3:55 utc | 92
The “Re-education” of Germany
To understand World War II, it is necessary to understand World War I, for the second conflict was a tragic continuation of the first
And to understand World War I, one must understand the anti-German hysteria that made it possible, and look beyond the Hollywood images and comic book presentations of either war to comprehend how and why the utter ruination of this ancient land with its historically profound influence on European culture occurred, and how a rich powerful nation that enjoyed a positive, even glowing image at the beginning of the 20th century would be cut off at the knees, and relegated to a stature of relative unimportance today
Contrary to popular fiction, long before Germany became a nation, even before the dark ages, she had a more peaceful, less aggressive history than her European neighbors, and was the principal participant in less than a quarter of the wars of England, Spain, Russia or France
By 1914, the young German nation had enjoyed 43 years of peace while other European nations were embroiled in, or starting, various global conflicts
At the dawn of the 20th century the German empire was well respected around the world, but this all changed almost overnight
The violent anti-German assault was initiated by propagandists representing special interests in Great Britain a decade before World War I even broke out
It changed the image of Germany forever. A pariah was formed in the shape of the loathsome Hun, and the zealous efforts to reinforce that image in words, music and art, continued long after the war was over, branding Germany and her people absolutely repugnant in every corner of the world. Probably no other ethnic group had ever been so quickly, so professionally and so intensely dehumanized
World War One, the cultural equivalent of the Black Death, killed the seed of a whole generation. The vindictive Treaty of Versailles exposed Germany to reparations she could never repay without exposing her own people to even more suffering and death
The spitefulness, greedy motives and short-sightedness of the “peace” terms would have terrible effects in the near future
2,000,000 German soldiers were killed in the first World War, 100,000 others were missing and presumed dead, and 4,814,557 were wounded, amounting to 9 to 14 percent of Germany’s pre-war population
In the conflict millions of others died due to starvation from Britain’s inhumane hunger blockade which remained in effect even after the war’s end to further punish Germany
One-armed, one-legged, one-eyed and no-eyed men, men with noses or mouths torn off, and men with only half a face stood begging for food. Many lost homes as a result of the German land theft at Versailles and others lost their families.
In Germany there was simmering resentment at the humiliation imposed on her. Beyond all of this there was overwhelming injustice in the fact that she was held solely responsible for the entire conflict and was made to suffer twice, from the toll of the war itself and from the vengefulness and avarice of the victors, who had been just as responsible for the war, if not more so, than Germany
By the end of World War II, the destruction of Germany was nearly complete. Millions more of her people were lost, both during and after the war: five times as many Germans, both civilians and soldiers, died in the first year after the war than died during the course of the entire war, and they lost their lives directly at the hands of others as a result of revenge policies: rape, expulsion, murder, forced “atonement” marches, freezing, slave labor and starvation. Many more were left with lasting physical damage from the shocking post-war brutality visited upon them
It was amidst millions of dazed, homeless people, and upon the ruins of hundreds of medievel cities, murdered German prisoners of war, raped German women, starving German children and wandering orphans, that the victors performed the coup de grace: Following unconditional surrender, Germany was immediately partitioned into four isolated occupation zones, further intensifying its incapacitation and readying it for a controversial, methodically developed and skillfully applied program of psychological assault, innocuously labeled “re-education”
This mass brain-washing program was geared to enforce the rejection of everything that had thus far constituted the national German identity, as well as any pride in German cultural, intellectual or spiritual heritage
This intense campaign structured a “new Germany” to have purely “American values”, and it allowed to Germany only a history which began in 1945 with her defeat, relegating all which had come before, as unworthy of remembrance
This program, so psychologically ruthless that it did not allow people to grieve their own losses or honor their fallen,was so successful that over 70 years later, words such as “Vaterland” or “Volk” remain dirty words to the modern German who has been convinced that Germany was actually “liberated” in 1945 by those very forces who worked for nothing less than her total destruction
It does not disturb the modern German that his homeland was bombed into rubble, that millions of surrendered German prisoners of war were murdered through intentional neglect, that millions of refugees were created and then abused, as they attempted to flee violent, rampaging communist hordes who stole their homes and raped their grandmothers.
However it does make some of them uncomfortable to realize that their families, as civilians, were intentionally burned alive in violent, unnecessary, residential fire bombings, or fiendishly drowned by the thousands when dams were calculatingly destroyed or shot when they were running for their lives.
They have been “re-educated” to be so deeply shamed that they have allowed collective guilt to be bestowed upon themselves and their children and their grandchildren, accepting their nation’s future as one clad in a hair shirt of perpetual atonement for actions they had nothing to do with!
The attack on German culture itself, which began in World War One with the manufacturing of the loathsome Hun, was re-incarnated by the post World War II Allied “re-education” teams, in order to create the self-hating German
In the utter absence of national pride, there is fervent persecution of any who dare challenge this abysmal, degenerate, masochistic trend
The Allied foreign policy was for victory at any cost, even at the cost of destroying its own traditional values and culture, and if need be, destroying the planet itself. Yet it is becoming increasingly more difficult to question the necessity and wisdom of that conflict.
Indeed, the event we call World War Two is fast becoming off limits to further debate, closer scrutiny or re-evaluation, and the very word “revision” has been demonized rather than welcomed as part of those stimulating intellectual activities which have traditionally taken place after every other conflict in human history
The effort to search for truth and accurately define human events for posterity have been narrowed in scope in regards to this conflict. In a good part of the world, legislation restricts free speech by limiting discussion of this major historical event to the official or “acceptable” version and anything beyond that is potentially criminal to discuss and punishable by prison, surely not a trend indicative of the cherished “democratic values” the victors supposedly intended.
Posted by: roberto | Feb 18 2019 7:26 utc | 97
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