![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 42 to 66 of 93. Go back in thread:
Posted by sigismund on October 19, 2018, at 19:44:40
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on October 19, 2018, at 16:08:40
Well, I was thinking about my bitterness today.
It's not helpful. (Be the change you want to see.)
But is it appropriate?
If not now, when?
The Australian parliament just had a vote on a motion about whether it was OK to be white.
I told my friend here that 28 members had voted in favour.
He replied 'Only 28?'
I think he understood.
Just as well we have no serious problems (other than this) ahead of us.
Posted by beckett2 on October 19, 2018, at 19:54:19
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by sigismund on October 19, 2018, at 19:44:40
> Well, I was thinking about my bitterness today.
>
> It's not helpful. (Be the change you want to see.)
>
> But is it appropriate?
>
> If not now, when?
>
> The Australian parliament just had a vote on a motion about whether it was OK to be white.
>
> I told my friend here that 28 members had voted in favour.
>
> He replied 'Only 28?'
>
> I think he understood.
>
> Just as well we have no serious problems (other than this) ahead of us.What? Like ok to use the word white?
Posted by beckett2 on October 19, 2018, at 19:56:08
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by sigismund on October 19, 2018, at 19:44:40
> Well, I was thinking about my bitterness today.
>
> It's not helpful. (Be the change you want to see.)
>
> But is it appropriate?
>
> If not now, when?
>
> The Australian parliament just had a vote on a motion about whether it was OK to be white.
>
> I told my friend here that 28 members had voted in favour.
>
> He replied 'Only 28?'
>
> I think he understood.
>
> Just as well we have no serious problems (other than this) ahead of us.I think your bitterness is softer. Maybe sadder?
Posted by beckett2 on October 19, 2018, at 19:59:44
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on October 19, 2018, at 19:56:08
There's this from today's Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/18/stunned-then-shocked-race-adviser-tasered-by-police-is-targeted-again
Posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 4:25:45
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on October 19, 2018, at 19:54:19
I am just making this up, but some people feel that cultural marxism has threatened the identity of white people who are now subject to the same discrimination as everyone else. So cultural Marxism has replaced the Politics of Envy as the Get Out of jail Free card.
I might even hazard a guess that all those coloured people threaten us by socialising together (talking together in groups!), thus the Sudanese gangs. in Melbourne that Dutton, backed by Murdoch and company, were using to get rid of Turnbull. Why should decent Mums and Dads feel threatened by groups of black (really black) young (probably handsome) young men in the streets. The movements of the politics of envy over they years is interesting.
Fortunately all Australian political parties have passed motions declaring themselves non-racist. So that fixes that. This is like King Canute.
I wouldn't call my tone here bitter. Scornful is more like it.
Posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 4:53:17
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain » beckett2, posted by beckett2 on October 19, 2018, at 19:59:44
In the US a 93 yo woman was at a demonstration. There must have been a disturbance. She faced a police officer. 'Come on! Tazer me, you bastard! I dare you.'
So he did.Where we live a 16 yo boy ran naked into the street at 3 in the morning yelling for water. Acid? Meth? He refused to obey (couldn't hear or make sense of?) a reasonable police order (Stay still? Stop asking for water?) so they (four of them, I think) tazered him 16 times and beat him up with their batons. All captured on cctv. If I say 'This is the price of freedom', is that bitter? That's what Bill O'Reilly said after Las Vegas. What about 'tough love'? (a concept popularised in a book from the Reagan years, although in his defence I should mention the words from Crimmond (sp?) 'For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff me comfort still'.
'We go to great efforts to avoid violence, using the least injurious methods of control.' Irony?
When I was a kid some police officers might have said, 'What's the matter, son? What are you doing out here with no clothes in the middle of the night? Here, take my coat, put it around you, come down to the station and have some water and a cup tea and we will see what we can do for you.' (Sounds like John Wayne trying to be gracious.)
Or was that how we imagined ourselves to be? You knew better than to be out there like that.
Posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 4:59:12
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 4:53:17
Posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 5:05:47
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 4:59:12
Auden is sounding more appropriate, don't you think?
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
Posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 5:49:29
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 5:05:47
From one of our better journalists.......
Maybe some Liberals and Nationals actually believe there is anti-white racism in Australia. That white Australians suffer under the burden of living significantly longer lives than Indigenous Australians. That we endure the xenophobic torment of having better health and fewer chronic diseases. That we suffer the apartheid of better access to health and education services. That we are forced to live with greater wealth, more and better-paying jobs, and greater economic opportunity than non-whites. After all, is there not a Closing The Gap program to address exactly these kinds of racial injustices for whites?
Lets Godwin this garbage. Yes, lets go there. This is how Nazism grabbed power in Germany, by being indulged and legitimised and enabled by conservative politicians for their own political purposes. What was the Coalitions political purpose? Presumably to keep in Hansons good books so as to ensure their chances of securing legislative outcomes in the Senate. As if their experience with Hanson on company tax cuts hadnt shown them that Hanson lacks both the brains and basic decency to either stick to a policy position or a commitment once shes given it.
The job of fighting fascism isnt merely one for progressives and centrists. Conservatives also have a crucial role conservatives with decency, values, a belief in protecting institutions and an understanding of history.
Posted by beckett2 on October 20, 2018, at 14:45:32
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain » beckett2, posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 4:25:45
> I am just making this up, but some people feel that cultural marxism has threatened the identity of white people who are now subject to the same discrimination as everyone else. So cultural Marxism has replaced the Politics of Envy as the Get Out of jail Free card.
>
> I might even hazard a guess that all those coloured people threaten us by socialising together (talking together in groups!), thus the Sudanese gangs. in Melbourne that Dutton, backed by Murdoch and company, were using to get rid of Turnbull. Why should decent Mums and Dads feel threatened by groups of black (really black) young (probably handsome) young men in the streets. The movements of the politics of envy over they years is interesting.
>
> Fortunately all Australian political parties have passed motions declaring themselves non-racist. So that fixes that. This is like King Canute.
>
> I wouldn't call my tone here bitter. Scornful is more like it.Ok, I don't know Australian politics, and I was alarmed (and startled) that Morrison grabbed onto Trump. So maybe this above has to do with that.
Posted by beckett2 on October 20, 2018, at 15:03:54
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 4:53:17
> In the US a 93 yo woman was at a demonstration. There must have been a disturbance. She faced a police officer. 'Come on! Tazer me, you bastard! I dare you.'
> So he did.
>
> Where we live a 16 yo boy ran naked into the street at 3 in the morning yelling for water. Acid? Meth? He refused to obey (couldn't hear or make sense of?) a reasonable police order (Stay still? Stop asking for water?) so they (four of them, I think) tazered him 16 times and beat him up with their batons. All captured on cctv. If I say 'This is the price of freedom', is that bitter? That's what Bill O'Reilly said after Las Vegas. What about 'tough love'? (a concept popularised in a book from the Reagan years, although in his defence I should mention the words from Crimmond (sp?) 'For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff me comfort still'.
>
> 'We go to great efforts to avoid violence, using the least injurious methods of control.' Irony?
>
> When I was a kid some police officers might have said, 'What's the matter, son? What are you doing out here with no clothes in the middle of the night? Here, take my coat, put it around you, come down to the station and have some water and a cup tea and we will see what we can do for you.' (Sounds like John Wayne trying to be gracious.)
>
> Or was that how we imagined ourselves to be? You knew better than to be out there like that.I've pointedly instructed my son on how to behave around law enforcement. You're right, I think, (that before tasers), police had less recourse to over-exerting force. Common sense would be you talk to someone, and when you're tasering them, you realize your command to cooperate might not be obeyed because the suspect (?) was convulsing. So hold off shooting.
Posted by beckett2 on October 20, 2018, at 15:41:10
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 5:49:29
> From one of our better journalists.......
>
> Maybe some Liberals and Nationals actually believe there is anti-white racism in Australia. That white Australians suffer under the burden of living significantly longer lives than Indigenous Australians. That we endure the xenophobic torment of having better health and fewer chronic diseases. That we suffer the apartheid of better access to health and education services. That we are forced to live with greater wealth, more and better-paying jobs, and greater economic opportunity than non-whites. After all, is there not a Closing The Gap program to address exactly these kinds of racial injustices for whites?
> Lets Godwin this garbage. Yes, lets go there. This is how Nazism grabbed power in Germany, by being indulged and legitimised and enabled by conservative politicians for their own political purposes. What was the Coalitions political purpose? Presumably to keep in Hansons good books so as to ensure their chances of securing legislative outcomes in the Senate. As if their experience with Hanson on company tax cuts hadnt shown them that Hanson lacks both the brains and basic decency to either stick to a policy position or a commitment once shes given it.
> The job of fighting fascism isnt merely one for progressives and centrists. Conservatives also have a crucial role conservatives with decency, values, a belief in protecting institutions and an understanding of history.Lots of Godwinning going on. Maybe that is what trump was referring to when he said we'd be winning so much, we'd get tired of winning.
Posted by beckett2 on October 20, 2018, at 16:12:32
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by sigismund on October 20, 2018, at 4:59:12
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoIIio5ffi4
I don't know him. Joanna Newsom accompanied him (apparently; I just read), and he influenced her. I can hear it clearly in this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXPFfgdxp9o
Her brother is running for CA governor, another event I'm nervous about because I'm pretty happy with our current governor who is terming out. Not sure Newsom has the necessary gravitas to keep our state steady. We have 44 lawsuits against the trump administration--and our attorney general is up, too. We are great irritant.I'm a dodo, I know, but I didn't realize how deep racism is in Australia. Similarly, the US was born with racism, First Nation and slavery. Technology has it's way? Thinking about how much crueler the police can be behind tasers. I need my coffee, my thoughts are half thoughts.
You must have a great vinyl collection. I'm enjoying Stormcock right now. But on Apple Music (sorry!)
Last night my family was watching Cold Mountain and at a point I left the room. The movie is not particularly notable except for the inclusion of a terrible event from our civil war. https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/the-battle-of-the-crater/
Posted by beckett2 on October 20, 2018, at 18:49:07
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on October 20, 2018, at 16:12:32
Who coined 'shock and awe'? There are a series of documentaries by Adam Curtis for bbc, one called All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace. I love it.
Looking up the term, the wiki entry closes with this:
In popular culture
Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US, the term "shock and awe" has been used for commercial purposes. The United States Patent and Trademark Office received at least 29 trademark applications in 2003 for exclusive use of the term.[23] The first came from a fireworks company on the day the US started bombing Baghdad. Sony registered the trademark the day after the beginning of the operation for use in a video game title but later withdrew the application and described it as "an exercise of regrettable bad judgment."[24] It is also the name of a level in the video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, in which the player character experiences a nuclear detonation. The preceding section of the game is an example of Shock and Awe tactics, as the United States Marine Corps executes the strategy in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. The term is also used as an achievement in the popularly acclaimed game Starcraft 2, where it is obtained when a certain number of units die to the tactical strike craft whilst invisible. It is also the name of an achievement in Gears of War 2 and Miss Fortune's weapons in League of Legends. Miscellaneous other uses of the term include golf equipment, an insecticide, a set of bowling balls, a racehorse, a shampoo, condoms, and heroin.In an interview, Harlan Ullman stated that he believed that using the term to try to sell products was "probably a mistake," and "the marketing value will be somewhere between slim and none."[25]
Despite the bile I vent over trump and feel very very angry about the votes cast for him, the US is experiencing something like disaster capitalism. Puerto Rico is literally experiencing this.Did I mention this? My kid asked why I am practically apoplectic at the mention of trump. Because I'm a parent, and of course this is a topic of both amusement and bemusement. I say it's because he comes from where I lived and has always been a person deserving (?) scorn and ridicule; imagine if Logan Paul or Rice Gum (youtube personalities) became president when you were an adult. Well, this was hilarious, and I've never again been called out for my extreme response.
Posted by alexandra_k on October 21, 2018, at 2:07:50
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on October 20, 2018, at 16:12:32
> I'm a dodo, I know, but I didn't realize how deep racism is in Australia. Similarly, the US was born with racism, First Nation and slavery.
I've come to see a lot of racism in NZ, too.
I'm fairly race-blind. Having been raised on tv made by artists who had fairly idealistic views of race blindness, or at least a generous dose of tokenism inclusion. TV shows like Benson... And I'm sure most of the surgeons on TV are black...
The secondary school I attended had a fairly large Maori influence and a Marae and culture group. The foster home I lived in was run by a lady who was Scottish (very pale, red hair, freckles) and a guy who was a big Maori guy who never wore shoes... They were decent people. A little superficial rougness (maybe some tattoos) and at least one of their (all grown up now) kids were into some slighly more dodgey stuff (gang stuff and jail time)... But decent people, again... They would drag us around a variety of Maraes for various things... Weddings... Someones birthday...
Coming back...
I didn't think there were any Maori here. Down south, I mean. Only over this last year (maybe this last year and a half) have I seen them come out of the woodwork. Students firstly (from out of town). Now they are starting to say they've been here all along living in the suburburbs and rural communities down here. Really? First I heard...
Racism has been pretty successful, I guess is what that means.
I found this video on Maaori rural doctors for up north... In recent years... Around 70+ student doctors being sent up north... The Maaori rural candidates...
Saying they would look after their people better than the others looked after their people. That'd be true. Given the rheumatic fever thing.
I found there was a batch of cold and flu tablets recalled because they found penicillum mould growing on them.
Huh.
Huh.
I guess that would be a good way of trying to increase antibiotic resistance. Try and cultivate low levels of antibiotics in things like that...
Posted by alexandra_k on October 21, 2018, at 2:11:19
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by alexandra_k on October 21, 2018, at 2:07:50
http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/hot/RecallActionNoticesNew/21992.asp
Posted by alexandra_k on October 21, 2018, at 2:29:19
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by alexandra_k on October 21, 2018, at 2:11:19
Different Maaori tribes are different...
There's some awful Maaori in Auckland (my personal experience of them was that they were awful to me).
There was a real focus in Auckland on Maaori-dom. On this idea of people being on a hierarchy and equality for Maaori or equity for Maaori was when they had comperable positions on the hierarchy as white people.
The idea of the Treaty as being an international thing. So there is no nation of New Zealand. Maaori soverignty. They didn't ask settlers to settle here and we should go away.
Or spend all our time sitting still on the Marae keeping our mouths shut listening to the Maaori elders rant at us in Maaori because...
Well...
In reparation of how he was supposed to sit still and shut up in the classroom when he was a kid, I suppose.
I don't know.
By Maori for Maori. They are clear. I'm not Maori. So...
Where does that leave me?
Sh*t out of luck.
So... It's hard not to be racist in Auckland. Becuase the Auckland Maori I experienced were racist towards me because I'm not Maori. So all I'm allowed to do is parrot back to them exactly what they've said to me. Unthinkingly and without understanding. And... For me to get out / get away because I am not wanted there.
They couldn't be any clearer.
The Waikato Maori weren't like that... From memory. And they didn't much like the Auckland Maori, either. Something something about selling out their own people and...
But I haven't even seen a Marae down here...
I read something about how peoples used to be more diverse...
Like how fruits and vegetables and so on... There used to be far more people and they were more distict from one another...
Anyway...
Posted by sigismund on October 21, 2018, at 18:11:56
In reply to post coffee » beckett2, posted by beckett2 on October 20, 2018, at 18:49:07
Did you know that the morning dew in 'Morning Dew' actually referred to nuclear fallout? The radioactive stuff. Walking out in the morning dew wondering where everyone had gone.
I just despair for our culture. If the lies were the exception......I was thinking that if you destroy a people, steal their country, denigrate them and blame them for it, and do your best to ignore and forget it, then perhaps, even though you may wish otherwise, these crimes confidently assigned to oblivion may return in how you respond to the distress of others, including your own children. Australians fought in the war in South Sudan, well before the Boer War, in defence of the white race. Oh well, it doesn't matter anyway as the song says. I never understood exactly why I felt better outside the English speaking world. The children in some of those places look happier. I have held the hands of my godchildren in Peru for 100 times longer than those of my father. I understand that children are a complete nuisance, but when they are loved and left alone they are so beautiful they melt my heart, and since I despair so much I don't think their nonsense is nearly as toxic as the nonsense of adulta. Like Leonard Cohen said 'We don't like children anyhow'. Maybe we need that motion in parliament that it is OK to be white, but that won't do it for me. This is reminding me of self-hating Jews. But I don't really hate myself. I suppose my thinking was formed by the Christian idea of confession, atonement and repentance.
I will try to do justice to your posts when I can. Right now I need a drink.
Posted by sigismund on October 21, 2018, at 18:39:14
In reply to Re: post coffee, posted by sigismund on October 21, 2018, at 18:11:56
By 'culture' I mean...do I mean our politicians?
Any of you speak Spanish? Here is the newly canonised Oscar Romero speaking in 1980. Next morning he was shot for it while saying mass by people trained in the School of the Americas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcmhX-dDf8w
Posted by sigismund on October 22, 2018, at 5:53:32
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain, posted by alexandra_k on October 21, 2018, at 2:07:50
So an Marae is the tribal meeting place. That was one of the problems for the aborigines, not much that was constructed survived.
I'd always wondered how Maori people lived in the south. Aboriginal people lived in Tasmania which has a somewhat similar climate, but the number I recall was only in the thousands, 3 to 15 thousand perhaps? Mainly on the east or north coasts where it was warmer, less windy, less forested and more animals to hunt?
>They were decent people. A little superficial rougness
The people who helped me think were those uninvested in the system, not hypnotised by status. I made friends around the age of 6 or 8 with the cook. I was pretending to be sick. She said to me when we were alone, 'You're not sick. I don't care, but you're not sick'. As long as I stayed out from under her feet she was happy for me to sit on the step of the Aga (a stove) and chat with her, and that I did in one form or other for 60 years. She was very direct: 'They think their sh*t doesn't stink', stuff like that, 'Nobody cares about the working man'. It was always more fun with her. Apparently I used to tell her than how I wanted to die, kill myself or not exist. I don't remember that, but I do remember being able to speak my mind and feeling welcome. Just before she died we would sit in the morning sun outside her house. She would have either black tea with rum, or black coffee with salt, and we would each smoke a cigarette.
Posted by sigismund on October 22, 2018, at 6:10:09
In reply to Re: Anthony Bourdain » sigismund, posted by beckett2 on October 20, 2018, at 14:45:32
>Ok, I don't know Australian politics, and I was alarmed (and startled) that Morrison grabbed onto Trump.
We remain, by the skin of our teeth, a centre-left rather than a centre-right country, despite the best efforts of Murdoch and the shock jocks. The swing in Wentworth, Turnbull's old seat, was 20%, mainly over climate inaction, and won by a centrist independent. The Liberal candidate supported moving the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The proportion of Jews in Wentworth is very high, but I doubt this is a first order issue for them.
I see President Bone-spurs has become President Bone-saw. Here is the wrap up on the election by FDOTM
Posted by alexandra_k on October 23, 2018, at 2:53:34
In reply to Re: post coffee, posted by sigismund on October 21, 2018, at 18:11:56
> Did you know that the morning dew in 'Morning Dew' actually referred to nuclear fallout? The radioactive stuff. Walking out in the morning dew wondering where everyone had gone.
No, I didn't know that. But that adds a layer of meaning to Nuka-Cola being a theme for Fallout computer game series.
> I was thinking that if you destroy a people, steal their country, denigrate them and blame them for it, and do your best to ignore and forget it, then perhaps, even though you may wish otherwise, these crimes confidently assigned to oblivion may return in how you respond to the distress of others, including your own children.Yeah, maybe that is so.
On the other hand, there was some stuff written (from memory) about how it was that the Nazi Doctors and the like could do such awful things to the Jewish people (and others) and then go home and play with their kids...
And the idea was that they were able to dissociate what they did for their day job and be upstanding loving husbands and fathers. 'Being adaptable' I expect it's considered to be.
I suspect that there will be leakage. Or maybe others are much better dissociators than me. But I suspect there will be leakage. One idea is that you live with yourself by not viewing them as people. They are 'the other'. And so on.
Only... I think if your job involved your killing kittens (or whatever) that'd get to you, too.
There would have to be a context.
I did a course on environmental ethics, once, and I remember reading some really good and interesting stuff about ones attitude to the environment. I don't remember who wrote it but there was this really interesting piece about a person climbing a rockface. And there was one description where it was the person pitted against the rockface attempting to conquer it. And there was another description of the person becoming one with the rockface and communing with it on the journey. It was about ones attitude towards nature.
Someone took to asking people whether there was anything wrong with destroying a planet (for example) if nobody would ever know you had done that. A planet where no person lived where no person knew of it. Whether there was anything wrong with wonton destruction, in other words. Or whether, at the end of the day, things only have instrumental value because of some relation they bear to persons.
I think the attitude a person has towards... Everything. Is an indicator of that person. But most people don't think anything like this.
It was curious, though, that he asked. And it is tied to consciousness...
Zombies...
Yeah. There's a little more to that...
(I'm ranting).
I don't speak Spanish.
Recently I asked someone where she was from because she was speaking with an accent and I thought she was hispanic. She said she was born in Auckland but her ancestry was India Indian. She looked sorta hispanic to me. That was the... Social role that she was emulating. 18 year old first year student in the lunch cue. I think she had in mind Orange is the New Black sort of hispanic... But I said something about latin america and her dancing the tango (she was very passionate about something) and I saw her sort of... Contemplate a different (though perhaps also hispanic) way of being / presenting to the world...
Race, ancestry is funny strange.
I'm white. And I tan up well if I expose myself to the sun, gradually. But I'm... Blue. I've realised. There is something so white it appears blue if I don't. I've always thought that white white white was... Ugly. White was okay so long as it wasn't too white. It needed to be a bit... Olive. Olive-r. (We don't have italians or greeks in NZ). You know. Tanned Barbie doll Californian / Australian / white New Zealander. So... That's a funny (strange) sort of a thing... With all the nuclear fallout / hole in the ozone layer... We are still afraid of being too white in public. Yeah...
Posted by alexandra_k on October 23, 2018, at 2:55:06
In reply to Re: post coffee » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on October 23, 2018, at 2:53:34
and of course it's translucency from the lack of melanin and seeing the colouration from surface veins
Posted by alexandra_k on October 23, 2018, at 3:26:14
In reply to Re: post coffee, posted by alexandra_k on October 23, 2018, at 2:55:06
ah... just what the existing 22 always wanted.
Posted by sigismund on October 23, 2018, at 4:21:34
In reply to Re: post coffee » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on October 23, 2018, at 2:53:34
My skin doctor used to work in NZ and told me the skin cancer rates there were even higher than Aus. It is actually nice there to be out in the sun when t is cool. I had thought the hole in the ozone layer was if not fixed then getting better. Maybe not so? No solution to protect your northern British skin?
My line on the Nazis was considerably influenced by Christopher Clark'e "The Sleepwalkers", after which I concluded that Hitler's world outlook of dog eat dog was an understandable reaction to a lethal situation existing in (shall we say) cockpit Europe where everyone wanted revenge for something in the past, except perhaps for the British. That doesn't explain the Jews, but it does explain the French and Russian desire to destroy Germany. (Then the Kaiser was an idiot.)
HG Wells was asked sometime before WW! 'What do you think will happen to the BROWN races' and he replied 'I assume they will just have to go.' That's a lot of people to get rid of. Was WWI an example of the return of the repressed? Of course the wrong people died. But one wonders what would have happened to the rest of the world without it. The Germans hadn't had much time to get going. There was a small genocide in Namibia? (Goering's father) The Belgians excelled themselves. Half the population in 30 years? (Plucky little Belgium.) The British built railroads and institutions in India. Did they reduce it to beggary? (as that recent book argued). Not to speak of the settler societies. (Cowboys and Indians, Doris Day, The Black Hills of Dakota, clear inspiration for Hitler). If this is the nature of the world, and we wish to accept that, maybe the choice of victim is less important than acting out this perversion of Nietzche.
With Eichmann there are 2 accounts: That from the trial in Jerusalem and the other from a recorded conversation with a young dutch Nazi. Any Nazi worth his salt was not meant to stand around waiting for orders. (This brings to mind Christopher Browning on Trump.) The simple act of giving the police old military hardware (Obama) brought the overseas wars home to the USA. Tanks in Ferguson?
At this point in my rumination I shake my head and feel disappointed. And it doesn't look good down the road.
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