To be fair, if the world powers had stopped Switzerland from financing Hitler's war machine, we needn't have sent our best to Omaha Beach in the first place.
Perhaps you have not read enough history. The Dutch bishops gave a scathing statement against the Nazis and their antisemitism, after which Hitler retaliated by having more Jewish people rounded up. Pope Pius had been on record with anti-Nazi statements long before the Nazis controlled Rome and surrounded the Vatican, but as things heated up, after Hitler's response to the Dutch bishops' statement, it seemed to be wiser to act rather than talk, and it is true that after that (after Hitler's retaliation), there were no more vocal criticisms of Hitler by the Pope or any bishop as far as I am aware - I don't think any public statements after that of the Dutch bishops. The Vatican maintained official neutrality during the war - surrounded by Nazis for much of the war, but at the same time, known for sheltering and helping thousands of Jewish people, and thousands of escaped allied P.O.W.'s. The book "Yours Is a Previous Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy" by Margherita Marchione (which I read a couple of times, several years ago) contains oral histories obtained from people who were there, with photographs, and documentation. If you look for this book at Amazon, just read a few of the reviews. One review quoted an excerpt from the book, in which Marchione stated,
"Posterity has repeatedly asked why Pope Pius XII did not publicly denounce Hitler and the Nazis who persecuted the Jews. The fact is that His Holiness became a victim of public opinion in order to protect those who were victimized... Carlo Sestieri, a well-known Jew who was hidden in one of the Vatican buildings, his wife protected in a nearby convent... suggested that 'perhaps only the Jews who were persecuted understand why the Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, could not publicly denounce the Nazi-Fascist government... Without doubt, it helped avoid worse disasters.'" (Pg. 65). [End quote.]
After the war, many Jewish people who had been helped by the Pope or his representantives, made public statements expressing gratitude for the help that had been received. Keep in mind that the Dachau concentration camp, the very first such camp, was first opened for Hitler's political opponents including clergy; 2,720 clergy were imprisoned there, with 94.88% of them, Catholic priests. The Pope didn't speak up for his priests, either, and many think that this was based on the well founded opnion that speaking against Hitler would only lead to more retaliation and deaths.
One of the Amazon reviews quotes the Prologue of the book:
"This book... is an effective vehicle for the study of Holocaust victims and the appreciation of courageous Christian rescuers, It honors those heroes and heroines who hid Jews in attics, cellars, and barns, providing food and clothing, false papers, and money for escape. They were compassionate men and women who performed acts of heroism, risking prison and deportation for their own families, even death..."
True, this particular statement is referencing the help provided by individual Catholics (the majority of Italian Christians were Catholic, even today about 80% of Italian Christians are Catholic), but Pope Pius had instructed the Italian priests to help in every way possible, and he also ordered that convents and monasteries be opened to Jewish and other refugees, where they were hidden during the war for safety. WIthin the Vatican itself, Jewish refugees who had lost jobs were in some cases provided with jobs and housing on the Vatican property, safe from Nazis. Numerous people slept in the Vatican library.
"Help from Christians took on different forms: giving Jews false documents, escorting them to safety, offering food or lodgings... Some Jews passed as Christians. At times, the Jewish men and women dressed in clerical garb supplied to them by nuns and monks.. When Jews obtained false documents, they had to learn about their new identities... and familiarity with the Catholic religion..." (From page 21 of Marchione's book).
From another review, "Photographs tells us of these deeds of the Church, the mitzvoth of Pius who fed the population in Rome and Castelgandolfo at Vatican expense. There are photographs of Jews disguised as priests living in the Vatican, the dining halls set up to feed refugees, and the works of Religious Orders operating under instruction from Pius though the normal channels of the Holy See. The Brothers of St. John of God ["Fatebenefratelli"] were especially helpful to Jews and other partisans. Nor are the Jesuits forgotten for their efforts when the Generalate at Borgo Santo Spirito was used as a coordinating center for Jews to emigrate out of Europe in 1944. (page 169)"
Marchione's book focuses in on the Pope, the Vatican, and Italy without looking beyond. But there was a group of German military officers who were secretly working against Hitler, who wanted to the end the war, and the Pope was approached as a possible neutral resource to try to help them to negotiate a way to dump Hitler and end the war, but for complicated reasons, nothing was possible. Marchione's book is not going to give piles of statistics, but in the photographs and statements, you see the evidence that the Pope was doing everything possible to shelter and help Jewish refugees, and with the Nazis truly at his doorstep.
I have never heard of evidence that the Pope actually funded the war, and there is actually a great deal of evidence, including statements from numerous Jewish people after the war, that he saved lives. The myth that he supported Hitler arose with a play in the 1960's, and later, a few books written decades after the war that did not dig deeply enough into the historical facts. There are other books which could be read - at one time, I read a number of books to make up my mind about this period, and I think there is sufficient actual evidence to conclude that the notion of "Hiterl's Pope" is quite the myth. Remember all the priests at Dachau who were imprisoned, tortured and died because of their early opposition to Hitler - he didn't put up with public opposition, so anyone daring to oppose him, had to act secretly and quietly, to do as much good as possible below the radar.
One needs to add to the complexity of the Catholics’ situation in WWII. Mussolini And therefore Italy supported Hitler/Germany. What play did Rome have on the international chess board??
Mussolini was a dictator, and most people did not support him. During the war he was captured twice by the Italians and after the Nazis helped him escape from prison once, he was executed by Italians when captured the second time.
Wikipedia says that Mussolini became dictator by "legal and illegal means," and made Italy into a totalarian state but in 1943, while Mussolini's government was in the war on Hitler's side, his Party voted him out, the King appointed someone else to replace him. Mussolini was imprisoned, but then the new government surrendered to the Allies and was on the side of the US, England, etc., officially, though unoffically, that was where many of their hearts were. But, the minute they surrender, the Nazis swooped in, in full force, to prevent the Allies from actually being able to take over Italy, and the Allies had to fight for every inch of ground they took. At the same time, the Nazis let Mussolini out of prison, but he was captured by the Italian partisans and executed so he would not escape again. That is how much the Italian people supported Mussolini. It was near the end of the war when Mussolini died. During most of the war, people throughout Italy helped Allied soldiers (escapees from P.O.W. camps) to hide from the Nazis and get back to the war when possible. The Italians also tended to stall any time their were orders to deport Jewish people, which is part of the reason that about 85% of Italian Jews were still alive by the end of the war. The rest of it was that people including nuns and priests and the Pope himself, sheltered Jewish people on their own property, fed them and hid them, so many were not found to be rounded up and deported. Basically a fascist dictator who used illegal means to establish a totalitarian state and he sided with Hitler. Many of the Italians had cousins and relatives in the U.S. and were more aligned with the U.S. in their minds and hearts, and in the end, exercised their will to get out from under their dictator and to ally with us.
And yet it's striking that in European countries with both Catholic and Protestant populations, the Protestants were more likely to protect Jews. There are always exceptions.
And I think also one must note the cases where after the war, Catholic religious institutions sometimes refused to return to their surviving families Jewish children whom they'd baptized while under their protection.
Your original accusation was a comment about "the Vatican" which I assume was directed toward Pope Pius. The Vatican is tiny and is mainly Catholic Church offices and limited living space for the Pope and priests who work there, so I'm figuring you were talking about the Pope, but the Vatican - they did everything humanly possible, and under the Pope's leadership, 85% of Italy's Jews were saved. Italy is the place where the Pope had the most influence, since Italy was not much affected by Reformation, and it was largely a Catholic country. OF the occupied nations, I don't know of any that would have been more Catholic.
Denmark (predominantly Lutheran) got ballpark 90% of their Jewish citzens across the water to Sweden and safety when they learned the Nazis planned a round-up - mostly all in one night, and very well coordinated.
Holland had many coordinated networks both Catholic and Protestant (the religious make up of Holland was both Protestant and Catholic) who rescued as many Jewish people as they could, though often betrayed by bounty hunters; many know about evangelical Corrie ten Boom and her network of mainly evangelicals that included many members of her family, but remember that one of Anne Frank's main helpers who risked her life daily to keep the Franks safe was Miep, who was Catholic, and she saved the diary or the world would not have had it.
In Hungary, which was predominantly Catholic, when the serious round-ups and transport of Jews to camps was underway, the leader of Hungary, Regent Horthy, for two years refused German orders to deport Jewish people to concentration camps, and finally in March 1944, the Germans came in and took over Hungary, set up a new government and started massive deporations of Jews to concentration camps. Despite the reality that the Nazi army now occupied Hungary, Regent Horthy took action to stop the deportations in July 1944 after he was urged to do so by FDR, by the King of Sweden, AND by Pope Pius, and other world leaders, political and religious, based on information that had become widely known confirming the genocide occuring in the camps. So Horthy did stop deportations and did intend to surrender Hungary to the Allies in order to get out of the war, but the Nazis kidnapped his son and sent his son to a concentration camp, and prepared to take the castle where Horthy was sheltering - and forced Horthy to resign entirely from the government. I just looked this up, and thought that was interesting that Pius did urge Horthy to stop the deportations. A high level Nazi was sent in to finish the deportations, and Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was able to prevent deportations and planned massacres just before the Nazis were defeated in Hungary by the Soviet army.
The Holocaust was horrible and never should have happened. Too many people participated on the side of evil, and too many people looked the other way, yet good people of many religious traditions risked their own lives, and many died, trying to save lives. I was originally responding to point out that there is eividence that Pope Pius made strong efforts to help save lives, and did NOT collude with Hitler as you suggested, but it is not my purpose to write a book about it since others who know more about it than I have written books about it - Marchoine was born around 1920 and my recollection she was at the Vatican at the time that these events occurred. But obviously you are free to believe whatever you wish. If you also want to believe that the Protestants helped better than the Catholics, I will not distrub your opinions further. I think there were amazing people of varied faith traditions who did the very best that anyone could have done. Who could possibly have done more than evangelical Corrie ten Boom, who sheltered Jewish people in her home, and who participated in obtaining ration cards so that Jews hidden in many homes could be fed - and who spent a long interval in a concentration camp for her trouble, and whose family members died while imprisoned. Who could have done more than Catholic Miep who risked her life buying food for the Franks and supplying their needs right up until almost the end of the war. And - who betrayed the ten Booms. But then the ten Booms and the Franks were betrayed by people who helped the Nazis either by fear or by greed or both, as they were probably paid for their information. Those people of faith who committed to save lives, of whatever faith, and sometimes of no religious faith, were heroes and I personally don't see a need to find fault with those who helped, even though, since there are no perfect human beings, and no perfectly wise human beings, sometimes the help could have been flawed in some way. In any case, I never said that Catholics were the only ones who helped, my original point was that I think you were mistaken in implying that the Vatican was alligned with Hitler, as there is a ton of evidence to the contrary. Likewise, of course, many Catholics and Protestants tried to save lives, and specifically did try to save Jewish lives, and in particular, in Italy where Catholics are in the majority, and where the Pope would have most readily been able to exert his influence, 85% of the Jewish people were saved, not killed. Sadly, after the war, many Jewish children could NOT be reunited with parents or relatives because the parents and relatives had all died at Auschwitz or similar places, and parents and relatives could not be located - though there is documentation of efforts from helpers in various countries to to keep records and to try to get Jewish children back with their own parents whenever possible. There were difficulties in keeping records, as too many records could lead back to helpers and children who could all have been kill - I have read of records being buried in the back yard for security, but if the helper is killed, perhaps those records are not found. But it was a great problem that children were placed somewhere for safety when parents were sent to camps, and if the parents did not return later or could not be located... Jewish infants may have certainly grown up in Christian homes. I think 70+ years after the war ended, it would be impossible to find out how many evangelicals vs. how many Catholics failed in one way or another. Many people did fail by keeping quiet and failing to act, and others failed by active complicity with Nazis. From your quick condemnation of "the Vatican" I assume you have not read extensively about the Nazi era, or you chose to read only one perspective. If you like your version the best, fine.
ah but your grandfathers were not aware that Hitler and the National Socialists - in the 1930s - had plenty of admirerers and envious supporters among the US elite and at the highest levels of the Roosevelt administration; they were not aware that plenty of very high level German regime operatives were recruited to work in the US Gov after the war (operation paperclip) and not only tech personnel - but intelligence and population control specialists. Long story short: Fascism was not being contested in the 1940s - just which Fascists would come out on top. "ANTIFA" what a hoot - SA SturmAbteilung - regime enforcers - is more like it!
"Fascism will come at the hands of perfectly authentic Americans, as violently against Hitler and Mussolini as the next one, but who are convinced that the present economic system is washed up and that the present political system in America has outlived its usefulness and who wish to commit this country to the rule of the bureaucratic state; interfering in the affairs of the states and cities; taking part in the management of industry and finance and agriculture; assuming the role of great national banker and investor, borrowing billions every year and spending them on all sorts of projects through which such a government can paralyze opposition and command public support; marshaling great armies and navies at crushing costs to support the industry of war and preparation for war which will become our greatest industry; and adding to all this the most romantic adventures in global planning, regeneration, and domination all to be done under the authority of a powerfully centralized government in which the executive will hold in effect all the powers with Congress reduced to the role of a debating society."
~ John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching
Oh, and FDR, the progressive poster boy, was a dyed-in-the-wool fascist:
'Roosevelt himself called Mussolini “admirable” and professed that he was “deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.” The admiration was mutual. In a laudatory review of Roosevelt’s 1933 book Looking Forward, Mussolini wrote, “Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices.…Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.” The chief Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, repeatedly praised “Roosevelt’s adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies” and “the development toward an authoritarian state” based on the “demand that collective good be put before individual self-interest.”'
that amplifies my comment in an excellent way; I was not aware of Flynn - I am printing out the Reason link for later close reading; thanks.
By the way, the SA are more widely known as the Brown Shirts; they were the National Socialists private militia in the early going mostly; then they got liquidated as the SS was formed - which was essentially a parallel state security/military service. "Nazi" parallels are fraught with difficulty; I would always say - ah but US political parties don't employ private, extra-legal militia / security services. And then ANTIFA came along and the parallel became less fraught. Next in the cue for enhancing the 1920s echos is a good round of hyper-inflation!
The National Socialists were not the only party with their militia. Communists and Social Democrats had them too.
At the end of the day, "parallels" are not the issue; there are many distinct roads to hell.
I've read Shirer's *The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich* so am more familiar that I really want to be with the SA and much else besides.
Mark Twain is reported to have said 'history does not repeat, it rhymes' and I certainly think that is accurate.
Totalitarian organizations tend to all use similar tactics because they all have similar goals: the pillage and subjugation of a subject population. This can only be done via fear, which is most effectively induced by propaganda and violence.
The left, particularly socialists of the international and national variety, are particularly enthusiastic and adept at these methods.
One such rhyme is that clearly Antifa is the private army of the Dems, but it is not the first.
Brown Shirts. Yeah. As the regime is following the play books of its overtly totalitarian forebears, it follows that such will be in the offing. And mayhem will ensue, as the armed public won’t surrender their weapons.
So either the regime is turned out and replaced, or it will resort to tactics far beyond what the Brown Shirts employed.
Let's not forget that ten days ago was the 29th anniversary of the massacre of the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas.
The Feds laid siege to the compound for months with helicopters, tanks and psychological warfare before torching the buildings and burning 76 of them, including 25 children, alive.
Anyone not familiar with the details of this atrocity, or who doubts what "our" government is perfectly willing to do to us, should watch this:
Ah, John T. Flynn, a Georgetown Law School alumnus; I wonder what he would make of our new Ministry of Truth and the creature (the Voice of Sauron?) who will run it.
Your comments are insightful, but quite wrong. Just because some Nazis gave lectures about eugenics in America prior to the war doesn't mean America was in their thrall. I think, if you researched a bit of "forbidden" history, that it quite another faction that goaded the USA into the war (and WW I, and perhaps others). It is considered bad form even today to mention the ethnicity, the political affiliations of this group, but it can be deduced. It's one of the worst-kept secrets in American history. It's a fact that FDR administration was infiltrated by Soviet Agents, up to Cabinet level members. Google "Venona decrypts" for a start. I'm not claiming the Nazis were good chaps. Far from it. But Stalin's Soviets were probably even worse yet we sided with them. Why did the USA even involve itself in these two world wars (and many other lesser ones?) These are fascinating questions, not always easily answered. My point: there is far more "dirt" in our nation's history, and what really happened is quite different than the happy-faced bullshit you were taught in public school or university.
The world is a complex place. I give you points for being aware of Paperclip and similar (once) secret programs. At least you aren't completely in the dark. Now, for extra credit, ask yourself questions like: "Who profited from WW I? WW II? Who stood to gain? How did the world change? Etc."
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Oh! "Eugenics" is a topic for another day and another post I suppose (as we are taking this rather far afield from El Gato's original). Germany was rather a latecomer to the party (read the oh-so-cultured George Bernard Shaw for some real shiver-your-timbers musings from circa 1890s). Indeed, German bio-technicians in the 1930s looked towards the US as a role model and trend setter in both segregationist and miscegenation policy - and by no means only the Southern states. (You could look at: Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law; James Q. Whitman - U Prin Press). And we would need our own blog to consider the topic of Revisionist History in any detail. Suffice it to say, I am aware of the issues; it presents a source of much insight; at least interesting conjecture; but also considerable danger in that it seems a lot of people find it an easy path to the claim that, in fact, as you deny, the "Nazis were good chaps" (you can get a taste of that most days on unz dot com!).
Progressives are fascists, racists and eugenicists, and always have been.
Here are a couple tidbits from Margaret Sanger, the progressive, eugenicist founder of Planned Parenthood, a government-funded organization that has aborted some 60 million black babies.
Enjoy.
"We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population..."
~ Margaret Sanger, Letter to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, December 10, 1939, p. 2
"Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring."
~ Sanger, Margaret. “My Way to Peace,” Jan. 17, 1932.
For more nauseating utterances from this monstrous woman who, of course, is enshrined in the progressive pantheon, read this, if you can stand it:
Your grandfather also lived in a nation, whether it was the USA, the UK or other allied power, that to one degree or another abridged the rights of its citizens at the very least, during the war. Western nations have had no qualms about harassing or imprisoning people for merely protesting wars or writing against them or interning thousands of citizens i camps because they were of the "wrong" ancestry. There are probably many more such incidents I'm not aware of. Official media are censored and lie to the public as a matter of routine.
Perhaps suppressing rights is "necessary," as it often is done in the context of an actual, declared shooting war. Problem: it doesn't require a war for governments to plead need and to change laws, to take away rights, that the citizenry used to have. Gato has already mentioned such occurrences in this essay.
Now don't get me wrong; in the 1930s or 40s, of course I would have preferred to live in the USA, compared to a Nazi Germany, a Soviet Union, etc. But that's not because my nation was some shining city on a hill. At best, it was the least worst actor.
It's not foreign powers that are a danger to your liberty; it is your very own government. Please, prove to me that I'm wrong.
Oh you are not wrong. The State (regardless of the one that you happen to have been enslaved to at birth) is the greatest threat to the liberty and prosperity of all of us, second only to the bootlickers and useful idiots that support and vote for it.
US involvement in WWI and WWII was not only completely unnecessary but also completely contrived by, wait for it..., progressives.
As you say, the world is a complex place, but there is no doubt that FDR not only did everything in his power to goad Japan into attacking the US via oil embargoes, but had foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack as the US had broken the Japanese codes.
See Robert B. Stinnet, *Day of Deceit* where this, and more, is completely documented.
As for WWI, which allowed Woodrow "He Kept us Out of War™" Wilson to realize the progressive wet dream of imposing complete government control over our society and economy, I will leave you with this:
"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn’t entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these `isms’ wouldn’t today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government – and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives."
~ Winston Churchill, August 1936 interview, the New York Enquirer
The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things. And to speak of them using their true names, that neither our speech nor our thoughts be clouded by those who spill the ink from their pens with the same intent with which a squid squirts ink into the water.
"and they too had a knack for nominative misrepresentation.
the name does not confer the attributes.
but it’s really just the tangled word games of demanding monopsony on meaning because my meaning means what my meaning means to me and don’t you tell me different, meanie!"
Hard to say if my favorite part is your critical thinking, vocabulary or wordsmithing. :~)
Agreed. Truly an excellent piece of writing. You are in fine form, and being as I am scientifically inclined (I am a biologist at heart) I shall reread it through the course of the day, comparing my response to it (and taking notes, of course) after morning coffee, then tea, and finally, wine. Send $1 and a SASE for my report.
I've decided to start the Good Guys Party. It is currently a party of one, espousing the ideology of Good Guyism, to which every one of my personal beliefs and opinions align.
You can join the Good Guys if you align completely with its ideology. That's only reasonable.
However, if you don't belong to the Good Guys, guess what you are?
Would that be the party of the first part, or a member of the other party, of the second part? Would either be a party to partying? Assuming of course, that the party was open to partiers from either party. Presupposing of course that none of the parties lost their heads at the party.
"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name."
~ Confucius
"Antifa".
Right.
Purported anti-fascists who demand mask and vaccine mandates, a.k.a. medical fascism.
For some time now I've seen the purported difference between progressivism, fascism, socialism, communism, etc., etc., etc., as nothing more than semantic distractions.
All of them are just different flavors of the same shit, which comes directly from the State that they all empower to kill, steal, cage and oppress the rest of us.
These people have inflicted an almost incomprehensible amount of death, destruction, suffering and oppression over the course of centuries.
From over half the 1612 Plymouth colonists starving to death, through the French Revolution when leftist lunatics shouted the oxymoronic liberté, égalité, fraternité while lopping off the heads of innocents and throwing baby aristocrats into bread ovens, to Mao, Stalin and Hitler murdering probably 150,000,000 souls, right up to today in Cuba and North Korea, not to mention the "blue" states which "locked down" their people like gigantic prison camps.
I find it incomprehensible that with this track record, which is undeniable, how any civilized person could continue to be a collectivist of any form whatsoever.
And yet, recently polls showed that a plurality would send the un-jabbed to concentration camps or keep them under house arrest.
These people are the true enemy, along with the State they empower.
They will be our undoing, just as they always have, should we not prevail.
They will prevail. They always do. Useful idiots outnumber every other faction. I take small, very small consolation in the fact that as this movement continues to gain speed, it will consume many, if not most of them, too, because it always does. They will be the ones who show up when invited to their own arrests or executions, thinking it will just take a few moments to clear things up, or relieved it's finally their turn, because all of their friends have already been arrested, and they feel left out. What makes me sad is that they won't know why it is happening and will blame their fates on the Trump supporters, antivaxxers and other nonconformists and free thinkers.
There is a saying within the libertarian investment community:
Just because something is inevitable does not mean it is imminent.
For many decades now, every State in the formerly free world has pursued policies that are devastating to the private economies that sustain them: heavy taxation (outright theft), choking regulations (a more subtle form of theft), and above all, currency debasement (the most sinister and invisible theft of all).
These policies are, to use the leftist buzzword, "unsustainable".
Thus they must end, and the only question is when.
I think we may be finally approaching the end game of a century of progressivism. The USG is debasing the dollar at unprecedented rate and through its hubris and stupidity has created a situation where the dollar is rapidly losing reserve currency status.
Since Bretton Woods, the USG has been able to print money to finance its wars, lavish compensation and depredations at will by distributing the ill effects (price inflation) globally.
This is ending. I don't know what the tipping point will be, but when enough people stop using USD to buy oil and settle transactions around the world, they will view the dollar as a liability instead of an asset, the final destruction of the dollar will be at hand and all hell will break loose.
The most important question in all this is: What comes next?
Let us all hope, and prepare to sell, a return to first principles.
"First principles" are raaacist! As are almost any principles to which my grandfather would have subscribed. The insanity that has prevailed for generations has so distorted reality that any recovery will take a long, long time.
I don’t know when either but more building blocks of the next financial structure are being put into place each day. What to do. Hard assets? Land? Gold? crypto? All of the above?
I recently had a conversation with a good friend on this very subject, and we were largely at a loss as to what to do.
Land is problematic because it cannot be owned outright as rent must continuously be paid to the State and it is subject to confiscation at any time as it is neither fungible or portable.
Crypto is problematic as the exchanges that most people use are subject to State control and confiscation, and the ability to spend/accept it in commercial transactions can be taxed, curtailed or banned by States.
Having most of one's crypto in a hardware wallet (this is what I do) protects against the first threat, but not the second.
However, the countries of El Salvador the The Central African Republic have adopted BTC as legal tender, and to a large extent it has become the "black" (a.k.a. free) market currency of choice in countries, such as Venezuela, whose States have created destructive price inflation via debasement.
Long-term (or perhaps not so long...), fiat currencies such as USD are going to their intrinsic value, zero, and hard currencies will prevail because there will be no other option. So I'm long BTC.
Given the above, my view that bullion in one's physical possession is the surest bet remains unchanged. Bullion has been a hedge against government-created crises for millennia, and is still the case today.
The downsides of gold are as they has always been: storage and transportation.
I buy mine locally with cash so there is no electronic record, making confiscation difficult. In the last few years, I've been buying smaller coins - 1/10th and 1/4th rather than 1oz, as they can be taken through airport security intermixed with fiat coins, whereas 1oz coins, particularly if more than one, are very likely to be stolen if seen by the security theatre actors.
Just paid off some bills selling a few choice Morgan dollars to a friend and fellow numismatist. The cranking out of paper money is so reminiscent of the inflationary period in Germany, which so few seem to know about these days. And shifting gears - what in the hell are Pelosi and Schiff doing in Ukraine? Figuring out The Plan for the coming election? "Vertical Scrub" (does anyone know what that means, btw)?
That's just it. Useful idiots, when they are no longer useful, are just idiots. They don't figure out much. And thanks for this. I had to educate myself about Night of the Long Knives. I was thinking of the Soviet Union rather than Germany, but the phenomenon is much the same. I'm no historian, just enough to be dangerous, and know that no one is immune to the purge. I wish I had more people to talk to face to face about current events. I have three, and the feedback gets predictable. I'm lucky to have three and one more by phone; I know some have none, including their spouses.
You are lucky. I only have one sane person to talk to, and I hesitate because she is an owner of the firm. Perhaps I should be more open to her, she has opened that door - she fears for her children, she seems to have a big picture view of the current situation, and she has indicated that she has no-one else to talk to. I guess I better try to reach out- I haven't admitted that (to myself) before now. Thank you Gato and friends, for being here, helping me stay sane!
I have had a few, but they all seem to die, dammit. My natural reclusiveness has become full-blown agoraphobia, the once-delightful Farmer's Market a weekly duty, dreaded but endured (many there are still masked, outside. The mind reels). I have one person left, my partner, who is under orders not to die, and all yous guys, bless your hearts. We are in the belly of the beast = NorCal. Surrounded by Zacatecan cartel pot overlords and their minions and leftist zombies. As soon as we divest of some real estate we're heading for Texas. I want to have some friends who really know me, before I die. I'd go to Chip Roy's barbeques, any day.
Trump supporter in this context is anyone who voted for him in 2016 or 2020, just as those who opted against mRNA shots for themselves are anti-vaxxers. Both groups, of course, are racists, fascists and terrorists.
Trump supporters who can’t see that he utterly betrayed them with the cares act and his handling of the pandemic are not free thinkers. He almost had me fooled, and I was thinking of voting for him until I saw his behavior with the Cares act. Those who still support him claim he was given bad advice. I say as a businessman he understands incentives, and he signed the bill paying hospitals to kill, and the millions of dollars he funneled to big Pharma with his project warp speed set the stage for the vaccine tyranny. But I in no way am saying they are racists, fascists, or terrorists.
Someone has to say it. All of this "up is down, down is up, good is bad, bad is good" is simply Satanic. It is the denial of reality, truth and even beauty. Our world is in the grip of evil. Not "evil," or some sort of vague concept of "not good," simple, Satanic evil. Outside of prayer, I don't know what can be done to stop it at this point.
You are right. But it will have to run its foreordained course. Just know that we are in the midst of an historic time in history, and it doesn't do any good to wish that Bilbo had not found that f*cking ring. We simply must do what we can, each of us in our own way, with the time given to us, and recognize that the way of truth and light will always triumph. Prayer is vital, at least to me. Also leading an upright life, and embracing concepts like shibumi, and most especially gathering your tribe and getting the hell out of Babylon, lest ye partake of her sins and receive of her plagues. Lay in your supplies and make sure to bring along Marcus Aurelius and John O'Donohue, who I take great comfort in reading every day. When you give way to despair, They have won.
At some point the best solution may be to dust off the Ka-bar or whatever other tools are available and get to work. A bit messy, but it gets the job done.
Timely post. So many “Newspeak” examples being created by the day, it’s tough to keep track. And Congress voting to give Biden power to expropriate assets of foreign citizens, all because they come from a land which Trusted News™️ decided was henceforth despicable.
Sounds to many like a great idea. Until you become the target 🎯.
When language evolves naturally, there's in increase in nuance and clarity, and an increase in the ability to facilitate understanding between people. When language changes in a way that decreases nuance and clarity, and decreases the ability to facilitate understanding between people, it's because of something that's *not* the natural evolution of language. When conversations fail because people can't agree on the definitions of common words, it's because of something that's *not* the natural evolution of language.
From George Orwell's “1984”:
“How is the Dictionary getting on?” said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.
“Slowly,” said Syme. “I’m on the adjectives. It’s fascinating.”
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.
“The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,” he said. “We’re getting the language into its final shape -- the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.”
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant’s passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ‘good’, for instance. If you have a word like ‘good’, what need is there for a word like ‘bad’?
‘Ungood’ will do just as well -- better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good’, what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning, or ‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there’ll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words -- in reality, only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.’s idea originally, of course,” he added as an afterthought.
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston’s face at the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.
“You haven’t a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,” he said almost sadly.
“Even when you write it you’re still thinking in Oldspeak. I’ve read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They’re good enough, but they’re translations. In your heart you’d prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?”
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,” he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. “Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”
“Except--” began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped. It had been on the tip of his tongue to say “Except the proles,” but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.
“The proles are not human beings,” he said carelessly. “By 2050 -- earlier, probably -- all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron -- they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly.
The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face.
Brings to mind the concept of "x justice", whereby justice - a word with a universal meaning in no need of modifiers - is perversely used to legitimate injustice and harm to its targets. Social justice, environmental justice, economic justice etc are all Orwellian terms meaning "the commission of injustice to achieve a goal"...
The cultivation of anti-intellectualism and moral apathy in our badly decayed Western culture has produced a populace a too-large percentage of which is ripe for enlistment into the ranks of goon squads.
It seems only a matter of time before DHS arms them and sends them against dissenters.
A lot of people want to be part of something bigger than themselves, and they want some form of “righteous” inspiration, and they want to exercise power over others.
And they want to go to extremes with all that.
And when a higher authority instructs them to do so, they certainly will.
The left has always held views premised on coercion, be it fascism or socialism, it's the empowerment of the state to do to citizens that which would be deemed illegal to do to each other. Robert A. Heinlein referred to common thieves as "freelance socialists". The only new element of today's varieties is the employment of nullifying the language, essentially taking Orwell's fictional warning and employing it as a manual. Antifa is today's version of the 1930's brown shirts - sheltered by a name capable of fooling only the victims of the propaganda from their fellow fascists of the institutional left, particularly in media and academia.
"surrendering delimitational power to the inhabitants of a self-aggrandizing hallucination riddled with definitional inversions and poisonous pretextual gambits is not the path to reason nor community"
uhhh, gimmee a few minutes...ummm... leave the comment box open another fifteen minutes...another quart of coffee... ok, ok, I got it. Dang that was good. And I will quote with attribute to my friends on the bluer side of the isle just to rile them up, if they get it at all. Thanks for the fun. Now Ctrl-C, paste on FB and hit Post here and there.
‘… the persistent misunderstanding that fascism is a leftist and not a right wing philosophy.‘
Isn’t that the wrong way round? Fascism emerged from Socialism, Mussolini was an ardent Socialist as was Hitler, both used the roots of Socialism, empowerment of the State over the individual, State economic direction, autarky, protectionism.
I've been saying this for a while… Our modern culture lacks any sense of "dharma", by any name.
The Sanskrit word "dharma" has many meanings in English, but one of those meanings translates approximately as "the nature of". ie the nature of fire is to burn - if something doesn't burn, it isn't fire; the nature of water is to quench - if something doesn't quench, it isn't water; and so on. Everything has dharma, which is to say that everything has a nature.
There is a dharma of men. There is a dharma of women. There is a dharma of war. There is a dharma of peace. Everything has its dharma, and re-labelling a thing with a different name does not change its dharma.
And here we are, with no concept of dharma.
• If you question antifa, you're a fascist, because they call themselves "anti fascists".
• If you question Black Lives Matter™, you're a racist, because they call themselves "Black Lives Matter™".
• If you say that sex/gender is a biological construct, you're transphobic, because a man who claims to be a woman calls himself a woman.
• If you question a "vaccine" that doesn't prevent infection, you're "anti-vax", because it's called a "vaccine".
We could spend all day listing the ways in which our culture, hijacked by postmodern, post-Marxist, deconstructionist, critical-theory nonsense has untethered language from meaning. Language is adrift.
We're living in a fantasy world where words mean whatever someone wants them to mean, because peanut butter bicycle pants.
The vaccine angle is especially fascinating to me, because if you're against MANDATES for the shot that wouldn't qualify as a 'vaccine' five years ago, then you're anti-vax!
Recall that the WHO redefined the term ‘Vaccine’ (leaving out the pesky part about conferring immunity) in September 2021. Roughly concurrently, the WHO also redefined ‘Herd Immunity’, dropping any reference to ‘Natural Immunity’ (ascribing achievement of HE to a sufficient portion of a population having been successfully vaccinated).
And most people just accepted this as “OK”, since the Experts™️ told them to. We wouldn’t want to be accused of being “Anti-Science” now, would we?
Never mind that these two novel concepts (re-definitions) are logically incoherent with one another.
The WHO has lost a lot of credibility, at least with me. The Newspeak examples are important of course, but what did it for me was learning that "people" can get pregnant. 😑 I credit them for being about half right.
but but Derrida said the signified and the signifier are like 2 ships passing in the night, that words have no inherent meaning or any possible connection to ideas or concepts, that the ideas true/false right/wrong smart/stupid are just oppressive binaries inflicted by the capitalist ruling class on the mute and helpless oppressed, that nothing exists but power and who holds the whip hand...in fact he absolutely scientifically proved beyond doubt that nothing exists except French Theorists and their acolytes, ergo in the interests of Justice (and St Karl, blessed be his name) we should all sit mutely while they deconstruct our world and our language to their precise specifications.
My grandfathers fought the Nazis so that I could be called a Nazi for believing the things my grandfathers believed.
If the men storming Omaha beach saw what the US would become, they would have turned around.
To be fair, if the world powers had stopped Switzerland from financing Hitler's war machine, we needn't have sent our best to Omaha Beach in the first place.
Apparently we were also funding his war machine.
Like Rockefeller and Ford and the others like them.
Don't forget the Vatican.
Perhaps you have not read enough history. The Dutch bishops gave a scathing statement against the Nazis and their antisemitism, after which Hitler retaliated by having more Jewish people rounded up. Pope Pius had been on record with anti-Nazi statements long before the Nazis controlled Rome and surrounded the Vatican, but as things heated up, after Hitler's response to the Dutch bishops' statement, it seemed to be wiser to act rather than talk, and it is true that after that (after Hitler's retaliation), there were no more vocal criticisms of Hitler by the Pope or any bishop as far as I am aware - I don't think any public statements after that of the Dutch bishops. The Vatican maintained official neutrality during the war - surrounded by Nazis for much of the war, but at the same time, known for sheltering and helping thousands of Jewish people, and thousands of escaped allied P.O.W.'s. The book "Yours Is a Previous Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy" by Margherita Marchione (which I read a couple of times, several years ago) contains oral histories obtained from people who were there, with photographs, and documentation. If you look for this book at Amazon, just read a few of the reviews. One review quoted an excerpt from the book, in which Marchione stated,
"Posterity has repeatedly asked why Pope Pius XII did not publicly denounce Hitler and the Nazis who persecuted the Jews. The fact is that His Holiness became a victim of public opinion in order to protect those who were victimized... Carlo Sestieri, a well-known Jew who was hidden in one of the Vatican buildings, his wife protected in a nearby convent... suggested that 'perhaps only the Jews who were persecuted understand why the Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, could not publicly denounce the Nazi-Fascist government... Without doubt, it helped avoid worse disasters.'" (Pg. 65). [End quote.]
After the war, many Jewish people who had been helped by the Pope or his representantives, made public statements expressing gratitude for the help that had been received. Keep in mind that the Dachau concentration camp, the very first such camp, was first opened for Hitler's political opponents including clergy; 2,720 clergy were imprisoned there, with 94.88% of them, Catholic priests. The Pope didn't speak up for his priests, either, and many think that this was based on the well founded opnion that speaking against Hitler would only lead to more retaliation and deaths.
One of the Amazon reviews quotes the Prologue of the book:
"This book... is an effective vehicle for the study of Holocaust victims and the appreciation of courageous Christian rescuers, It honors those heroes and heroines who hid Jews in attics, cellars, and barns, providing food and clothing, false papers, and money for escape. They were compassionate men and women who performed acts of heroism, risking prison and deportation for their own families, even death..."
True, this particular statement is referencing the help provided by individual Catholics (the majority of Italian Christians were Catholic, even today about 80% of Italian Christians are Catholic), but Pope Pius had instructed the Italian priests to help in every way possible, and he also ordered that convents and monasteries be opened to Jewish and other refugees, where they were hidden during the war for safety. WIthin the Vatican itself, Jewish refugees who had lost jobs were in some cases provided with jobs and housing on the Vatican property, safe from Nazis. Numerous people slept in the Vatican library.
"Help from Christians took on different forms: giving Jews false documents, escorting them to safety, offering food or lodgings... Some Jews passed as Christians. At times, the Jewish men and women dressed in clerical garb supplied to them by nuns and monks.. When Jews obtained false documents, they had to learn about their new identities... and familiarity with the Catholic religion..." (From page 21 of Marchione's book).
From another review, "Photographs tells us of these deeds of the Church, the mitzvoth of Pius who fed the population in Rome and Castelgandolfo at Vatican expense. There are photographs of Jews disguised as priests living in the Vatican, the dining halls set up to feed refugees, and the works of Religious Orders operating under instruction from Pius though the normal channels of the Holy See. The Brothers of St. John of God ["Fatebenefratelli"] were especially helpful to Jews and other partisans. Nor are the Jesuits forgotten for their efforts when the Generalate at Borgo Santo Spirito was used as a coordinating center for Jews to emigrate out of Europe in 1944. (page 169)"
Marchione's book focuses in on the Pope, the Vatican, and Italy without looking beyond. But there was a group of German military officers who were secretly working against Hitler, who wanted to the end the war, and the Pope was approached as a possible neutral resource to try to help them to negotiate a way to dump Hitler and end the war, but for complicated reasons, nothing was possible. Marchione's book is not going to give piles of statistics, but in the photographs and statements, you see the evidence that the Pope was doing everything possible to shelter and help Jewish refugees, and with the Nazis truly at his doorstep.
I have never heard of evidence that the Pope actually funded the war, and there is actually a great deal of evidence, including statements from numerous Jewish people after the war, that he saved lives. The myth that he supported Hitler arose with a play in the 1960's, and later, a few books written decades after the war that did not dig deeply enough into the historical facts. There are other books which could be read - at one time, I read a number of books to make up my mind about this period, and I think there is sufficient actual evidence to conclude that the notion of "Hiterl's Pope" is quite the myth. Remember all the priests at Dachau who were imprisoned, tortured and died because of their early opposition to Hitler - he didn't put up with public opposition, so anyone daring to oppose him, had to act secretly and quietly, to do as much good as possible below the radar.
One needs to add to the complexity of the Catholics’ situation in WWII. Mussolini And therefore Italy supported Hitler/Germany. What play did Rome have on the international chess board??
Mussolini was a dictator, and most people did not support him. During the war he was captured twice by the Italians and after the Nazis helped him escape from prison once, he was executed by Italians when captured the second time.
Wikipedia says that Mussolini became dictator by "legal and illegal means," and made Italy into a totalarian state but in 1943, while Mussolini's government was in the war on Hitler's side, his Party voted him out, the King appointed someone else to replace him. Mussolini was imprisoned, but then the new government surrendered to the Allies and was on the side of the US, England, etc., officially, though unoffically, that was where many of their hearts were. But, the minute they surrender, the Nazis swooped in, in full force, to prevent the Allies from actually being able to take over Italy, and the Allies had to fight for every inch of ground they took. At the same time, the Nazis let Mussolini out of prison, but he was captured by the Italian partisans and executed so he would not escape again. That is how much the Italian people supported Mussolini. It was near the end of the war when Mussolini died. During most of the war, people throughout Italy helped Allied soldiers (escapees from P.O.W. camps) to hide from the Nazis and get back to the war when possible. The Italians also tended to stall any time their were orders to deport Jewish people, which is part of the reason that about 85% of Italian Jews were still alive by the end of the war. The rest of it was that people including nuns and priests and the Pope himself, sheltered Jewish people on their own property, fed them and hid them, so many were not found to be rounded up and deported. Basically a fascist dictator who used illegal means to establish a totalitarian state and he sided with Hitler. Many of the Italians had cousins and relatives in the U.S. and were more aligned with the U.S. in their minds and hearts, and in the end, exercised their will to get out from under their dictator and to ally with us.
What an excellent review of this book and it’s history for sharing.
And yet it's striking that in European countries with both Catholic and Protestant populations, the Protestants were more likely to protect Jews. There are always exceptions.
And I think also one must note the cases where after the war, Catholic religious institutions sometimes refused to return to their surviving families Jewish children whom they'd baptized while under their protection.
Your original accusation was a comment about "the Vatican" which I assume was directed toward Pope Pius. The Vatican is tiny and is mainly Catholic Church offices and limited living space for the Pope and priests who work there, so I'm figuring you were talking about the Pope, but the Vatican - they did everything humanly possible, and under the Pope's leadership, 85% of Italy's Jews were saved. Italy is the place where the Pope had the most influence, since Italy was not much affected by Reformation, and it was largely a Catholic country. OF the occupied nations, I don't know of any that would have been more Catholic.
Denmark (predominantly Lutheran) got ballpark 90% of their Jewish citzens across the water to Sweden and safety when they learned the Nazis planned a round-up - mostly all in one night, and very well coordinated.
Holland had many coordinated networks both Catholic and Protestant (the religious make up of Holland was both Protestant and Catholic) who rescued as many Jewish people as they could, though often betrayed by bounty hunters; many know about evangelical Corrie ten Boom and her network of mainly evangelicals that included many members of her family, but remember that one of Anne Frank's main helpers who risked her life daily to keep the Franks safe was Miep, who was Catholic, and she saved the diary or the world would not have had it.
In Hungary, which was predominantly Catholic, when the serious round-ups and transport of Jews to camps was underway, the leader of Hungary, Regent Horthy, for two years refused German orders to deport Jewish people to concentration camps, and finally in March 1944, the Germans came in and took over Hungary, set up a new government and started massive deporations of Jews to concentration camps. Despite the reality that the Nazi army now occupied Hungary, Regent Horthy took action to stop the deportations in July 1944 after he was urged to do so by FDR, by the King of Sweden, AND by Pope Pius, and other world leaders, political and religious, based on information that had become widely known confirming the genocide occuring in the camps. So Horthy did stop deportations and did intend to surrender Hungary to the Allies in order to get out of the war, but the Nazis kidnapped his son and sent his son to a concentration camp, and prepared to take the castle where Horthy was sheltering - and forced Horthy to resign entirely from the government. I just looked this up, and thought that was interesting that Pius did urge Horthy to stop the deportations. A high level Nazi was sent in to finish the deportations, and Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was able to prevent deportations and planned massacres just before the Nazis were defeated in Hungary by the Soviet army.
The Holocaust was horrible and never should have happened. Too many people participated on the side of evil, and too many people looked the other way, yet good people of many religious traditions risked their own lives, and many died, trying to save lives. I was originally responding to point out that there is eividence that Pope Pius made strong efforts to help save lives, and did NOT collude with Hitler as you suggested, but it is not my purpose to write a book about it since others who know more about it than I have written books about it - Marchoine was born around 1920 and my recollection she was at the Vatican at the time that these events occurred. But obviously you are free to believe whatever you wish. If you also want to believe that the Protestants helped better than the Catholics, I will not distrub your opinions further. I think there were amazing people of varied faith traditions who did the very best that anyone could have done. Who could possibly have done more than evangelical Corrie ten Boom, who sheltered Jewish people in her home, and who participated in obtaining ration cards so that Jews hidden in many homes could be fed - and who spent a long interval in a concentration camp for her trouble, and whose family members died while imprisoned. Who could have done more than Catholic Miep who risked her life buying food for the Franks and supplying their needs right up until almost the end of the war. And - who betrayed the ten Booms. But then the ten Booms and the Franks were betrayed by people who helped the Nazis either by fear or by greed or both, as they were probably paid for their information. Those people of faith who committed to save lives, of whatever faith, and sometimes of no religious faith, were heroes and I personally don't see a need to find fault with those who helped, even though, since there are no perfect human beings, and no perfectly wise human beings, sometimes the help could have been flawed in some way. In any case, I never said that Catholics were the only ones who helped, my original point was that I think you were mistaken in implying that the Vatican was alligned with Hitler, as there is a ton of evidence to the contrary. Likewise, of course, many Catholics and Protestants tried to save lives, and specifically did try to save Jewish lives, and in particular, in Italy where Catholics are in the majority, and where the Pope would have most readily been able to exert his influence, 85% of the Jewish people were saved, not killed. Sadly, after the war, many Jewish children could NOT be reunited with parents or relatives because the parents and relatives had all died at Auschwitz or similar places, and parents and relatives could not be located - though there is documentation of efforts from helpers in various countries to to keep records and to try to get Jewish children back with their own parents whenever possible. There were difficulties in keeping records, as too many records could lead back to helpers and children who could all have been kill - I have read of records being buried in the back yard for security, but if the helper is killed, perhaps those records are not found. But it was a great problem that children were placed somewhere for safety when parents were sent to camps, and if the parents did not return later or could not be located... Jewish infants may have certainly grown up in Christian homes. I think 70+ years after the war ended, it would be impossible to find out how many evangelicals vs. how many Catholics failed in one way or another. Many people did fail by keeping quiet and failing to act, and others failed by active complicity with Nazis. From your quick condemnation of "the Vatican" I assume you have not read extensively about the Nazi era, or you chose to read only one perspective. If you like your version the best, fine.
Well, I did say world powers...
It was the original “great reset “ version 1.0.
The Rockefellers?
If the US had stopped the US banks, Ford, Jeep, etc from financing Hitler, there wouldn’t have been a war.
Yup.
True!
And pointed their weapons in the other direction.
ah but your grandfathers were not aware that Hitler and the National Socialists - in the 1930s - had plenty of admirerers and envious supporters among the US elite and at the highest levels of the Roosevelt administration; they were not aware that plenty of very high level German regime operatives were recruited to work in the US Gov after the war (operation paperclip) and not only tech personnel - but intelligence and population control specialists. Long story short: Fascism was not being contested in the 1940s - just which Fascists would come out on top. "ANTIFA" what a hoot - SA SturmAbteilung - regime enforcers - is more like it!
Exactly right, unless gramps was John T. Flynn:
"Fascism will come at the hands of perfectly authentic Americans, as violently against Hitler and Mussolini as the next one, but who are convinced that the present economic system is washed up and that the present political system in America has outlived its usefulness and who wish to commit this country to the rule of the bureaucratic state; interfering in the affairs of the states and cities; taking part in the management of industry and finance and agriculture; assuming the role of great national banker and investor, borrowing billions every year and spending them on all sorts of projects through which such a government can paralyze opposition and command public support; marshaling great armies and navies at crushing costs to support the industry of war and preparation for war which will become our greatest industry; and adding to all this the most romantic adventures in global planning, regeneration, and domination all to be done under the authority of a powerfully centralized government in which the executive will hold in effect all the powers with Congress reduced to the role of a debating society."
~ John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching
Oh, and FDR, the progressive poster boy, was a dyed-in-the-wool fascist:
'Roosevelt himself called Mussolini “admirable” and professed that he was “deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.” The admiration was mutual. In a laudatory review of Roosevelt’s 1933 book Looking Forward, Mussolini wrote, “Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices.…Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.” The chief Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, repeatedly praised “Roosevelt’s adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies” and “the development toward an authoritarian state” based on the “demand that collective good be put before individual self-interest.”'
~ http://reason.com/archives/2007/09/28/hitler-mussolini-roosevelt
that amplifies my comment in an excellent way; I was not aware of Flynn - I am printing out the Reason link for later close reading; thanks.
By the way, the SA are more widely known as the Brown Shirts; they were the National Socialists private militia in the early going mostly; then they got liquidated as the SS was formed - which was essentially a parallel state security/military service. "Nazi" parallels are fraught with difficulty; I would always say - ah but US political parties don't employ private, extra-legal militia / security services. And then ANTIFA came along and the parallel became less fraught. Next in the cue for enhancing the 1920s echos is a good round of hyper-inflation!
The National Socialists were not the only party with their militia. Communists and Social Democrats had them too.
At the end of the day, "parallels" are not the issue; there are many distinct roads to hell.
I've read Shirer's *The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich* so am more familiar that I really want to be with the SA and much else besides.
Mark Twain is reported to have said 'history does not repeat, it rhymes' and I certainly think that is accurate.
Totalitarian organizations tend to all use similar tactics because they all have similar goals: the pillage and subjugation of a subject population. This can only be done via fear, which is most effectively induced by propaganda and violence.
The left, particularly socialists of the international and national variety, are particularly enthusiastic and adept at these methods.
One such rhyme is that clearly Antifa is the private army of the Dems, but it is not the first.
That was the KKK.
Brown Shirts. Yeah. As the regime is following the play books of its overtly totalitarian forebears, it follows that such will be in the offing. And mayhem will ensue, as the armed public won’t surrender their weapons.
So either the regime is turned out and replaced, or it will resort to tactics far beyond what the Brown Shirts employed.
Drones? I hate to think about it.
much more lethal environment for sure - for the SA, brass knuckles were almost the worst of it!
Let's not forget that ten days ago was the 29th anniversary of the massacre of the Branch Davidians in Waco Texas.
The Feds laid siege to the compound for months with helicopters, tanks and psychological warfare before torching the buildings and burning 76 of them, including 25 children, alive.
Anyone not familiar with the details of this atrocity, or who doubts what "our" government is perfectly willing to do to us, should watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr9pQ1pIbiU
Ah, John T. Flynn, a Georgetown Law School alumnus; I wonder what he would make of our new Ministry of Truth and the creature (the Voice of Sauron?) who will run it.
"(the Voice of Sauron?)" - Thank you.
I did not know he went to Georgetown Law. They are sure not turning out his like anymore.
Even though he pretty much called all of what has come to pass, I think he would be aghast, as I am, as to how far it has gone.
Your comments are insightful, but quite wrong. Just because some Nazis gave lectures about eugenics in America prior to the war doesn't mean America was in their thrall. I think, if you researched a bit of "forbidden" history, that it quite another faction that goaded the USA into the war (and WW I, and perhaps others). It is considered bad form even today to mention the ethnicity, the political affiliations of this group, but it can be deduced. It's one of the worst-kept secrets in American history. It's a fact that FDR administration was infiltrated by Soviet Agents, up to Cabinet level members. Google "Venona decrypts" for a start. I'm not claiming the Nazis were good chaps. Far from it. But Stalin's Soviets were probably even worse yet we sided with them. Why did the USA even involve itself in these two world wars (and many other lesser ones?) These are fascinating questions, not always easily answered. My point: there is far more "dirt" in our nation's history, and what really happened is quite different than the happy-faced bullshit you were taught in public school or university.
The world is a complex place. I give you points for being aware of Paperclip and similar (once) secret programs. At least you aren't completely in the dark. Now, for extra credit, ask yourself questions like: "Who profited from WW I? WW II? Who stood to gain? How did the world change? Etc."
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Oh! "Eugenics" is a topic for another day and another post I suppose (as we are taking this rather far afield from El Gato's original). Germany was rather a latecomer to the party (read the oh-so-cultured George Bernard Shaw for some real shiver-your-timbers musings from circa 1890s). Indeed, German bio-technicians in the 1930s looked towards the US as a role model and trend setter in both segregationist and miscegenation policy - and by no means only the Southern states. (You could look at: Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law; James Q. Whitman - U Prin Press). And we would need our own blog to consider the topic of Revisionist History in any detail. Suffice it to say, I am aware of the issues; it presents a source of much insight; at least interesting conjecture; but also considerable danger in that it seems a lot of people find it an easy path to the claim that, in fact, as you deny, the "Nazis were good chaps" (you can get a taste of that most days on unz dot com!).
Progressives are fascists, racists and eugenicists, and always have been.
Here are a couple tidbits from Margaret Sanger, the progressive, eugenicist founder of Planned Parenthood, a government-funded organization that has aborted some 60 million black babies.
Enjoy.
"We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population..."
~ Margaret Sanger, Letter to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, December 10, 1939, p. 2
"Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring."
~ Sanger, Margaret. “My Way to Peace,” Jan. 17, 1932.
For more nauseating utterances from this monstrous woman who, of course, is enshrined in the progressive pantheon, read this, if you can stand it:
https://tfpstudentaction.org/blog/margaret-sanger-quotes
“ My grandfathers fought the Nazis so that I could be called a Nazi for believing the things my grandfathers believed.”
…by persons who think it’s virtuous to support Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Maddening, isn’t it?
Your point is well taken.
Your grandfather also lived in a nation, whether it was the USA, the UK or other allied power, that to one degree or another abridged the rights of its citizens at the very least, during the war. Western nations have had no qualms about harassing or imprisoning people for merely protesting wars or writing against them or interning thousands of citizens i camps because they were of the "wrong" ancestry. There are probably many more such incidents I'm not aware of. Official media are censored and lie to the public as a matter of routine.
Perhaps suppressing rights is "necessary," as it often is done in the context of an actual, declared shooting war. Problem: it doesn't require a war for governments to plead need and to change laws, to take away rights, that the citizenry used to have. Gato has already mentioned such occurrences in this essay.
Now don't get me wrong; in the 1930s or 40s, of course I would have preferred to live in the USA, compared to a Nazi Germany, a Soviet Union, etc. But that's not because my nation was some shining city on a hill. At best, it was the least worst actor.
It's not foreign powers that are a danger to your liberty; it is your very own government. Please, prove to me that I'm wrong.
Oh you are not wrong. The State (regardless of the one that you happen to have been enslaved to at birth) is the greatest threat to the liberty and prosperity of all of us, second only to the bootlickers and useful idiots that support and vote for it.
US involvement in WWI and WWII was not only completely unnecessary but also completely contrived by, wait for it..., progressives.
As you say, the world is a complex place, but there is no doubt that FDR not only did everything in his power to goad Japan into attacking the US via oil embargoes, but had foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack as the US had broken the Japanese codes.
See Robert B. Stinnet, *Day of Deceit* where this, and more, is completely documented.
As for WWI, which allowed Woodrow "He Kept us Out of War™" Wilson to realize the progressive wet dream of imposing complete government control over our society and economy, I will leave you with this:
"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn’t entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these `isms’ wouldn’t today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government – and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives."
~ Winston Churchill, August 1936 interview, the New York Enquirer
the endgame in the demon’s own words:
https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/yuval-hariri-tells-you-what-the-vaccine
The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things. And to speak of them using their true names, that neither our speech nor our thoughts be clouded by those who spill the ink from their pens with the same intent with which a squid squirts ink into the water.
"The time has come... to speak of them using their true names" Well said. Here's a few names- https://jewishcontributions.com/infotables/
"and they too had a knack for nominative misrepresentation.
the name does not confer the attributes.
but it’s really just the tangled word games of demanding monopsony on meaning because my meaning means what my meaning means to me and don’t you tell me different, meanie!"
Hard to say if my favorite part is your critical thinking, vocabulary or wordsmithing. :~)
I know! Always a treat to read gato’s meowsings. But I had to look up the meaning of monopsony.
So did I. A new word is also a treat. Now, how to find an opening to use it at Book Club...
Lol
Agreed. Truly an excellent piece of writing. You are in fine form, and being as I am scientifically inclined (I am a biologist at heart) I shall reread it through the course of the day, comparing my response to it (and taking notes, of course) after morning coffee, then tea, and finally, wine. Send $1 and a SASE for my report.
I've decided to start the Good Guys Party. It is currently a party of one, espousing the ideology of Good Guyism, to which every one of my personal beliefs and opinions align.
You can join the Good Guys if you align completely with its ideology. That's only reasonable.
However, if you don't belong to the Good Guys, guess what you are?
This is exactly how the Democrats are trying to frame 'protecting democracy.'
I mean, they have the word 'democracy ' in their name. We should probably listen to them.
'liberals' and 'progeessives.' I get very pissed when people submit to the left's nomenclature abuse.
It can serve as a good litmus test, to see if there is a functioning brain there.
You mean like the "Democratic People’s Republic of Korea"?
They did it wrong.
Ditto for 'republic'.
If I don't belong to the Good Guys, I'm not you? Or am I just 'ungood'?
Double plus ungood!!
You're a Bad Guy.
And you know what happens to them?
They end up with the bad girls?
Yup. 😊
Since we've gone all Lewis Carroll, I thought an 'Off With His Head' Party might be good. If you don't join, guess what happens.
I've always thought parties should be obligated to throw parties.
Now THAT would be a fun party.
Would that be the party of the first part, or a member of the other party, of the second part? Would either be a party to partying? Assuming of course, that the party was open to partiers from either party. Presupposing of course that none of the parties lost their heads at the party.
Some pertinent wisdom from my Cheshire Cat friend:
“If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.”
“Never let anyone drive you crazy; it is nearby anyway and the walk is good for you.”
“No one does [play fair] if they think they can get away with it.”
“How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night?”
“Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do – some… don’t ever want to.”
“How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another.”
“A rose is still a rose, even hidden under different petals.”
“Only the insane equate pain with success.”
Thank you! I especially like the 2nd. There are modern versions: "I'm going crazy and I'm taking everybody with me." Another favourite of mine is:
"Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes. Then you will be a mile away, and you will have his shoes."
😆😆
Thank you!
"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name."
~ Confucius
"Antifa".
Right.
Purported anti-fascists who demand mask and vaccine mandates, a.k.a. medical fascism.
For some time now I've seen the purported difference between progressivism, fascism, socialism, communism, etc., etc., etc., as nothing more than semantic distractions.
All of them are just different flavors of the same shit, which comes directly from the State that they all empower to kill, steal, cage and oppress the rest of us.
These people have inflicted an almost incomprehensible amount of death, destruction, suffering and oppression over the course of centuries.
From over half the 1612 Plymouth colonists starving to death, through the French Revolution when leftist lunatics shouted the oxymoronic liberté, égalité, fraternité while lopping off the heads of innocents and throwing baby aristocrats into bread ovens, to Mao, Stalin and Hitler murdering probably 150,000,000 souls, right up to today in Cuba and North Korea, not to mention the "blue" states which "locked down" their people like gigantic prison camps.
I find it incomprehensible that with this track record, which is undeniable, how any civilized person could continue to be a collectivist of any form whatsoever.
And yet, recently polls showed that a plurality would send the un-jabbed to concentration camps or keep them under house arrest.
These people are the true enemy, along with the State they empower.
They will be our undoing, just as they always have, should we not prevail.
They will prevail. They always do. Useful idiots outnumber every other faction. I take small, very small consolation in the fact that as this movement continues to gain speed, it will consume many, if not most of them, too, because it always does. They will be the ones who show up when invited to their own arrests or executions, thinking it will just take a few moments to clear things up, or relieved it's finally their turn, because all of their friends have already been arrested, and they feel left out. What makes me sad is that they won't know why it is happening and will blame their fates on the Trump supporters, antivaxxers and other nonconformists and free thinkers.
There is a saying within the libertarian investment community:
Just because something is inevitable does not mean it is imminent.
For many decades now, every State in the formerly free world has pursued policies that are devastating to the private economies that sustain them: heavy taxation (outright theft), choking regulations (a more subtle form of theft), and above all, currency debasement (the most sinister and invisible theft of all).
These policies are, to use the leftist buzzword, "unsustainable".
Thus they must end, and the only question is when.
I think we may be finally approaching the end game of a century of progressivism. The USG is debasing the dollar at unprecedented rate and through its hubris and stupidity has created a situation where the dollar is rapidly losing reserve currency status.
Since Bretton Woods, the USG has been able to print money to finance its wars, lavish compensation and depredations at will by distributing the ill effects (price inflation) globally.
This is ending. I don't know what the tipping point will be, but when enough people stop using USD to buy oil and settle transactions around the world, they will view the dollar as a liability instead of an asset, the final destruction of the dollar will be at hand and all hell will break loose.
The most important question in all this is: What comes next?
Let us all hope, and prepare to sell, a return to first principles.
"First principles" are raaacist! As are almost any principles to which my grandfather would have subscribed. The insanity that has prevailed for generations has so distorted reality that any recovery will take a long, long time.
I don’t know when either but more building blocks of the next financial structure are being put into place each day. What to do. Hard assets? Land? Gold? crypto? All of the above?
This is more than just a straw in the wind:
A New Gold Standard? Kremlin Confirms Intention To Back Ruble With Gold And Commodities
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/new-gold-standard-kremlin-confirms-intention-back-ruble-gold-and-commodities
I recently had a conversation with a good friend on this very subject, and we were largely at a loss as to what to do.
Land is problematic because it cannot be owned outright as rent must continuously be paid to the State and it is subject to confiscation at any time as it is neither fungible or portable.
Crypto is problematic as the exchanges that most people use are subject to State control and confiscation, and the ability to spend/accept it in commercial transactions can be taxed, curtailed or banned by States.
Having most of one's crypto in a hardware wallet (this is what I do) protects against the first threat, but not the second.
However, the countries of El Salvador the The Central African Republic have adopted BTC as legal tender, and to a large extent it has become the "black" (a.k.a. free) market currency of choice in countries, such as Venezuela, whose States have created destructive price inflation via debasement.
Long-term (or perhaps not so long...), fiat currencies such as USD are going to their intrinsic value, zero, and hard currencies will prevail because there will be no other option. So I'm long BTC.
Given the above, my view that bullion in one's physical possession is the surest bet remains unchanged. Bullion has been a hedge against government-created crises for millennia, and is still the case today.
The downsides of gold are as they has always been: storage and transportation.
I buy mine locally with cash so there is no electronic record, making confiscation difficult. In the last few years, I've been buying smaller coins - 1/10th and 1/4th rather than 1oz, as they can be taken through airport security intermixed with fiat coins, whereas 1oz coins, particularly if more than one, are very likely to be stolen if seen by the security theatre actors.
Agree with all of that. I’d also add junk silver that I think will be used for day to day purchases in that scenario.
Just paid off some bills selling a few choice Morgan dollars to a friend and fellow numismatist. The cranking out of paper money is so reminiscent of the inflationary period in Germany, which so few seem to know about these days. And shifting gears - what in the hell are Pelosi and Schiff doing in Ukraine? Figuring out The Plan for the coming election? "Vertical Scrub" (does anyone know what that means, btw)?
Until the Night of the Long Knives, and then they may figure it out just before they perish, having outlived their usefulness.
That's just it. Useful idiots, when they are no longer useful, are just idiots. They don't figure out much. And thanks for this. I had to educate myself about Night of the Long Knives. I was thinking of the Soviet Union rather than Germany, but the phenomenon is much the same. I'm no historian, just enough to be dangerous, and know that no one is immune to the purge. I wish I had more people to talk to face to face about current events. I have three, and the feedback gets predictable. I'm lucky to have three and one more by phone; I know some have none, including their spouses.
You are lucky. I only have one sane person to talk to, and I hesitate because she is an owner of the firm. Perhaps I should be more open to her, she has opened that door - she fears for her children, she seems to have a big picture view of the current situation, and she has indicated that she has no-one else to talk to. I guess I better try to reach out- I haven't admitted that (to myself) before now. Thank you Gato and friends, for being here, helping me stay sane!
Hear, hear! My feelings exactly! You might share Bad Cat with her -?
I have had a few, but they all seem to die, dammit. My natural reclusiveness has become full-blown agoraphobia, the once-delightful Farmer's Market a weekly duty, dreaded but endured (many there are still masked, outside. The mind reels). I have one person left, my partner, who is under orders not to die, and all yous guys, bless your hearts. We are in the belly of the beast = NorCal. Surrounded by Zacatecan cartel pot overlords and their minions and leftist zombies. As soon as we divest of some real estate we're heading for Texas. I want to have some friends who really know me, before I die. I'd go to Chip Roy's barbeques, any day.
I don’t think you can use Trump supporters and free thinkers in the same sentence. They seem as inured in group think as antifa.
Trump supporter in this context is anyone who voted for him in 2016 or 2020, just as those who opted against mRNA shots for themselves are anti-vaxxers. Both groups, of course, are racists, fascists and terrorists.
Trump supporters who can’t see that he utterly betrayed them with the cares act and his handling of the pandemic are not free thinkers. He almost had me fooled, and I was thinking of voting for him until I saw his behavior with the Cares act. Those who still support him claim he was given bad advice. I say as a businessman he understands incentives, and he signed the bill paying hospitals to kill, and the millions of dollars he funneled to big Pharma with his project warp speed set the stage for the vaccine tyranny. But I in no way am saying they are racists, fascists, or terrorists.
Very astute summation.
Actually, they will blame you and I. As they always have!
Someone has to say it. All of this "up is down, down is up, good is bad, bad is good" is simply Satanic. It is the denial of reality, truth and even beauty. Our world is in the grip of evil. Not "evil," or some sort of vague concept of "not good," simple, Satanic evil. Outside of prayer, I don't know what can be done to stop it at this point.
You are right. But it will have to run its foreordained course. Just know that we are in the midst of an historic time in history, and it doesn't do any good to wish that Bilbo had not found that f*cking ring. We simply must do what we can, each of us in our own way, with the time given to us, and recognize that the way of truth and light will always triumph. Prayer is vital, at least to me. Also leading an upright life, and embracing concepts like shibumi, and most especially gathering your tribe and getting the hell out of Babylon, lest ye partake of her sins and receive of her plagues. Lay in your supplies and make sure to bring along Marcus Aurelius and John O'Donohue, who I take great comfort in reading every day. When you give way to despair, They have won.
I could not agree more.
At some point the best solution may be to dust off the Ka-bar or whatever other tools are available and get to work. A bit messy, but it gets the job done.
In my Mossberg 12 Gauge Pump-action - a.k.a. "The Persuader" - I trust.
Timely post. So many “Newspeak” examples being created by the day, it’s tough to keep track. And Congress voting to give Biden power to expropriate assets of foreign citizens, all because they come from a land which Trusted News™️ decided was henceforth despicable.
Sounds to many like a great idea. Until you become the target 🎯.
"Until you become the target."
Trudeau got there first. He froze bank accounts of citizens who disagreed with him.
When language evolves naturally, there's in increase in nuance and clarity, and an increase in the ability to facilitate understanding between people. When language changes in a way that decreases nuance and clarity, and decreases the ability to facilitate understanding between people, it's because of something that's *not* the natural evolution of language. When conversations fail because people can't agree on the definitions of common words, it's because of something that's *not* the natural evolution of language.
From George Orwell's “1984”:
“How is the Dictionary getting on?” said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.
“Slowly,” said Syme. “I’m on the adjectives. It’s fascinating.”
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.
“The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,” he said. “We’re getting the language into its final shape -- the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.”
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant’s passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ‘good’, for instance. If you have a word like ‘good’, what need is there for a word like ‘bad’?
‘Ungood’ will do just as well -- better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good’, what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning, or ‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there’ll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words -- in reality, only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.’s idea originally, of course,” he added as an afterthought.
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston’s face at the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.
“You haven’t a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,” he said almost sadly.
“Even when you write it you’re still thinking in Oldspeak. I’ve read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They’re good enough, but they’re translations. In your heart you’d prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?”
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,” he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. “Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”
“Except--” began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped. It had been on the tip of his tongue to say “Except the proles,” but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.
“The proles are not human beings,” he said carelessly. “By 2050 -- earlier, probably -- all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron -- they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly.
The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face.
I don't understand how anyone could be misled by "Antifa" -- they are straight-up brownshirts.
They are the fruit of toxic boredom.
Brings to mind the concept of "x justice", whereby justice - a word with a universal meaning in no need of modifiers - is perversely used to legitimate injustice and harm to its targets. Social justice, environmental justice, economic justice etc are all Orwellian terms meaning "the commission of injustice to achieve a goal"...
The cultivation of anti-intellectualism and moral apathy in our badly decayed Western culture has produced a populace a too-large percentage of which is ripe for enlistment into the ranks of goon squads.
It seems only a matter of time before DHS arms them and sends them against dissenters.
A lot of people want to be part of something bigger than themselves, and they want some form of “righteous” inspiration, and they want to exercise power over others.
And they want to go to extremes with all that.
And when a higher authority instructs them to do so, they certainly will.
All of 2020 I was thinking one tweet from AOC to her minions could turn American suburbs into wastelands.
I heard Rachel Maddow call for “direct action” against the Arizona audit.
That means protest/riot/violence in my understanding.
She called for it. But there were armed security people there.
The left has always held views premised on coercion, be it fascism or socialism, it's the empowerment of the state to do to citizens that which would be deemed illegal to do to each other. Robert A. Heinlein referred to common thieves as "freelance socialists". The only new element of today's varieties is the employment of nullifying the language, essentially taking Orwell's fictional warning and employing it as a manual. Antifa is today's version of the 1930's brown shirts - sheltered by a name capable of fooling only the victims of the propaganda from their fellow fascists of the institutional left, particularly in media and academia.
"surrendering delimitational power to the inhabitants of a self-aggrandizing hallucination riddled with definitional inversions and poisonous pretextual gambits is not the path to reason nor community"
uhhh, gimmee a few minutes...ummm... leave the comment box open another fifteen minutes...another quart of coffee... ok, ok, I got it. Dang that was good. And I will quote with attribute to my friends on the bluer side of the isle just to rile them up, if they get it at all. Thanks for the fun. Now Ctrl-C, paste on FB and hit Post here and there.
Gato is truly erudite and extraordinary.
Such a pleasure to read.
‘… the persistent misunderstanding that fascism is a leftist and not a right wing philosophy.‘
Isn’t that the wrong way round? Fascism emerged from Socialism, Mussolini was an ardent Socialist as was Hitler, both used the roots of Socialism, empowerment of the State over the individual, State economic direction, autarky, protectionism.
ugh.
you are correct. bad typo on my part.
I guessed maybe you had transposed the meaning as it wasn’t consistent with what yiu went on to say.
I've been saying this for a while… Our modern culture lacks any sense of "dharma", by any name.
The Sanskrit word "dharma" has many meanings in English, but one of those meanings translates approximately as "the nature of". ie the nature of fire is to burn - if something doesn't burn, it isn't fire; the nature of water is to quench - if something doesn't quench, it isn't water; and so on. Everything has dharma, which is to say that everything has a nature.
There is a dharma of men. There is a dharma of women. There is a dharma of war. There is a dharma of peace. Everything has its dharma, and re-labelling a thing with a different name does not change its dharma.
And here we are, with no concept of dharma.
• If you question antifa, you're a fascist, because they call themselves "anti fascists".
• If you question Black Lives Matter™, you're a racist, because they call themselves "Black Lives Matter™".
• If you say that sex/gender is a biological construct, you're transphobic, because a man who claims to be a woman calls himself a woman.
• If you question a "vaccine" that doesn't prevent infection, you're "anti-vax", because it's called a "vaccine".
We could spend all day listing the ways in which our culture, hijacked by postmodern, post-Marxist, deconstructionist, critical-theory nonsense has untethered language from meaning. Language is adrift.
We're living in a fantasy world where words mean whatever someone wants them to mean, because peanut butter bicycle pants.
The vaccine angle is especially fascinating to me, because if you're against MANDATES for the shot that wouldn't qualify as a 'vaccine' five years ago, then you're anti-vax!
Five years ago? More like eight months ago!
Recall that the WHO redefined the term ‘Vaccine’ (leaving out the pesky part about conferring immunity) in September 2021. Roughly concurrently, the WHO also redefined ‘Herd Immunity’, dropping any reference to ‘Natural Immunity’ (ascribing achievement of HE to a sufficient portion of a population having been successfully vaccinated).
And most people just accepted this as “OK”, since the Experts™️ told them to. We wouldn’t want to be accused of being “Anti-Science” now, would we?
Never mind that these two novel concepts (re-definitions) are logically incoherent with one another.
I guess it only FEELS like five years. I wrote about these issues during one of my first 'stack articles.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/newspeak-is-upon-us
How right you are. Actually, “five years ago” is technically correct, as are four, three, two and one year ago.
We appear trapped in a grainy B&W TV 📺 Sci-Fi episode from the late 1950s…
Yeah, the Twilight Zone.
The WHO has lost a lot of credibility, at least with me. The Newspeak examples are important of course, but what did it for me was learning that "people" can get pregnant. 😑 I credit them for being about half right.
cc: Greenwald, Krystal Ball
C'mon man… These vaccines are so good, they literally re-defined the meaning of "vaccines" 🤣
Pretty interesting concept - almost mathematical in the distinction between name and meaning.
but but Derrida said the signified and the signifier are like 2 ships passing in the night, that words have no inherent meaning or any possible connection to ideas or concepts, that the ideas true/false right/wrong smart/stupid are just oppressive binaries inflicted by the capitalist ruling class on the mute and helpless oppressed, that nothing exists but power and who holds the whip hand...in fact he absolutely scientifically proved beyond doubt that nothing exists except French Theorists and their acolytes, ergo in the interests of Justice (and St Karl, blessed be his name) we should all sit mutely while they deconstruct our world and our language to their precise specifications.