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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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 Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2020 3:08 pm Post subject: Churchill |
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| Quote: | Johann Hari
Winston Churchill is rightly remembered for leading Britain through her finest hour – but what if he also led the country through her most shameful hour? What if, in addition to rousing a nation to save the world from the Nazis, he fought for a raw white supremacism and a concentration camp network of his own? This question burns through Richard Toye’s new history, Churchill’s Empire, and is even seeping into the Oval Office.
George W Bush left a bust of Churchill near his desk in the White House, in an attempt to associate himself with the war leader’s heroic stand against fascism. Barack Obama had it returned to Britain. It’s not hard to guess why: his Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was imprisoned without trial for two years and was tortured on Churchill’s watch, for resisting Churchill’s empire.
Can these clashing Churchills be reconciled? Do we live, at the same time, in the world he helped to save, and the world he helped to trash? Toye, one of Britain’s smartest young historians, has tried to pick through these questions dispassionately – and he should lead us, at last and at least, to a more mature conversation about our greatest national icon.
As Colonial Secretary in the 1920s, he unleashed the notorious Black and Tan thugs on Ireland’s Catholic civilians, and when the Kurds rebelled against British rule, he said: “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes...[It] would spread a lively terror.”
, in 1943 a famine broke out in Bengal, caused – as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proved – by the imperial policies of the British. Up to 3 million people starved to death while British officials begged Churchill to direct food supplies to the region. He bluntly refused. He raged that it was their own fault for “breeding like rabbits”. At other times, he said the plague was “merrily” culling the population.
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GURGLETROUSERS
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 2:28 am Post subject: |
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It's easy to 'trash' a dead hero, and destroy his credibility by detailing his bad side, to turn him into an evil monster. Notice the 'it's not me approach', by simply googling an opinion piece, but HIGHLIGHTING certain parts for added effect.
I question the motives of those who follow this route. I have my own ideas about that. But since I appear to be out of place here, I'll leave it at that. |
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mat-ty
Joined: 07 Jul 2007
Posts: 7850
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 7:15 am Post subject: |
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| GURGLETROUSERS wrote: | It's easy to 'trash' a dead hero, and destroy his credibility by detailing his bad side, to turn him into an evil monster. Notice the 'it's not me approach', by simply googling an opinion piece, but HIGHLIGHTING certain parts for added effect.
I question the motives of those who follow this route. I have my own ideas about that. But since I appear to be out of place here, I'll leave it at that. |
Their called assholes Gurgle...... The left wants to shame peoples actions from hunbreds of years ago, in a differrent time, place and standards...
Meanwhile they ignore modern day brutal regimes like China, who are guilty of horrendous crimes against humanity, TODAY!!!!!..  |
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wsurfer
Joined: 17 Aug 2000
Posts: 1635
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 9:07 am Post subject: |
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| mat-ty wrote: | | GURGLETROUSERS wrote: | It's easy to 'trash' a dead hero, and destroy his credibility by detailing his bad side, to turn him into an evil monster. Notice the 'it's not me approach', by simply googling an opinion piece, but HIGHLIGHTING certain parts for added effect.
I question the motives of those who follow this route. I have my own ideas about that. But since I appear to be out of place here, I'll leave it at that. |
Their called assholes Gurgle...... The left wants to shame peoples actions from hunbreds of years ago, in a differrent time, place and standards...
Meanwhile they ignore modern day brutal regimes like China, who are guilty of horrendous crimes against humanity, TODAY!!!!!.. |
To err is human, got it!
Nobody is perfect, got it!
Let's sweep all of our transgressions under the rug and focus on Mat-ty's archenemy The Chinese.
I hear the war drums in the distance!
Last edited by wsurfer on Sun Jun 14, 2020 11:07 am; edited 1 time in total |
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mrgybe
Joined: 01 Jul 2008
Posts: 5180
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 9:34 am Post subject: |
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| GT, Just ignore him. He is a sad old man trying to start yet another argument. |
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vientomas
Joined: 25 Apr 2000
Posts: 2343
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 10:55 am Post subject: |
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| GURGLETROUSERS wrote: | It's easy to 'trash' a dead hero, and destroy his credibility by detailing his bad side, to turn him into an evil monster. Notice the 'it's not me approach', by simply googling an opinion piece, but HIGHLIGHTING certain parts for added effect.
I question the motives of those who follow this route. I have my own ideas about that. But since I appear to be out of place here, I'll leave it at that. |
If quoting your hero is all that it takes to trash him and desroy his credibility, then I suggest he is not a hero after all. Perhaps he is to you, but he is not a hero to everyone. Did Churchill rise to an occasion and assist in defeating an enemy. Yes. Did he express sentiments that were less than kind to non-whites? Yes.
I welcome the opportunity to look more deeply into the psyche of those whom some would declare to a hero. The defacing of Churchill's statute has promoted me to do so relative to him. I suggest GT that your nationalism has clouded your vision. Cannot you admit that Churchill expressed white supremacy and racist comments and was not a perfectt human being? Are the quotes attributed to him incorrect?
If you take and man as a hero, you take him warts and all.
Last edited by vientomas on Sun Jun 14, 2020 11:34 am; edited 1 time in total |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 11:15 am Post subject: |
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| mrgybe wrote: | | GT, Just ignore him. He is a sad old man trying to start yet another argument. |
Okay to starve people? Maybe even heroic? |
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GURGLETROUSERS
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 11:42 am Post subject: |
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I understand the Egyptian pyramids were built by thousands of slave labourers. (No white people involved.) I have never visited (and legitamised) them, but I suspect many others have! When does the clamour to tear them down begin?
In a few years time all who fought, or even lived (myself included) during those second world war times, will be dead and buried. . I've no doubt that then, Churchill will be equated with Adolf Hitler for his evil racism, as history is revised by those who will have no conception of what people went through at that time. The common perception during the nightly German blitz and death and destruction on London was that, 'the only good German is a dead one!'
How shockingly evil and racist! |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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In another thread, GT posted this:
| Quote: | So why was the statue of Winston Churchill desecrated by slogans during the 'Black Lives Matter' demonstration in London, by the very people who owe their freedom to people such as he?
Was he not a hero of the British Nation, and many of the overrun peoples of Europe, in those dark days???? Perhaps you need to rethink where this movement may be heading? That is, if you can see beyond your obvious inability to avoid classifying everything in purely racial terms! |
I answered his question. Of course I was attacked. I didn't highlight his violence against the Irish, but as someone who is of Irish descent, I am well aware of the unnecessary violence that England has used on the Irish. Churchill was neither the first nor the last. But the Irish can hold a grudge for centuries.
This is, of course, relevant to the question of what we do now about the unsavory aspects of our past. |
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nw30
Joined: 21 Dec 2008
Posts: 6485
Location: The eye of the universe, Cen. Cal. coast
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| Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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Gotta love the "what ifs" as if that's supposed to mean something special.
What if mac's dad was really the former Klansman (extreme cyclops) democrat Sen. Robert Byrd.
I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.
— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944
It's an easy game to play mac. |
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