#Conservatives are bad - worse than nothing! The imperial month

[sbnkalny]

Conservatives are bad memes. It's joke 😭😭 this Kong's so strong, it isn't sexual, strictly confectional, Strictly medicinal..

[atheistforhumanity]

Money or Lives?

As you’ve probably heard, recently Trump announced that he wants most people to return to work by April 12th. According to the NYT, health officials were “horrified” by Trump’s announcement. Trump admitted that he did not choose this date based on any data, he simply said “I just thought it was a beautiful time.” This timing is obviously meant to bolster support from his evangelical base. 

As radically uninformed this may idea may be, it is not just a one-off in Trump’s habit of rambling. Trump made this announcement shortly after meeting with a group of billionaire hedge-fund investors. They want people to get back to work to protect the companies they’re invested in. To be clear, the only thing these billionaires have to fear is being less rich. 

Conservative media and figureheads have been echoing this call to get back to work, and they make it sound like an honorable personal sacrifice for the life of our country. Glen Beck told his audience,  “I would rather have my children stay home and all of us who are over 50 go in and keep this economy going and working,” he said. “Even if we all get sick, I would rather die than kill the country. ’Cause it’s not the economy that’s dying, it’s the country.” His statement is high in drama, but low in critical thinking. Clay Travis of Fox news tweeted (and then removed the tweet)  “I wish we were all immortal and no one ever died... But we can’t shut down the country’s economy to keep people from getting sick.” Expressing what I would call a callous weighing of American’s lives. Here is a tweet from  Former Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein:

A far-right religious conservative attacked my Gov. recently writing,  “The mass shutdown of society to fight the spread of COVID-19 creates a perverse, even demonic atmosphere,” he wrote. “Governor Cuomo and other officials insist that death’s power must rule our actions. Religious leaders have accepted this decree, suspending the proclamation of the gospel and the distribution of the Bread of Life. They signal by their actions that they, too, accept death’s dominion.”

The calls to return to work soon go on and on, mostly from the conservative upper class, although some Republican representatives have released polite disagreements to Trump’s plan. 

Yes, Things Are Bad

Please know that I write this full well knowing how bad our situation is. Right now, roughly 3.3 million people are currently applying for unemployment benefits. We are on track to reach 30% unemployment, and this may get even worse later on. Most economists are saying that we’ve already entered a recession. Compared to the 2008 crisis, which happened slowly, this has hit us in a matter of weeks. In all honesty, we may be looking at an event worse than the great depression. I have no illusions about how horrible the affects of self-quarantine will be. However, rushing our recover will not lead to recovery at all. 

What Would Happen?

“Doctors say people need to stay indoors for several weeks or even months to contain the spread of the virus, and that even allowing younger people to contact each other risks spreading it more quickly than it can be contained. Younger people have shown lower morbidity rates, but people under 40 have died from the virus.”   This is why medical professionals felt “horrified” by Trump’s idea of returning to work on April 12th. 

Right now the disease is still spreading rapidly, amid our efforts to self-quarantine. I personally feel I see far to many people out and about in my town, while NY currently has over 37,000 cases and rising. If we were to even return to half our normal workforce, Covid-19 would spread like wild fire. The reason it spreads so easily is that only half of carriers show any symptoms. This lulls people into a false sense of security, and a large number of people are not taking social distancing seriously, such as Prime Minister Boris Johnston. Hong Kong tried to return to work early and they caused a new second wave of infections. 

Right now the CDC is estimates the number of deaths from Covid-19 could be anywhere from 200,000 to 1.7 million. The wide discrepancy is based on how radically our actions could change the results. The Imperial College of London released a report stating that 1.2 million people would die if we follow Trump’s plan as his staff has laid it out. 

Even worse, all the deaths caused by this plan would be for nothing, because it definitely won’t fix the economy. If people return to work before we have this virus under control, millions will die and many more millions will be out of work sick and seeking medical services. The people wanting a workforce won’t get it because everyone will be too sick to pick up where we left off. GM, who I mentioned was helping supply medical supplies, foolishly canceled it’s production of ventilators because they feared making too many. All of our hospitals across the country are running out of supplies and our healthcare workers are dying. Now imagine how devastating it will be to our healthcare infrastructure and workers if millions more people suddenly need testing and medical care. There is a real danger that we could destroy our healthcare infrastructure and make death rates spike due to inability to protect all other patients from harmful bacteria, germs, and viruses on top of not having the gear to protect doctors. 

The Trump administration and their billionaire allies would essentially be murdering Americans if they send them back to work, and they will make our economic woes even more long term by devastating America’s infrastructure and workforce. This is our worst fear about Trump come true.  

[divinityslain]

hey   there   demons   !   tis   i   ,   local   lorekeeper   &   part   -   time   trash   pile   ,   coming   at   ya   to   give   miss   wilhelmina   no   fucken   rights   !   isn’t   that   exciting   ?   click   HERE   for   ur   girl’s   ~   new   ~   pinterest   .   also   this   is   long   .

*   RELIGION   &   TWSITD   &   FOOD   MENT   .

full   name   .

wilhelmina   von   hevring

nicknames   .

mina minnie

birthday   .

october   4

fódlan   birthday   .

4th   of   the   wyvern   moon

age   .

twenty   -   three

height   .

172.72cm   /   5′8″

nationality   .

adrestian

hometown   .

county   of   hevring

residence   .

garreg   mach   monastery

house   .

black   eagles

occupation   .

student   at   the   officers   academy

crests   .

minor   crest   of   cethleann   /   sometimes   raises   mt   when   using   recovery   magic major   crest   of   lamine   /   occasionally   conserves   uses   of   recovery   magic

strengths   .

faith riding lance

weaknesses   .

flying axe brawling

budding   talent   .

reason

classes   .

noble   →   monk   →   priest   →   bishop   →   holy   knight

likes   .

horses tea reading making   people   proud   of   her exploring shopping

dislikes   .

mindless   gossip henrik isolation the   dark heights injustice

interests   .

practicing   magic chatting praying helping   to   restore   the   saint   statues

favorite   meals   .

saghert   and   cream peach   sorbet gronder   meat   skewers vegetable   stir   -   fry

favorite   teas   .

mint   tea angelica   tea

favorite   gifts   .

riding   boots tea   leaves stylish   hair   clip goddess   statuette owl   feather   *   universal   gift

least   favorite   gifts   .

hunting   dagger blue   cheese arithmetic   textbook

favorite   flowers   .

roses forget   -   me   -   nots

lost   items   .

gold   hair   bow heart   -   shaped   locket storybook   about   the   four   saints

relatives   .

lorelei   von   beaumont   (   née   hevring   )   ,   mother unnamed   noble   ,   step   -   father theodore   &   sebastian   von   beaumont   ,   maternal   half   -   brothers jasper   ,   anabel   &   elias   von   beaumont   ,   step   -   cousins

count   hevring   ,   maternal   uncle   &   legal   guardian unnamed   noble   ,   maternal   aunt   &   legal   guardian linhardt   von   hevring   ,   maternal   cousin

count   rowe   ,   father   /   illegitimate   child   of unnamed   noble   ,   step   -   mother viktor   gwendal   rowe   ,   paternal   half   -   brother  johanna   sigrid   gaspard   (   née   rowe   )   ,   paternal   half   -   sister henrik   alphonse   rowe   ,   paternal   half   -   brother astrid   faryse   rowe   ,   paternal   half   -   sister adiel   gwydion   rowe   ,   paternal   half   -   brother nikolai   christophe   blaiddyd   ,   paternal   nephew   /   johanna’s   son

the   product   of   an   affair   between   lorelei   von   hevring   ,   a   noble   from   adrestia   ,   &   the   head   of   house   rowe   in   faerghus   .   obviously   ,   count   rowe   is   already   long   married   with   three   kids   by   the   time   mina   is   conceived   ,   &   lorelei   is   …   in   the   process   of   finding   a   suitable   match   ,   courtesy   of   her   older   brother   &   head   of   house   hevring   ,   so   the   newborn   wasn’t   exactly   welcomed   warmly   .

(   although   ,   not   anything   new   as   nobles   have   been   producing   out   -   of   -   wedlock   children   since   as   long   as   anyone   can   remember   .   )

however   …   the   thing   is   ,   this   whole   ordeal   was   count   rowe’s   plan   all   along   ?   like   ,   none   of   his   current   children   are   crest   -   bearers   .   lorelei   comes   from   a   respected   family   ,   one   that   notably   has   a   strong   bloodline   to   keep   crests   alive   .   put   two   &   two   together   ,   makes   sense   ,   right   ?   once   the   child   shows   signs   of   possessing   a   crest   ,   he   would   take   them   off   her   hands   …   you   know   ,   since   having   a   child   in   such   a   way   would   arguably   look   worse   for   her   than   for   him   !   &   said   child   was   supposed   to   become   his   true   heir   to   the   rowe   territory   . 

WELL   !   too   bad   for   him   ,   lorelei   cut   ties   .   a   new   husband   ,   she   said   in   letters   that   are   now   burned   &   forgotten   .   little   did   he   know   ,   it   was   because   she   was   expecting   &   didn’t   want   him   to   know   .   fearful   for   what   may   happen   ,   unaware   of   his   true   intent   .

4th   of   the   wyvern   moon   ;   the   day   wilhelmina   von   hevring   came   into   the   very   world   that   will   become   so   cruel   .   a   premeditated   accident   ,   that’s   what   she   was   .   although   her   uncle   had   plans   .   people   who   would   take   away   the   burden   he   promised   to   keep   a   secret   ,   until   it   suited   him   .   alas   ,   lorelei   wouldn’t   part   from   her   daughter   so   quickly   .   it   would   take   about   four   years   of   mina   living   in   the   hevring   estate   for   lorelei   to   grow   distant   ,   more   focused   on   her   new   children   with   her   new   husband   in   a   completely   different   territory   in   adrestia   .   it   was   then   she   would   be   discreetly   removed   from   the   household   ,   much   to   her   confusion   as   she   would   grip   onto   her   uncle’s   hand   .

those   who   slither   in   the   dark   .   vile   ,   uncaring   ,   harshness   ;   result   orientated   .   mages   would   spend   two   years   testing   &   experimenting   on   mina   —   crestology   ,   implanting   a   crest   stone   into   a   body   seeing   if   it’s   compatible   .   a   lot   of   their   prior   experiments   failed   ,   but   a   strong   select   few   survived   for   awhile   .

 just   shy   of   over   the   two   years   ,   the   mages   of   those   who   slither   noted   many   different   stages   of   progress   .   initially   unaware   wilhelmina   already   bore   a   crest   ,   a   minor   of   cethleann   –   they   saw   as   she   activated   it   for   the   first   time   during   a   trial   .   a   welcomed   addition   to   their   studies   !   but   of   course   she   was   miserable   &   terrified   .   yet   even   so   ,   she   remained   hopeful   .   hopeful   that   this   would   be   over   soon   —   silent   prayers   to   the   goddess   fell   from   her   trembling   ,   cracked   lips   ,   over   &   over   .   a   little   after   she   turned   six   ,   her   desperate   prayers   were   answered   .   the   mages   successfully   in   giving   her   a   new   crest   :   a   major   crest   of   lamine   .   although   as   they   have   seen   in   the   past   ,   the   stress   of   twin   crests   caused   strain   on   her   small   body   ,   causing   her   hair   to   turn   white   (   although   ,   leaving   a   vaguely   blonde   undertone   –   perhaps   homage   to   lamine   herself   )   &   shortened   lifespan   .   that   …   left   them   bored   &   itching   to   move   on   to   the   next   ,   as   the   cycle   repeated   .

after   dropping   a   slumbering   ,   dirty   &   worn   -   out   mina   back   to   the   county   of   hevring   ,   &   a   brief   meeting   with   her   uncle   explaining   the   results   of   the   experimentation   ,   they   departed   within   the   shadows   once   more   .   so   idk   fast   forward   a   few   months   ,   she’s   still   six   &   still   clinging   to   the   teachings   of   seiros   &   the   four   saints   .   she   even   saved   up   enough   money   for   a   storybook   .   her   uncle   trained   her   in   secret   ,   unwilling   to   yet   show   her   twin   crests   to   the   rest   of   the   empire   ,   &   mina   did   her   goddamn   best   to   make   him   proud   !!   like   little   baby   ..   really   ..   was   embodiment   of   pleading   emoji   .   &   alright   count   hevring   was   using   her   from   day   1   but   …..   would   be   lying   if   he   didn’t   get   even   slightly   attached   after   all   the   time   he   inevitably   spent   with   her   lmao   .

once   she   gained   an   understanding   of   how   to   not   randomly   activate   her   crests   ,   her   uncle   took   her   to   enbarr   to   introduce   to   the   imperial   family   .   at   almost   seven   ,   she   didn’t   understand   the   weight   of   the   situation   .   there   he   showed   her   off   to   the   emperor   &   subsequently   ,   his   sons   .   a   choice   between   eric   &   wilhelm   ,   &   the   latter   was   chosen   .   wilhelm   &   wilhelmina   were   engaged   ,   all   because   count   hevring   pulled   the   ‘   my   niece   has   two   crests   &   your   son   has   none   ’   card   ..   huh   ..   that   really   was   the   selling   point   .   (   of   course   it   was   still   kept   hush   ,   those   who   slither   in   the   dark   didn’t   want   to   be   discovered   so   quickly   .   the   emperor   ,   despite   finding   it   a   strange   occurrence   ,   didn’t   question   it   …   lmao   little   did   he   fucken   know   !!   )

during   her   time   in   enbarr   ,   mina   stumbled   across   …   a   certain   boy   ,   unbeknownst   to   her   at   the   time   ,   her   step   -   cousin   jasper   .   now   his   father   ,   being   able   to   make   the   connection   once   he   hears   her   name   being   called   by   hevring   ,   went   to   lorelei   afterwards   &   was   like   ,   hey   so   go   back   to   your   daughter   ,   she’s   betrothed   to   one   of   the   imperial   princes   ,   that   could   be   of   use   to   us   ,   etc   .   etc   .   &   like   ,   well   ,   she   did   .   mina   ,   after   years   of   being   estranged   from   her   mother   ,   was   swaddled   up   quickly   in   an   embrace   under   a   false   guise   of   genuine   wish   to   reconnect   .   she   felt   odd   seeing   her   daughter   with   a   hair   color   so   foreign   ,   but   as   the   shitty   adults   do   ,   she   doesn’t   make   a   note   of   it   .   mina   was   introduced   officially   to   all   of   her   step   -   cousins   ,   as   well   as   her   own   half   -   brothers   .   truthfully   she   tried   her   best   to   connect   with   them   all   ,   but   the   only   one   who   stuck   was   jasper   .   not   that   she   minded   —   despite   all   the   negativity   surrounding   him   ,   she   still   saw   the   good   .   she   always   did   . 

years   later   &   more   tragedy   struck   the   empire   .   the   insurrection   of   the   seven   ,   a   soft   coup   ;   her   uncle   participated   in   stealing   power   from   the   emperor   –   the   individual   she   came   to   know   more   personally   as   her   future   father   -   in   -   law   .   &   then   ……..   it   happened   .   three   years   after   the   insurrection   ,   wilhelm   (   +   the   other   imperial   children   )   were   just   .   gone   ?   no   one   spoke   about   them   ,   &   she   would   be   scolded   each   time   she   brought   it   up   .   her   uncle   was   tense   ,   perhaps   due   to   the   arrangement   that   the   emperor   literally   was   unable   to   break   ,   but   mina   once   more   turned   back   to   the   church   for   solace   .   edelgard   came   back   eventually   ,   white   hair   similar   to   her   own   ,   but   none   of   her   siblings   followed   ,   so   mina   mourned   for   them   in   silence   .

years   &   years   past   &   her   uncle   started   up   a   search   for   a   new   husband   ;   while   she   moved   on   from   wilhelm   ,   he’ll   still   be   in   her   memory   &   heart   .   even   when   her   heart   attached   itself   to   randolph   ,   &   they   slowly   started   courting   ,   despite   her   uncle   strongly   advising   her   against   it   .......   idk   they   been   together   for   awhile   now   technically   ?

ok   so   personality   basically   ,   she   is   beagles   mom   !   very   …   i   would   say   naive   ,   because   how   she   doesn’t   realize   98%   of   her   family   is   using   her   ,   but   ..   but   like   .   she’s   !!!   embodiment   of   honey   &   wildfire   are   both   golden   ,   softness   is   not   weakness   .   she   is   also   a   horse   girl   so   jot   that   down   ,   you   know   ?   find   her   in   the   stables   pretty   often   .   mina’s   uno   reverse   edelgard   in   the   sense   that   while   edelgard   is   angry   at   the   society   they   live   in   /   the   church   +   goddess   +   crest   systems   ,   etc   .   mina   ??   doesn’t   hold   any   hatred   for   what   happened   to   her   .   it’s   more   like   ,   she’s   going   to   take   her   trauma   &   do   the   absolutely   best   she   can   because   if   she   lets   it   go   to   waste   then   all   of   what   she   went   through   would’ve   been   for   nothing   &   she   can’t   let   that   happen   .

she   agrees   with   edelgard’s   position   of   how   crests   shouldn’t   dictate   the   way   people   live   ,   but   also   she   still   has   her   faith   ??   like   ..   *   channels   all   the   cf   endings   that   have   the   church   being   rebuilt   despite   under   supervision   ..   bc   she   wld   have   helped   *

uh   idk   if   any   of   this   intro   makes   sense   but   like   here   we   are   babies   !!   i   am   tired   &   have   three   more   to   write   so   i   am   ….   TIRED   .

[theconservativebrief]

H.G. Wells is famous for having predicted air and space travel, the atomic bomb and the tank, satellite television and something like the internet. He is infamous for another claim: World War I would be “the war to end all war.”

The British science fiction writer made that prediction in 1914, at the beginning of the war. The four years of carnage that ensued and the subsequent failure to secure a lasting peace – World War II broke out 20 years later – made his catchphrase synonymous with naive optimism and his prophecy as false as time travel.

But on the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended the war (at 11 a.m. Nov. 11, 1918 – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month) Wells’ optimism looks prescient after all.

Although World War I was not the war to end all wars, it was the beginning of the end of a certain kind of war. In the past 70 years, war as Wells knew it – between nations – has declined.

To anyone following news from Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Iraq or Afghanistan (where the United States fights its longest war), that might seem preposterous.

But partly because of ideas and institutions inspired by World War I, state-vs.-state, cross-border warfare has faded. Despite civil war and rebellion, terrorism and cyberwarfare, our time is more peaceful than its predecessors.

Will it remain so? President Donald Trump, who went to France to commemorate the armistice’s centennial, has been more critical than any other president since World War II of the security and trade policies that did not end armed conflict but promoted what’s known as the Long Peace.

War then and now

Forget what you learned in school. “World War I did start a process that has made the world safer,” says Scott Shapiro, a Yale University expert on attempts to outlaw war. Steven Pinker, a Harvard polymath who’s studied global violence, calls the war “a watershed in the transition to a more peaceful world.”

The war discredited several assumptions widely held in 1914.

War was romantic and glorious.

There was no romance and little glory on the Western Front, just vast, indiscriminate, constant death. The war decimated the elite classes that had nurtured lofty ideas about wars. The third marquess of Salisbury, Queen’s Victoria’s last prime minister, had 10 grandsons. Five perished at the front.

War invigorated society and “cleansed” it of decadent values and bad habits.

This notion was particularly popular in Britain. Arthur Conan Doyle, who enlisted in the government propaganda campaign, had Sherlock Holmes tell Dr. Watson that the war “will be cold and bitter … and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it’s God’s own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.’’

Instead, the war left even its European victors, Britain and France, weaker and more divided. It soured its strongest survivor, the United States, on a level of international engagement that might have kept the peace.

 War solved conflicts between nations.

To the contrary, the war led to the overthrow of half its combatants’ governments – Czarist Russia, Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Turkish and Austro-Hungarian empires.  It worsened enmity between France and Germany.

A war in two acts

If the idea that World War I lived up to Wells’ audacious promise still seems bizarre, look at the two world wars as many historians do – part of a single conflict.

After this long war ended in 1945, its traumas were not forgotten. The victors established institutions (such as the United Nations), treaties (NATO) and aid programs (the Marshall Plan) based on ideas that dated to the end of World War I.

Thanks to these initiatives, and the fear of nuclear weapons, since 1945, there has been no major war between major powers; even the biggest conflicts, such as Korea and Vietnam, have been limited in scope; the amount of sovereign territory that has changed hands – once war’s raison d’etre – has been small.

Exceptions prove the rule. From 1980 to 1988, Iran and Iraq fought an old-school war, complete with trenches. In 2014, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Neither war set a happy precedent. Iraq-Iran was a bloody draw, and Russia suffered from economic sanctions.

The world still has plenty of armed conflict. But war, says Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “has metamorphosed into something else” – more typically within nations than between them. In 1958, the number of internal conflicts – usually civil wars – passed the number of external ones for the first time since World War I.

Some of the world’s most dangerous places aren’t even at war, Kleinfeld notes. In 2015, for instance, there were more violent deaths in Brazil than Syria.

News vs. numbers

Why does an end to war, or even a more peaceful world, strike people as ludicrous?

Pinker says it’s because we follow the news instead of counting the numbers.

The decline in international warfare is quantifiable. In 2016, there were 49 active conflicts in the world that caused 25 or more battle-related deaths. Only two – border clashes between India and Pakistan and Ethiopia and Eritrea – were between sovereign states.

Public opinion is formed by news reports that focus on the unusual and the violent; if it bleeds, it leads.

Hence, an irony: In World War I, censorship of casualty figures made those on the home front think the world was less violent than it was; today, free movement of news makes us think the world is more violent than it is.

The pacifist who cried ‘War!’

In 1914, H.G. Wells, author of “The War of the Worlds” and “The Time Machine,” was a prominent internationalist and peace advocate. But he’d become convinced that the key to peace was war against militaristic, imperialistic Germany.

“This, the greatest of all wars, is not just another war,” Wells argued. “It is the last war.”

“This is now a war for peace,” he wrote in “The War that Will End War.” “It aims straight at disarmament. It aims at a settlement that shall stop this sort of thing forever. Every soldier who fights against Germany now is a crusader against war.”

Like most, he expected decisive battles and a short war. Instead, the armies got bogged down in a network of trenches that stretched from Switzerland to the North Sea. Repeated frontal charges produced minuscule advances and staggering casualties.

The slaughter made Wells’ promise even more important – for only the highest of causes could justify such suffering.

President Woodrow Wilson, who’d campaigned for president in 1916 opposing U.S. entry into World War I, led his nation into the war in 1917. He said it would “make the world safe for democracy.” And he was associated with the claim that the conflict was “a war to end all war.” (Photo: Courtesy of Library of Congress)

The United States entered the war in 1917, largely because of German submarine attacks on neutral shipping. President Woodrow Wilson, who’d pledged to keep the nation at peace, took a cue from Wells: The war would “make the world safe for democracy.”

It ended in 1918 with a de facto surrender by Germany and its exhausted allies. During the war, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George privately mocked Wells, reputedly saying, “This war, like the next war, is a war to end war.” But on Nov. 11, he rose in Parliament and said, “This, the greatest of all wars, is not just another war. It is the last war.”

The Allied powers gathered in France to draw up a peace treaty. The victors, especially the French, demanded terms that seemed outrageously harsh to Germans. Adolf Hitler would use that resentment to seize power in the 1930s.

In the USA, the idealism of 1917 was replaced by disillusionment with European politics and fear of entangling alliances. The U.S. Senate rejected membership in the newly formed League of Nations, the world body fiercely promoted by Wells.

The peace treaty was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Some called it “the peace to end peace.”

There were attempts to redeem the Great War. In 1926, the major naval powers agreed to reduce the number of warships. Two years later, most nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war to settle international disputes.

But war was not through with the world. In 1935, Italy invaded and conquered Ethiopia. In 1937, Japan invaded China. In 1939, Germany touched off another world war when it capped years of aggression by invading Poland.

People in 1918 thought nothing could be worse than a war that killed 9 million combatants. This one would kill 15 million. Wells’ dream was as dead as the 20,000 Britons lost on the first morning of the Battle of the Somme.

A day to remember

In 1954, the 11th of November, known for 35 years as Armistice Day, was renamed Veterans Day in the USA. It was part of the slow process of forgetting the war to end all war.

But the day was never forgotten by Franklin Roosevelt, who in 1918 was assistant secretary of the Navy; nor by Harry Truman, an artillery officer in France; nor by George Marshall, a staff officer for the U.S. commanding general, John Pershing; nor by Dean Acheson, a naval officer.

In the 1940s, these men clutched the lessons of World War I as they created the institutions and forged the alliances that helped produce the Long Peace. They never spoke of anything so grand as the end of war.

Wells lived to see the start of World War II. This time, he issued a small book called “The Rights of Man; Or What Are We Fighting For?” in which he argued for a declaration of human rights as a key war aim.

In 1948, two years after his death, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Wells would have been pleased. He’d suggested his own epitaph: “I told you so. You damned fools.”

via The Conservative Brief

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Expert: I’m back!! It has recently been reported that Senator John McCain has an aggressive brain tumor. Not long ago I would have thought: “Good. It’ll be great to be rid of that neanderthal reactionary bastard!” Not now. My kidneys are gone and I’m on (rather unpleasant) dialysis for the rest of my life. My separated-from German wife is in Germany and can’t fly because of the danger of blood clots forming and lodging in her lungs or heart. I’m an avid reader of medical news and almost every day I get choked-up and depressed by the never-ending heart-breaking stories of incurable pain and suffering of the old and the young. So I wish the senator a good recovery, if that’s possible. Probably no more possible than his politics recovering. He just condemned all the neo-Nazi actions in Charlottesville, this man who went out of his way to pose for friendly photos with neo-Nazis in Ukraine and jihadists in Syria. So far the dialysis does not seem to have helped, at least not with my two main symptoms: deep-seated sleepiness at home, resulting in repeated naps, making my writing difficult; and getting out-of-breath and having to stop and rest after a very short and slow walk outdoors. I’m curious about whether any of my readers knows of anyone with a medical problem that was clearly relieved by dialysis. It may be my advanced age of 84 that blocks any improvement. But, supposedly, the dialysis keeps me alive in the absence of functioning kidneys. Incidentally, nine of my readers and friends have offered me a kidney for transplant, but I can’t find a hospital willing to perform it; again it’s my age, though I’m very willing. At least I still have my eyesight and my hearing. My mind is okay. I have all my limbs and am not paralyzed. And I’m not in pain. Much to be thankful for. It’s also very nice to have gone past the hangups my condition thrust upon me and to be back writing my report for the first time in five months. During the recent American presidential campaign I wrote that if I were forced to vote and also forced to choose between Clinton and Trump I’d vote for the Donald. (As it turned out I voted for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein.) I stated two reasons why I’d choose Trump over Clinton: presumably, a lesser chance of nuclear war with Russia and a lesser chance of the American government closing down the Russian TV station, Russia Today (RT), broadcasting in the US. There was at the time, and now again, growing Congressional pressure to do just that and I’m very reliant on the station. Because of such matters I was willing to overlook Trump’s many and obvious character defects, which I summed up with the endearing word of my people back in Brooklyn –- “shmuck”. But by now the man’s shmuckiness has been writ so large that little hope for him can be maintained. What is keeping Donald Trump from drowning in the very cesspool of his own shmuckiness is a gentleman named Kim Jong-un. Who would have believed that a single historical period could produce two such giant shmucks, men who tower over their pathetic contemporaries? There’s only one explanation for this remarkable phenomenon. Of course. It’s Russia. Moscow is using the two men to make America look foolish. And Russia, it may soon be revealed, gave North Korea its nuclear weapons. Did you think that such an impoverished, downtrodden society could produce such scientific marvels on its own? Is there any act too dastardly for Vladimir Putin? We don’t know yet whether Trump’s son, daughter or son-in-law made any deals with Kim Jong-un. Stay tuned to Fox News and CNN. Those stations, amongst others, put out a lot of fake news, but when it comes to news of North Korea nothing compares to the fake news of 1950. Did you know there’s no convincing evidence that North Korea did what they’re most famous for –- the June 25, 1950 invasion of South Korea, which led to the everlasting division of the Korean peninsula into two countries? And there were no United Nations forces that observed this invasion, as we’ve been taught. In any event, the two sides had been clashing across the dividing line for several years. What happened on that fateful day in June could thus be regarded as no more than the escalation of an ongoing civil war. Read my chapter on Korea in Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II for the full details of these and other myths. The response to terrorism I still get emails criticizing me for the stand I took against Islamic terrorists earlier this year. Almost every one feels obliged to remind me that the terrorists are acting in revenge for decades of US/Western bombing of Muslim populations and assorted other atrocities. And I then have to inform each one of them that they’ve chosen the wrong person for such a lecture. I, it happens, wrote the fucking book on the subject! In the first edition of my book Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, published in 2001, before September 11, the first chapter was “Why do terrorists keep picking on The United States?” It includes a long list of hostile US military and political actions against the Islamic world during the previous 20 years. So I can well see why radical Muslims would harbor a deep-seated desire for revenge against The United States and its allies who often contributed to the hostile actions. My problem is that the Islamic terrorist actions are seldom aimed at those responsible for this awful history –- the executive and military branches of the Western nations, but are more and more targeted against innocent civilians, which at times includes other Muslims, probably even, on occasion, some who sympathize with the radical Islamic cause. These random terrorist acts are thus not defendable or understandable from any revenge point of view. What did the poor people of Barcelona have to do with Western imperialism? Civilians are, of course, much easier to target, but that’s clearly no excuse. As I’ve pointed out in the past, we should consider this: From the 1950s to the 1980s the United States carried out all kinds of very harmful policies against Latin America, including numerous bombings, without the natives ever resorting to the uncivilized, barbaric kind of retaliation as employed by ISIS. Latin American leftists generally took their revenge out upon concrete representatives of the American empire: diplomatic, military and corporate targets – not markets, theatres, nightclubs, hospitals, schools, restaurants or churches. The terrorists’ choice of targets is bad enough, but their methods are even worse. Who could have imagined 20 years ago that an organization would exist in this world that would widely publicize detailed instructions on how to choose a truck to drive down a busy thoroughfare and directly into crowds of people? What species of human being is this? What is needed is a worldwide media campaign to make fun of the very idea that such men, along with suicide bombers, will be rewarded by Allah in an afterlife; even the idea of an afterlife can, of course, be derided; yes, even the idea of Allah, by that or any other name, can be derided; at least the idea of such a cruel God. Appealing to jihadists on simply moral grounds would be even more useless than appealing to Pentagon officials or Donald Trump on moral grounds. The jihadists have to be deeply ridiculed; the small amount of human empathy and decency still remaining in their heart of hearts has to be reached through embarrassing them before their friends and family. Femmes fatales can be used against young Islamic men, most of whom, I’d venture to say, have sizable sexual hangups. Bombing them only increases their numbers. Some thoughts on the question that will not go away:  Capitalism vs. socialism The whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century is being deployed to enable wealth to persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power. –– Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960), Labour Party (UK) minister The fact that Donald J. Trump is a champion –- indeed, a model, or as he might say, a huge model –- of capitalism should be enough to make people turn away from the system, but the debate between capitalism and socialism continues without pause in the Trump era as it has since the 19th century. The wealth gap, affordable housing, free education, public transportation, a sustainable environment, and health care are some of the perennial points of argument we’re all familiar with. So many empty houses … so many homeless people –- Is this the way a market economy is supposed to work? Twice in recent times the federal government in Washington has undertaken major studies of many thousands of federal jobs to determine whether they could be done more efficiently by private contractors. On one occasion the federal employees won more than 80% of the time; on the other occasion 91%. Both studies took place under the George W. Bush administration, which was hoping for different results. The American people have to be reminded of what they once knew but seem to have forgotten: that they don’t want BIG government, or SMALL government; they don’t want MORE government, or LESS government; they want government ON THEIR SIDE. As to corporations, we have to ask: Do the members of a family relate to each other on the basis of self-interest and greed? Speaking in very broad terms … slavery gave way to feudalism … feudalism gave way to capitalism … capitalism is not a timelessly valid institution but was created to satisfy certain needs of the time … capitalism has outlived its usefulness and must now give way to socialism … the ultimate incompatibility between capitalist profit motive and human environmental survival demands nothing less. The system corrupts every important aspect of our lives, including the one which takes up the most of our time -– our work, even for corporation executives, who demand huge salaries and benefits to justify their working at jobs that otherwise are not particularly satisfying. Several years ago, the Financial Times of London reported on Wall Street’s opposition to salary limits: Senior bankers were quick to warn the plans would cause a brain drain from the profession as top executives seek more rewarding jobs out of the public eye. Unlike other careers where job satisfaction and other considerations play a part, finance tends to attract people whose main motivation is money. … ‘The cap is a lousy idea,’ complained one top Wall Street executive. ‘If there is no monetary upside, who would want to do these jobs?’ As for those below the executive class … When they work, it’s too often just any job they can find, rather than one designed to realize innermost spiritual or artistic needs. Their innermost needs are rent, food, clothes, and electricity. For those concerned about the extent of freedom under socialism the jury is still out because the United States and other capitalist powers have subverted, destabilized, invaded, and/or overthrown every halfway serious attempt at socialism in the world. Not one socialist-oriented government, from Cuba and Vietnam in the 1960s, to Nicaragua and Chile in the 1970s, to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in the 1990s, to Haiti and Venezuela in the 2000s has been allowed to rise or fall based on its own merits or lack of same, or allowed to relax its guard against the ever-threatening imperialists. The demise of the Soviet Union (even with all its shortcomings) has turned out to be the greatest setback to the fight against the capitalist behemoth, and we have not yet recovered. How could the current distribution of property and wealth reasonably be expected to emerge from any sort of truly democratic process? And if this is the way regulated capitalism works, what would life under unregulated capitalism be like? We’ve long known the answer to that question. Theodore Roosevelt (president of the United States 1901-09) said in a speech in 1912: “The limitation of governmental powers, of governmental action, means the enslavement of the people by the great corporations who can only be held in check through the extension of governmental power.” And what do the corporate elite want? In a word: “everything” … from our schools to our social security, from our health care to outer space, from our media to our sports. “We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.” – William James (1842-1910) A few years ago, when George W. Bush came out as a painter, he said that he had told his art teacher that “there’s a Rembrandt trapped inside this body”. Ah, so Georgie is more than just a painter. He’s an artiste. And we all know that artistes are very special people. They’re never to be confused with mass murderers, war criminals, merciless torturers or inveterate liars. Neither are they ever to be accused of dullness of wit or incoherence of thought or speech. Artistes are not the only special people. Devout people are also special: Josef Stalin studied for the priesthood. Osama bin Laden prayed five times a day. And animal lovers: Herman Goering, while his Luftwaffe rained death upon Europe, kept a sign in his office that read: “He who tortures animals wounds the feelings of the German people.” Adolf Hitler was also an animal lover and had long periods of being a vegetarian and anti-smoking. Charles Manson was a staunch anti-vivisectionist. And cultured people: This fact Elie Wiesel called the greatest discovery of the war: that Adolf Eichmann was cultured, read deeply, played the violin. Mussolini also played the violin. Some Nazi concentration camp commanders listened to Mozart to drown out the cries of the inmates. Former Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadzic, convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, was a psychiatrist, specializing in depression; a practitioner of alternative medicine; published a book of poetry and books for children. Members of ISIS and Al Qaeda and other suicide bombers are genuinely and sincerely convinced that they are doing the right thing, for which they will be honored and rewarded in an afterlife. That doesn’t make them less evil; in fact, it makes them more terrifying, since they force us to face the scary reality of a world in which sincerity and morality do not necessarily have anything to do with each other. Dick Gregory, 1932-2017 Mayor Daley and other government officials during the riots of the ’60s showed their preference for property over humanity by ordering the police to shoot all looters to kill. They never said shoot murderers to kill or shoot dope pushers to kill. When the white Christian missionaries went to Africa, the white folks had the bibles and the natives had the land. When the missionaries pulled out, they had the land and the natives had the bibles. The way Americans seem to think today, about the only way to end hunger in America would be for Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to go on national TV and say we are falling behind the Russians in feeding folks. What we’re doing in Vietnam is using the black man to kill the yellow man so the white man can keep the land he took from the red man. http://clubof.info/