#the far-left is an enemy of democracy and civil rights just as much as the far-right

[helenaalmost]

Thälmann, like Stalin, believed that a communist revolution was imminent and that social democracy was all that held it back. In fact, the Communist International’s official position was that social democracy formed “the left-wing of fascism.” Thälmann declared that “today the Social Democrats are the most active factor in creating fascism in Germany,” even more than the actual fascists. The Comintern soon coined the phrase “Social-Fascism” as an epithet for social democracy and declared that social democracy should be targeted even at the expense of fighting the Nazis. Soon the KPD was referring to the Nazis as “working people’s comrades.” The justification for this, as Thälmann himself put it, was “After Hitler, Our Turn!” They hoped that it would only be a matter of time before a Nazi government betrayed the working classes and incited a communist revolution. Fortunately, many of the rank-and-file of the KPD rejected this command and voted against the referendum. The red-brown alliance was strong in Berlin where it had been a long-standing strategy. As far back as 1923, the leader of the KPD in Berlin, Ruth Fischer, had given a speech to fascist college students and attempted to appeal to them with abhorrent antisemitism, declaring that, “Those who call for a struggle against Jewish capital are already class strugglers… You are against Jewish capital and want to fight the speculators. Very good. Throw down the Jewish capitalists, hang them from the lamp-post, stomp on them.” A few months after the Berlin strikes, the SPD and its coalition of pro-democracy parties were unable to win enough seats in the July 1932 election to form a coalition government. This failure was in no small part due to the decision of the Communist Party of Germany to attack, both violently and rhetorically, social democracy. The failure to form a government set off a series of elections every few months until the Nazis, through the use of violence, eventually won enough seats to form a government.

From the 13th chapter of the book The Narrow Corridor by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Jobinson:

[...]Right from the start, the Weimar Republic was hamstrung by the fact that as many as half of the elected representatives did not believe in its institutions. Roughly a fifth on the left were Communists who favored a Russian-style revolution. To them the Weimar democratic state was “bourgeois” or even “fascist.” About 30 percent of the representatives on the right, just like the majority of the traditional elites allied with them, wanted to return to the pre-1914 conservative-dominated status quo and restore the monarchy, and some, like the Nazis, completely rejected the legitimacy of the republic’s institutions. Nothing is perhaps more telling than the scenes in parliament after the 1930 elections when the Nazis first became a significant presence. One hundred and seven Nazis, uniformed in their brown shirts, colluded with the seventy-seven Communist members to disrupt the proceedings. Both right and left shouted and obstructed parliamentary business, and abused the rules, endlessly raising points of order. Right and left had no respect for the institution to which they had been elected. [...]The Communists, in cahoots with the Nazis, immediately tried to organize a no-confidence vote, but before they could manage it Hindenburg again dissolved the parliament. New elections were held after sixty days in July 1932, but in this period Hindenburg, and effectively Papen, could rule without parliamentary opposition. They took advantage of this opportunity on July 20 to issue an emergency decree, declaring Papen Reichskommissar (Reich Commissioner) for Prussia, giving him direct control over the Prussian government. This type of emergency decree would later be put to nefarious use by the Nazis, dismissing the democratically elected government of the state of Prussia and taking control of its massive security force. [...]It wasn’t just the elite who showed little commitment to Weimar democracy. The votes of German workers were divided between many parties, but most importantly between the Communists and the Social Democrats. The Communists dreamed of engineering a Russian-style revolution and worked to undermine Weimar democracy and parliament, even sometimes in coalition with their mortal enemy, the Nazis.

Every time I read this paragraph about Ernst Thalmann, leader of the German Communist Party, in the latter days of the Weimer Republic I feel like staring into the camera like I’m on The Office.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Gábor Scheiring for Politico Magazine:

Many believed that after his first term as president, Donald Trump would end up in the dustbin of history. Now Trump is back, and the United States is about to be ruled for the second time by a right-wing populist. Trump’s goal this time is to remake the American government to enhance his power. He isn’t the first modern right-wing populist to attempt this — he is following a playbook pioneered by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. I lived through Orbán’s power grab as a member of Hungary’s parliament and have been researching populism since. I’ve learned a few things along the way that might help Trump’s opponents understand how he won and how they can fight back. First off, it’s important to understand that America isn’t the first country to face this kind of threat to its democracy, and it also isn’t something external. Autocratic populism is not a virus the U.S. caught from the exotic East, from Russia or Hungary. Modern-day autocracies come to power through elections, leading to electoral autocracies. These regimes are built from within the democratic system.

This is what Orbán did so successfully, which is why he has inspired other autocrats. America’s radical conservatives have been paying attention. Steve Bannon has called Orbán “Trump before Trump.” Vice President-elect JD Vance has cited Orbán as an inspiration, who “we could learn from in the United States.” Orbán’s power grab program runs on two components that you can think of as hardware and software. The populist hardware consists of hijacked institutions. The software is made up of populist discourses and narratives that are used to create and enlist the consent of the ruled. Dismantling the hardware of the Orbán-Trump project requires first defeating its software, so let’s start there.

The Software

Liberals often struggle against these populist narratives because the polar opposite of populism is elitism, which carries much less appeal. Here are some of the narratives that work to create the software of autocracy.

— The Folksy Outsider. Pushing against the boundaries of written and unwritten norms is a standard performative element in the populist toolbox, establishing the populist leader as a folksy outsider disrespected by liberal elites. We can expect Trump to continue using outsider mannerisms, from ordering burgers in the White House to posing as a McDonalds employee, as a symbolic nod to devalued working-class lifestyles.

— Anti-Elitism. We can also expect the culture war to escalate. Orbán passed legislation cracking down on universities in an effort to reduce the influence of liberal ideas. Vance has also declared universities “the enemy” and advised that “the closest that conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with left-wing domination of universities is Viktor Orbán’s approach in Hungary.”

— Anti-Immigrant. It is also clear that Trump will continue his anti-immigrant tirades and attempt to deport millions of illegal immigrants. While in Eastern Europe, radical right populist leaders showed up before Europe’s migrant crisis, hostility toward immigration is nevertheless a favorite far-right topic. Populists create intricate narratives about the self-inflicted decline of the West, weakened by a “liberal virus” and losing out in the global competition of civilizations. These narratives are particularly potent because they also activate racial stereotypes and fears concerning historical minorities, not just new immigrants.

— Economic Nationalism. From climate-change policies to free trade agreements, liberal and centrist economic policies have also become frequent punching bags. Trump’s love affair with tariffs and his trade war with China mirrors Orbán’s fight against economic globalization. While the practical impact of Orbán’s economic nationalism is limited in Hungary, it is crucial for maintaining support among working-class Hungarians, who are otherwise relative losers of Orbán’s policies.

Economic nationalism is a vital component of the populist software but is often neglected by opponents of the far right, so let’s take a deeper look at how it works.

Before Eastern Europe became a laboratory for illiberalism in the 2010s, Western economists used it as a laboratory for neoliberalism in the 1990s. This shock therapy experiment alienated masses of lower-middle- and working-class citizens from the parties of the center-left, who often championed these policies. Similar tectonic shifts have undermined the Democrats’ support among working-class Americans. Economic nationalist narratives used by right-wing populists glorify “makers” over “takers,” resonating with working-class voters who value hard work. This narrative also serves to cement an alliance between plutocrats, billionaires and workers, which might seem paradoxical, but it isn’t: They are all portrayed as hard-working value creators as opposed to “lazy bureaucrats” and “benefit scroungers.” At their core, some of these narratives are centered on racist or nativist ideas, but they are cushioned in several outer layers that are primarily economic — and it’s the economic messages that many who hear them react to.

That’s why labeling Trump and Orbán and their supporters as moral degenerates, or even Nazis, is tactically dysfunctional. Some of their voters are hardcore racists, but many aren’t. In fact, one of the often-neglected powers of successful radical right populists is their capacity to bring together a broad group of disillusioned voters. Conservatives and nationalists with cultural grievances respond to the anti-migrant and anti-identity political messages. Economic nationalist messages resonate with those harboring economic frustrations over increased social insecurities and stagnating living standards. Symbolic class politics allows populist leaders to glue together those components of the populist narrative. When economic grievances and cultural resentments combine, they create a potent force, generating consent for the autocrat to do what it takes to change the hardware.

The Hardware

Once the narratives have taken hold, the autocratic leader can change the hardware that runs the country. Most of these steps are incremental and might even be defensible on their own. But together, they build a formidable institutional power base that can keep the leader and his party in power permanently. Here are some of those steps.

— Strengthen Executive Power. After serving one term as prime minister, Orbán lost office in 2002. He resolved that next time, he is going to be much more aggressive in strengthening his hold on power. Trump and his team have prepared for their second term in a similar way. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation behind the infamous Project 2025, portrayed Hungary as “the model for conservative statecraft.” Project 2025 echoes Orbán’s playbook, pushing to dismantle liberal influence in the “administrative state” and strengthen executive power. As Trump’s initial nominees also show, we can expect systematic efforts to sweep out officials deemed disloyal to the president. Trump also plans to centralize control over institutions, ranging from the Federal Reserve Board to the Federal Communications Commission.

— Discipline the judiciary. Efforts at reining in the Justice Department and exerting more influence over the judiciary will be crucial. With Republicans already controlling the Supreme Court, any new appointments during Trump’s term would cement a conservative majority for decades. Trump was also open about his plan to fire attorneys who refuse to follow his orders. Vance even mentioned the option of simply disobeying judicial authorities.

— Change Election Processes. Manipulating electoral rules and district boundaries to benefit the ruling party is a strategy that Orbán imported from the U.S. The state of Georgia is a case in point, where Republicans have increased their power to change electoral results they deem fraudulent. In Congress, Republicans have proposed far-reaching legislation that could allow Republicans to twist the electoral process to their advantage in future election cycles.

— Control the media. Orbán consolidated media control through centralized propaganda, market pressure and loyal billionaires. In the U.S., in addition to the already powerful empire of Rupert Murdoch, several recent examples show the power of friendly tycoons over the media. Elon Musk is a good case study; he used Twitter-turned-X to bolster right-wing populists and now stands to gain much from his relationship with Trump. This mirrors Orbán’s strategy to forge a strong alliance with the country’s billionaires for mutual protection and support. Trump also plans to move fast on a business-friendly agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and expanded energy production.

— Secure Control over Party. A final critical step is securing full control over the party. Just as Orbán replaced mainstream leaders with loyal outsiders, Trump co-opted much of the Tea Party in his takeover of the Republican Party. Trump’s team has positioned key allies as candidates and RNC leaders, placing his daughter-in-law as co-chair and pushing out numerous establishment staffers. And his current moves to name uber-loyalists to administration jobs regardless of their qualifications is also an effort to make Republicans in Congress bend to his will.

The Antidote

First, let’s take a breath because there’s a silver lining. Trump’s presidency will be painful for many, but democratic erosion is unlikely to reach Hungarian levels soon. That’s because the U.S. has a more robust political system, and Democrats and pro-democracy activists have a window to act before lasting institutional damage occurs. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there’s no consensus among democracy advocates on the best way to fight illiberal, right-wing populism. However, the story of Europe’s populists offers insights into what works and what doesn’t. There are three main points of resistance.

— The courts. If there are any brazen attacks on constitutional principles, the justice system should be the first line of defense. However, illiberal regimes often operate within legal boundaries, making them harder to challenge. Courts in Europe have so far had little power against Orbán. Litigation or legal restrictions on populists also tend to backfire, boosting their image as outsiders fighting against an unjust, technocratic system, as Trump has already demonstrated in his efforts to discredit the legal cases against him. What this means is that the fight against right-wing populism is primarily political.

— The media. Fighting for media pluralism and independence is vital. Investigative journalism helps, but it tends to preach to the converted. There need to be news channels and media outlets for getting messages across to non-metropolitan areas dominated by far-right news sources. Liberal-minded billionaires should not sit idly by as they did in Hungary, watching the right take over the media. The New Right is also significantly more embedded in social media than liberals are. Those of us who favor democracy cannot let Elon Musks and Andrew Tates control the public discourse. Progressive influencers: Time to log in and post away — there’s a narrative battle to win.

— States and cities. Democrats cannot win without a powerful social base embedded throughout the country. Fighting for every seat and institution in states and cities is one of the most important things opponents of autocracy need to do. Even in hard illiberal regimes like Turkey or Hungary, free cities are channels for interaction with citizens, provide organizational resources and can be used to present alternative visions of governance.

Countering populist power structures requires first defeating populist narratives — a battle the anti-populist center is losing. The demise of Hungary’s once-strong left-liberal elites, now completely overpowered by the right, should serve as a stark warning, which leads us to the most important battleground: the Democratic Party. To win the fight against autocracy, above all, the Democratic Party must reconnect with the working class to preserve liberal institutions. There are simply not enough educated moderate suburbanites for an electoral majority.

[...] Hungary’s key lesson is you don’t protect democracy by talking about democracy — you protect democracy by protecting people. Only a democracy that works for the people is sustainable.

Gábor Scheiring wrote in Politico Magazine this weekend his experience of Hungary’s descent into the authoritarian abyss that the USA seems to want to follow under a 2nd term of Donald Trump and how to combat such authoritarianism.

[the-rainbow-lesbian]

The trends, behaviors, and beliefs that led to the disastrous Iranian Revolution threaten to repeat themselves today in the West. We have already begun to see early glimpses. The most prominent example is the ongoing wave of mass anti-Israel and/or pro-Hamas protests following the Oct 7th attacks. Not only has Hamas been a disaster for women, LGBT people, and their own civilians, but the Palestinian “one state” solution would result in a country as unfree as Iran — and one equally antithetical to left-aligned values. Other warning signs include the case of Hamtramck, Michigan, where a progressive-backed Muslim-majority town council voted to ban Pride flags, or the spate of young TikTokers siding with Osama bin Laden’s 21-year-old “Letter to America.” This goes beyond Islamism. Segments of the far-left and Christian far-right are more than willing to team up, as we’ve seen in recent years with European populist movements, the opposition to defending Ukraine from Russian conquest, and radical lefties voting for Donald Trump to “let the empire burn.” The question is: why?

There is a particular strain within leftist thought that often exhibits a fascination with revolution and a drive to dismantle and disrupt, sometimes indiscriminately. Young (and some not-so-young) radicals see the problems that exist today, and with no appreciation for how far we’ve come, pronounce society to be irredeemably flawed. The only solution is to tear it all down. Whatever rises from the ashes, this dubious logic goes, cannot help but be better than the status quo. This perspective, while rooted in a desire for human betterment, usually leads to the precise opposite. Such revolutionary zeal is not just a desire for change, but an impulse to break the existing order, often “by any means necessary”, as so many recent anti-Israel protest signs can attest. This includes allying with any group or ideology that opposes the current power structures. This “enemy of my enemy is my friend” approach leads to alliances that are, at best, ideologically inconsistent, and at worst, counterproductive to the values that many leftists traditionally uphold.

In their pursuit of anti-establishment goals, many leftist factions find common ground with Islamist movements, not because of shared values, but because of a shared opposition to perceived imperialist or colonialist forces. The fact that Islamic fundamentalists oppose women’s rights, secular governance, and basic freedoms; the fact that they criminalize homosexuality and bisexuality in every society they control, is willfully overlooked by the far-left in the pursuit of a common adversary. But the blanket romanticizing of perceived underdogs, often without a critical assessment of their values or intentions, risks empowering forces that, given requisite power, could establish regimes far more oppressive than those they replace. In their quest for a radical overhaul, they’re willing to discard tangible progress in the pursuit of an idealized, hypothetical future. In Iran, decades of progress in economic development and women’s rights were thrown away in the revolution. The West today, which is so much further along, has even more to lose.

The Western world as we know it has been sculpted by liberal ideals such as democracy, individual freedom, LGBT rights, women’s rights, civil liberties, secularism, and the rule of law. Two hundred years ago, three-quarters of the world lived in extreme poverty. Today, this figure has decreased to less than 10%. Over this same span, life expectancy has soared in parallel with the expansion of liberal democracies.

There's a misconception that our current state of well-being is a permanent, fixed baseline that we can take for granted. Instead, progress can be fragile and temporary. The rights and freedoms we enjoy today are not guaranteed tomorrow. They are recent gifts of history, not immutable laws of nature. The potential to regress is real. While the champions of illiberal ideas fight tooth and nail for their beliefs, the guardians of liberal values seem to slumber. They need a wake-up call.

Despite facing myriad external adversaries, the greatest threat to liberal values comes from within. In their misguided quest to dismantle the liberal order, radical elements can act as a Trojan horse, surreptitiously opening the gates to any destructive force that aligns with their anti-liberal agenda. The unholy alliance between the Western left and the Islamist right has happened before. Let’s learn the lessons of history.

[theculturedmarxist]

Our civilization is sick because all its systems ensure that human behavior is driven by profit, and health isn’t profitable. Nobody gets rich from everyone staying healthy all the time. The gears of capitalism will still keep turning if its populace is made shallow and dull by bad education and crappy art made for profit. Billionaires aren’t made by leaving forests and oceans unmolested, consuming less, mining less, drilling less, using less energy. The economy doesn’t soar when the world is at peace and nations are working together in harmony.

If you programmed an advanced AI to arrange human behavior solely around extracting the maximum amount of profit possible using existing technologies, its world wouldn’t look a whole lot different from the real one. We’re being guided by unthinking, unfeeling systems that don’t care about the good of our minds, our hearts, our health, or our biosphere, which will sacrifice all of the above to accomplish the one goal we’ve set them to accomplish.

It’s just a dogshit way to run a civilization. It doesn’t work. It’s left us with a dying world full of crazy morons hurtling toward nuclear armageddon on multiple fronts. Our systems have failed as spectacularly as anything can fail.

It’s simple really: we settled for capitalism as the status quo system because it’s an efficient way to churn out a lot of stuff and create a lot of wealth, but now we’re churning out too much stuff too quickly and society is enslaved by the wealthy. So now new systems are needed.

❖

So much of modern political life consists of the ruling class tricking the public into trading away things the ruling class values in exchange for things the ruling class does not value. Trading revolution for the feeling of being revolutionary. Trading actual freedom and democracy for the story of having freedom and democracy. Trading away the civil rights our rulers actually care about like unrestricted speech and freedom from surveillance in exchange for culture wars about racism and transphobia. Trading real labor for imaginary money. In every way possible we’re being duped into trading away real power for empty narrative fluff.

❖

One part of the problem is that in this mind-controlled dystopia people are prevented from knowing how deeply evil their government is, so the idea of their government surveilling them and regulating their speech and their access to information doesn’t scare them like it should.

This is why it annoys me when people say “Stop talking about the problems, we need to talk about solutions!” It’s like mate, we’re so far from ever being able to implement solutions — we haven’t even gotten to a point where a significant number of people know the problems exist. Step one is spreading awareness of the problems and their sources, because nobody’s going to turn and fight an enemy who they still believe is their friend. Systemic solutions are pretty far down the track from that point.

❖

It’s a pretty well-established fact by now that free will doesn’t exist nearly to the extent that most religions, philosophies and judicial systems pretend it does. Our minds are very hackable and propaganda is very effective. If you don’t get this, you don’t understand the problem.

Do a deep dive into cognitive biases and how they operate. Look into the research which shows our brains know what decisions we’re going to make several seconds before the conscious mind thinks we’re making them. You’re going to tell me these are organisms with free agency?

In order to understand what we’re up against you have to understand psychological manipulation, how effective it is, and why it works, because mass-scale psychological manipulation is the primary force preventing the public from turning against our rulers in our own interest.

❖

It seems like a lot of the inertia and self-defeating hopelessness that people have about fighting the machine comes from knowing the political awakenings of the sixties fizzled out, but I don’t think that would be the case if people understood just how much hard work the machine had to put into making them fizzle.

I mean, we all get that the death of activist movements didn’t just happen on its own, right? We all know about COINTELPRO? Known instances where one out of every six activists was actually a federal infiltrator? The roll-out of the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed?

The amount of energy the western empire has poured into killing all leftist and antiwar movement is staggering, but people just think the acid wore off and the hippies turned into yuppies and the Reagan administration happened on its own. It didn’t. They had to work hard at that.

The revolution didn’t organically fizzle out, it was actively strangled to death. And what’s left in its place is this defeatist attitude where people want a healthy society but believe it can’t be attained, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We COINTELPRO ourselves now.

People think we can’t use the power of our numbers to force the emergence of a healthy society, and we don’t deserve one because we dropped the ball. But we didn’t knowingly drop the ball, we were manipulated out of it. And the manipulators had to work very, very hard to do so. Those movements died out because the machine understood very clearly that it needed to stomp them out with extreme aggression and knew exactly what it needed to do to accomplish this, while ordinary people did not. It’s not a fair fight if only one party knows it’s a fight.

The machine won one battle and everyone’s acting like they won the war. They didn’t. We can absolutely pick up the fight again, and we can overwhelm them with our numbers. If we had any idea how hard they had to work to win that one battle, this would be clear to everybody.

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pics:

1. Writings from Lovecraft's political magazine, The Conservative.¹

2. St. Armand's² now rare study of Howard & the Decadent Movement.

3. What we imagine HPL's life to have been like...

Sigh.

4. One of the many zines dedicated to every facet of Lovecraft's life & works.

5. Collection of the letters of 2 writers: one was the creator of Conan,³ the other created Cthulhu.

Two intellectual properties that should be enemies of each other...

I mean, Conan's gotten rid of a lot of mystic monsters but, Cthulhu is a creature of a different kind altogether!

Just hoping for an adversarial 'team up' here...

1915: HPL Output.

Intro: A rather crude & bigoted 'satire' where rebellious Irishmen meet some Germans, celebrate by drinking to- gether & threatened to slander the British Empire of their day.

This poem just happened to be print- ed - in Howard's Conservative - at the same time as the Easter Rebellion,⁴ when some Irish Republicans & some Germans tried to overthrow English rule in Ireland.

The Work: "(The) Ballade of Patrick Von Flynn" by Lewis Theobald, Jr.⁵

Quote:

"Germanis ipsis Germaniores."⁶

Text:

Attend you all my wondrous tale & I will tell to you, Of how an honest Irish- man⁷ into a Prussian grew.

(It) was (almost) 20 years ago I left my native bog, To seek in these majestic States⁸ a place to earn my grog.⁹

Sure, work was easily found for me, For I'm a clever man. I earned so much, I soon could buy my whiskey by the can.

With half a dozen other licks,¹⁰ a merry drinking crew, I used to hang around shebeens¹¹ & curses Old England blue!

Just why I hate the Englishman, I don't remember quite, But Jimmy Dugan's grandad says they've never used¹² Ireland right.

Sure all they ever done for us was civilize¹³ our land, (Yet) we've no use for sober laws, but all for freedom stand.

How glad will be the... day, When England last draws breath, And good Old Ireland shall be free - to drink herself to death!!

Now comes (a most) cruel war, with Germans running loose,... Here's... to them to make a stir¹⁴ (&) give (England) some more abuse!

(We) Irish... love (not the) Dutch,¹⁵ (were) siding with Germany, 'Cause she hates... England as (much) as... we!

...The Kaiser¹⁶ treat(s) us worse than England (has) ever done, But..., if we used England right - we'd lose our sweetest fun!

...Something in the Irish heart... never bows to rules; As (duty?) calls, we teach our sons sedition¹⁷ in the schools.

Last night, the Germans... all gathered in a hall, With... flags above the stage & (the) Kaiser on the wall.

I don't know what they wanted, but so far as I could see, They were (sent? by) the Kaiser & enjoined¹⁸ "neutrality."

They... denounced the President & cursed... Yankee laws, For being too (biased)... to help the German cause.

Footnotes:

1. The Conservative (1915 to 1923) was HPL's own amateur journal, which he edited & published sporadically.

However, many articles in it were actually written by others.

Inside, it included politics, poetry, social commentary, short stories & literary criticism.

Yet, Lovecraft's brand of conservatism bears little resemblance to today's treasonous scene.

Instead, Howard was calling for a revival - a return to the wellspring which 1st inspired Western culture.

HPL's magazine coincided with the 1st world war & the Russian Revolution.

For Lovecraft & his fellow writers crude nationalism & socioeconomic politics weren't the solution they sought.

Rather, they wanted an end to chaos - thru racial division, cultural imperial- ism & a strong sense of morality.

Howard was, at the time, against democracy & liberalism.

HPL's ideal state was a return to the aristocratic values of earlier times - with England as the main culture...

So, The Conservative now stands as a record of Lovecraft's worldview.

And, as a narrow glimpse into early 1900s America.

2. Professor Emeritus Barton Levi St. Armand wrote H.P. Lovecraft: New England Decadent (1979) to offer insight into the history of HPL related scholarship & Howard's roots in the decadent movement of 1800s Europe.

3. Conan, it's thought, lives in the ancient past of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Both story cycles share eldritch monsters & deadly magic - both being very dangerous to normal humans!

Things like Lizard/Snake Men, Dagon, Old Ones, etc are mentioned by both writers.

Yet, Conan kills a lot of these powerful creatures & magicians!!

In fact, Conan is such a badass, that he rudely mocks these evil beings - as he's killing them!!!

4. The Easter (Week) Rebellion/Rising (April 24 to 29, 1916) tried to establish an Irish Republic - while the U.K. was fighting in WW1.

Most of the fighting took place in Dublin, with street battles & long range sniping in different parts of the city.

The rebellion was put down by the larger forces & heavier weapons of the British army.

485 folk were killed, most being civilians & British personnel...

16 rebel leaders were executed.

5. This was 1 of Lovecraft's many pen names.

But, the name seems based upon a real person!

Lewis Theobald was an English textual editor & author known for his work on Shakespearean editing, seven classic translations, some literary satire & play writing.

He was also a plagiarist...

6. Latin "For the Germans themselves, the Germans."

I'd guess that this meant "Germans only wanted other Germans in Germany."

Of such selfish dreams, were so many monstrous crimes built...

7. Ireland ("Eire" locally), as a self- governing dominion (the "Irish Free State") was born in December of 1921.

It took until 1937, for its leaders to pass a new constitution - giving itself more political power over itself.

Then, in 1949, it legally left the British Commonwealth & became its own, true nation - the Republic of Ireland.

8. The United States, that is...

9. Grog originally referred to a daily ration of - diluted! - rum given to sailors of the British Navy in the 1700s.

It was given as a boost to Navy men to fight off the doldrums (calm, wind- less parts in the Equator) of long sea voyages.

Grog, eventually, was made up of rum, gin or whiskey with sugar, lime & water.

10. Knowning the petty meanness of Howard's satires, he must have meant the slang "someone who's been totally overcome, defeated or conquered!"

11. A shebeen, in Ireland, is an illegal (unlicensed & disreputable) working class place that sells alcoholic liquor.

12. Here, HPL means "treated." As in "the Irish were not 'treated' well..."

13. To civilize another nation is here used as in "to bring a people 'up' to a more advanced level."

This, of course, means that the Irish were viewed as a wild & unrefined barbarians!

In truth, they were followers of the older Celtic culture from Europe.

14. Stir, in this case, means "an event that causes a disturbance."

15. The Dutch are people from The Netherlands.

Holland isn't their nation's name! Just two Dutch provinces go by the place names of North & South Holland...

I think I know why Lovecraft hates the Dutch.

These folk, in Howard's time, were thought to have risen from a mixture of Frisian, Saxon & French peoples.

And, we know how HPL believed in 'racial purity'...

The mixing of 'races' is still seen as an abhorrent 'crime' in racist circles.

In fact, the Dutch are now thought to come from a mixture of native folk & German populations!

But, it's now known that rare Paleo- humans were first found living in Spain - around 3 million years ago...

16. Kaiser ("Emperor") was the title of German rulers from 1871 to 1918 - 3 men in all.

17. Sedition is "speaking or organizing things towards a rebellion against an established government."

This includes "subversion of a nation's constitution" & "inciting discontented people to establish an insurrection."

Gosh.

And they say you can learn nothing from history...

18. To enjoin is to "teach" or "urge someone to do something."

In this case, they want the Irish to declare themselves neutral & not help the British militarily.

Strangely enough, as a legal term, it can mean the opposite, "to prohibit" or "ban something" thru a legal order.

Next: Part 2.

[arcticdementor]

I often go to Kendi because he's unusually blunt and straightforward in stating things (possibly because he's not smart enough for the sort of clever obliquity of previous authors), but he's mostly in line with the trends in what was at least implicit in the writings of other academics in the decades before. And it's this academic consensus that both influences legal arguments, and provides cover for those who do seek to level more specific blame (like the whole "we're against whiteness, not white people; and 'whiteness' is a systemic thing" song-and-dance to which they often resort).

Psychometrics has consistently found that intelligence matters for all sorts of good outcomes.

First, they're mostly going to deny that; or at least, argue that there's no proof we can't find a way to get those outcomes while also increasing racial equity.

It's not just this sort of progressive, mind you, who argue that life outcomes need to be decoupled from IQ, but plenty of other left-wingers as well. Both Chris Arnade and Freddie deBoer have each written books to this effect, and even a bit of Murray's Coming Apart pushes in this direction.

I remember, back when I first got on Tumblr, making a point about how much of my reactionary positions are due to seeing some Progressive social trends as incompatible with maintaining industrial civilization, and I got a reply from a pronouns-in-bio type that "you better hope you're wrong about that," because they benefit too much from "progress," and so they and theirs will fight to the death to prevent anyone from trying to turn it back, no matter the cost. So, I can either get to work figuring out how to make keeping the lights on compatible with the Progressive social mission, or else resign myself to the collapse, because nothing is going to stop them pushing our society down this road. After all, if all those outcomes of intelligence require accepting racism, how "good" can they be, really?

I've seen some outlets go from "the so-called competency crisis is far-right racist nonsense" to "well, there's not enough evidence to prove that these negative trends are due to declining competence (and everyone trying to get such evidence is an evil racist)." Which English politician was it, who said that Muslim terror attacks are just part of life in a modern city? Then there's all the similar things about shoplifting, burglary, and so on. So, eventually, it's going to be that blackouts, planes falling out of the sky, rampant crime, etc. are all just a part of modern life, the price we all gladly pay for a diverse and tolerant democracy.

This is why I keep mentioning the ultimatum game. Plenty of humans are willing to take a hit to absolute well-being in exchange for a "fairer" relative distribution, and this varies. Some people are willing to burn down everything, so long as everyone is equal in the ashes.

His insistence that retards be put in charge of keeping the lights on and the water flowing would very quickly result in not having electricity, water, or instruments of governance, and then he'd die of diarrhea.

Both my mother and my brother have had plenty of stories about incompetent-but-unfirable coworkers, and in all cases, the more competent employees end up stepping in to do or fix the work said incompetents either left undone or did poorly, on top of their own work. Sure, they're not happy about it, and in my brother's case it eventually led him to quit, but the restaurant in question is still in business despite, last I heard, still employing the owner's screw-up in-law. There's a lot of ruin in a nation, and forcing firms to provide some number of do-nothing sinecures to Diversity is a lot less visible method of redistributing wealth between racial groups than straight-up government transfers.

So, it won't be "very quickly," but a slow decline. As in the Soviet Union, much of it will be blamed on political enemies, on "wreckers and saboteurs." And as elites fight over shares of a shrinking "pie," their competition via superior purity and fanaticism in adherence to the ideology will only grow ever-more intense.

When it comes to publicizing genetic differences, just who are you trying to reach, and what do you expect them to do afterwards? What do you say to someone who does see "the size and permanence of the gap," and (like Jayman) still demands people pour resources into it, in perpetuity, seeing this as an absolute moral duty, and that anyone who disagrees is a Nazi.

What good are truths about genetic differences, against those for whom "equity" is an overriding terminal value?

Progressivism Incurs A Moral Obligation To Study And Publicize Genetic Racial Differences

In this essay, I will, briefly summarize my line of argument and invite comments.

Keep reading

[feelingbluepolitics]

We Must Handle the Truth

There's no question that the management of Donald trump will be an issue of on-going global importance. Knocking him from his (alleged) official perch is only the first step.

The more crucial steps must follow, because trump will retain his influence and his supporters, and they will do whatever he hints that he wants, even up to treasonous attacks, assassination attempts, and mass murders.

We must be clear. There is no cozy "look to the future and heal" pretence of an option in our present situation. This is aside from the fact that taking that Pollyanna path repeatedly --from Watergate to Reagan to Bush-- helped to criminalize and radicalize the Republicon Party into the danger they are today.

Shame, honor, and true patriotism have become vestigial on the Right. Their criminal administrations and elected representatives keep getting away with what they do because we embolden them each time with a blind eye.

That is not how justice works. The blind eye of justice means that no one, no matter how powerful, is exempt. The time to work on that is January 20, 2021, and we are far overdue. Politicians, corporations, tax cheats, polluters: we still have laws, for all of trump's and his administration's destructive efforts.

We sully our government offices and endanger our nation by not requiring accountability to the office and to the people, over and above any present occupant. Where we are blocked by pardons we must still have thorough public investigation. That is not a waste of time for lack of a prosecutorial path. It is existential. It's the accountability we cannot do without. It's the foundation of the future laws we need to draft and pass to safeguard this country.

Pardons become entirely corrupt when we acquiesce to them blocking investigation. Democracies survive on information and truth, combined. We are where we are now in part because we still have corrupt actors left-over from Watergate active in our politics.

What are we to do about trump? That isn't initially, or perhaps ever, all about pardons, or state versus federal charges, or orange jumpsuits. In this instance, ironically, the potential solution is all about trump. This is where an examination of how trump interacts with the rest of the human world can guide us.

He forms specific categories of relationships which are actually invariable, because he is permanently shallow and unperceptive. Because trump the consumate narcissist is always the center of every relationship, and because he is, without introspection, forever fixed in all his defects, all of his various relationships fall into the same patterns within their categories. Here they are:

1) The Strongmen. Shades of daddy Fred trump, these are aspirational relationships teaching the type of utter control the core pathetic trump would like to wield. But because of daddy, trump is conditioned to the "love me, admire me, and be useful and loyal or I will harm or destroy you" format, but on the weaker side.

This is why we have seen trump pushing the United States of America into eagerly obsequious deference with respect to Russia, North Korea, and Turkey, and also pandering to Saudi Arabia's power which is additionally derived through vast transactional wealth.

But we cannot and do not want to transform America or Biden into this Strongman mold, because then it will have been pointless to remove trump.

2) The Assets. This category comprises trump's immediate family members and all Republicons in office, from Mitch McConnell to Kevin McCarthy, and from Michigan’s Republicon Senate members to, potentially, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. This category also extends to trump's supporters, mostly as a collective.

These are the flipside of the Strongman category, where trump gets to play the opposite role. These people are tools, who work constantly to remain in good standing with trump, rendering obsequious deference and servitude as a matter of advantage but also, essentially, as a matter of status survival.

trump is a horrible antagonist or enemy.

This, by the way, is exactly the relationship this country cannot continue to allow with trump, as a matter of national security.

3) The Targets. We know who they are. They caught trump's wrathful attention. Some of the targets are personal to trump to varying degrees, while some are a matter of expediency, or are demonstrated examples, or are, so far, peripheral.

But everybody knows trump will never stop -- that is the personna he cultivated-- unless a Target person has something of value to make them an Asset again. (This is why trump is called purely transactional, in combination with having no beliefs, no morality, and no honesty.)

Fauci, and Birx, (who for a while pulled off a mommy-style interaction with trump as he tried to impress her with nifty genius like injecting bleach), are in a no-man's land, transitional between Asset and Target, in part because trump doesn't like attention on covid if he can help it.

We don't know exactly what trump will try to inflict on Mary trump for writing her book, but we've already seen a variety of attacks against Bolton, Kelly, and Michael Cohen, along with innumerable others. (It isn't just books. It's that these people did not keep flattering, and obey.)

He ousted from political power Jeff Sessions, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker (White House as "an adult day care center"), and Mark Sanford, of "the Appalachian Trail." He can do the same to any other individual Republicon, because as a group, they are all too backstabbing, dishonorable, greedy, and cowardly to unite against him.

Certainty we have seen trump's behavior with respect to Fox Gnus, the Clintons, and Obama.

This is the relationship this country cannot allow itself to fall into with trump. But how possibly to prevent it?

For that, we look to another category of trump's relationships.

4) The Survivors. Of those not in the Strongman category, there are few people who have survived relationships with Donald trump and who can get trump to do favors for them -- to do what they want.

It is dangerous idiocy to call them trump's "friends," by way of explaining their leverage and longevity. The key is leverage.

Rudy Giuliani :

- A "very, very good relationship" with trump.

- "I've seen things written like he's going to throw me under the bus. When they say that, I say he isn't, but I have insurance."

- "I do have very, very good insurance."

Giuliani's insurance is knowledge; some knowledge about trump gives him leverage. The leverage has to represent knowledge that trump fears exposure of or consequences for. Giuliani doesn't fear being otherwise loose-lipped, or even crazy, and his relationship with trump is currently letting him pull in $20,000 a day for "legal work."

Roger Stone :

"[trump] knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn't."

This leverage allowed Stone to openly demand clemency from trump regardless of any amount of political capital it could potentially cost.

The succession of wives, too, possess whatever personal knowledge, likely far more powerful than negotiated pre-nups and settlements, which ensure the notorious litigious deadbeat abides willingly by contractual terms.

As a nation, we need to survive trump. We have observed what works. But as a nation, we must address the issue of trump just a bit differently. Unlike Giuliani, Stone, or even Putin’s special holds over trump, we must:

1) Investigate trump extensively. Entirely. Turn him inside-out. And then,

2) Make the findings public. This is where a nation, a government of, by, and for the people in a country ruled by law and not kingdoms or cults, differs from defensive black-mailers or manipulative foreign spies.

This part, making public everything that doesn't actually threaten our national security to reveal, is necessary to harden both our resolve and our democracy, and to peel off whatever of trump's support that we can, and to deter the next trumpian assaults, whether by trump or the people who will try to follow the path trump has scorched into the fabric of our nation.

Public reveals are also a safety measure. There is vast potential for corruption otherwise. But then,

3) Keep every single trump-related criminal prosecution -- legitimate, of course, because we are not trump -- on the table. That is the leverage.

That's how to survive trump. There must be no more talk of how investigating a former *resident will turn us into a "banana republic." In a so-called banana republic, powerful government officials pressure others, either to carry out vendettas, or favors of protection by "looking the other way". Government is bent toward personal exploitations. Been there. Done that these past four years under trump and Republicons.

They have actually installed what can be termed "a deep state," notably for the first time, and sane Americans must know its extant. Fcuk their cries of victimization and oppression of the Right. The only difference is, when we investigate, there are actual violations, crimes, and scandals, with evidentiary proofs; when conservatives investigate, it's fundamentally bullsh*t-and-paranoia based.

A "banana republic" is exactly what we are attempting to rescue our nation from. With all the recognition that the Right has systematically unmoored from truth, and the terrible dangers that threaten as a result, from a stupid civil war born of propaganda, to climate devastation, as much truth as we can discover is what we need.

Knowledge is power. With trump out of the White House, we can get it. We must have it.

[nitro-nova]

I had been listening to people about the recent tragedy that is a repeat of previous tragedies and is guaranteed to result in inaction and was having thoughts about what would and wouldn't fix this.

At its core our country's population suffers primarily from being shackled ball-and-chain to a populace subset that through the generations has waged culture war after culture war with us, willing to tear down foundations and warp the legal system and poison our society in the name of white supremacist christofascism.

The common thread of these mass shootings is not simply that there's far too easy an access to guns, it's that our country is a hotbed of extreme right wing domestic terrorism, and underlying that is a faction of our society that refuses to coordinate and accept the other half as their neighbors and kin.

Mass shootings today are an echo of serial killers during the civil rights movement. The notion that women, people of color, gays, trans people, and others in this vulnerable side of our society deserve better is one that sparks in our heinous half a desire not just to oppress but to murder. It is the blood lust itself that is the issue.

I feel that some time has passed that feels appropriate to move on to discussing the incident. I gave it pause because I'd rather just try to process the fact that children were murdered and there will be more mass shootings of this nature. But after thinking and hoping and dashing the hopes, I want to break down just who can and will actually address this crisis.

Most conservatives and a concerning number of neoliberals believe in turning schools into fortresses. The suggestions range from comical (booby traps) to dystopian (arm the teachers arm the guards train the students to fight for survival). This is not addressing the problem at the root, it's prone to pushing blame on the victims, and it's traumatizing children. It's a kinda natural response when you're completely unsure what to do. But mostly it's just conservatives refusing to try anything their "domestic enemies" suggest. Basically: it's wrong to go this route and it doesn't even work.

The government has already proven that it is unwilling to address mass shootings at a Federal level. Basically, one party is opposed to a gun ban, and the other sees the issue as one of the tools they can use to acquire votes. That's one of the core problems with party democracies. If you solve problems and have little left to campaign on, then what will motivate people to vote for you? And then the other party walks all your progress back, anyway.

You may see a new assault gun ban in the coming months but it will only decrease the mass shootings as they exist, and I don't know if it will actually decrease all that much. I'm also unsure if we should even be doing a gun ban.

The first thing I can think of (spoiler: it's a bit moot) is legal precedent. Banning guns in the sense of overriding the second amendment is a dangerous path to tread that I am confident our government is not competent enough to navigate. When you codify the repeal of an amendment, you set the legal precedent that said amendments can be taken off of the table. We already know that this is possible, but it's also a Pandora's box. On the other hand, I have no doubt that our uglier half of our nation spares no thought for these consequences and intends on pulling this very trigger just to spite the innocent they wish to attack. So if they're going to do it in the future, anyway, that renders this point moot.

The other half of this is that disarming the public makes it more difficult to resist or combat an oppressive regime. But that point depends on what their idea of resistance is because most anti-government militias tend to get shut down and an individual is not going to do much of anything. Most of the non-revolutionary tactics that work better against our government do not involve guns. But on the other half of this, banning and confiscating weapons as a means of giving the government more power and control over our public is a goal for both of our parties.

A third aspect of the gun ban is that it is impractical to implement without some degree of power overreach, and there is a lack of trust in how that power will be used. Many states do not use gun registries or permits. That means gun ownership is still a wild west, and even though you can pretty easily acquire guns that were owned by people not willing to resist the law, that leaves out all the people keeping their guns a secret. What's the answer, here? Give police the power to search homes and confiscate guns? You think that will go well? You think that won't be something the police will abuse? It should be noted that the gun ban from 1994 allowed people who already owned assault weapons to keep them, but since it's been so many years, we have more ownership of assault weapons (mostly by candidates for mass shootings) than ever before. So who would an assault weapon ban without the teeth (that will inevitably be used against us) even protect? And what about the legal precedent involved with THIS mess?

The "common sense gun laws" crowd needs to understand that even though the answers are simple, the situation is not.

A similar response is increasing surveillance. Introducing a surveillance of websites known for being hotbeds for extreme right wing thinking not only grants more power to a government known for turning against vulnerable people, it's also unlikely to work. While right wing sites have plenty of centralized sites, there are countless decentralized locations where a lot of domestic terrorism is suggested or planned. It's equally as impractical as it is lending power to the wrong hands. Besides, they're no doubt doing this, anyway. The NSA have combed through 4chan and Stormfront before and probably watch it nonstop.

I see a lot of people who claim that we need to make mass shootings less of a televised event, but not only is that unlikely to happen due to profit motive, it's also a Pandora's box due to the first amendment. Maybe, *maybe*, we could manage to regulate the media's response to these crises with FCC standards on reporting on mass shootings and serial killers. But it would likely be challenged and it would be a long battle just to get news stations to not stoke the public panic and despair that these murderers want in their entitled murderous outbursts. Maybe we could do this, but it'd be an uphill climb to do something that doesn't get to the root of the issue. Even if we managed to regulate news stations, there's no shortage of individuals running podcasts, social media accounts, and so on to spread the sensationalism instead.

So to summarize what is unlikely to work:

Fortifying schools, synagogues, etc (proven ineffective)

Banning assault weapons like in 1994 (only results in a slight decrease and is riddled with complications and implications)

Minimizing sensationalism (impossible, probably even for TV)

Increased surveillance (riddled with complications and unlikely to be possible)

The common thread with all of these suggestions is to respond to a threat that should be incredibly rare in the first place. The question we should be answering is, "how do we make these threats more rare?" This is part of why the gun ban made an impact on mass shootings.

But coming back to the earlier point, the mass shootings and serial killings during this period and the civil rights era have had a common thread, a violent hatred of women and minorities, largely held by entitled white men. The fact is that these mass shootings are one of the consequences of a culture war.

That is as far as I am at, right now. Because then the question becomes, "how do we decrease the entitlement that our culture instill into men that destabilizes/radicalizes them toward this violence?" And it's a tough question to grapple, for me.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The Desert Fox: Separating the myth and the man of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, and brains saves both.

- Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

War hero or Nazi villain? Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is, to this day, the subject of heated debate. He was the “Desert Fox,” revered by Allied Forces for his supposed chivalry, and allegedly implicated in the “Valkyrie” plot to assassinate Hitler.

But present day historians have increasingly come to re-examine the life and the legend of this most iconic of World War Two generals.

I first became interested in this question after reading Corelli Barnett’s magisterial account ‘The Desert Generals’ back when I was in Sandhurst. I read other World War Two books before then of course but it was only at Sandhurst did I first give serious consideration towards Rommel as ‘the Good German’ general. I read other books too like General Sir David Fraser’s ‘Knight’s Cross: a life of Field Marshal Rommel’ as a stand out one on military stuff but a very cursory examination of his early life and beliefs.

Rommel was a legend in the making.

Whichever side of the debate one falls on there is no doubt that Erwin Rommel, was one  of the most celebrated and respected generals of the Second World War  and indeed, some even say one of the greatest generals of all time. His prowess on the  battlefield earned him more than a battlefield earned him the  admiration of both his men and his enemies alike, with adversaries  lining up to pay tribute to their greatest foe in the field.

“We  have a very daring and skilful opponent against us, and, may I say  across the havoc of war, a great general,” said no less than Winston  Churchill himself of Rommel, just after the war ended in his book on the  conflict, The Second World War. 

When Churchill came under fire in the press for praising a man seen as a  Nazi, he doubled down, commenting “He also deserves our respect  because, although a loyal German soldier, he came to hate Hitler and all  his works, and took part in the conspiracy to rescue Germany by  displacing the maniac and tyrant.

For this, Rommel paid the  forfeit of his life. In the sombre wars of modern democracy, chivalry  finds no place… Still, I do not regret or retract the tribute I paid to  Rommel, unfashionable though it was judged.”

Indeed,  the extent to which Rommel was a Nazi is one of the great questions that has been asked since the war and one that is debated to this day. Rommel, while respected by those who fought him from afar as generals  and indeed, thought of a genius to many of those who fought beneath him  in the Wehrmacht, has often faced criticism of his tactics and his  decision making, with some post-war writers holding him up as a man  prone to erratic behaviour on the battlefield and a great sufferer from  the stresses of the job.

“Rommel  was jumpy, wanted to do everything at once, then lost interest. Rommel  was my superior in command in Normandy. I cannot say Rommel wasn’t a  good general. When successful, he was good; during reverses, he became  depressed,” said Sepp Dietrich, who fought under Rommel in France and  ended the war as the most senior figure in the Waffen-SS.

A  similar sentiment was expressed by Luftwaffe field marshal Albert Kesselring, a contemporary of Rommel’s and an officer of similar rank,  who later wrote: “He was the best leader of fast-moving troops but only  up to army level. Above that level it was too much for him. Rommel was  given too much responsibility. He was a good commander for a corps of  army but he was too moody, too changeable. One moment he would be  enthusiastic, next moment depressed.”

Who  was this great man then? We know him today as a great tactician, a charismatic leader, a respected general and the last German participant  in the so-called “clean war”. But how true are those assessments? Was  the Desert Fox as chivalrous as his enemies thought him to be?

Rommel was far from just a Second World War hero – he distinguished himself in World War One too.

Rommel  graduated from the military academy in Gdansk – then known as Danzig  and an integral part of Germany – in 1912 and was immediately posted back to his home region of Baden-Württemberg.

When war  broke out in 1914, Rommel was ready to face his first major conflict posting. As a battery commander within the 124th division of the German  army, he would distinguish himself and gain his first recognition from  the higher-ups.

Erwin saw his  first action at the age of 23 on August 22, 1914, near the French town  of Verdun. Rommel led his platoon into a French garrison, catching them  by surprise and personally leading the charge ahead of the rest of his  men, earning credits for bravery and ingenuity. He would be awarded the  Iron Cross, Second Class, for his actions, a promotion to First  Lieutenant and a transfer into the Royal Württemberg Mounted Battalion  as a company – rather than platoon – commander.

Rommel  would go on to fight in the German campaigns in Italy and Romania, with  particular note being taken by the German Army hierarchy of his conduct in the Italian campaign. The Royal Württemberg Mounted Battalion fought  at the Battle of Caporetto, the twelfth battle to be fought along the  Isonzo River in modern-day Slovenia, and one that would go down as  probably the largest military defeat in the history of Italy.

Rommel  would play a central role, leading the Royal Württemberg, with just 150  men, to capture an estimated 9,000 Italians, complete with all their  guns, for a cost of just 6 of his own men.

The  young Rommel used the challenging, mountainous terrain of Caporetto – now known as Kobarid – to outflank the Italians and convince them that  they were totally encircled by Germans, when in fact there was just one  battalion. Fearing that they were surrounded, the Italians surrendered  en masse and were surprised to find that so few men were able to capture  them.

The efforts of the German Army to break into the  Italian Front through the Slovenian Alps – at the time, part of Italy –  were vital in furthering an advance towards Venice, though the Germans  were eventually stopped and turned back.

Rommel  was awarded the Pour Le Merite award by the Kaiser for his leadership  at Caporetto, but also gained the respect and loyalty of his men, who  were not only impressed by the way in which his tactics had won the battle, but also by the way that he had stood up to the German Army high command and argued for more and better food for his men. The legend of Rommel was growing apace.

Rommel was an effective teacher as well as a military leader.

It shouldn’t be too surprising that Rommel was a capable teacher: his father had been a headmaster, while the ability to communicate his ideas  effectively in the field would lead to some of his most enduring  military victories. There was no point coming up with a revolutionary  tactic to win a battle if you couldn’t then inform and inspire your men  well enough for them to then go and carry it out.

At  the end of the First World War, Rommel was entering his late 20s and  had already been widely feted for his military prowess. While it might  have seemed a little dull compared to the derring-do on the Isonzo, the  role of the Royal Württenberg Mountain Battalion lay much closer to  home, with German society slowly disintegrating into civil wars between,  on the left, socialists who wanted Germany to undergo a revolution  similar to that which had recently occurred in Russia, and on the right,  groups such as the Freikorps, disgruntled ex-soldiers and nationalist,  anti-communist paramilitaries that would go on to form the kernel of the  Nazi Party.

Rommel,  recently promoted again to the rank of Captain, was ordered to use his  soldiers in a policing capacity, putting down insurrections all over  southern Germany. It was during this period that he showed some of the  sense of restraint that would distinguish his conduct in North Africa  during World War Two, trying to avoid the use of force against crowds of  civilians where possible.

After  the Weimar Republic took hold, however, the country somewhat stabilised  and Rommel found himself in Dresden, teaching new recruits. He had been  promoted in turn to Major, then Lieutenant Colonel, placing him in the  very highest echelons of the Treaty of Versailles-reduced German Army.

He  was recognised as one of the prime instructors in that army and wrote a book, “Infantry Attacks”, that furthered his theories on warfare and  explained his experiences in the Izonzo – it sold incredibly well and  increased Rommel’s personal fame, as well as bringing him to the  attention of Adolf Hitler, who was known to have read the book.

Rommel met Hitler in Goslar, Germany in 1934, while Rommel was posted as battalion commander. Hitler’s charisma and promises to reestablish Germany as a world power after the crippling results of World War I inspired Rommel to become a fervent supporter of the Nazi Party.

The two men had several encounters following this, and Rommel rose through the ranks on Hitler’s personal recommendation. But it was ultimately Hitler’s liking for Rommel’s book Infantry Attacks that led to his becoming the commander of Hitler’s personal guards during his tour of the Sudetenland.

By  the 1930s with Hitler fully secured in power, the German Army, for whom Rommel worked, and the Nazi state were more and more inseparable. It would be this coming together that prompted a major dilemma for  the career soldiers such as Rommel: did the duty lie to their country,  and whoever might be governing it, or to the party, that was coming to  define what that country was about?

Rommel was a committed Nazi and not the “decent face” of the German Army.

Rommel’s antagonism wasn’t so much against Nazism as it was towards the Nazis in leadership who led it. His committment to Nazism eroded as the war took a wrong turn and as Hitler increasingly became erratic in his military decision making that Rommel grew increasingly frustrated.

Just  how much of a Nazi Rommel was is one of the biggest questions that is debated about him to this day. It is largely due to the Rommel myth that  was perpetuated by the likes of Winston Churchill after the war that  Rommel was taken by the victorious Allies as “the good Nazi”, or the  honest general who happened to be being ordered about by the Nazis,  merely a career soldier who followed orders and stayed out of politics.

Let’s  put that one to bed, here and now. Rommel was an early adopter of the Nazi Party and a committed believer in the ideals of  National  Socialism, while also being an officer who regularly disobeyed orders –  making both commonly held assumptions wrong.

That said, he  is one of the few figures of that period who is still revered in Germany, who still has streets named after him and memorials in his  honour. It seems that the myth persists in his homeland too, despite  countless books and articles to the contrary.

One  such author attempting to shake this idea from the public consciousness is Wolfgang Proske, a historian and history professor from Rommel’s hometown on Heidenheim, who has written 16 books about his town’s most  famous son. “Rommel was a deeply convinced Nazi and, contrary to popular  opinion, he was also an anti-Semite. It is not only the  Germans who have fallen into the trap of believing that Rommel was  chivalrous. The British have been convinced by these stories as well,”  he told British newspaper The Independent in 2011 when a new memorial to  the Field Marshal was unveiled.

“At  the time when Rommel marched into Tripoli, more than a quarter of the city’s population were Jews,” Proske continued, “There is evidence which  shows that Rommel forbad his troops to buy anything from Jewish  traders. Later on, he used the Jews as slave laborers. Some of them were  even used as so-called ‘mine dogs’ who were ordered to walk over  minefields ahead of his advancing troops.”

While  Rommel was never a member of the Nazi Party, it is widely known that Wehrmacht figures, particularly high-ranking ones such as Rommel,  welcomed Hitler coming to power. Those, like Rommel, whose backgrounds  had shut them off from the highest ranks of the Kaiser’s forces, saw the  new government as one that would see them move to the top of the tree  and as such were generally in favor of it.

Goebbels  himself wrote in 1942, when Rommel was in the running for the role of Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht, that the Field Marshal was ”ideologically sound, is not just sympathetic to the National Socialists. He is a National Socialist; he is a troop leader with a gift for  improvisation, personally courageous and extraordinarily inventive. These are the kinds of soldiers we need.”

Rommel owes a large part of his fame to the fact that he made fools of opposing general - well almost (Patton would disagree).

Rommel’s  prowess as a general is unquestioned. On the back of his heroics as a low-level officer in World War One added to by his role teaching at the forefront of modern military tactics, he was perfectly positioned to lead the Nazi war machine into the second conflict.

When  the war began, he was leading Hitler’s personal protection battalion –  so much for a man who kept a distance from the center of Nazi power –  and thus was privy to the highest levels of discussions regarding  tactics, particularly the way in which to use mechanized infantry such  as tanks. After the early successes in Poland, Rommel moved with the  front to France and commanded Panzer units, before distinguishing  himself against the British at Arras and leading the drive towards  Dunkirk.

With the British  regrouping on the other side of the Channel after a crushing defeat –  which, lest we forget, Dunkirk was – the focus turned to North Africa, where Rommel would lead the newly-established Afrika Korps. He was the superstar of the German Army, a reputation largely built on his ability  to vanquish the British, whom he would now face again in the desert. It was at this time that his nickname, The Desert Fox, was coined by the  British press, who sought to create a figure against which the war could  be fought.

The legacy of Rommel as the acceptable Nazi could be seen to stem from this point when the media in Britain saw fit  to create a worthy adversary for their troops to combat. Rommel was  thought to be an old-style soldier rather than an out-and-out Nazi:  though we have seen that he was a Nazi, and he had arguably committed war crimes by summarily executing prisoners in France just weeks before.

Come  the victory of the British at Tobruk and El Alamein, the British propaganda machine had even more than a noble adversary. They had a  noble adversary against whom they had lost in Europe and then  subsequently defeated: when the characters of the British side,  Auchinleck and Montgomery, were spoken of, they needed someone of equal  weight to make their victories seem even more heroic, a role that fit  Rommel perfectly.

With morale at home low after the  Dunkirk evacuation, the victories in North Africa were vital to keeping  spirits up, and a glorious victory against an equally glorious enemy  sounded even better. Churchill himself called Rommel an “extraordinary  bold and clever opponent” and a “great field commander” in the House of  Commons in 1942 – after he had just been defeated.

Rommel’s reputation for chivalry in North Africa might not just be down to his own intentions.

Of  course, some aspects the Allied propaganda about Rommel – that he was a  fair fighter, that he respected the ideals of chivalry when other  Germans didn’t – were generally true.

It is undoubted  that, by and large, Rommel adhered to the rules of war when plenty of  Nazi generals didn’t, but it bears mentioning that the reason that so many German generals were so callous is that they were ordered to be  like that. Orders within the Nazi war machine came down from high and  were often brutal in their nature: summary execution of prisoners,  rounding up of Jews and other minorities, scorched earth policies. That  was just the orders aimed at enemies: often generals would be ordered to  stand their ground to the death when all military logic told them to  make a tactical retreat.

Rommel’s dedication to upholding the “war  without hate” as he called the more traditional methods of war is up for debate, but certainly, he did take measure to negate the harsher aspects. That said, there are other factors that question whether his commitment to the “war without hate” was intentional, circumstantial or ideologically-driven.

When most German generals were likely to commit acts of ethnic cleansing, Rommel  was not generally faced with the question. North Africa, where this reputation was developed, had hardly any Jews, for example, and other potential targets for Nazi aggression were protected by being citizens of Italy and Rommel was wary of standing on the toes of their allies.  That said, many within the North African Jewish community are reported  as having felt that they were spared from the horrors suffered by Jews  in Europe by the actions of the Afrika Korps, led by Rommel.

It  is also widely accepted that he refused to execute captured Jewish prisoners and hated the use of slave labour. As far as his own troops  were concerned, Rommel repeatedly refused orders directly from Hitler.  When, at the end of the second Battle of El Alamein, Hitler commanded  him directly not to retreat and to show his soldiers “no other road than  that to victory or death.”

Knowing that it was impossible for him to defeat the advancing British, who massively outnumbered his forces,  Rommel chose to ignore the letter from the Fuhrer and fled all the way  across North Africa to Tunisia rather than face death in the sand. While he was way too politically powerful to be censured by Hitler, actions  such as this were contributory to a wider feeling among the Nazi hierarchy that Rommel was not one of them.

He was a PR superstar in Germany, but was both respected and later suspected by the Nazi leadership. 

Rommel’s  reputation within Germany might well have made him untouchable for the  Nazi hierarchy, even when he did things that were in direct contradiction of the ideological and military strategy of the regime. They had invested so much time and so much weight in making him the  poster boy of their propaganda regime that, when Rommel turned out to be  less than what they had hoped for, they could not easily dispose of  him.

On paper, he was the perfect fit for their media machine: he was an early adopter of Nazism, already a hero from the  First World War and an excellent general, with victories aplenty. Moreover, they could cite the Allies reverence for him in their favor,  and Rommel himself was comfortable in the spotlight and relished the  attention.

Hitler was always wary of building up any one single figure too far – lest he be challenged  himself – but Goebbels, the chief propagandist, knew an opportunity when he saw it and Rommel could not be passed up. As Rommel’s media image  grew and grew, he became the darling of the public back home, but in the  corridors of power in Berlin, there were plenty of higher-ups who were  less convinced of his powers.

Even from the early days of the war in 1941, when Rommel was in France, some of those who fought  alongside him were doubting just how effective he actually was a  general. By the time that the war in North Africa had turned against him  in 1943, the German furthest expansions were contracting: the Battle of  Stalingrad had been lost in February and Rommel departed Tunisia in May.

It might have made sense if the Nazis had thought Rommel their best general, to send him to the  Eastern Front where the war was being lost. Perhaps, too, the brutal nature of the war on the Ostfront was seen as beyond Rommel’s nature:  this was not the time or place for “war without hate”, in the eyes of  the Nazi leadership.

Instead, he was dispatched to Italy. As Italy fell, Rommel was demoted from the head of the campaign to second in command to Albert Kesselring, alongside whom he had served throughout the North Africa campaigns.

Later in France, Rommel was the man in charge of building the Atlantic Wall that would protect Nazi-occupied France from Allied invasion: though he had warned heavily that his experiences in North Africa had  taught him that land and sea defences would be nothing if air supremacy allowed the Allies to destroy the Nazi army from above, Rommel was ignored.

After the defeat in North Africa, the retreat through  Greece and Italy and the failure to stop the D-Day invasions, his  reputation as a superstar general back home was in tatters.

Rommel’s reputation got a huge boost because of a 1951 film.

If Rommel’s reputation as a great leader was undermined by the  catastrophic defeats on the African, Italian and Western Fronts in the  last two years of the war, why was it that the so-called “Rommel Myth”  was so pervasive after the war? The theories are numerous, but one major contributing factor must be the success of the 1951 film, The Desert  Fox. Rommel was played by the iconic actor James Mason who won critical acclaim for his role.

Rommel was a  well-known figure in Allied countries and in 1950, the first biography  of the “good German” was released in the UK. Written by Desmond Young, a British brigadier-general who had himself been captured by Rommel during the war, “Rommel: The Desert Fox” was incredibly popular in Britain and cemented the position of the vanquished general as the acceptable enemy.  

His later involvement in the 1944 plot against Hitler did a lot to wash Rommel of the stain of Nazism – conveniently forgetting  the decade or so that he had spent close to the top of the regime – and  his position as the general who was beaten “fair and square” endeared  him to a British audience. After all, it’s much easier to build heroes of your own generals when they have beaten a general that you also  respect.

The 1951 film of The  Desert Fox further spread the myth and was widely popular in the UK. The  narrative of Rommel, the good German, being defeated by the heroic British in the clean war in North Africa was a far more palatable one in the burgeoning Cold War than one that emphasised the horrible destruction that had come through the Soviet victory in the East.

There  could be little appetite for a war with Russia when people were constantly being reminded of the horrific images that had emerged from the Eastern Front. Thus, the clean general of the fair fight in North Africa was an enticing idea.

The Germans, too, were all too pleased to go along with Rommel as their figurehead. Their army had been severely curtailed after their defeat,  but there was a clamour to de-Nazify the Wehrmacht and remove the stigma  from the German armed forces. The Bundeswehr, the new German army, was  more palatable to a post-war world when it could be seen as the legacy of good soldiers lead by bad politicians rather than an integral and vital part of the Nazi war machine.

Thus, the idea of The  Desert Fox was created and, to a large extent, still persists. He  remains the only Nazi to be lionised within Germany: public squares and streets bear his name, as does the largest barracks of the Bundeswehr.  Whether such a status is deserved, however, is still a question about which historians continue to argue.

During the first half of 2020 many countries have been reconsidering the roles of their historical figures - remembered in statue form - due to their controversial views or actions from today’s point of view.  In Britain, France and Belgium, statues of figures associated with the colonial past have become the target of public criticism in some quarters.  In the United States, not only statues of Confederate figures who defended slavery during the American Civil War were destroyed or even demolished, but also, for example, the discoverer of America, Christopher Columbus.

In Germany a similar process was also underway. The monument to the Wehrmacht Marshal Erwin Rommel in Heidenheim came under severe renewed scrutiny.

Germany's memorial to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is perched on a hillside overlooking the middle-class town of Heidenheim an der Brenz where he was born 120 years ago. The words inscribed on the white limestone monument describe the legendary Second World War general as "chivalrous", "brave" and as a "victim of tyranny"

The monument, which was built in 1961 by the German Afrikakorps Association, aroused long-term controversy and in the past was repeatedly damaged by inscriptions that called Rommel a Nazi.  In 2014, Heidenheim City Hall expressed its intention to contrast the monument with another memorial building. By 2020 those calls took on a greater momentum.

The German artist Rainer Jooss was brought in by the municipal authorities to re-interpret the existing monument without having to destroy it completely. Jooss took as his starting point to focus on other parts of Rommel’s legacy. It was little known that Rommel had large minefields laid during the campaign of German troops in North Africa during World War II.  In Libya and Tunisia alone, at least 3,300 people have lost their legs and another 7,500 have been maimed since the statistics were kept in the 1980s. So Jooss designed black silhouette cut out of a maimed child victim of war to complement the monument.

“The monument does not represent the truth, but encourages us to look for it,” said Bernhard Ilg, Mayor of Baden-Württemberg, at the presentation of the monument’s design unveiling in July 2020. Jooss was more stoic. Joos believed it would be a mistake to remove the Rommel monument altogether,"If we let grass grow over it, that would mean the end of the important task of dealing with history.”

The artist behind the modification to the Heidenheim monument said his statue was purposefully made to look small next to the impressive limestone bloc."I wanted to confront the monumental (features) of the original memorial with the fragility of a land mine victim.” Jooss wanted and hoped that it was up to “the next generations to make a picture of themselves based on factual histography.”

Yet eminent historians have since dismissed the fresh silhouette plaque as a transparent attempt to avoid addressing the deep seated questions about Rommel. Indeed Rommel’s privileged position to being seen as the ideal role model for the Bundeswehr (the unified armed forces of Germany and their civil administration and procurement authorities). While recognising his great talents as a commander, they point out several problems: such as Rommel's involvement with a criminal regime and his political naivete. However, there are also many supporters of the continued commemoration of Rommel by the Bundeswehr, and there remains military buildings and streets named after him and portraits of him displayed.

The politician scientist Ralph Rotte called for his replacement with Manfred von Richthofen. Historian Cornelia Hecht opined that whatever judgement history will pass on Rommel – who was the idol of World War II as well as the integration figure of the post-war Republic – it was now the time in which the Bundeswehr should rely on its own history and tradition, and not any Wehrmacht commander. Jürgen Heiducoff, a retired Bundeswehr officer, had written that the maintenance of the Rommel barracks' names and the definition of Rommel as a German resistance fighter are capitulation before neo-Nazi tendencies. Heiducoff agreed with Bundeswehr generals that Rommel was one of the greatest strategists and tacticians, both in theory and practice, and a victim of contemporary jealous colleagues, but argued that such a talent for aggressive, destructive warfare was not a suitable model for the Bundeswehr, a primarily defensive army. Heiducoff criticised those Bundeswehr generals for pressuring the Federal Ministry of Defence into making decisions in favour of the man who they openly admire.

Rommel has had his supporters from this avalanche of revisionist criticism. Historian Michael Wolffsohn supported the Ministry of Defense's decision to continue recognition of Rommel, although he thought the focus should be put on the later stage of Rommel's life, when he began thinking more seriously about war and politics, and broke with the regime. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) reported that, "Wolffsohn declares the Bundeswehr wants to have politically thoughtful, responsible officers from the beginning, thus a tradition of 'swashbuckler' and 'humane rogue' is not intended".

According to authors like Ulrich vom Hagen and Sandra Mass though, the Bundeswehr (as well as NATO) deliberately endorses the ideas of chivalrous warfare and apolitical soldiering associated with Rommel. At a German Ministry conference soliciting input on the matter, Dutch general Ton van Loon advised the German Ministry that, although there can be historical abuses hidden under the guise of military tradition, tradition is still essential for the esprit de corps, and part of that tradition should be the leadership and achievements of Rommel. Historian Christian Hartmann opined that not only Rommel's legacy was worthy of tradition but the Bundeswehr "urgently needs to become more Rommel". 

There are other historians who have tried to take a middle path on the continued controversy of Rommel’s legacy. Historian Johannes Hürter believed that instead of being the symbol for an alternative Germany, Rommel should be the symbol for the willingness of the military elites to become instrumentalised by the Nazi authorities. As for whether he can be treated as a military role model, Hürter writes that each soldier can decide on that matter for themselves. Historian Ernst Piper argued that it was totally conceivable that the Resistance saw Rommel as someone with whom they could build a new Germany. According to Piper though, Rommel was a loyal national socialist without crime rather than a democrat, thus unsuitable to hold a central place among role models, although he should be integrated as a major military leader.

Whether one is for and against Rommel such debates take place because he is dead in conveniently ambiguous circumstances.

Recovering from skull fractures in hospital, he missed the main event - the 20 July Bomb Plot 1944 - insitigated by other senior German army officers. Hitler survived the blast, and immediately set about executing the plotters.

While Rommel had lots of contact with many key conspirators and was generally aware of the movement(s) to assassinate Hitler, there is no direct evidence that he knew about the July 20th plot in advance, let alone was involved in any detailed planning. Several conspirators allegedly confessed during interrogation that he was involved and, like Speer, his name was found on Goerdeler’s list of possible participants in a new German government.

Rommel was listed among various possibilities for Reich President. Unfortunately for him, there was no question mark or other notation, as in Speer’s case, which indicated that he was unaware of the designation.

He maintained his innocence when confronted by General Burgdorff on the day he died and also told his wife and son that he had played no part in the events of July 20th. But ultimately, there’s no way to know what he was or was not aware of. He took that with him to the grave.

The list of members of the 20 July plot doesn´t name Rommel as part of the attempt to kill Adolf Hitler. But: Rommel was blamed of having known of plans to do so. So he was forced to commit suicide.

On 19 th October 1944 Rommel met two german generals at his home. They showed him pretended evidence about his paticipation in “operation valkyrie”, which he denied to be true. They accompanied him away from his home, where he swallowed a capsule filled with potassium cyanide and died. The two generals Wilhelm Burgdorf and Ernst Maisel , members of german court of military honour, who had handed over the capsule to Rommel, drove back to his home and contended that Rommel had died because of ramifications of an injury he received on 17th of July during an allied bombardement.

Given a choice between a trial, involving his disgrace, execution and his family’s impoverishment - and suicide - he chose the latter.

The story given to the public was that he’d died of wounds sustained in the air attack. He was named a “german hero”, was “honoured” with a state funeral an d buried in Herrlingen, Germany.

Had he lived who knows what his real fate might have been at the hands of the Allies. At the main Nuremberg trials, the two army generals prosecuted were Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and General Alfred Jodl. Both were accused of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war crimes; and crimes against humanity. Both were convicted on all four charges and hanged.

The principal charge against Keitel was the infamous 13 May 1941 Barbarossa Decree, which condemned captured prisoners and ensured a high level of brutality by German soldiers against Soviet civilians. Jodl was the author of the Commando decree – ordering that any Allied commandos encountered in Europe and Africa should be killed immediately without trial, even if in proper uniforms or if they attempted to surrender. 

General Heinz Guderian is an example of a prominent German general who did survive the war but was not prosecuted for war crimes.

Another prominent example is Field Marshall Kesselring, who had commanded the defence of Italy after the Allies invaded. Kesselring was not prosecuted at Nuremburg, but did face a British military court in Italy. The Moscow declaration of October 1943 had stated that those accused of war crimes would be prosecuted in the country where they had committed their crimes. Although the trial was conducted in Italy, Italian judges did not participate as Italy was not considered an ally. Kesselring was prosecuted for the shooting of hundreds of Italian prisoners in retaliation for attacks on German soldiers. Kesselring was found guilty and condemned to death. British General Alexander, who had run the Italian campaign, and Winston Churchill pleaded for the sentence to be commuted - which it was. Kesselring was released in 1952 and lived until 1970.

By comparison Rommel was never accused of issuing similar decrees. Many felt that he was an honourable soldier. Nor was he ever accused of shooting prisoners in the way Kesselring was. Rommel’s military reputation is that of a highly professional soldier who carried out his duties according to a military code of ethics. His record is untainted by atrocities or unsavoury tactics against the enemy or civilian populations. He tended to live a charmed life early in the war.

Had he lived one can only speculate as to his fate and his legacy. Speculation regarding a possible role for him in the rebuilding of German forces for NATO, had he survived, is unrealistic. Rommel was never a strategically-minded commander. Indeed it is well known that Quartermasters hated him for his habit of outrunning his supplies on the battlefield.

The likelihood is he might well have been allowed to live without any kind of Allied retribution for war crimes as he was never guilty of any such departures from a strict military code of behaviour. But in trial - he would surely would have been put on trial even if he would be found not guilty - the messy details of his involvement with the Nazi regime would come to light. It would show that Rommel certainly benefited from the regime he served, and I think would have been considered guilty by association, even if his enthusiasm for Hitler waned in his final days.

Post-war, it would not have surprised me at all if the Allies had sought to build a West German government around Rommel. Staunchly anti-Communist, he nevertheless was seen widely as honourable and pro-West. But what role he would have been given - or what role the allies might have been able to make palatable to a war ravaged population - can only be speculated.

I suspect he would have served in some official capacity within the Bundeswehr before retiring to write his highly expected memoirs. It’s telling that Rommel’s chief of staff, Hans Speidel, drove the creation of the Bundeswehr and was the first to be named a generaloberst in that force. Later he was Supreme Commander of all NATO ground forces in Central Europe (which was almost all of it). It’s an intriguiing thought what Rommel might have played in a post-war Cold War Germany and Europe. Speidel and Rommel were inseparable and cut from the same bolt of cloth. Indeed it was Hans Speidel, who had been involved in the July 20 plot, wrote after the war that Rommel was a member of the resistance, (for which there is no evidence) that contributed towards Rommel and ‘The Good German’ Myth. 

Given all that was “overlooked” by both the Allies and the German people after World War Two. There’s no logical reason to think that Rommel would not have been as honoured, if not more so, after the war. After all, one of the main Bundeswehr barracks continues to be named after him in 1965.

To me he was a great general rightly lauded by his peers and military historians - but not the best. Rommel was a highly competent tactical commander, but there were many such commanders in the Wehrmacht. His prominence is due to a number of things. Firstly, he was always Hitler favourite; secondly Goebbels played him up in his propaganda; and thirdly he fought the British and Americans and thus received much more attention in the Western press and historians after the War than the German commanders fighting the Soviets.

Indeed an argument can be made that by fighting in the Western Desert in a sector that the British had logistical and material superiority (and thus difficult to defeat), Rommel essentially taught the British and the Americans Blitzkrieg tactics - essentially modern warfare. His very inflated legacy saved the British from admitting their military performance in North Africa was abysmal until the Axis forces overextended their supply lines and the American supply of goods was able to compensate for substandard British equipment. 

It’s also forgotten that Rommel also oversaw the building of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall which was essentially a fiction when he took over. Immense resources were poured into the project. The impact was to delay the Anglo-Americn invasion about 5 hours and only on one beach (Omaha).

And no matter how humane and honourable he was, Rommel was ultimately a weak man who chose to look away when it was convenient to his career to do so. Indeed I agree with many historians today that he was primarily bent on serving Hitler to advance his career. He was a man who believed he was serving a king and realises too late that he was a devil. I have little doubt that he was conflicted by that especially as it grew during the seven months of his life leading up to his death. Perhaps the best tactical military manoeuvre he made was to take the poison forced upon him and thereby save his family but also secure his legacy, even if that legacy remains mostly intact if a little more tarnished to this day.

[96thdayofrage]

How the Taliban surge exposed Pentagon's lies

Western politicians and media colluded in duping their publics into believing Afghanistan was a 'winnable war'

The real explanation for the Taliban's 'surprise' success is that western publics were being duped all along

A month ago, as the US army prepared to end the 20-year occupation of Afghanistan and hand over responsibility to local security forces it had armed and trained, maps showed small, relatively isolated pockets of Taliban control.

At the weekend, the Islamist fighters marched unchallenged into Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, bringing almost the entire country under their thumb. US intelligence assessments that it would take the Taliban up to three months to capture Afghanistan's capital proved wildly inaccurate.

It took a few days.

Foreign nationals were left scrambling to Kabul's airport while American officials were hurriedly evacuated by helicopter, echoing the fall of Saigon in 1975, when US embassy staff were chased out of South Vietnam after years of a similarly failed war.

On Sunday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issued a statement that he had fled the country – reportedly in a helicopter stuffed with cash – to "avoid bloodshed". But all the evidence indicates his corrupt security forces were never in a position to offer serious resistance to a Taliban takeover.

Jumping ship

The speed with which the Taliban have re-established their hold on a country that was supposedly being reconstructed as some kind of western-style liberal democracy is astonishing. Or, at least, it is to those who believed that US and British military commanders, western politicians and the mainstream media were being straight all this time.

The real explanation for the Taliban's "surprise" success is that western publics were being duped all along. The United States' longest war was doomed from the start. The corrupt, entirely unrepresentative members of the Kabul elite were always going to jump ship as soon as Washington stopped pumping in troops and treasure.

According to Forbes magazine, as much as $2 trillion was poured into Afghanistan over the past 20 years – or $300m a day. The truth is that western politicians and the media intentionally colluded in a fiction, selling yet another imperial "war" in a far-off land as a humanitarian intervention welcomed by the local population.

As Daniel Davis, a former US army lieutenant colonel and critic of the war, observed at the weekend: "Since early 2002, the war in Afghanistan never had a chance of succeeding."

Nonetheless, many politicians and commentators are still sounding the same, tired tune, castigating the Biden administration for "betraying" Afghanistan, as if the US had any right to be there in the first place – or as if more years of US meddling could turn things around.

Colonial chessboard

No one should have been shocked by the almost-instant collapse of an Afghan government and its security services that had been foisted on the country by the US. But it seems some are still credulous enough – even after the catastrophic lies that justified "interventions" in Iraq, Libya and Syria – to believe western foreign policy is driven by the desire to assist poor countries rather than use them as pawns on a global, colonial chessboard.

Afghans are no different from the rest of us. They don't like outsiders ruling over them. They don't like having political priorities imposed on them. And they don't like dying in someone else's power game.

If the fall of Kabul proves anything, it is that the US never had any allies in Afghanistan outside of a tiny elite that saw the chance to enrich itself, protected by US and British firepower and given an alibi by western liberals who assumed their own simplistic discourse about identity politics was ripe for export.

Yes, the Taliban will be bad news for Afghan women and girls, as well as men, who are concerned chiefly with maintaining personal freedom. But a tough conclusion western audiences may have to draw is that there are competing priorities for many Afghans who have suffered under decades of invasions and colonial interference.

Just as in Iraq, large segments of the population appear to be ready to forgo freedom in return for a guarantee of communal stability and personal safety. That was something a US client regime, looking to divert aid into its own pockets, was never going to guarantee. While the US was in charge, many tens of thousands of Afghans were killed. We will never know the true figure because their lives were considered cheap. Millions more Afghans were forced into exile.

Spoils of war

Nothing about western intervention in Afghanistan has been as it was portrayed. Those deceptions long predate the invasion by the US and UK in 2001, supposedly to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda fighters following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Seen now, the attack on Afghanistan looks more like scene-setting, and a rationalisation, for the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq that soon followed. Both served the neoconservative agenda of increasing the US footprint in the Middle East and upping the pressure on Iran.

The West has long pursued geostrategic interests in Afghanistan, given the country's value as a trade route and its role as a buffer against enemies gaining access to the Arabian Gulf. In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires used Afghanistan as the central arena for their manoeuvring in the so-called "Great Game".

Similar intrigues drove US-led efforts to expel the Soviet army after it invaded and occupied Afghanistan through the 1980s. Washington and Britain helped to finance, arm and train Islamist fighters, the mujahideen, that forced out the Red Army in 1989. The mujahideen went on to oust the country's secular, communist government.

After their victory against the Soviet army, the mujahideen leadership split, with some becoming little more than regional warlords. The country was plunged into a bloody civil war in which the mujahideen and warlords looted their way through the areas they conquered, often treating women and girls as the spoils of war.

Despite Washington officials' constant trumpeting of their concern at Taliban violations of women's rights – in what became an additional pretext for continuing the occupation – the US had shown no desire to tackle such abuses when they were committed by its own mujahideen allies.

Rule of the warlords

The Taliban emerged in the 1990s from religious schools in neighbouring Pakistan as civil war raged in Afghanistan. They vowed to end the corruption and insecurity felt by Afghans under the rule of the warlords and mujahideen, and unify the country under Islamic law.

They found support, especially in poor, rural areas that had suffered most from the bloodletting.

The subsequent "liberation" of Afghanistan by US and British forces returned the country, outside a fortified Kabul, to an even more complex havoc. Afghans were variously exposed to violence from warlords, the Taliban, the US military and its local proxies.

To much of the population, Hamid Karzai, a former mujahideen leader who became the first Afghan president installed by the US occupation regime, was just another plundering warlord, the strongest only because he was backed by US guns and warplanes.

It was telling that five weeks ago, asked about the prospects of the Taliban returning to power, Biden stated that "the likelihood there's going to be one unified government in Afghanistan controlling the whole country is highly unlikely". Not only was he wrong, but his remarks suggested that Washington ultimately preferred to keep Afghanistan weak and divided between feuding strongmen.

That was precisely the reason most Afghans wanted the US gone.

Washington poured at least $88bn into training and arming a 300,000-strong Afghan army and police force that evaporated in Kabul, the government's supposed stronghold at the first sight of the Taliban. American taxpayers will be right to ask why such phenomenal sums were wasted on pointless military theatre rather than invested back home.

The US military, private security contractors, and arms manufacturers fed at what became a bottomless trough, and in the process were ever more deeply invested in maintaining the fiction of a winnable war. An endless, futile occupation with no clear objective swelled their budgets and ensured the military-industrial complex grew ever richer and more powerful.

Every indication is that the same war-industry juggernaut will simply change course now, playing up threats from China, Iran and Russia, to justify the continuation of budget increases that would otherwise be under threat.

Missing in action

The motive for US officials and corporations to conspire in the grand deception is clear. But what about the mainstream media, the self-declared "fourth estate" and the public's supposed watchdog on abuses of state power? Why were they missing in action all this time?

It is not as though they did not have the information needed to expose the Pentagon's lies in Afghanistan, had they cared to. The clues were there, and even reported occasionally. But the media failed to sustain attention.

As far back as 2009, as the US was preparing a pointless surge of troops to tackle the Taliban, Karl Eikenberry, then ambassador to Afghanistan, sent a cable to secretary of state Hillary Clinton that was leaked to the New York Times. He wrote that additional US forces would only "delay the day when Afghans will take over". A decade later, the Washington Post published secret documents it called the Afghan Papers that highlighted the Pentagon's systematic deceptions and lying. The subtitle was "At war with the truth".

Bob Crowley, an army colonel who had advised US military commanders in Afghanistan, observed: "Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible." The Post concluded that the US government had made every effort to "deliberately mislead the public".

John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction appointed by Congress in 2012, had long detailed the waste and corruption in Afghanistan and the dismal state of the Afghan forces. But these reports were ignored or quickly disappeared without trace, leaving the Pentagon free to peddle yet more lies.

Cheerleading, not scrutinising

In the summer, as he issued yet another report, Sopko made scathing comments about claims that lessons would be learnt: "Don't believe what you're told by the generals or the ambassadors or people in the administration saying we're never going to do this again. That's exactly what we said after Vietnam... Lo and behold, we did Iraq. And we did Afghanistan. We will do this again."

A good part of the reason the Pentagon can keep recycling its lies is because neither Congress or the media is holding it to account.

The US media have performed no better. In fact, they have had their own incentives to cheerlead rather than scrutinise recent wars. Not least, they benefit from the drama of war, as more viewers tune in, allowing them to hike their advertising rates.

The handful of companies that run the biggest TV channels, newspapers and websites in the US are also part of a network of transnational corporations whose relentless economic growth has been spurred on by the "war on terror" and the channelling of trillions of dollars from the public purse into corporate hands.

The cosy ties between the US media and the military are evident too in the endless parade of former Pentagon officials and retired generals who sit in TV studios commenting as "independent experts" and analysts on US wars. Their failures in Iraq, Libya and Syria have not apparently dented their credibility.

That rotten system was proudly on display again this week as the media uncritically shared the assessments of David Petraeus, the former US commander in Afghanistan. Although Petraeus shares an outsize chunk of responsibility for the past two decades of military failure and Pentagon deception, he called for the "might of the US military" to be restored for a final push against the Taliban.  

Were it still possible to hold US officials to account, the Taliban's surge over the past few days would have silenced Petraeus and brought Washington's huge war scam crashing down.

Instead, the war industries will not even need to take a pause and regroup. They will carry on regardless, growing and prospering as though their defeat at the hands of the Taliban signifies nothing at all.

[davidshawnsown]

COMMEMORATIVE MESSAGE IN HONOR OF THE 76TH VICTORY DAY, THE 71ST EUROPE DAY AND THE 110TH BIRTHDAY OF NAVAL AVIATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Ladies and gentlemen, to all the people of the United States of America and Canada, to all our remaining living veterans of the Second World War of 1939-1945 and of all conflicts past and present and their families, to our veterans, active servicemen and women, reservists and families of the entire United States Armed Forces and Canadian Armed Forces, and to all the uniformed military and civil security services of the Allied combatants of this conflict, to all the immediate families, relatives, children and grandchildren of the deceased veterans, fallen service personnel and wounded personnel of our military services and civil uniformed security and civil defense services, to all our workers, farmers and intellectuals, to our youth and personnel serving in youth uniformed and cadet organizations and all our athletes, coaches, judges, sports trainers and sports officials, and to all our sports fans, to all our workers of culture, music, traditional arts and the theatrical arts, radio, television, digital media and social media, cinema, heavy and light industry, agriculture, business, tourism and the press, and to all our people of the free world:

To all of you whenever you are all over the world, our greetings of peace and goodwill as we celebrate as one people the 76th year of the Victory Day in the Eastern Front against Nazism and Fascism in the Second World War in Europe and Northern Africa, the 71st Europe Day and the 110th year anniversary of the beginning of Naval Aviation in the United States of America, one of the greatest days ever in the history of the whole of humankind, celebrating the day in which millions rejoiced all over the world marking the end of a long and bitter struggle against the Axis Powers in much of Europe and northern parts of the African continent.

We celebrate today with the happiness and joy even more so due to the fact that millions are already vaccinated against the COVID-19 pandemic which had cancelled most of the festivities last year, and has already led to the deaths of millions of people, including some of the few remaining living veterans of the Second World War. While remembering the heroic generation of the 20th century, our thoughts go to the heroic generation of the 21st century – the millions of frontline medical and healthcare workers and professional staff, the well as all those in the manufacture of vacciness and critical much-needed medical equipment, supplies and uniforms, and all our essential economic workers of public and private enterprises and utility companies. They are the very people that we honor today, together with the millions who died from this disease all over the world and the survivors and their families and loved ones.

As the happiness of this day is beginning to return, we once more remember the reason why we celebrate today. This was the very day 76 years ago, just as the final major Allied operations were underway in Prague, where the Soviet Army, joined by Czech resistance fighters, were already advancing on the city, when the Soviet Union, thru All-Union Radio, on midnight of this day, Moscow Standard Time, offically declared the conclusion of the Second World War in the Eastern Front after 5 years, 8 months and 8 days of long war thru a formal declaration by the Supreme Commander of the Soviet Armed Forces, People’s Commisar of Defense and General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Marshal of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin, officially informing the Soviet Armed Forces, the People’s Comissariat of Internal Affairs, and the people of the Soviet Union, the very country among the four major countries of the Allies that had lost millions more lives during the war in Europe ,that on the night of May 8, 1945, in the ruined German capital city, Berlin, the armed forces of Nazi Germany, thru representatives of the Wehrmacht, officially surrended to representatives of the armed forces of the Allied Powers in a formal ceremony officially ending the Second World War in Europe and Northern Africa, ending thus a long and painful confict that cost millions of lives in deaths and injuries, both military and civilian, devastated cities and industries, and a ruined Europe that bore witness to the defeat of the Axis Powers, first in Italy and then in Germany with the overthrow of the Axis governments of these countries, hereby marking this day, May 9, as Victory Day – the day following the official conclusion of hostilities of the Second World War in these parts of the world, a day both of remembrance and celebration, of the millions who died during the war, and of the millions who fought till the day of its conclusion in this continent, even as the war would not end in the Asia-Pacific till the summer. Thus, today, Victory Day, is a day in which millions all over the world remember the millions of men and women who died during the Second World War and the living heroes of that conflict in this part of the world. The Soviet Union in particular suffered even more than the Allies of the western countries, with millions more of the civilian and military dead than every other country of the Allies combined, with more battlefields in Eastern Europe and many of its cities damaged. Thus today for the Russian people and the peoples of the former Soviet Union today is more importantly one of the greatest holidays, sharing today the victory won in this continent with millons all over the world, as it today celebrates the termination of combat actions in the European Theater of Operations of the Second World War.

Today marks for millions all over the world a day of remembrance and celebration of the heroic greatest generation who fought during the Second World War on the side of the victorious Allies, in particular the millions among them who died in the battlefields of the war, in both conventional and unconventional combat operations, in the land, air and sea, in rural, urban and industrial areas, as members of the armed forces and paramilitary organizations, and the Allied sponsored resistance organizations in occuiped Europe, against the military power of the Axis nations, and the idelogies of their governments and peoples, as well as political organizations of these countries, as well as all the civilian and young dead of this long war, including those who perished in air bombing operations and Axis reprisals for supporting resistance fighters, among others. It was the tyranny and suffering of the people of these countries, and the countless abuses of human rights, including the Holocaust in Nazi Germany which targeted Jews, Gypsies and countless other minorities, that forced the millions in the Allied Nations to fight hard to bring victory against the Axis Powers, thru military and political means. It was these millions of men and women of the military, paramillitary, law enforcement, emergency and rescue organizations of the Allies, that glorious and greatest generation, assisted by the fighting men and women in the underground resistance and with the full financial and economic support by their countries, governments and peoples, that made this historic victory possible 76 years ago, and today, more than ever before, we thank them for their service and dedication in the fight against international fascism and far-right radicalism, for the defense of their countries and peoples and of human rights and democracy, and for their contributions for the great victorious conclusion of this war. Today, to these very people we today honor the conclusion of this long and painful war that has changed human history forever with the deepest gratitude.

Without a doubt, as the happiness of this day is beginning to come back after a whole year under this global pandemic that has claimed the lives of even some of the living veterans left of the millions who served during this war, we look back on the days of glory that made this war memorable, the glorious battles and unconventional operations in which millions fought during the 5 year long global conflict, the days in which millions worked in factories, shipyards and farms to support the men and women in the frontlines, the reserve formations and resistance organizations, and the many concerts made by artists and musicians to entertain those working in the frontlines and military bases. It was indeed the great day these men and women waited for, fought for, and worked hard for. This was the day that millions risked their lives for, and millions died for. And this was the very day the suffering of millions throughout much of Europe had come to an end, and the long days of peace would by now begin in a war-torn continent, beginning thus the work of rebuilding so much that had been destroyed by this horrible chapter of modern history.

Indeed, this official announcement of Moscow meant that today, May 9, the original Victory in Europe Day, marks the official day that after 5 years, 8 months and 8 days of warfare marked by millions of deaths all over much of Europe and parts of Northern Africa, the suffering of even more people than ever before, and the economy and infrastructure scarred all over the countries where the war was fought, with the war now over and the Axis powers finally surrendered to the victorious Allies, the people of much of Europe where the war had directly affected their way of life now celebrated with joy, happiness, and with tears in their eyes knowing that their suffering has come to an end and the fascist enemy had finally been defeated, and thus the road had opened for the promise of peace and reconstruction. Therefore, on this very day, we remember the victories of the Allied forces in Europe and North Africa that really led up to the victorious end of the conflict in this part of the world on May 8 and 9, 1945, forever remembered as that great victory over the forces of fascism and imperialism in those places in the world where it took root during the 1920s and 1930s, especially during the years of the Great Depression. Even through yesterday, May 8, is earmarked as Victory in Europe Day in much of Europe, the US and Canada, the holiday celebrations marked today in much of the former Soviet Union except for the Baltic republics of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, and in Israel, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania, honor the very victory the world achieved against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and their allies and sympathizers, and the people behind them, the very victory won at a very hard cost of millions of dead and injured, and destroyed infrastructure and industries in much of Europe itself and in parts of Northern Africa, save for neutral Spanish Morocco, as well as sunk merchant shipping and naval vessels in the Mediterranean, the Arctic and the Atlantic.

We cannot forget once more the battles and military operations fought by these millions of men and women of the military forces and paramilitary organizations of the Allies, in many of the great battlefields that today are memorials to the millions of the military servicemen and women who died during the five years of war that has become part of human history. These are in addition to the memorials found in many cities all over the world, which remember the millions who served during this conflict and those who lived up to the end of this long global war. These are the very people who were the very reason why we celebrate this great victory today, for it was because of their proud dedication to duty, their discipline, determination, courage, firmness, and bravery, both in the battlefield and in military labor, that they helped to win this war in all its theaters, and today, as we celebrate with deep joy, we reflect upon the people who made this day happen, for their countries, peoples and for all of the human race, having defeated, even at the cost of their lives the forces of international fascism. Today, only a few live out of the millions serving during the very day of the end of the war in Europe, both in the military and paramilitary organizations and in the resistance organizations. Many of these veterans, who worked in many sectors of our society, and have even been involved in sports, culture and the arts, and even in mass media, left behind the memories of their wartime service to their country and people, and many of them were awardees of state medals and orders for their service. Once more, we pay our tribute to these the men and women who are a part of this greatest generation who won this war and the military martyrs of this conflict, for it is because of them that won it we all celebrate today yet another anniversary of the victory won in Europe against the Axis Powers, as well as the dedicated home front economic workers who helped them thru economic production of goods, materials and vehicles for wartime service, and the men and women of the entertainment industry, culture and the arts, as well as athletes, who dedicated their time to help support those fighting in the frontlines and to raise war bonds to support military industry. Forever may their names be recorded in the annals of global history for their contribution to the great victory we honor today and for generation after generation.

The victory in Europe and Northern Africa that we remember today is that very legendary victory that cannot ever be forgotten due to the huge contribution of these millions of men and women whose lives were dedicated towards the goal of bringing this victory towards completion. Their stories of bravery, courage and determination to win the victory are the memories we honor today through books, films, television and other forms of media and art, in which we teach our future generations and our children the cost of freedom and liberty and the people who risked all to make it happen. It is through these forms we remember the great heroes and brave units that distinguished themselves during the course of the conflict, including the servicemen from Easy Company of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regt., 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, XVII Airborne Corps, United States Army, dubbed today as the “Band of Brothers” after the book about them by the late Stephen Ambrose, the vanguard unit of the airborne forces of the United States Army in the campaigns in Normandy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Southern Germany, in the 2014 film “Fury” by director David Ayer recalling the bravery of Allied tank crews in the final months of this war, including those under the 2nd Armored Division, the 8th Air Force of the current United States Air Force that fought in the war, whose stories are now adapted as a miniseries, and the recent Canadian TV drama X Company about the important role played by Allied intelligence and counter-espionage units and personnel. On this day of celebration for millions of people we once again send our greetings to the hundreds of thousands of men and women in active service and in the reserves in the armed forces, police, public security, forestry, border security, civil defense and emergency services of the Allied combatant countries and their families, our working people, agricultural workers and those working in science and technology, education, tourism, culture and the arts and in the mass media and the press and all our sportsmen and women, as well as our military and civil uniformed service veterans and their families, and the families of all who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for the defense of our principles and of our liberty and independence over the years since the conclusion of this war. By their legacy we therefore, once more on this very day, to pledge to forever honor their sacrifice and contribution to this great victory, work hard to defend the principles of independence and sovereignty and give all our time and talent in labor in times of war and peace for the sake of building a stronger, prosperous and independent world by building up our economy, improving education, help preserve the environment, promote culture and the arts, promote and protect the freedom of religion, promote a healthy lifestyle and a sporting way of life, and forever honor the places and people who are part of our history while maintaining readiness to instill in our future generations a spirit of preparedness to serve their country and people to the best of their ability and fight the evils that are still present in our world of today.

The memories of such great a historic victory, won at the cost of millions of lives, cannot be understated, for they form a great part in our history. How we cannot ever forget such a historic victory won against so fierce an enemy that was determined to destroy the human race and bring untold suffering to millions everywhere? Indeed we must never forget the huge cost of the great victory in which we celebrate on this very day in our history. No matter what the times may come and go, this history deserves to be remembered by all of us today and it will be carried on to our children and those coming after us. To these our remaining veterans today who are with us, we pledge once more to honor the legacy of this great victory, and that we, the generations of today, uphold the values they fought for.

Today, together with all the people of the United States of America, we continue to celebrate the 110th year anniversary of the beginning of naval aviation in the United States of America on the 8th of May 1911 in San Diego, and reflect on the sacrifices made by all our men and women who are a part of this great service. These naval aviators fought in two World Wars and countless other conflicts, have served in disaster relief and peacekeeping operations as well in addition to their contributions to public health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, and have produced countless awardees of gallantry awards and medals by the federal government for courage and bravery in battle. Many of these proud naval aviators and air crews served with distinction in military operations all over the world, and have been trained in speciality schools all over the United States, and have flown together with fellow aviators from our allies in NATO and around the world. Having thus become one of the symbols of our country’s commitments to national defense thru air and ground operations in support of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, and in coordination with their fellow service personnel of the Army, Air Force and Space Forces, they have become the flying protectors of the men and women of the seas, the protectors and inheritors of the glorious traditions of the naval aviators who fought for country and people, and the aerial defenders of sea transportation, maritime tourism and marine conservation. As one of the true examples of service for the nation, these aviators and air crews of our naval services have become part of the glory and honor bestowed by our country to the men and women of its Armed Forces. Always up there in the blue skies as the best of the best, these Top Guns are the elite of our naval forces, Marine units and coast guard vessels and detachments assigned all over the country, continuing a long tradition of excellence in national defense and security and in assistance to its people in times of need, as well as in deployments abroad. The naval aviation service, which turns 110 years this month, have become part and parcel of our country’s pride as members of her Armed Forces over the decades, symbols of our national sovereignity in her open waters and seas and defenders of international navigation and maritime security. United with the rest of the armed forces, together with the National Guard Bureau, the state defense forces and naval militias, and united with all Americans of every race and creed, in the fulfillment of their patriotic and internationalist responsbilities with the armed forces of NATO and our allied armed forces around the world, including the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces, they serve as the guarantees of our freedom and independence, of our overseas interests, of human rights and international democracy, and defenders of global friendship and cooperation against foreign and domestic ideological and political radicalism and terrorism.

Today we mark 71 years since the 1950 Schurman Declaration that formally paved the way towards the creation of what is now today the European Union. Having been born out of the ruins of a continent devastated by war, and with the aim of political and economic unity of the millions of this continent against external forces and towards the goal of shared progress and prosperity, today the EU, which has weathered both controversies and disasters, including that of the recent COVID-19 pandemic,and has shown that the unity of nations is key to achieving the goal of a democratic society and a prosperous civilation for all humanity. Today, this union is in grave danger of destruction, given the rising tide of disunity by groups that caused the very war upon which the idea was created in its aftermath in order that the European people will never again experience the horrors of warfare, and against the influx of both immigrants and refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Today, as we honor this historic moment for the European continent and her people let us always be ready to defend it against its opponents and work towards a brighter future for the peoples of this part of the world, who have always longed for the peace and unity of this continent, and have prayed that never again shall the rages of war break again over the lands that were Western civilization first took root. May we hope that the union forged in the aims of uniting a continent economically and politically will continue on for decades to come.

Ladies and gentlemen, people of the United States of America and Canada and people of the free world:

On behalf of a grateful people, therefore I greet you all in this historic triple holiday anniversary – the 76th year anniversary of the great victory won in Europe and Northern Africa against the fascist Axis Powers, especially against Nazi Germany and the Italian Social Republic, the 71st of the anniversary of the Schurmann Declaration of 1950 and the 110th anniversary of naval aviation in the United States of America, a day of glorious celebration of peace, unity, progress and remembrance for the generations who forged the way towards this great world of freedom of the generations of today for the children of our tomorrow!

United in thanksgiving to our Almighty God for the victory we celebrate today, we once more thank our remaining living veterans of our greatest generation for the victory we celebrate today that was made possible by their hands, for it was because of all of them that humanity was liberated from the evilness of the Axis Powers, and because of their sacrifices and services to country and people, especially at the cost of million of lives, we celebrate today the anniversary of the great victory over Nazi Germany and the conclusion of the Second World War in much of Europe and northern Africa, yet another anniversary of the creation of the European Union and the 110th birthday of naval aviation in the United States. In particular, we remember the millions of military and civilian war dead, most especially those who died under captivity in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and the military war dead of the victorious Allied Powers. In addition, we today remember all those serving today as officers, warrant officers, and servicemen and women in the mililitary, paramilitary, law enforcement, civil defense and emergency organizations of the victorious nations of the Allied Powers, both active and reserve, including all the naval aviators of the United States celebrating their anniversary, and to all the veterans of these organizations, in particular, to all those of current conflicts. We also greet on this very anniversary the families and friends of all the martyrs of the war, and the surviving family and friends and loved ones of deceased veterans of the war, and to the working people and athletes of these countries. Even as the growing tide of evil may be rising again, united with the men and women of our NATO armed forces and the armed forces of our allies abroad in the performance of their patriotic, internationalist and military duties for the sake of the freedom and independence of the peoples of the free world, armed with the best and modern equipment, arms, vehicles, ships and aircraft, and united with the public security services and the hard work of our people of all sectors of society, no obstacle cannot be overcome, no problem can be left unsolved and no stone left unturned in our efforts to forever maintain the legacy left behind by these heroes of the Second World War, who fought at the cost of their lives to win the victory that we celebrate not just on this day but also every day of our lives!

May we forever uphold and keep alive the flame of the heroic generations that won this conflict in our hearts and minds and march onwards to the goal of a prosperous society and a better world for our future generations!

May we never forget as well the millions who suffered and died during these five years of global conflicts, and never forget to tirelessly fight so that the very ideologies that brought along this war will fade away forever!

Today and always, as we forever honor the memory of such great a generation of heroes, including those US naval aviators who became a part of this generation, who are the very reason for which millions today celebrate the great victory over the Axis powers in the European continent that is now part of our history, reflecting on the memory of the fallen of thus war, and honoring the heroes who risked their lives for this day to come, and paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom and liberty against foreign and domestic radical aggression. We cannot let their memories be history. We must preserve their achievements in the fields of battle and labor. We will never forget their role in the victory we celebrate today. May we as one united people of the world never tire of honoring the memory of our heroic forebears and always work hard to be worthy of their sacrifices, most of all, for the sake of our present and for the future of our world and of all humanity. We will never forget their tireless sacrifices for the sake of the freedoms we enjoy today and always uphold what this victory truly means – a victory against the ever present forces of international fascism and far right radicalism!

And in conclusion, as we today mark this historic anniversary since the victorious conclusion of the Second World War in Europe and Northern Africa and the formation of United States naval aviation,as we today mark this day with remembrance and joyful celebration, may we who keep this sacred holiday and recall the millions who died to make this victory possible with respect and reverence especially for those who went before us shall be worthy of what they fought and died for, for building a world of peace, harmony and progress, a clean environment, and a brighter future for all our children and grandchildren - truly the very future that is truly worth defending and the very future our forefathers fought with their very own lives. With our greatest gratitude may we always and forever treasure in our hearts all those who have gone before us and have entrusted to us the spirit of defending our freedom and liberty in all those years from the beginning of the war up to the great victories in which we honor today, every day and in the years and decades to come! And may we forever cherish the victory won today, the very reason of the freedoms we live, and forever kindle the fire of victory that will enflame our memories both now and in the brighter tomorrow that is to come!

And as the men of Easy will always say: WE STAND ALONE TOGETHER!

ETERNAL GLORY TO THE MEMORY OF THE MEDICAL WORKERS AND PROFESSIONALS AND PERSONNEL OF UNIFORMED SERVICES WHO PERISHED IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC!

ETERNAL GLORY TO THE FALLEN AND THE HEROES AND VETERANS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN EUROPE AND NORTHERN AFRICA FROM 1939-1945!

ETERNAL GLORY TO ALL THOSE WHO GAVE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR THE FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE OF OUR WORLD AGAINST FASCISM, NAZISM AND IMPERIALISM IN THE FIELDS OF BATTLE, THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS, AND IN THE HOME FRONT!

LONG LIVE THE VICTORIOUS ALLIES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN EUROPE, THE MEDITERRANEAN, THE ATLANTIC AND IN NORTHERN AFRICA!

LONG LIVE THE EVER-VICTORIOUS PEOPLE OF THE FREE WORLD AND ALL OUR SERVING ACTIVE AND RESERVE SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN AND VETERANS OF THE ARMED SERVICES OF ALL THE COMBATANT ALLIED COUNTRIES THAT HELPED WIN THIS GREAT WAR AGAINST FASCISM AND NAZISM, AS WELL AS ALL OUR ACTIVE AND RESERVE SERVICE PERSONNEL, CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES AND VETERANS OF THE POLICE, FIREFIGHTING, FORESTRY, BORDER CONTROL, CUSTOMS, EMERGENCY AND RESCUE SERVICES!

GLORY TO THE HEROES, FALLEN AND VETERANS OF UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION AND TO THE GLORIOUS ACHIEVEMENTS IT MADE TO THE NATION IT HAS ALWAYS SWORN TO DEFEND!

LONG LIVE THE ACTIVE AND RESERVE SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN AND VETERANS OF THE NAVAL AVIATION SERVICES OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS AND THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD!

LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS 76TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN EUROPE AND NORTHERN AFRICA AND THE GREAT VICTORY OVER THE FORCES OF INTERNATIONAL FASCISM!

LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS 110TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FORMATION OF NAVAL AVIATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

LONG LIVE THE 71ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE SCHURMAN DECLARATION OF 1950 AND THE FORMATION OF THE EUROPEAN UNION!

GLORY TO THE VICTORIOUS PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND CANADA AND HER UNIFORMED SERVICES!

GLORY TO THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND CANADA, DEFENDERS OF OUR FREEDOM AND LIBERTY AND GUARANTEE OF A FUTURE WORTHY OF OUR GENERATIONS TO COME!

And to the entire HBO War Fandom, especially the fans of Band of Brothers, who will celebrate for all time this day of victory over Nazi Germany:

LONG LIVE EASY COMPANY, 2ND BATTALION, 506TH PARACHUTE INFANTRY REGIMENT, 4TH BRIGADE COMBAT TEAM AND NOW 3RD BRIGADE COMBAT TEAM, 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION (AIR ASSAULT), XVIII AIRBORNE CORPS, UNITED STATES ARMY… THE “BAND OF BROTHERS”!

CURRAHEE! AIR ASSAULT! ARMY STRONG!

A HAPPY VICTORY IN EUROPE DAY AND HAPPY 110TH BIRTHDAY TO NAVAL AVIATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

HOOOAH! HOOYAH!

2300h, May 9, 2021, the 245th year of the United States of America, the 246th year of the United States Army, Navy and Marine Corps, the 127th of the International Olympic Committee, the 124th of the Olympic Games, the 103rd since the conclusion of the First World War, the 82nd of the beginning of the Second World War in Europe, the 80th since the beginning of the Second World War in the Eastern Front and in the Pacific Theater, the 76th since the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and the victories in Europe and the Pacific, the 74th of the United States Armed Forces and the 54th of the modern Canadian Armed Forces.

Semper Fortis

JOHN EMMANUEL RAMOS-HENDERSON

Makati City, PH

(Requiem for a Soldier) (Honor by Hans Zimmer)

(Slavsya from Mikhail Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar)

(Victory Day by Lev Leshenko)

(Last Post) (Taps) (Rendering Honors)

[jordanianroyals]

Jordan’s King Is His Own Worst Enemy (Foreign Policy)

There’s much more evidence of the monarch’s poor governance than a foreign conspiracy against him.

BY ANCHAL VOHRA | APRIL 13, 2021, 10:14 AM

A century ago, Sharif Hussein bin Ali had big dreams for his Hashemite dynasty when he was king of the Hejaz and emir of Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holiest sites. But ever since the time of Lawrence of Arabia, when the Hashemites were Britain’s main regional allies during World War I and led the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, the dynasty has been in steady decline. And with the ongoing dispute among Hussein’s descendants in Jordan, the family may have reached a new low.

The Hashemite dynasty has faced myriad challenges over all those decades, both externally and internally. Brothers in the line of succession have often been dumped for sons, but never did the family wash its dirty linen in public—until this month, when an internal rift became public gossip.

On April 3, Jordan announced that it had foiled a conspiracy to unseat its monarch and destabilize the country. Foreign entities, top officials claimed, were colluding with Prince Hamzah to topple King Abdullah II. Two weeks later, the palace still has not shared a shred of evidence, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the tale doesn’t add up.

More likely is that we are watching the oldest story in the world: a succession battle playing out between royal siblings. Jordan’s monarch placed his half-brother and former crown prince under house arrest to remove the challenge to his throne, along with 18 alleged co-conspirators. But rather than a seditious prince, the whole episode has revealed the authoritarian streak of an insecure king.

Jordan’s tribes have historically owed allegiance to the Hashemites in part due to their religious lineage as descendants of the Prophet Mohammad, who, too, hailed from the House of Hashim. Their support is essential for the dynasty, but they increasingly feel marginalized and disaffected. The United States, which give billions of dollars in aid to the country, have officially backed the king in the feud. But they have been forced to take note of mounting repression in Jordan under Abdullah’s leadership.

Abdullah sold himself to the West as a Harley-Davidson-driving, laundry-washing, pro-democracy monarch, but he has in fact consolidated power inside the palace, gagged the press, arrested protesters, and dragged his feet on devolving actual power to the legislature. The Hashemites, who were once seen as the more modern monarchs, the most Westernized, are coming to be seen as rulers of just another authoritarian Arab state.

According to Reporters Without Borders, Jordan ranks 128th out of 180 nations—below Afghanistan—in press freedom. Freedom House, a U.S.-based nonprofit that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights, demoted Jordan’s status from “partly free” to “not free” in the last year. Abdullah’s Jordan is not Syria or even Saudi Arabia—yet—but those who disagree with the state run the risk of a knock on the door from the intelligence services.

No one believes Abdullah intends on meaningful political reforms, and his economic reforms have produced more allegations of corruption than positive economic results. He unleashed austerity measures to procure loans from the international community and went on a privatization drive that some international observers applauded. But these measures came at the cost of losing support from the kingdom’s tribes.

Tariq Tell, a professor of political studies at the American University of Beirut and an expert on Jordanian politics, noted that the nationalist tribes had been critical of the neoliberal economic reforms that had come to dominate policymaking under the king. “The networks of East Bank tribes have been eroding since the privatization drive,” he said. “Their children are not getting the same jobs and benefits.” As their share of the pie, state jobs, and benefits shrank and discontent set in, Hamzah saw an opportunity to curry favor with this traditional support base. He began reaching out to tribal figures, making appearances at weddings and funerals.

Little is known about the prince’s economic and political ideology and how it compares with his brother’s approach to governance. Hamzah has voiced the concern of the masses but so far has not offered any solutions on how he intends to save a country devoid of resources and flooded with refugees. His biggest asset seems to be his looks, as he bears a close resemblance to his father, the long-ruling and fondly remembered King Hussein bin Talal. Nevertheless, his popularity has nonetheless risen since his arrest.

He is ambitious and was reportedly preferred by Hussein as a successor over his elder brother, a choice that however proved too difficult to reconcile with Jordan’s constitution. His consolation position as crown prince, next in line to the throne, was removed by Abdullah and passed to his own son in 2004. That must have hurt, but it still does not prove that he was plotting a coup against the king.

According to Tell, no one believed a coup was in the works. “Information coming out of the palace is very contradictory,” he said. “The latest events seem connected to a dispute over succession that has been going on since the removal of Hamzah as crown prince. It seems the king wanted to end it.” Adnan Hayajneh, a professor of international affairs at Jordan’s Hashemite University, said the palace’s claims have left him befuddled. “From a political science perspective, I can’t make sense of how foreign powers were involved,” he said. “The implication that Israel must be involved does not make sense because they have good ties with Jordan. Why would they want to destabilize Jordan? And even though the Saudis and Emiratis have sidelined Jordan lately, they also don’t want to destabilize the country.”

Among those arrested for allegedly plotting the coup, just two were connected to Saudi Arabia. But experts say these men are not linked in any way to the prince. Bessma Momani, a professor of political science at the University of Waterloo and a senior fellow at the Ontario-based Centre for International Governance Innovation, said the arrest of Bassem Awadallah, a Jordanian-Saudi dual national and advisor to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was tactical. “The tribes despise Awadallah and see him as synonymous with corruption and elitism,” Momani said. “But he has no link to Hamzah. Awadallah’s arrest was a distraction.”

The palace’s insinuation is that Israel and Saudi Arabia want Jordan to become an alternative homeland for Palestinians currently residing in the West Bank as part of a broader deal that replaces the Hashemites as the custodians of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem with the Al Saud family. Since Abdullah won’t play ball, they want Hamzah to launch a coup by way of a popular uprising. But analysts disagree and call it conjecture.

“The idea has been floated periodically over the past half a century or so without ever being taken that seriously, certainly not by Arab governments,” said Tobias Borck, an associate fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. “It is often suggested that Saudi Arabia or the UAE now actually see this as a feasible policy option. I do not believe that. I have never heard a Saudi or Emirati policymaker seriously argue for it.”

At the heart of the king’s insecurities is the protest movement locally described as Hirak. In 2011, as the Arab Spring engulfed the region, Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and members of Jordan’s tribes took to the streets. Tell said the foundations of the Hirak movement were laid in the spring of 2010 by a revolt of Jordanian military veterans: “In 2011, the military veterans released a manifesto, and even though it did not specifically say they wanted to replace the king with Prince Hamzah, their preference was clear.” Jordan’s security establishment is controlled by members of Jordan’s different tribes. Even though Abdullah has appointed the senior officers, his biggest fear is that some might openly revolt against him in favor of the prince.

But many say the king’s fears are exaggerated. “Despite the various ethnic and ideological fault lines in Jordanian politics, pro-reform and pro-democracy demonstrators—from the leftist, nationalist, and Islamist parties and also from nonpartisan youth movements across the country —have marched and protested against corruption and for reform almost every Friday for more than a year,” said Curtis Ryan, the author of two books on Jordan and a professor of political science at Appalachian State University. “This does not mean looming revolution or civil war. Indeed, most Jordanians still support the monarchy and want it to lead the country to genuine reform.”

The king seems to be his own biggest enemy, rather than Hamzah or any popular opposition. History is replete with stories of insecure kings becoming self-destructive. Instead of arrests and unsubstantiated theories, it might serve him well if he focused on genuine political reform and devolved power to the parliament. Driving a Harley does not make him a modern king, but instituting a constitutional monarchy, where he is a figurehead and no more, would do just that.

[larsmaischak]

Race, Gender, Class and the Old vs the New Left

With an afterword by Sojourner Truth

1960s

Capital:  Maybe we look bad, now that the Soviets have female tractor drivers and engineers, and Africa is governed by actual Africans, while we have a labor market that privileges white men?

New Left:  The Old Left has not done enough to recognize the specific ways in which women and African-Americans are oppressed.

Old Left:  Who has been leading all those Civil Rights marches, if not the left?  Who has been paying for the field organizers and buses, if not the labor unions?  Who has been pushing for equal pay and equal rights for women, if not socialists like Margaret Sanger?

1970s

Blue Collar Workers: Let’s beat the crap out of some hippies.  USA!  USA!

New Left:  See?  The Old Left is for the war, and against the counter culture, and all that.  They are squares!

Old Left:  You know that the craft unions representing those reactionary white, male workers have a long history of exclusion of women, immigrants, and African-Americans that goes back to the 1880s, right?  That’s different from our industrial organizing tradition that goes back to Eugene Debs, the Wobblies, the CIO…

New Left:  Workers are the enemy!  Let’s focus on women and people of color!

Old Left:  Now wait a minute!  95% of women and people of color rely on wage work for their income!  They are working class!

New Left:  Let’s march through the institutions!  I’ll be a lawyer!  You can get tenure!

1980s

Capital:  Let’s squash Communism and the unions!

New Left:  What unions?  Were there any left?  How quaint!

Old Left:  We have to defend the rights of workers!

New Left:  Workers are (a) fine, and (b) sexist, racist, reactionaries.  Shut up!

1990s

Capital:  Look, the Soviet Union is gone!  Let’s modernize our economy, and return personal responsibility to the individual!

Old Left:  Responsibility for what, exactly?

Capital:  For how they survive a modernized economy without adequate wages, health care, housing, and retirement benefits.

New Left:  Did you know that all those old, secure, well paid jobs were held by - gasp! - white men?  It is about time that they let go of their privilege and give women and people of color a chance.  Did you know that women and people of color like flexible jobs and thrive in them?  The kinds of jobs for which working class men are frankly not suited?  That require intelligence and education?

Old Left:  You mean making wage-work less secure and rewarding, more stressful, and placing the burden of obtaining the required education on the individual workers is good for women and people of color?

New Left:  Aha!  You are still your old racist, sexist, unreformed selves!

2000s

Old Left:  Fight Globalization!  For the rights of indigenous people, women, workers, for environmental protection!

New Left:  Hooray!  You know how we can get all those good things?  By opening up our markets for Free Trade!  Modernize!  Knowledge economy!  Global village!

Old Left:  That sounds an awful lot like the stuff corporate consultants are saying …

New Left:  Many corporate consultants are women, people of color, and even gay or lesbian!  We are not surprised that you fossils are still afraid of those groups gaining power at the expense of white men!

Old Left:  White men, like the indigenous women in Chiapas backing the Uprising?

New Left:  Cultural appropriation!

2010s

Old Left: Listen, have you paid attention lately to the free fall of the working class through the tattered social safety net?  There’s a swath of human misery and devastation from opioids, the starving of public institutions like schools and libraries, neoliberal schemes to penny-pinch urban areas that literally poison people with their tap water, …

New Left:  OBAMA!  Oh, the dreamy, well-spoken, intelligent, Obama!  Sigh!

Old Left: … as we were trying to say …

New Left: It is the Millennium of Modernity!  History is at an end!  All contradictions in the world, all conflicts, have been laid to rest!  Hosiannah!

Old Left: ... and these unaddressed problems will not just go away.  We have to pay attention …

New Left:  Will you SHUT UP ALREADY about the flyover states and the human scum that dwells in them!  We’re trying to listen to NPR, here.

2020s

Capital:  Enough with this democracy business.  It allows the wrong people to have their dirty fingers on the levers of power.  Didn’t we have a pretty good system in place for dealing with this stuff?  Steve?

Bannon:  Heil Trump!

Capital:  Sounds good.

Fascism:  Cultural Marxism has too long incited women and other inferiors to aspire to a status far above their place.  It is time to restore America to Greatness by putting these people back in their place.  By force, if needed.

New Left:  See what you’ve done!  All your decades of coddling the working class, those reactionary white men!  Now they’re back in full force, and all because of you and your idiotic refusal to go with the program.  We had it all!  Tenure!  Professional jobs!  CLOUT!  NPR!  MSNBC!  And you ruined it all!

Old Left:  Let’s talk about SOCIALISM …

New Left:  All the rights of LGBTQ+ people, women, people of color, and you want to throw that all out by capitulating to the Fascists?

Old Left: No, actually, we want to fight capital, so that the reactionaries are deprived of their funding and support.  Then we can rally the vast majority of the people, who are working for wages to survive, around their common interest as working, suffering, hoping, creative, loving humans.

Sojourner Truth:

I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. …  That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?

Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp

[evilelitest2]

How did China become the way it is now? They went from dynasties to a communist dictatorship that targets Uighurs?

Well i will say, the Qing Dynasty (last dynasty of China) also did a lot of genocides against Nomadic non Han peoples on the frontier provinces (Despite being a non Han steppe dynasty themselves) , like China has a long history of that sort of thing.  But to answer your main question, this is really complicated but i’ll try to reduce it down to a few steps

Step one: The Qing Dynasty, last Imperial Dynasty of China, is chilling out being the Imperial power when the British Empire, in their endless addiction TEA basically gets a ton of the nation addicted to opium to force China to Trade with them, cementing their role as history more aggressive drug dealer.  When china is like “hey we don’t want to do discount heroin” Britain launches a series of “Opium wars” where they destroy the Qing army and force them to basically a accept these unequal treaties where Britain and the other European powers could basically run sections of most of the Chinese coastal cities, were immune to Chinese law, take Hong Kong for themselves (different story) and force China to enter unequal trade treaties. 

Step 2: In part to response to this, an unorthodox Christian sect starts a massive Revolution/Civil war called the Taiping Rebellion, which has the “FUN” distinction of being one of the most bloody war in human history...ever.  up to 30 million people die.  Remember this is happening at the same time as the American Civil War, whose highest death count only gets up to 1 million.   This does massive damage to Qing China, even though they win the war, and makes them super hostile to Christianity and western adaptations.  

Step 3:Japan, who is going through their own period of Modernization, decides the best way to reject Western Imperialism is to Imperalize Korea.  This leads to the First Sino Japanese War in 1895, who defeat China and start to take over chinese territory.  They take even more when they win the Russo Japanese War in 1905.  

Step 4:  The Qing rejection most attempts to reform the state (such as the Hundred Days reform) and instead attempt to fight all the Colonial powers...at once in the utterly disastrous 1908 Boxer Rebellion.  The Qing are semi colonized as a result and financially ruined and have lost the respect of the people. 

Step 5: Sun Yat Sen, the most prominent Republican (as in democracy) founds his resistance group to China based on the notions of China accepting westernization, modernization, a secular anti traditionalist goverment, nationalism, anti imperialism, and democracy.  The idea that for China to have a good future is to embrace a western style of nation state building.

STep 6: In 1911, a carelessly discarded cigerrete leads to an explosion which leads to a popular rebellion against the Qing.  Before anybody, including the rebel leaders themselves are ready, suddenly the Qing dynasty is gone leaving behind a massive Power Vacumm.  

Step 7: Sun, taking control of the state, founds the Chinese Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang or KMT.  They attempt to create a modern Republican Chinese Nation State but erm...

Step 8: A previous Qing General named Yuan Shikai attempts to overthrow the Republic and create a new Imperial Dynasty.  He fails and dies, but the civil war between him and the KMT leaves the KMT in control of only a few Chinese cities, and the rest of China breaks into a bunch of local petty fiefdoms with local military leaders just declaring themselves warlord and running China.  

Step 9: Sun is like “ok the democracy thing isn’t working out” and enlists the general Chiang Kai-Shek to help the KMT unify china.  Chiang starts to fight the other warlords, and when Sun dies in 1925,  Chiang turns the KMT into a military positivist dictatorship with the long term goal of unifying/modernizing China and then maybe becoming a democracy.  

Everybody Pauses for World War I

Step 10: Some Chinese intellectuals think that the new party should be founded on more left wing principles, and they found the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  They ally with the KMT because they also want to modernize/unify China, and accept from the Soviet Union as well as other anti colonal forces

Step 11: Chiang (with the help of the CCP) does a pretty good job at defeating the Warlords and unifying China.  BUt Chiang then betrays the CCP and massacres most of them as well as left wing KMT members, and starts to adopt an anti Communist profile.  

Step 12: The CCP, now much more radical, sets up their commune and fights against both the KMT and the warlords.  But they lose and are forced to flee across the rural China as part of the “Long March”.  Most of the communists die but those who survive to arrive to the last communist hold out in safety, is the new communist leader and totally not a psychopathic murderer, Mao Zedong.  

Step 13: Chiang has mostly unified China, defeating or subduing most of the Warlords, and is slowly but surely destroying the last remnants of the Communist party, who have retreated to a few hold outs in the rural north.  The new KMT state is relatively stable but still a military dictatorship surrounded by enemies. Meanwhile Japan is going through its fascist phase and is gobbling up bits and pieces of Manchuria, but Chiang doesn’t think he has the strength to fight Japan until he has finished fighting the Communists.  

Step 14: Japans military on the Ground goes rogue and just sort of...invades Manchuria on their own.  Meanwhile Chiang is literally kidnapped and forced at gun point to declare war on Japan in 1937.  The KMT and the CCP make an alliance to fight against Japan jointly.  The Second Sino Japanese War has begun 

Step 15: Between 1937-1945, The KMT is almost entirely driven back to rural Western China by the Japanese, who spend their time committing horrific atrocities which the goverment still hasn’t apologized today (which is why the rest of East Asia hates Japan), including the absolute horrific Rape of Nanking (look it up).   meanwhile the CCP fights a few token battles but then hides in the north and slowly trains up their forces and lets the KMT and Japan fight it out 

Step 16: The US gets Japan to surrender and the CCP and KMT immediately go back to fighting each other.  However the economically ruined KMT isn’t able to defeat the far more disciplined CCP and is defeated in 1949.  The CCP declares itself a new country, the People’s Republic of China (PRC).  Meanwhile the KMT under Chiang flees to the Island of Formosa (Taiwan) and says that they still are the Republic of China.  The two Chinas then spend the the next 70 years pretending the other doesn’t exist

Step 17: Mao, now dictator of China, attempts to modernize the economy and centralize the state.  The good news is that the economy does recover.  The bad news is massive human rights violations and the massacre of a few million people.  The PRC while an ally of the Soviet Union, really is an independent communist state that actually can hold its own.  Mao gets involved in the Korea War against the US and while the PRC doesn’t win, they also don’t lose which establishes them as a world power.  

Step 18: However Mao very quickly goes off the Deep End and launches the “Great Leap Forward” possibly the worse economic policy in human history which leads to the death of up to 40 million people....whoops

Step 18: The PRC leadership puts Mao in a corner so he can think about what he did and try to restore order, but then Mao is able to launch a revolution against his own government with the students called “The Cultural Revolution” which is...the weirdest revolution ever?  Its like if a dictator lead a revolution against his own goverment...long story for another time.  The Cultural Revolution destroys mountains of traditional chinese art and culture, kills, arrests and harrassings thousands to millions of people, and just breaks the state, finally ending with Mao’s death in 1976. 

Step 19: With Mao’s death, the more moderate faction of the PRC takes over, purges the more radical members of the Party, ends the Cultural revolution and starts to semi liberalize the economy, leading to the weird communist/capitalist/mercantilism/Imperial hybrid China operates under today, including of course massive corruption.  The dictatorship because less intense and relaly less communist and they start to drift away from the Soviet Union.  Then in 1989 as the Soviet Union is collapsing, and their is a massive student protest against corruption and in favor of China becoming a more liberal democratic and socialist state.  The goverment after a few months of dithering, opens fire on the protesters and you still aren’t allowed to talk about it in China today.  Death toll varies but most non Government accounts put it at around 10,000.  

Step 20: China becomes a global super power, only behind the US and EU in power and turns their government into a major economic hub, though they keep pissing off their western allies with unfair business practices.  Recently however, the country has gone from an oligarchic autocracy to an...autocracy autocracy with the rise of their new leader, Xi Jinping, who has centralized authority and made the country a lot more oppressive and autocratic, while pushing aback against corrupt and dissident.

Step 21: Which finally brings us to the Uyghurs. Imperial China did this too, but the PRC really has a problem with the various non Han minority groups, doubly so for those who are Muslim and have separatist leanings. So the extermination of the Uyghurs really could be read as a continuation of how the PRC has treated the Tibetans, the Mongolians, and even Hong Kong over the last few decades.  This is part of their vision of China as being a centralized, modernize, secular, unified Nation State, which doesn’t really leave room for regional ethnic religions minorities, doubly so against those with a non Chinese language.  

That is the super simple version, Chinese history is super complicated.

[saint-hildegard-of-bingen]

If you love our country, please read this article, and continue to work to save our democracy. And stay hopeful!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The despair felt by climate scientists and environmentalists watching helplessly as something precious and irreplaceable is destroyed is sometimes described as “climate grief.” Those who pay close attention to the ecological calamity that civilization is inflicting upon itself frequently describe feelings of rage, anxiety and bottomless loss, all of which are amplified by the right’s willful denial. The young activist Greta Thunberg, Time magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year, has described falling into a deep depressionafter grasping the ramifications of climate change and the utter refusal of people in power to rise to the occasion: “If burning fossil fuels was so bad that it threatened our very existence, how could we just continue like before?”

Lately, I think I’m experiencing democracy grief. For anyone who was, like me, born after the civil rights movement finally made democracy in America real, liberal democracy has always been part of the climate, as easy to take for granted as clean air or the changing of the seasons. When I contemplate the sort of illiberal oligarchy that would await my children should Donald Trump win another term, the scale of the loss feels so vast that I can barely process it.

After Trump’s election, a number of historians and political scientists rushed out with books explaining, as one title put it, “How Democracies Die.” In the years since, it’s breathtaking how much is dead already. Though the president will almost certainly be impeached for extorting Ukraine to aid his re-election, he is equally certain to be acquitted in the Senate, a tacit confirmation that he is, indeed, above the law. His attorney general is a shameless partisan enforcer. Professional civil servants are purged, replaced by apparatchiks. The courts are filling up with young, hard-right ideologues. One recently confirmed judge, 40-year-old Steven Menashi, has written approvingly of ethnonationalism.

In “How Democracies Die,” Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt of Harvard describe how, in failing democracies, “the referees of the democratic game were brought over to the government’s side, providing the incumbent with both a shield against constitutional challenges and a powerful — and ‘legal’ — weapon with which to assault its opponents.” This is happening before our eyes.

The entire Trump presidency has been marked, for many of us who are part of the plurality that despises it, by anxiety and anger. But lately I’ve noticed, and not just in myself, a demoralizing degree of fear, even depression. You can see it online, in the self-protective cynicism of liberals announcing on Twitter that Trump is going to win re-election. In The Washington Post, Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a Never Trump conservative, described his spiritual struggle against feelings of political desperation: “Sustaining this type of distressed uncertainty for long periods, I can attest, is like putting arsenic in your saltshaker.”

I reached out to a number of therapists, who said they’re seeing this politically induced misery in their patients. Three years ago, said Karen Starr, a psychologist who practices in Manhattan and on Long Island, some of her patients were “in a state of alarm,” but that’s changed into “more of a chronic feeling that’s bordering on despair.” Among those most affected, she said, are the Holocaust survivors she sees. “It’s about this general feeling that the institutions that we rely on to protect us from a dangerous individual might fail,” she said.

Kimberly Grocher, a psychotherapist who works in both New York and South Florida, and whose clients are primarily women of color, told me that during her sessions, the political situation “is always in the room. It’s always in the room.” Trump, she said, has made bigotry more open and acceptable, something her patients feel in their daily lives. “When you’re dealing with people of color’s mental health, systemic racism is a big part of that,” she said.

In April 2017, I traveled to suburban Atlanta to cover the special election in the Sixth Congressional District. Meeting women there who had been shocked by Trump’s election into ceaseless political action made me optimistic for the first time that year. These women were ultimately the reason that the district, once represented by Newt Gingrich, is now represented by a Democrat, Lucy McBath. Recently, I got back in touch with a woman I’d met there, an army veteran and mother of three named Katie Landsman. She was in a dark place.

“It’s like watching someone you love die of a wasting disease,” she said, speaking of our country. “Each day, you still have that little hope no matter what happens, you’re always going to have that little hope that everything’s going to turn out O.K., but every day it seems like we get hit by something else.” Some mornings, she said, it’s hard to get out of bed. “It doesn’t feel like depression,” she said. “It really does feel more like grief.”

Obviously, this is hardly the first time that America has failed to live up to its ideals. But the ideals themselves used to be a nearly universal lodestar. The civil rights movement, and freedom movements that came after it, succeeded because the country could be shamed by the distance between its democratic promises and its reality. That is no longer true.

Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans are often incredulous seeing the party of Ronald Reagan allied with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, but the truth is, there’s no reason they should be in conflict. The enmity between America and Russia was ideological. First it was liberal democracy versus communism. Then it was liberal democracy versus authoritarian kleptocracy.

But Trump’s political movement is pro-authoritarian and pro-oligarch. It has no interest in preserving pluralism, free and fair elections or any version of the rule of law that applies to the powerful as well as the powerless. It’s contemptuous of the notion of America as a lofty idea rather than a blood-and-soil nation. Russia, which has long wanted to prove that liberal democracy is a hypocritical sham, is the natural friend of the Trumpist Republican Party, just as it’s an ally and benefactor of the far right Rassemblement National in France and the Lega Nord in Italy.

The nemeses of the Trumpist movement are liberals — in both the classical and American sense of the world — not America’s traditional geopolitical foes. This is something new in our lifetime. Despite right-wing persecution fantasies about Barack Obama, we’ve never before had a president who treats half the country like enemies, subjecting them to an unending barrage of dehumanization and hostile propaganda. Opponents in a liberal political system share at least some overlapping language. They have some shared values to orient debates. With those things gone, words lose their meaning and political exchange becomes impossible and irrelevant.

Thus we have a total breakdown in epistemological solidarity. In the impeachment committee hearings, Republicans insist with straight faces that Trump was deeply concerned about corruption in Ukraine. Republican senators like Ted Cruz of Texas, who is smart enough to know better, repeat Russian propaganda accusing Ukraine of interfering in the 2016 election. The Department of Justice’s inspector general’s report refutes years of Republican deep state conspiracy theories about an F.B.I. plot to subvert Trump’s campaign, and it makes no difference whatsoever to the promoters of those theories, who pronounce themselves totally vindicated.

To those who recognize the Trump administration’s official lies as such, the scale of dishonesty can be destabilizing. It’s a psychic tax on the population, who must parse an avalanche of untruths to understand current events. “What’s going on in the government is so extreme, that people who have no history of overwhelming psychological trauma still feel crazed by this,” said Stephanie Engel, a psychiatrist in Cambridge, Mass., who said Trump comes up “very frequently” in her sessions.

Like several therapists I spoke to, Engel said she’s had to rethink how she practices, because she has no clinical distance from the things that are terrifying her patients. “If we continue to present a facade — that we know how to manage this ourselves, and we’re not worried about our grandchildren, or we’re not worried about how we’re going to live our lives if he wins the next election — we’re not doing our patients a service,” she said.

This kind of political suffering is uncomfortable to write about, because liberal misery is the raison d’être of the MAGA movement. When Trumpists mock their enemies for being “triggered,” it’s just a quasi-adult version of the playground bully’s jeer: “What are you going to do, cry?” Anyone who has ever been bullied knows how important it is, at that moment, to choke back tears. In truth, there are few bigger snowflakes than the stars of MAGA world. The Trumpist pundit Dan Bongino is currently suing The Daily Beast for $15 million, saying it inflicted “emotional distress and trauma, insult, anguish,” for writing that NRATV, the National Rifle Association’s now defunct online media arm, had “dropped” him when the show he hosted ended. Still, a movement fueled by sadism will delight in admissions that it has caused pain.

But despair is worth discussing, because it’s something that organizers and Democratic candidates should be addressing head on. Left to fester, it can lead to apathy and withdrawal. Channeled properly, it can fuel an uprising. I was relieved to hear that despite her sometimes overwhelming sense of civic sadness, Landsman’s activism hasn’t let up. She’s been spending a bit less than 20 hours a week on political organizing, and expects to go back to 40 or more after the holidays. “The only other option is to quit and accept it, and I’m not ready to go there yet,” she said. Democracy grief isn’t like regular grief. Acceptance isn’t how you move on from it. Acceptance is itself a kind of death.

[evangeline-of-montfort]

ash garden (ii)

chapter 1 read it here on ao3

The words leave me in a jumble, trying to push from my mouth before the enemy arrives. Trying to call for aid before I am utterly trapped. “Elane, there’s an active raid. I’m in trouble: Sector E-1. Please– ”

The ground itself shakes with the force of drumming hooves as figures burst from the treeline, surrounding me in seconds. I don’t get much further before a gust of wind rips the wireless broadcaster from my fingers and sends it flying over the ledge behind me. Windweaver. 

Now I’m well and truly on my own. I pray that the raiders hadn’t interfered with the second broadcaster, that Elane heard me and sent aid. 

If not, I could die here. 

I count a dozen other raiders, each sitting astride a wall of shaggy fur and horns.  Bison. From experience, I know that they can sustain over a dozen bullets before going down. The animals’ eyes are flat and glassy, a sure sign they’re under the control of a Silver animos. 

Fuck. 

“You weren’t broadcasting for aid, I hope?” the lead raider asks coolly. Her nose and mouth are covered with a black bandana; above it, her eyes are hard and unforgiving. I reach out with my ability, scanning her up and down. She carries two pistols with eight rounds each, bright copper and heavy tungsten; her belt buckle is silver. 

I weigh my options, wondering how many enemies I could cut down before the bison trample me into the earth. The odds are not good, so I start talking. “No help is coming for me, I’m afraid. I seem to have been cut off from my unit.” 

The raider shrugs. “I apologize—we may have interfered slightly with your broadcasting capabilities. It wouldn’t have been ideal for newblood freaks to rush us from all sides as soon as we got close to you.”

As soon as we got close to you. Any lingering hope I had of this being a random attack vanishes. They targeted me specifically, but why? 

I choose my next words carefully. The voice I use belongs to a lost princess from a lost court, but it serves me well here. “Why waste thirteen seasoned raiders on one patrol officer? You must think quite highly of me. Either that, or you aren’t sure of your own abilities in the slightest.”

As I talk, I study the raiders, trying to pick out the details that might save my life. Why are they here? Who are they? 

Each of them wears a black bandana covering their noses and mouths. Their eyes are all hard and cold, veined with gray. Their clothes seem relatively new, a far cry from the mismatched rags that raiders usually wear. I spot an emblem of some sort—a shield emblazoned with a silver stripe—and it looks disgustingly familiar. 

My stomach drops as I realize what it is. 

The Nortan Silver Secession is here.

One of the raiders slides off her mount, moving with a liquid, easy grace.  Silk. “Why waste thirteen raiders on one person? Well, that would be very simple,” she says, talking like she would to a child. “We do indeed think a great deal of you, Your Majesty.” 

She stops before me and sinks to one knee. It feels like a mockery, and it may very well be. “Lady Evangeline Samos. Daughter of Royal House Samos and House Viper. Betrothed of not one but two Calore kings. Former Queen of the Rift.”

My legs go weak at her words. They call me back to an old life, titles won in a country that no longer exists. What game are the Secessionists playing now? “I am no longer any of those things,” I manage. “What do you want with me?” 

The silk tuts as she rises and approaches me, swaying almost hypnotically in my vision. Something in her face reminds me of Sonya and her family. They’re probably related, after all. “I am no longer any of those things,” she mocks. “I see our poor queen has been brainwashed by the Montfort bastards. I hear you have renounced all titles and family ties, my dear. That you walk as equals with Red rats in the streets. That you take a girl to your bed each night—”

“Enough!” I snap, sounding braver than I feel. Her words struck deep, an unwelcome reminder that I am the antithesis of all I was born to be. “Cut the bullshit. What do you want?” 

She is unperturbed. “Why, we want to restore you to your throne, Your Majesty. To crown you queen of all of Norta. Second to no other. And, if you so wish—” She leers, and I can see the disdain in her eyes—“the Lady Haven shall be named your princess consort.”

Her words release an old yearning inside me, a longing for power and for freedom. It tears through my insides before I can control it, and the greed has to show on my face.

“That’s it, little magnetron,” the silk coos. “You need not resist. Blood need not be shed. And before the week is out, you will have a throne and a crown.”

She is offering me what I was raised to want. I was  born to be the queen of Norta. Such a deep-seated desire does not simply disappear. I feel my old ambitions surge to life, a roaring tide inside my head. 

But I know now that what the silk offers is not true. To wear a crown is to lose your freedom of choice. Power given can be just as easily taken away.

And here in Montfort, with its too-close sky and sheer granite cliffs, roaring whitewater falls and dark green pines, I have everything I want. Ptolemus and Wren are here. I am free to love Elane, to marry her, and to grow old and die with her. I do not need a throne. 

What I need is to get out of here alive. I need to stall for more time and hope that backup is on its way.

“A crown and a country,” I say slowly. Every word is an extra second I’m alive. My mind searches frantically for an escape route and comes up empty. Please, Elane. I need you. “Now, that’s a hard offer to beat, Lady…” 

“Tana Iral, Your Majesty.” So she is related to Sonya, maybe a cousin or aunt. Her eyes gleam with barely-suppressed excitement, watching me as a cat watches its prey. As my mother’s wolves used to watch me. 

I briefly wonder what will become of me if they have their way. They could make me their puppet, controlled in every action by a Merandus whisper. The thought terrifies me like no other. 

Keep talking. It’s all I can do. 

“But… enlighten me,” I continue, forcing the fear away. “There is already a stable government in place in Norta. Democracy. Equality of blood. You speak of a waiting crown, but I see no throne.”

Tana laughs, showing even white teeth. “ Yet, Your Majesty. A government led by Reds and their allies is no government at all. They cannot hope to stand against us for long.”

My stomach twists even tighter. “You propose civil war.”

“A restoration of the throne to its rightful owner.” 

“Countless lives will be lost,” I say slowly. “Silver lives. Valuable blood.” I try to fall into my expected role: a blood supremacist, a Silver lady. It isn’t difficult—after all, it’s who I used to be. 

Another one of the raiders shifts impatiently. “Those Silvers forfeited their lives when they betrayed their people. We have no qualms about clearing them out of the way. Will you, Your Majesty?” His words carry a thinly veiled threat. 

They’re getting tired of stalling. My time is almost up.

I don’t know what I would’ve done if left to my own devices, but suddenly, several things happen all at once. 

Tires screech on asphalt as a cycle roars down the Hawkway. Someone dismounts and runs towards me, and a glowing blue shield erupts across my vision. My heart jumps in my chest. Davidson. Elane came through.

I scan the Hawkway for more reinforcements, but there are none. The premier’s the only person I’ve got, but I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have here except Tolly.  

The raiders overcome their surprise and attack. I feel exactly six guns fire at once, and without blinking, I stop the bullets in midair and throw them back. Two of them cut through flesh, and the rest go sailing into the woods, missing the raiders entirely. I grit my teeth—I’m out of practice. 

A gale-force wind picks up. I stagger and lose my balance, and it throws me to the ground. My ribs slam into the dirt, knocking the wind from my chest. 

The air itself turns into a vacuum, sucking the breath from my lungs as I scrabble uselessly for purchase. I try to shout as I’m flung towards the edge of the cliff, but my own breath chokes me, forcing the sound back down my throat. Stars swim across my vision, bright spots of color that almost hurt my eyes. 

The windstorm is cut off as suddenly as it began. The sounds and sensations of battle abruptly disappear as a dome materializes around me and the premier, blue as a robin’s egg and nearly an inch thick on all sides. 

Still on the ground, I cough and gasp for air, stunned by both the impact and the sudden silence. My heartbeat pounds in my ears, and every breath is unnaturally loud.

“Can you stand?” Davidson bends over me, his eyes alight with concern.

I grasp his offered hand and gingerly pull myself up. Nothing seems broken—I can already feel the bruises spreading, but I’ve definitely had a lot worse. “Thanks for the save. You’ve clearly been practicing.” 

He smiles at that. “Even old dogs can learn new tricks.” 

I suddenly lose my balance again, catching myself on his arm. At first, I think my brain hasn’t reoriented itself properly, but then I realize it isn’t me. 

The ground is trembling again. 

I look up in time to see the bison charging us, a moving wall of pure muscle. A mountain of shaggy fur slams into the shield, inches from my face, with enough force to knock down a small house. The dome shakes under the impact. Despite myself, I flinch back, nearly colliding with Davidson. 

An awful crunch filters through the muffling effects of the shield. One of the animals collapses sideways, its neck bent at the wrong angle. The others begin to sway uncertainly, stamping at the ground, but their eyes go flat as the animos reasserts control. They shake their heads, stunned, and charge us again. 

The dome flickers, growing weaker with each impact, each passing second. It’s incredibly disorienting, like the entire world is underwater, distorted. Everything is blurry except for Davidson at my side. The ground shakes, my vision flashes blue, and the drumming of hooves rumbles in my ears like thunder. I want to curl into a ball on the ground and put my head between my knees until it’s over. 

Instead, I put a hand on Davidson’s shoulder. It trembles with strain, nearly in time with the flickering shield. “Don’t give out on me,” I say, trying to bolster us both. “I’d like to get out of this alive.” 

His eyes meet mine for the briefest second, the only acknowledgement he can manage. I can’t begin to fathom the amount of willpower it takes to maintain that dome. He doesn’t look it, but the premier might be the strongest Ardent I’ve ever met—and I’ve fought the lightning girl. 

My legs brace automatically as another charge begins. I can feel the vibrations in the iron soles of my boots, like standing on top of a rattling transport. Next to me, Davidson grits his teeth. His stare is so intense I can feel it, even though it’s not leveled at me. 

“How much longer can you last?” I ask, and my voice echoes around the tiny space.

He only shakes his head, the smallest of movements. We don’t have long at all.

The Nortans prowl around the edges of our bubble. They don’t waste energy attacking—they don’t have to. All they have to do is wait for Davidson to give out, and they’ll have us outnumbered eleven to two.

Who has the advantage? Lord Arven’s voice echoes bitterly through my brain. That question has an easy answer. 

The hard part is neutralizing the advantage. 

“We have to kill the animos,” I realize suddenly. 

Briefly, I wonder if their animos is family. One of my mother’s Viper cousins, here to drag me back to Norta at long last. I can only think of a few nobles who could control half a herd of bison for this long.  “Which one of them do you think–”

Even with the bandana, even through the uncertain light cast by the dome, her face is familiar. We have the same eyes, after all—Viper eyes—but hers are brown to my gray.  There’s no mistaking it.  

“Atara,” I whisper. 

In another life, we were friends and allies—cousins—at court. She helped organize my birthday gala when we were fifteen. I cheered her Queenstrial, even though I knew she didn’t stand a chance. She was my mother’s favorite niece. 

Davidson seems to realize. “I’m… sorry,” he says. “If—if there were another way…” 

The strain in his voice surprises me—the premier isn’t one to display exhaustion. We’re out of time. This isn’t the place for doubt, or morals.

“There isn’t,” I say flatly. “She’s chosen her side. I’ve chosen mine. Drop the shield on ten.” 

The premier nods, unable to manage words. A sheen of sweat coats his brow. I slide a steel ring off my right hand, forming it into a bullet with a burst of willpower. 

The blue shield disappears. Sound and color rush back to the world, but I barely notice. My vision tunnels until all I see is Atara’s black-clad figure. I take a deep breath and let the projectile fly, and like an extension of my own arm, I feel its trajectory across the clearing. I feel the miniature crosswinds as it slices through the air. 

I feel it puncture fabric, flesh, and bone, in that order.

Atara crumples to the ground.

I’m sorry.