How could the pond resist a matching opening?
Despite leading the most murderous regimes of the past century, genocidal British ratbags are still in vogue with those who like to blather on mindlessly about Judeo-Christian values and western civilisation ...
After all, it wasn't genocidal communists that produced the two world wars - Stalin might have been a grotesque psychopath, but he didn't particularly want a war with Hitler, not when he had his own population to torment and murder - and the commies didn't manage to get the first world war going, instead capitalising on it to end a reign of Tsardom that only an Oreo could defend.
In the run-up to the wars, during the Victorian era, the British colonial imperialists left a trail of wanton destruction and ruin wherever they landed in the world, and sowed the seeds for much more wanton destruction in the twentieth century ...
In fact there's a good argument that the western powers put China on the path to ruin by their greedy behaviour - who can forget the British and the extraordinary resentment they managed to achieve with the Opium wars?
It was probably inevitable that an American cartoonist would see things differently to Mr Punch ...
But that's the way it invariably goes. Where the imperialist and colonialist sees things in one light, others see very different lights ... and the result is all kinds of shades of grey.
What an obsessive of the Oreo kind is something clean and clear-cut, black and white like a humbug, or perhaps red and white like a bull in a china shop, tangy and refreshing ...
It was around this point that the pond hadn't paid the slightest attention to the Oreo ...these days just a splash of the Oreo is enough to set the pond off ...
As usual, there's always a line in an Oreo which acts as a zinger for the pond, and that 'so far, so good' is one of them ...
It reminded me of the recent fuss amongst gamers in relation to Nazi swine ...
These days in a post-Charlottesville world - they were back with the tikis last week - killing Nazi swine isn't the same as it was on the old days when swine were swine ...
But the pond, being old, is prone to the same confusion. Was it only last century that the allies were trotting out this sort of advertising?
Hmm, fancy that, no doubt the Oreo will take it up with the propagandists, but the pond must race on to another gobbet ...
Indeed, indeed. What about the wars in Iraq? What about Afghanistan? What about the millions killed in Vietnam, as depressing a record of failure and futility as any Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary might record ... (oh all those chances to have used diplomacy and encouraged the nationalism and steered the hardliners away from China, and how quaint to be reminded that once again, at the chance to do something positive, the British stuck their foot in it and stayed with the perfidious French).
Sad to say, if you want to understand some of the monstrous failures of modern statecraft, put down the Oreo and watch that documentary series, long as it is, because, sad to say, remembering nothing and forgetting everything, the fashionable silence about the genocidal legacy of all thats finest in western civilisation and Judeo-Christian culture has paved the way for a resurgence of the hard right ...
Make no mistake, the fact that Russian's latest Tsar has helped the Donald into the White House is a classic example of the way that the hard right has become willing tools of the Russian bear.
Who can forget the Oreo cheering on the Donald and apparently not remembering for a nanosecond recent events in Charlottesville?
Ah, the Victims of Communism. But who will open the Victims of George Bush Memorial Foundation?
Perhaps the Oreo will volunteer for the job.
Or perhaps she'll wait until they open the Victims of the Donald Memorial Foundation, which if all goes to plan on the Korean peninsula, should see quite a few dead ...
And so to a couple of cartoons ...
A fine testimony by Ms Oreole - right down to her usual standard, if not more so.
ReplyDeleteBut just for entertainment, I thought we might think about this:
How many people were killed in the Belgian Congo?
Under the reign of terror instituted by King Leopold II of Belgium (who ran the Congo Free State as his personal fief from 1885 to 1908), the population of the Congo was reduced by half -- as many as 8 million Africans (perhaps even 10 million, in Hochschild's opinion) lost their lives. Sep 1, 1998
'King Leopold's Ghost': Genocide With Spin Control
www.nytimes.com/books/98/08/30/daily/leopold-book-review.html
By heck, watching Poirot will never be the same again. Anyway, we can now start our counting of 'People murdered by ruling European monarchs' with a total of 8 - 10 million. And more to come by adding in Raj originated famines in various parts of India.
"Genocide with Spin Control"
DeleteThe situation with the Congo Free State is a bit fuzzy, due to lack of records, but that 8-10 million (actually some estimates run as high as 13 million) were substantially due to disease, both imported European and local agents turned epidemic when carried to new areas (by refugees, the Force Publique etc). Even Hochschild says this was not a genocide, which requires intent rather than simple indifference (something like the old adage of not ascribing to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence), so the numbers are appalling, but genocide is a misnomer.
OTOH, there is the Nama and Herrero genocide by the Germans in what is now Namibia in 1904. The numbers aren't huge - perhaps as many as 100,000 Herrero and 10,000 Nama, but the percentages show solid German workmanship, and the ruthlessness shows a certain avante-garde flair.
But in a world where fuckwits seriously claim that "fascism is a philosophy of the left", it's safe to say that to some people, Lothar von Trotha was a commie fellow traveller.
Ah yes, 'Hanlon's razor' (so called): "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". Or as our own Fred Daly put it (as best I can remember): "If it comes down to a choice between a conspiracy and a stuff up, choose a stuff up every time".
DeleteI think there's not much dispute about the cause of many of the deaths - for instance, it has been 'estimated' that at the time of British arrival in Australia there was approximately 260,000 aboriginals which dropped to about 60,000 less than a century later. That sounds somewhat strange to me, but nobody has claimed, as far as I am aware, that the settlers actually shot 200,000 aboriginals.
Nor that the Belgians manufactured at least 8 million bullets (and a corresponding number of guns) and sent them to the Congo for individual 'murders'. Nor that British 'stupidity and/or incompetence' resulting in mass Indian deaths during famines was active and/or intentional murder. And similar considerations apply to the Oreo's death counts, of course. They were mostly 'collateral damage' as a refined Judaeo-Christian Civilisation has defined such things.
But then, as some are wont to ask: how should we judge an action ? From its intent or from its effect ? As we know from our own law, though the level of culpability differs between (intentional) murder and unintentional manslaughter, nonetheless manslaughter is a crime punished under law.
However, I'm happy to add Lothar von Trotha's accomplishment to the running total and to welcome him to the international fellowship of travellers.
Just one small caveat though: the numbers quoted by Madame Oreo are, of course, gross exaggerations, the 'real' counts being significantly lower. But that's just the way of 'The Right': always happily exaggerate the other side's failings because it makes the confected outrage so much more 'justified'.
Oh just kill them all and let god sort it out, She'll recognise British stock ...or will She?
DeleteThe name Oriel is a Russian baby name. In Russian the meaning of the name Oriel is: Eagle.
I think Stephen Paddock, like Andrew Kehoe before him, has made a start on that undertaking, DP. I think its called 'virtue making'.
DeleteHmm, I simply hadn't ascribed a meaning to Oriel, but all names have meanings, don't they. And like a thunderbolt, she falls.
That's some iffy transliteration, Dorothy - most would go with Oryol for eagle. But, as ever, truth is stranger than fiction:
Delete"It originates from the pre 7th century Anglo-Saxon compound baptismal name "Aurildis", translating as "fire-strife". This was a typical name of the Dark Ages, when parents gave their children both male and female, names which glorified war, victory, and religion, generally in that order!"