Neoconservatives and appeasers
It is an odd thought to have, but the neoconservatives and appeasers of the 1930s have a great deal socially in common, as a sort of post-script to my last post. People forget who the appeasers were; members and want-to-be members of the establishment who thought of themselves as practical men with a love of the less hateful option who dismissed their opponents in the most personal of terms.
The appeasers drew people in for the best and worst of reasons. Churchill, for instance, let racism get the better of him in 1926. As chancellor, he knew that the Japanese could not be opposed. He knew the money was not there. He knew they were "better than the other asians". He knew that appeasing them was right. And he was praised. And he grew, and grew, and saw them for what they were. His opponents stayed stuck in their realism, and demonised him as a drunk and a madman because everyone knew that appeasement was right. Imagine what Harry's Place and ITN would do to churchill now.
You know fine well as I do that they'd wait until he broke their appeasement consensus before they did it to him.
And the appeasers treated others with contempt too. Remember that old invertebrate Stanley Baldwin taking Neville Chamberlain aside and telling him not to treat Labour people and other opponents like scum, even if he knew they were wrong? Chamberlain stared straight back at him and said 'but Stanley, they are scum'.
Look at the way the neocons behave. They puff themselves up with selective use of the mass deaths of others as surely as anyone who decried the trenches did. They assault opponents as fools, or 'mad'; they know each other as the middle classes of england always do, and they remain confident only ever in the rightness of their aggression in the scheme of things. They ignore what they want to ignore and they will not admit their badness.
I really don't mind people who come out and say 'we want the oil and we want to administer a kicking to stop people thinking how weak we are because of debt.' I feel sorry for them but I grew up with the toughest of the tough. I understand that mafia talk. I think it bad, but very flawed and human and people can recover. Such thuggery is almost Roman; the imperative to go and beat up a woman beater without considering the ends of brutality, which have always been brutality.
But what of those who coldly disguise and refuse to acknowledge a racial contempt for others, desperately seek ways to tell themselves that they are doing the right thing whilst denouncing others as wrong? What is the state of such disordered souls?
I set out an intellectual attempt to understand those who, I am sure, think of themselves as the most realistic of men (and adorers of the male condition) below. The neocons. But what I cannot help but think of as they demonise a decent friend of mine is the disabled and distorted apprentice in kim ki-duks 'Spring Summer Autumn Winter and Spring'. A brilliant film; a sad condition for these people. And their million victims. I wonder if Christ looked at all the Roman realists and iron gazes of his own people through the pain of the cross and saw their face
It is an odd thought to have, but the neoconservatives and appeasers of the 1930s have a great deal socially in common, as a sort of post-script to my last post. People forget who the appeasers were; members and want-to-be members of the establishment who thought of themselves as practical men with a love of the less hateful option who dismissed their opponents in the most personal of terms.
The appeasers drew people in for the best and worst of reasons. Churchill, for instance, let racism get the better of him in 1926. As chancellor, he knew that the Japanese could not be opposed. He knew the money was not there. He knew they were "better than the other asians". He knew that appeasing them was right. And he was praised. And he grew, and grew, and saw them for what they were. His opponents stayed stuck in their realism, and demonised him as a drunk and a madman because everyone knew that appeasement was right. Imagine what Harry's Place and ITN would do to churchill now.
You know fine well as I do that they'd wait until he broke their appeasement consensus before they did it to him.
And the appeasers treated others with contempt too. Remember that old invertebrate Stanley Baldwin taking Neville Chamberlain aside and telling him not to treat Labour people and other opponents like scum, even if he knew they were wrong? Chamberlain stared straight back at him and said 'but Stanley, they are scum'.
Look at the way the neocons behave. They puff themselves up with selective use of the mass deaths of others as surely as anyone who decried the trenches did. They assault opponents as fools, or 'mad'; they know each other as the middle classes of england always do, and they remain confident only ever in the rightness of their aggression in the scheme of things. They ignore what they want to ignore and they will not admit their badness.
I really don't mind people who come out and say 'we want the oil and we want to administer a kicking to stop people thinking how weak we are because of debt.' I feel sorry for them but I grew up with the toughest of the tough. I understand that mafia talk. I think it bad, but very flawed and human and people can recover. Such thuggery is almost Roman; the imperative to go and beat up a woman beater without considering the ends of brutality, which have always been brutality.
But what of those who coldly disguise and refuse to acknowledge a racial contempt for others, desperately seek ways to tell themselves that they are doing the right thing whilst denouncing others as wrong? What is the state of such disordered souls?
I set out an intellectual attempt to understand those who, I am sure, think of themselves as the most realistic of men (and adorers of the male condition) below. The neocons. But what I cannot help but think of as they demonise a decent friend of mine is the disabled and distorted apprentice in kim ki-duks 'Spring Summer Autumn Winter and Spring'. A brilliant film; a sad condition for these people. And their million victims. I wonder if Christ looked at all the Roman realists and iron gazes of his own people through the pain of the cross and saw their face
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