Power without Glory. Which one?
Dear reader I should apologise in advance for this grotesquerie of political observation, this malapropism of pan-grand strategy, this corruption of common metaphorical usage. But recently, post brexit I’ve had it up to my armpits with allusions made to the inglorious endeavors of the Third Reich. In modern times, (no hint of irony here) every second tier, presumptive popinjay is now either coded hitlerian, hitler-ish or just plan old Adolphian . This gross and overt simplification of history must cease.
A funny read about a modern world mired in the past… more or less. But learning nothing.
Rupert! I hold you personally responsible!!
Though you have a capacity for distortion that would make Herr Goebell’s blush, the fact that you and your ilk are so happy to refer to Hitlerism’s just proves one thing. We’re all hypocrites! As in ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’, we are prisoners to cherished notions of a past reinterpreted to stupidity. Bereft of meaning, written in stone, and a new post war biblical certainty, that incarcerates us all. Imagination, soul and humanity cheapened to two word slogans so that we must repeat the dreadful mistakes of the past. History is now the unreformed alcoholic, who shambolically resolves to go on the wagon, and yet drinks to oblivion.
Do we have a capacity for learning, I don’t think so. So I’ll pick up where Rupert left off.
Carving up Iraq? Rumsfeld, Bush, Petraeus, and some other dumb knob-head. (apologies the editor has been sacked and we had to take on a work experience student as part of our jobs and growth strategy)
George, Tony and John getting awards for being incredibly stupid. Proof. Stupidity and greed pays. (unless you’re an Iraqi, or Afghani, or Syrian, etc. etc..)
The Chilcott Report, though reserved, and reputedly over two million words long, and weighing in at a comfortable three hundred thousand human souls, gives us chapter and verse how we choose to learn nothing. Of how an oligarchy of insecure, nationalistic, reactionary nutters, decided they’d do over a government. Invade it. Incarcerate it. And leave it’s people as a refuse to be swept and whipped at their will. At the heart of it was a contempt for the governance, the culture, the language, and the social structures that kept a nation state together. Imperfect, but no less imperfect than our own. And once having fucked it over, walked away, and established quite cleverly the next hundred years war. A victory of hubris, dumb ignorance and an eternal glorification for the industrial military complex. And when the dust settled, Chilcott, suggests, we washed our hands of the consequences. By Jingo we won! And medals duly distributed for those who legitimised the greed-ripened theft.
Should these be war crimes? Most certainly. For John, George and Tony. They’re guilty.
Carving up Poland. Same dumb greed. Same nationalistic bullshit.
Look what Germany did to Poland in 39. Was that any different? Invasion of a sovereign state, trumped up reasons for doing so. A real desire to gain lebensraum, and assets. A contempt for the people, language, culture. And after the Russians had knocked off the intelligentsia, doing the same to what was left over. No difference really. Ribbentrop was executed at Nuremberg. Not a clever diplomat by all accounts, brittle and insecure, with a Rumsfeld-ean, sense of self belief. (Cowards make the worst despots).
Invasion allowed the Gauleiters free rein to deport the assets, liquidate the stirrers and enslave the general populace. It is no different. Funny thing though, this reminds me of our treatment of the first Australians .
Carving up Poland. Please note, the uniforms here were generously donated to us by the Rt Hon Christopher Pyne. M.P (from his personal collection)
Sorry, that’s incorrect. The first Australians were ‘settled’. Some of them ‘lost their lives’ in ‘settlement’. And though we don’t have a treaty or such to demonstrate our settlement nor respect for the people we liquidated and conquered, they’re allegedly being cared for. Sounds like General Petraeus, (Allied Marshall of Baghdad), or Greiser (Gauleiter of Poland). Any difference?
Of course there is. John Howard is the only leader to invade Iraq, and then invade his own country with the intervention. With a record like that Ribbentrop would be envious. Still the message of history is simple. We won! Truth belongs to the victors. And besides, there never was a war in Australia. It was ‘settled’. And, to coin a phrase ‘that’s settled that’ . And if your confused, go ask John Howard. If asked, he’d “do it again”.
That’s progress.
Onya Rupert!