Cameroni

Aninmal sacrifices? What? What did I just read???

Yes Routh supported the human right to assassinate Western leaders and the freedom to kill anyone he disagreed with. A strange view of democracy, but clearly in tune with Zelensky, Ukraine supporters and many on the left.

I just had a delicious slice of St Etoile bread toasted with Belgian butter, Chinese sausage, tomato and scrambled egg, all prepared by the gf. I think 2 would be her limit, because I wouldn't eat more than 2 per day. How can you eat 5 sandwiches in a day?

It's hard to fault Cooper's popular history, as he is so well read and meticulous. His argument about Churchill was made decades ago already by several people. There was good and also bad in Churchill. It would be naive and childish to see him only as "good". Your article mentions A.J.P. Taylor who wrote Origins of the Second World War. In the book Taylor argued against the widespread belief that the outbreak of the Second World War (specifically between Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom and France, September 1939) was the result of an intentional plan on the part of Adolf Hitler. ...he argued that Hitler was not just a mainstream German leader but also a mainstream Western leader. As a normal Western leader, Hitler was no better or worse than Gustav Stresemann, Neville Chamberlain or Édouard Daladier. His argument was that Hitler wished to make Germany the strongest power in Europe but he did not want or plan war. The outbreak of war in 1939 was an unfortunate accident caused by mistakes on everyone's part and was not a part of Hitler's plan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._P._Taylor So a lack of plan...hmmm, sounds familiar...didn't I hear that in the Darryl Cooper interview...?

It's not just tanks, with planes too the contribution of lend lease was not decisive, when put next to Russian production figures. Railway supplies, trucks, yes food, this was all helpful. But it did not decide the battles with the Wehrmacht.

There is an element of truth in that, had Germany won the battle of Britain there may well have been a swfit invasion to take out the UK government, Hitler showed in Greece and Yugoslavia that he was not averse to that. However, this was of course after Britain had declared war on Germany and she was confronted with this fait accompli and how to deal with it. Hitler himself was an Anglophile and an admirer of the Empire who clearly never wanted a war with Britain. His offer was informed by this sentiment and the desire to avoid a two front war.' The Morgenthau plan of course would have lead to the starvation of 40% of Germany's population, as Hull noted to Truman. So Churchill agreed to the Morgenthau Plan knowing that 32 milllion Germans would die, in exchange for a fistful of dollars from the Americans. Yup, a real moral guy who knew right from wrong, lol.

Yes, you really need to be sure that the list of other positives is sufficient. I did not mean sex, I meant the aesthetic dissonance of having a face that is withered and decaying by your side every night. But if the other list of positives far outweighs that then that is all that matters.

Routh expressed strong support for Ukraine – in dozens of posts on X in 2022, saying he was willing to die in the fight and that “we need to burn the Kremlin to the ground.” https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/15/politics/trump-attempted-assassination-man-detained/index.html Another pro-Ukraine nutjob. Good job Secret Service guy who took him out of society.

Thansk for these very interesting links. So they supplied 4 percent of Russia's own industrial capacity which is in line with my view that it was not decisive. Krushchev's undocumented recollection is interesting, however, a detailed look at what Lend Lease actually provided is more helpful, and since Lend Lease provided 7000 tanks but the Russian's built 100,000 armoured vehicles, it's very hard to conclude that Lend Lease was a decisive policy. Though I take the point clearly helpful when the factories were dismantled and moved eastwards, again an astonishing feat by the Russians.

That's true, and I take your point about Wilhelm, well made. Regardless of the Kaiser, there is a good argument to be made for Germany being the least militaristic of the major European powers. It seems clear that Germany's naval ambitions were at the very core of Churchill's antipathy towards Germany, as he understood early on this German path to economic pre-eminence and the dangers it would bring to British naval superiority. I suppose that would be the main argument against a pace with Germany, had he accecpted peace, who's to say that Germany would not have started building a huge navy a la Britannia, thereby potentially endangering the economic exploitation of the colonies for the future? A divided and defeated Germany was much more sensible from Britain's perspective in this regard, and Churchill of course supported the hateful and vengeful Henry Morgenthau Plan to dismember Germany. Though he then also supported German unifcation to end the cold war.

I almost fell off my chair when I saw Ghandi's early writings. No wonder Africans don't like him. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/02/766083651/gandhi-is-deeply-revered-but-his-attitudes-on-race-and-sex-are-under-scrutiny

Good article!

Actually, his contemporaries were quite surprised by the depth of his racism. Churchill's personal doctor, Lord Moran, commented at one point that, in regards to other races, "Winston thinks only of the colour of their skin." among British politicians of the time, few of them had the stature of Churchill.[62] The article was criticised by the Jewish Chronicle at the time, calling it "the most reckless and scandalous campaign in which even the most discredited politicians have ever engaged".[63] The Chronicle said Churchill had adopted "the hoary tactics of hooligan anti-Semites" in his article. South African President Thabo Mbeki said Churchill's attitude toward black people was racist and patronising. That complaint was shared by critics such as Clive Ponting. Historian Roland Quinault states that, "Even some historians otherwise sympathetic to Churchill have concluded that he was blind to the problems of black people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Winston_Churchill#:~:text=Churchill advocated against native self,races remains a real one". I mean this was a man who sat down with the vice president of the United States and in all seriousness said "why should we Anglo-Saxons apologise for being superior?".

Hitler did not want this. He had earnestly sought negotiations with Poland against their common enemy, Soviet Russia. However, Poland refused to return the territories she had stolen from Germany after 1918. So Poland paid the price. I think it's a bit ludicrous to claim Churchill was a man of peace. By the beginning of WWI Churchill had fought in three wars. Kaiser Wilhelm of Oh-so-militaristic-Germany in none. Churchill, when given the choice to end the war in Europe refused, inflicting more suffering on his own people and especially the rest of Europe. He bombed women and children in Germany, knowing full well that Germany would retaliate in Britain in kind. Indeed had Churchill and his British colleagues not made the greatest geo-political blunder of the 20th century, the guarantee to Poland, none of it would have happened. You have to ask yourself, was it right and smart for 75 million people to die so that the majority German city of Danzig does not become German again?

And by all accounts did not do very well.

Fun fact to end the weekend: In 1911, Churchill banned interracial boxing matches so white fighters would not be seen losing to black ones. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/17/why-cant-britain-handle-the-truth-about-winston-churchill

And doing a great job, always informative links.

Not really, the US Lend Lease did not supply all that was needed, they provided 7000 tanks. But the Russians built 100,000 armoured vehicles themselves.

He didn't like Indians very much.

It would not have mattered. As I already wrote, Russia produced 100,000 armoured vehicles in WWII. They outnumbered Germany in planes and tanks to a ludicrous degree. Nothing in this world could have helped Germany prevail over Russia in WWII. The war of the Wehrmacht was effective. However, when it came to sheer numbers in materiel the Russians just had a major edge. With or without Lend Lease btw.

Don't worry, Ghandi will get his due in the next thread, that half naked Fakir...

The did indeed move their industrial base eastwards. And still managed to produce 100,000 armoured vehicles during the war. An incredile feat.

Well, Churchill is British of course, but looking at it more carefully, the British administrators in India were trying desperately to alieviate the famine, it was Churchill who decided not to provide the food they repeatedly requested.

Very interesting character. He is the elder son of Lisa McNear (née Lombardi; 1945–2011), an artist from San Francisco,[60] and Dick Carlson (1941–), a former "gonzo reporter"[58][61][62] who became the director of Voice of America, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles Carlson's maternal great-great-great-grandfather was Henry Miller, the "Cattle King".[71] Carlson's maternal great-great-grandfather Cesar Lombardi immigrated to New York from Switzerland in 1860.[72][73] Carlson is also a distant relative of Massachusetts politicians Ebenezer R. Hoar and George M. Brooks. In 1979, Carlson's father married Patricia Caroline Swanson, an heiress to Swanson Enterprises, daughter of Gilbert Carl Swanson and niece of Senator J. William Fulbright. Carlson was briefly enrolled at Collège du Léman, a boarding school in the canton of Geneva in French-speaking Switzerland, but said he was "kicked out" Among liberals, Carlson's piece received praise, with Democratic consultant Bob Shrum calling it "vivid". John F. Harris of Politico would later remark on how Carlson was "viewed ... as an important voice of the intelligentsia" during this period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_Carlson

The famine was not exacerbated because the "British" wanted to keep the food for themselves, in fact the British administration of Bengal repeatedly and desperately asked the War Cabinet for food supplies. It was Churchill, who repeatedly refused these requests, contributing greatly to the death toll.