Malcolm X told you 60 years ago: The white liberal’s concern for black people is abstract, performative. The black people to the white liberal is as a moral bludgeon to wield against white conservatives, and they attack any black person who refuses to play along.
If the lives of black people actually improved, they would vote on issues like tax policy, national security, immigration - and inevitable veer in the direction of partisan parity - therefore the lives of black people must not improve.
If Latinos assimilate, they will vote on education, taxes, and social issues - rather than ethnic identity - and inevitable veer toward partisan parity, therefore Latinos must not assimilate (we’re told assimilation is “cultural genocide”, “selling out”, etc.)
A terrible set of incentives emerges for a political coalition of the fringes: any fringe-dweller who improves their lot and moves toward the socioeconomic middle is a sellout, an Uncle Tom, a traitor.
The Soviets used two strategies to discourage potential defectors: 1) threats (incl threatening families), 2) convince them that the West was vicious, implacable devil that wished them dead. Who can deny that this is the strategy of progressives and the Democratic Party in 2022?
The worst thing that could happen to the Democrats is that the lives of their minority constituencies actually improve, and that their political decisions begin to reflect elements other than terror, rage, desperation, and misery.
About 150k Jews served in the Wehrmacht during WW2, compared to 50-60k Jews in the UK military. The highest ranking Jewish officer in UK history was only a brigadier, while Hitler had ~30 Jewish generals & admirals, and his last head of the Luftwaffe was a Jewish field marshal.
Obviously this is a fact without context, but it’s interesting nonetheless. There were only 500-600k Jews total in Germany. ~250-300k of those were men, and many of those were too old or young to serve. IOW a very large % of eligible German Jews served.
I would hesitate to draw any hasty conclusions. But the fact that most people would find it unbelievable shows that things are more complicated than the mythic version of the story.
This list assumes you know the History Channel version of the war, and are looking to understand it from different angles. None of these authors are dreaded revisionists, and buying these will not land you on whatever lists I'm now on. /1
1. Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War, by Pat Buchanan
In the early 20th century, Britain was 'the empire on which the sun never set'; by 1945, she was a 2nd-rate power in a world dominated by the US & USSR. This book documents the blunders that lost Britain her empire.
2. Human Smoke, by Nicholson Baker
This book consists of a series of chronologically-ordered snapshots and moments-in-time that manage to generate a narrative momentum that, by the end, somehow makes the war seem both inevitable and unavoidable. Highly recommended.
Time for a Churchill thread? Time for a Churchill thread. Let's do this.
Why I think Churchill was a chief villain of World War 2. /0
I know that sounds like hyperbole. Churchill didn’t order the most deaths, oversee the most atrocities, or commit the worst crimes. But most of those crimes could not have been committed if the war had not happened, and Churchill was the leader most intent on making it happen. /1
You'll think, "But Darryl, everyone knows the war started after Germany invaded Poland, + Austria & Czechoslovakia before that. It could have been prevented if only people had listened to Churchill , and taken a tougher line against Hitler." And you might be right. Sort of. /2
Because they insist on the primacy of words, and reject as irrational the idea that both are happier when the man sees his job is not to achieve a meeting of minds, but to manage her emotional state, keep her calm, content, optimistic… less like your bro, more like your horse.
She won’t like hearing that, so don’t say it to her. But make that shift and thank me later.
Yes, but she has to learn to treat you like a child in some ways, too, like “aw, he thinks the sounds coming out of his mouth mean things and are important…”
This is a list of science/engineering achievements, but also a description of capital flows. The way to make big $ in the 2000s was through finance and tech, and too many of our best brains were wasted creating CDOs and dick pic apps.
Add in that labor & regulatory arbitrage provided industry w/an easy way to drive up the bottom line without the risky business of innovation, and you get what we have now, secular stagnation or whatever.