Monday 20 October 2008

Warning Window



Curtsey to the Stumbling Tapir

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2095202/posts

This has been circulating the Internet, but this is the only place I could find a transcript of what Bezmenov said. Why does this remind me of post-modernists, I wonder?

Zoe Brain said...

I'd comment on it, but alas I'm too subversive. My existence contradicts their beliefs.

Anonymous said...

It's often said that we need to learn the lessons from history, but what, indeed, are the lessons from history?

The two most notable events- or "lessons" of the 20th century were (a) the Great Depression; and (b) the rise of fascism and the advent of World War II.

Regarding (a):
Since the econmic collapse, the more commentary I've read, the more I realise that the experts don't agree on the lessons of the Great Depression at all. Some think the lesson is that governments need to intervene to stop a depression, others think the lesson is that governments (not markets) cause depressions. My natural inclination is to believe the latter.

Regarding (b):
On the question of World War II, the left believes that we must therefore oppose and curtail "right wing warmongers" and people whose patriotism equals nationalistic bigotry.
The Right, by contrast, believes that the lesson is that we must be on our guard against messianic politicians who preach protectionism, utopia, hatred of bankers (who happened to mostly be Jews in mid-century Europe), appeal to people's sense of victimhood and entitlement, and whose followers want to kill or imprison their political opponents.
Again, I'm inclined to take the latter lesson more seriously.

Anonymous said...

I agree with daddy dave on the first point. I point anyone with any questions to mises.org (the Ludwig von Mises Institute) and, of course, the writings and speeches of Ron Paul. There is a lot of misconceptions regarding economics, I think, and about socialist calculation, which cannot be as accurate as the calculation done by the price mechanism in the market as to how resources should be allocated.

On the second point, I'd recommend for right-wingers to stick to the maxim of "God, family, country."

Anonymous said...

It was also posted over at Vault-Co, who is himself a very interesting poster:

http://vault-co.blogspot.com/2008/10/kwas-condition-is-irreversible.html

Go over there and comment on it; as long as you don't flame or spam, Vault-Co will usually approve your comments, even if they run contrary to what he's talking about. I wanna see you and Vault-Co get it on. :D

Zoe Brain said...

Daddy Dave - it behooves those of us on the Right to be very careful that our dedication to Duty, Honour, Country doesn't degenerate into Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer.

It similarly behooves those on the Left to make sure their desire for "Peace in our time" to degenerate into, well, "Peace in our time". Si vis pacem, para bellum has been known about for 2000 years.

Hence my signature on the Euston Manifesto, an avowedly Leftist document (and indeed, it has some aspects I think could be better) but a document that every neo-con should be able to sign up to as being "close enough".

Very often, it's not goals we disagree on - merely ways to implement them. And we should never let political ideology over-ride unpalatable facts, or common humanity.

Zoe Brain said...

s.d.a - there are some battles it's not wise to engage in, and some sites just a bit too outre for me to argue on.

Anonymous said...

maybe I was a bit too obtuse. When I said the second great lesson of the twentieth century was to beware of messianic politicians, I had The big O in mind.

Hey, he's probably all foam and no latte, however I don't like the fact that his friends idolise the murderous dictators of the 20th century and want to emulate them. It's probably nothing. He's probably "just another politician".

Anonymous said...

Outre? Though he is wrong on some things, I think, he is actually pretty sane on a lot, like geopolitical realities.