Instead of saying, "Have a nice day", I say, "Have the day you deserve."
Then I just let karma sort all that stuff out.
*.*
I came home from work this evening and said to my wife, "Are we having salad for dinner?"
"Yes we are, how did you know?" she asked.
I replied, "Because I can't hear the smoke alarm."
*.*
Two women in the one horse town of Parched Gulch had daughters, each of marriageable age. But there were no prospective husbands in town due to shootings, running off with outlaws and drunk riding. And there was no chance at all of any bridegrooms turning up.
The two mothers pooled their meager resources, advertised, and sure enough, they got results: twin brothers in Cactus Corners looking for wives. The twin bridegrooms were sent for.
Along the way the twins met up with outlaws.
One was killed, the other escaped. Upon his arrival, the mothers were in immediate conflict as to whom the surviving twin belonged. They were going to kill each other over it. After all, each had a daughter's future at stake.
They took the case to Judge A.K. Hornswoggle, alcoholic, disbarred, but with Solomonic frontier wisdom. After due deliberation, Hornswoggle ruled that the young man be chopped in half and one half awarded to each daughter.
The first mother was outraged. If Hornswoggle wasn't drunk or stupid, he was a monster for suggesting such a thing.
The second mother thought it would not be a bad solution.
And pointing to the second mother, Hornswoggle said, "Your daughter gets him. You are the real mother-in-law."
*.*
A woman reported the disappearance of her husband to the police.
The officer looked at the guy's photograph, questioned her, and then asked if she wanted to give her husband any message if they found him.
"Yes," she replied. "Please tell him Mother didn't come after all."
*.*
What do sea monsters eat?
Fish and Ships.
Quote of the Times;
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
Link of the Times;
https://www.theblaze.com/news/tiktok-privacy-biometrics-faceprints-china
Issue of the Times;
The New Clerisy by Leighton Akira Woodhouse
Faith in science is an oxymoron.
Sometime during the George W. Bush presidency, Democrats began proudly calling themselves “the party of science.” The moniker was a reaction to the Bush administration’s open embrace of Creationism, and its climate change denialism. The Republican Party was being led around by the nose, liberals charged, by kooky Evangelical philistines and corrupt corporate lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry. It had lost its grip on reality, a development that was comically encapsulated by a Bush official’s pejorative use of the phrase “reality-based community,” in sneering reference to critics who still took things like facts seriously. Liberal bloggers appropriated the phrase to describe themselves ironically.
This new science-based identity was congruous with the ascendance of a key demographic within the Democratic coalition, one that would be instrumental in electing and re-electing President Barack Obama. Prosperous, educated professionals, once a reliable, if liberal, Republican voting bloc, had for some time been shifting their partisan allegiance. As the GOP was increasingly drawing in rural and blue collar voters and, accordingly, elevating cultural issues like guns and religion that were imperative to them, the Democrats were burnishing their appeal to urban and suburban college graduates by embracing free trade, emphasizing identity-based issues like abortion and gay rights, and proudly espousing their commitment to expert-driven, technocratic governance. This rebranding from a workers’ party to the party of sober, rational, informed wonkiness flattered these new Democratic voters’ self-conception.
Today, in the age of biological and ecological emergency, the Democrats’ scientific brand has taken center stage again, reflected in an assertion that has become something of a mantra: “I believe in science.” The line is recited by presidential candidates and printed on face masks. It was uttered by the first American to receive the Covid vaccine after FDA emergency use authorization. It had its very own annual march during the Trump years. It’s enshrined in the oath of the “In This Household We Believe” lawn sign.
To political fellow travelers, its message is unmistakable: it’s a declaration of the intellectual maturity and independence from groupthink of the left-of-center. Yet in reality, it has come to indicate the opposite. The Democratic Party has become the party not of science, but of fealty to the clerics of science. “I believe in science” has come to mean, “I do not question expert authority,” which is as antithetical to the scientific spirit as you can get. The more gravely the line is intoned, the more Orwellian it becomes.
In The Revolt of the Public, Martin Gurri traces the exalted status of the modern scientist to the mythical figure of the early twentieth century renegade scientific genius, embodied most famously by Albert Einstein. Einstein, Gurri reminds us, was hardly a creature of the academy. He nearly dropped out of high school, and when he began publishing his scientific insights he was working not at a university but at the patent office. But Einstein’s singular genius, combined with his tenacious devotion to The Truth, made him first the equal and then the superior of every credentialed academic in the world. Like Copernicus, the intrepidness of Einstein’s spirit and the independence of his mind elevated him above the banal muck of human affairs, bringing him a step closer to the gods of nature.
This mythological image, Gurri writes, remains the template for our popular conception of the professional scientist. But the myth is wildly at odds with the reality of what science is today.
The modern scientific research industry is like a cross between a giant perpetual motion machine and a game of musical chairs. Scientific research is underwritten, in large part, by a steady stream of government funding. To keep the lights on in their labs, scientists need to tap into that stream. They do so by designing research projects that conform to whatever the government prioritizes at any particular moment. If, for instance, there was just a major terrorist attack and Congress was concerned about the threat of bioterrorism, scientific research that related to that concern would be likely to be fast tracked for funding, so it may be a good time for a savvy principal investigator to start pitching projects aimed at developing vaccines for bioengineered pathogens. The successful scientist is the one who is particularly adept at writing fundable grant applications pegged to some politically salient research objective, and then generating laboratory results that make some sort of incremental progress toward that objective to justify a renewal of that grant funding in the next cycle.
The modern professional scientist is thus less like Albert Einstein than like his co-workers at the patent office. He is a bureaucrat, albeit a highly technical one. His goal is, to be sure, to seek The Truth, but only within the very narrow parameters of what other bureaucrats and politicians have deemed to be questions worth asking.
Anthony Fauci is the Platonic form of the scientist-technician-bureaucrat, which is why he has held his position as one of the top scientists in the nation for decades and through multiple administrations. As a creature of both science and politics, he has made himself indispensable as an interface between the two worlds and as the individual best positioned to mold the former to suit the needs of the latter. After 9/11, he transformed NIH into the agency at the front line of defending America against the imminent threat of jihadis armed with weaponized plague viruses. He championed “gain-of-function” research, which essentially meant building those superviruses before the terrorists did, the better to find vaccines for them. And once the Islamic terrorist threat faded a bit from our collective memory, he re-tooled this heftily-funded research into humanity’s front line of defense against Mother Nature, “the worst bioterrorist.” Unfortunately for Fauci, in the process, he may have - oops! - created one of the biggest pandemics in human history.
From the start of the pandemic, card-carrying members of the party of science have looked upon Fauci as a figure earning his place among the pantheon of liberal American demigods, alongside FDR, Rosa Parks and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Maureen Dowd dubbed him a “national treasure” and The New Yorker named him “America’s Doctor.” His visage appears on (ha ha totally ironic) prayer candles, and toddlers will soon be force fed his life story in an upcoming children’s book.
More disturbingly, the edicts issued from Fauci’s NIH have been greeted like papal encyclicals. When we were told that masks were useless against Covid for regular people and that each one you hoarded deprived a frontline caregiver of a life-saving shield, we were momentarily scolded and shunned for donning them. Fifteen minutes later, when your mask became the only thing standing between you and mass death, we were ostracized for accidentally leaving it in the car. Few asked questions about this 180 reversal, just trusting the experts’ explanation that their understanding of the virus was evolving.
More such episodes followed. When Fauci and other illustriously credentialed scientists called the lab leak hypothesis a wild conspiracy theory, the press dutifully fell in line. Suddenly, the notion that it may not have been sheer coincidence that the virus broke out in one of the three cities on the planet with a lab doing bat coronavirus gain-of-function research became too embarrassing to mention in polite company. Only today, more than a year later, are people beginning to accept that the most obvious thing in the world may not be a paranoid fantasy on par with 9/11 Truth. But now we’re being told by the same expert authorities that merely entertaining the possibility that Ivermectin may be an effective therapy against Covid-19 aligns you with people who kill themselves drinking fish tank cleaner as a Covid prophylaxis.
At every such juncture, we’ve been admonished to “believe the science.” But this is not science; it’s politics. Science demands a reflexive posture of skepticism toward received wisdom, tempered by trust in empirical evidence. Bowing habitually to expert authority on the strength of titles and credentials is the antithesis of the scientific mindset. It is precisely what Democrats adopted the “party of science” moniker to reject: willful obedience to those who hold cultural and political power.
The scientific establishment, like the political establishment, is a human institution. It’s not an impartial supercomputer, or a transcendent consciousness. It’s a bunch of people subject to the same incentives and disincentives the rest of us are subject to: economic self-interest, careerism, pride and vanity, the thirst for power, fame and influence, embarrassment at admitting mistakes, intellectual laziness, inertia, and ad-hoc ethical rationalization, as well as altruism, moral purpose, and heroic inspiration. Scientific experts deserve the respect due to them by dint of their education and experience, and they deserve the skepticism due to them by dint of their existence as imperfect actors functioning in complicated and deeply flawed human networks and organizations. If you “believe in science,” you don’t bow to their authority. You don’t transform them into living legends and teach your children to follow the example of their lives. You don’t light votive candles to them and castigate anyone who dares doubt their infinite wisdom.
Instead, you demand the best proof they can offer. You consider their motivations, their ideological biases and their conflicts of interest. You interrogate their advice, and weigh it against that of their critics. You exercise diligence. You ask questions. You trust in evidence, not in people. You think for yourself.
In our drift toward political tribalism, these are skills we are quickly unlearning. Those who call the shots in this country are happy to have it that way.
News of the Times;
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/worse-thought-fauci-top-us-doctors-caught-conspired-disquality-hydroxychloroquine-covid-treatment-millions-dead-result/
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/german-study-finds-lockdown-had-no-effect-stopping-spread-covid
https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2021/06/04/report-high-ranking-chinese-defector-working-with-dia-has-direct-knowledge-of-chinas-bioweapons-program-and-its-very-bad-n1452251
https://www.lawofficer.com/blm-activist-molested-accused/
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/06/05/bluff-called-ron-desantis-wins-big-over-cruise-lines-vaccine-passports-n391582
https://vdare.com/articles/black-lives-matter-is-a-blood-libel-against-white-america-here-s-why
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/inconvenient-truth-due-li-ions-heavy-carbon-footprint-evs-may-offer-negligible-co2
https://www.independentsentinel.com/harriss-pr-stunt-taking-4-billion-tax-dollars-to-crime-ridden-countries/
https://theblacksphere.net/2021/06/rapist-teacher-of-the-year/
https://thebeltwayreport.com/2021/06/p6203/
https://babylonbee.com/news/a-fetus-is-just-a-clump-of-cells-says-slightly-older-larger-clump-of-cells
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/breaking-federal-judge-overturns-californias-ar15-ban/
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/06/05/paul-blasts-fauci-gain-of-function-research-support-warns-wuhan-lab-experimenting-with-viruses-that-have-15-mortality/
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-psychopathic-problem-of-the-white
https://theothermccain.com/2021/06/05/crazy-people-are-dangerous-26/
Clerisy?
Right?
A guy in New York decided he was going to swim in the Hudson River to prove that it's clean.
He was 37.
*.*
After a long time, I told my hot coworker how I felt.
She felt the same way.
So, we finally agreed to turned on the AC.
*.*
Lines:
According to a new study, 60% of us say that we have experienced some kind of déjà vu before. In a related story, 60% of us say that we have experienced some kind of déjà vu before.
Be kind. Be respectful. If you do that, they'll never expect what you really had in mind.
Amazon has bought MGM, which means the James Bond movies are now owned by Amazon. I'm thinking James Bond will continue to save the world, but he'll do that in just two days for Prime Members.
A helicopter had to make an emergency landing at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, last week. Yes, another touchdown at FedEx field that had nothing to do with the Washington Woke Club.
There's a new White Cheddar Chex Mix, for those who haven't achieved their "Quarantine 15" yet.
An animal rights group called Animal Rebellion is demanding that McDonald's switch to only serving plant-based foods by the year 2025. Can the "Crappy Meal" be far behind?
How is physically possible that three-day weekends can feel so short?
I'm waiting for the day that the name "Hoover Dam" is deemed offensive and they change it to "Hoover Darn."
I watched Zach Snyder's "Army of the Dead" over the weekend. It's the story of a mean, sadistic, cruel, undead monster who directs a zombie movie.
In Atlanta, a man drove his car right into a Barnes and Noble. Not surprising, the store owner threw the book at him.
*.*
The Five Dwarfs Who Didn't Make Snow White's Team:
Contagious
Flasher
Jittery
Psoriasis
Gassy
*.*
I don’t like stairs.
They’re always up to something.
Quote of the Times;
The correspondence between Dr. Fauci and China speaks too loudly for anyone to ignore. China should pay Ten Trillion Dollars to America, and the World, for the death and destruction they have caused! – Trump
Link of the Times;
https://summit.news/2021/06/02/email-researcher-who-funded-wuhan-lab-admitted-to-manipulating-coronaviruses-thanked-fauci-for-dismissing-lab-leak-theory/
Issue of the Times;
What If I’m Right? by Steve Sailer
Since the previous century I’ve been articulating in the public arena an array of interconnecting ideas about how the world works. For example, I tend to suspect that racial differences in achievement in 2021 have more to do with nature and nurture, with culture and human biodiversity, than with unspecifiable malevolence on the part of white men as dictated by the theory of systemic racism.
(Note that I don’t put very much effort into telling you how I think the world should work, just how it does work. At least, the latter’s testable.)
I usually don’t go out of my way to make specific predictions, but my instincts are, by this point, not bad. For example, I was bellowing in Taki’s Magazine from June 3, 2020, onward that society reassuring blacks that they deserved a Racial Reckoning that entitled them to riot and resist arrest was going to be a disaster for all concerned.
That raises the more general question: What if I’m right?
What if my way of thinking is, in general, more realistic, insightful, and reasonable than the conventional wisdom?
I dislike thinking of my concepts as an ideology. I don’t propound “Sailerism.” I lack the ambition and the ego. I am by nature a staff guy rather than a line boss. I like to think of my approach to understanding human society as one that will eventually seem obvious to everybody, so I shouldn’t claim credit now for what is simply solid empirical thinking applied to the more contentious subjects.
Instead, I like to tell myself, I should just keep coming up with more ideas that are (in declining order of importance to me) true, interesting, new, and funny. Eventually, people will notice how much better my approach to reality has been than that of the famous folks winning MacArthur genius grants and try to figure out for themselves how I do it so that everybody can do it too.
Or at least that’s what I hope.
On the other hand, it’s now 2021 and public discourse has just gotten stupider and more self-destructive over the course of my career.
Maybe that’s my fault?
What if I had just kept my mouth shut and, instead of challenging popular pundits to be honest and intelligent, I’d let them work it out for themselves? After all, while people who know me tend to find I’m an admirable individual, people who don’t know me tend to hate me.
Many pundits seem enraged over the idea that I might prove right. This tendency to personalize social science disputes has always struck me as dim-witted, but, apparently, the fear “What if Sailer is right?” is infuriating and/or terrifying to many. It’s almost as if what gets people mad is my being correct so often.
Thus, when I point out the facts, I’m often greeted with incoherent anger centering on the allegation that I must be a bad person for being so well-informed.
Actually, while I’m of course highly biased, my impression is that I am, at least compared with most of my fellow opinionators, rather a good person, more Orwell than Waugh.
When I started in the 1990s, my views were edgy but not unknown. Intellectually, I’m basically an heir to the debates in the early 1970s among data-driven social scientists, with me being closer to the domestic neoconservatives like James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein. But I also admired liberals like Daniel Patrick Moynihan (the four-term Democratic U.S. senator from New York) and James Coleman, as well as socialists like Christopher Jencks. Indeed, the first thing I ever had published was a letter in National Review when I was 14 in 1973 in which I made a joke about Jencks’ book-length meta-analysis of the Coleman Report, Inequality:
Having read Ernest van den Haag’s article on Christopher Jencks, I am reminded of an old psychiatry joke: A psychotic (egalitarian, in this little morality story) says, “All people are equal, and I’ll fight anyone who says I’m wrong.” A neurotic (Jencks) says, “People aren’t equal, and I just can’t stand it.”
My role model as a statistics-driven opinion journalist was always Daniel Seligman, who more or less invented blogging with his “Keeping Up” column in Fortune.
What’s changed since the 1970s?
Basically, all that has happened is that the data has piled up against the Establishment view. I think it’s an exaggeration to say that the left totally dominates the social sciences today. I have been a human sciences aficionado for the past 49 years. And I haven’t seen any decline in social science findings supporting my general worldview, in part because I constantly adapt to new findings, but largely because new advances have typically validated the best old research. For example, the genetic revolution of the 21st century has mostly vindicated the best human scientists of the second half of the 20th century.
Granted, naive journalists tend to not get that tropes like “Race does not exist” are scams to keep scientists from getting persecuted by know-nothings. But if you read the scientific journals carefully, you will know what’s what.
But instead of changing minds, the passing of the years has only made the dominant discourse ever more absurdly antiquarian. For example, the failure of property values to boom in black neighborhoods in the 53 years since redlining was abolished has not made it more acceptable to point out that if blacks want higher prices in their neighborhoods, they should work harder on being better neighbors.
Instead of noting that the hundreds of black inner-city riots last year have helped drive this year’s housing boom in suburbs and small towns, the prestige press has decided to obsess over the Tulsa riot of 100 years ago (which was started by blacks but ended by whites) as the reason blacks aren’t rich today.
My approach in explaining human society has been to follow the general line of Occam’s Razor that “It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer,” or that the simplest feasible explanation is less likely to be contrived for political purposes than a more complicated Occam’s Butterknife rationalization.
And as more data continues to accumulate over the decades, my depiction of the way the world works seems to have a better track record than more fashionable theories.
Now, it’s not that I’m infallible. But (a) I like to argue, and (b) I don’t like to lose. So, I look hard for the strongest evidence so that I can make winning arguments.
And when I lose, rather than double down, I usually change my mind.
Granted, I have the usual human reluctance to admit I was wrong. But I try to deploy that in a constructive direction.
If I find, for example, that some sophomoric policy I advocated as a sophomore in 1978 can’t be justified today, I tend to assert that that may not be because I was wrong then but that times have changed since. For example, many of the Reagan-Thatcher ideas I liked in the late 1970s were successful in the 1980s–1990s, leaving us today with new problems needing new solutions.
Moreover, I would encourage intellectuals to try to subscribe to a form of vulgar Hegelianism in their personal intellectual behavior that I’ve found very useful: If you hold a thesis for what seem like good reasons, and somebody counters with a well-argued antithesis, you have three options:
—Reject the antithesis (the most common).
—Convert to the antithesis (the most dramatic).
—Look for a synthesis that makes sense of both your thesis and the other guy’s antithesis (usually, the hardest but most productive).
For example:
—Thesis: A racial group is a taxonomical subspecies.
—Antithesis: A racial group is a biologically nonexistent social construct!
—Synthesis: A racial group is a partly inbred extended family.
So, what if I’m right? How would the world look different?
Well, it wouldn’t. I’ve taken great pains to make my worldview correspond with how the world actually is.
What policies are implied by my realistic view of humanity? To my mind, nothing terribly new (although out of fashion): We need rule of law, equal protection of the laws, and other old-time principles. That African-Americans seem to have a particular tendency toward criminal violence suggests that they need more, not less, law and order than do even the rest of us.
On the other hand, the one thing that really scares me is that progressive intellectuals seem to assume that if modern science demonstrates that the races often differ genetically, well, that proves Hitler was right and therefore genocide is the only rational alternative. This malevolent insanity on the part of orthodox liberal thinkers terrifies me.
My suggestion: The dominant intellectuals should do some soul-searching and stop projecting their own viciousness onto the rest of us.
News of the Times;
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/smoking-gun-fauci-lied-millions-died-fauci-informed-hydroxychloroquine-worked-lied-public-instead-despite-science-fauciemails/
https://wirepoints.org/scope-of-pending-illinois-constitutional-amendment-goes-far-beyond-appearances-its-a-monstrous-giveaway-to-public-unions-wirepoints/
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/saudi-and-russian-oil-producers-benefit-climate-activism-lobbed-western-producers
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/06/where-has-all-the-global-warming-gone.php
https://anthonyblogan.com/atlanta-city-councilman-votes-to-defund-police-by-73-million-winds-up-carjacked-in-atlanta/
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/03/05/baltimore-student-who-failed-all-but-three-classes-in-four-years-was-ranked-in-top-half-of-his-class/
https://supchina.com/2021/05/28/changsha-officials-give-preferential-hiring-treatment-to-male-teachers-because-chinese-boys-are-too-effeminate/
https://www.lawofficer.com/speaker-at-tulsa-rally-tells-armed-crowd-kill-everything-white-in-sight/
https://www.dailywire.com/news/scientists-successfully-test-drug-that-can-kill-cancer-cells-without-damaging-nearby-healthy-tissue
https://theblacksphere.net/2020/10/real-story-biden-first-wifes-death/
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/mexican-cartels-are-hunting-down-police-at-their-homes/
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/meat-processing-hack/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/america-s-schools-are-falling-disrepair-no-solution-sight-experts-n1269261
https://www.dailywire.com/news/founder-of-black-lives-matter-in-st-paul-i-resigned-after-i-learned-the-ugly-truth-as-insider
https://www.wnd.com/2021/06/governments-paycheck-protection-program-bails-billionaire-george-soros/
He was 37.
*.*
After a long time, I told my hot coworker how I felt.
She felt the same way.
So, we finally agreed to turned on the AC.
*.*
Lines:
According to a new study, 60% of us say that we have experienced some kind of déjà vu before. In a related story, 60% of us say that we have experienced some kind of déjà vu before.
Be kind. Be respectful. If you do that, they'll never expect what you really had in mind.
Amazon has bought MGM, which means the James Bond movies are now owned by Amazon. I'm thinking James Bond will continue to save the world, but he'll do that in just two days for Prime Members.
A helicopter had to make an emergency landing at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, last week. Yes, another touchdown at FedEx field that had nothing to do with the Washington Woke Club.
There's a new White Cheddar Chex Mix, for those who haven't achieved their "Quarantine 15" yet.
An animal rights group called Animal Rebellion is demanding that McDonald's switch to only serving plant-based foods by the year 2025. Can the "Crappy Meal" be far behind?
How is physically possible that three-day weekends can feel so short?
I'm waiting for the day that the name "Hoover Dam" is deemed offensive and they change it to "Hoover Darn."
I watched Zach Snyder's "Army of the Dead" over the weekend. It's the story of a mean, sadistic, cruel, undead monster who directs a zombie movie.
In Atlanta, a man drove his car right into a Barnes and Noble. Not surprising, the store owner threw the book at him.
*.*
The Five Dwarfs Who Didn't Make Snow White's Team:
Contagious
Flasher
Jittery
Psoriasis
Gassy
*.*
I don’t like stairs.
They’re always up to something.
Quote of the Times;
The correspondence between Dr. Fauci and China speaks too loudly for anyone to ignore. China should pay Ten Trillion Dollars to America, and the World, for the death and destruction they have caused! – Trump
Link of the Times;
https://summit.news/2021/06/02/email-researcher-who-funded-wuhan-lab-admitted-to-manipulating-coronaviruses-thanked-fauci-for-dismissing-lab-leak-theory/
Issue of the Times;
What If I’m Right? by Steve Sailer
Since the previous century I’ve been articulating in the public arena an array of interconnecting ideas about how the world works. For example, I tend to suspect that racial differences in achievement in 2021 have more to do with nature and nurture, with culture and human biodiversity, than with unspecifiable malevolence on the part of white men as dictated by the theory of systemic racism.
(Note that I don’t put very much effort into telling you how I think the world should work, just how it does work. At least, the latter’s testable.)
I usually don’t go out of my way to make specific predictions, but my instincts are, by this point, not bad. For example, I was bellowing in Taki’s Magazine from June 3, 2020, onward that society reassuring blacks that they deserved a Racial Reckoning that entitled them to riot and resist arrest was going to be a disaster for all concerned.
That raises the more general question: What if I’m right?
What if my way of thinking is, in general, more realistic, insightful, and reasonable than the conventional wisdom?
I dislike thinking of my concepts as an ideology. I don’t propound “Sailerism.” I lack the ambition and the ego. I am by nature a staff guy rather than a line boss. I like to think of my approach to understanding human society as one that will eventually seem obvious to everybody, so I shouldn’t claim credit now for what is simply solid empirical thinking applied to the more contentious subjects.
Instead, I like to tell myself, I should just keep coming up with more ideas that are (in declining order of importance to me) true, interesting, new, and funny. Eventually, people will notice how much better my approach to reality has been than that of the famous folks winning MacArthur genius grants and try to figure out for themselves how I do it so that everybody can do it too.
Or at least that’s what I hope.
On the other hand, it’s now 2021 and public discourse has just gotten stupider and more self-destructive over the course of my career.
Maybe that’s my fault?
What if I had just kept my mouth shut and, instead of challenging popular pundits to be honest and intelligent, I’d let them work it out for themselves? After all, while people who know me tend to find I’m an admirable individual, people who don’t know me tend to hate me.
Many pundits seem enraged over the idea that I might prove right. This tendency to personalize social science disputes has always struck me as dim-witted, but, apparently, the fear “What if Sailer is right?” is infuriating and/or terrifying to many. It’s almost as if what gets people mad is my being correct so often.
Thus, when I point out the facts, I’m often greeted with incoherent anger centering on the allegation that I must be a bad person for being so well-informed.
Actually, while I’m of course highly biased, my impression is that I am, at least compared with most of my fellow opinionators, rather a good person, more Orwell than Waugh.
When I started in the 1990s, my views were edgy but not unknown. Intellectually, I’m basically an heir to the debates in the early 1970s among data-driven social scientists, with me being closer to the domestic neoconservatives like James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein. But I also admired liberals like Daniel Patrick Moynihan (the four-term Democratic U.S. senator from New York) and James Coleman, as well as socialists like Christopher Jencks. Indeed, the first thing I ever had published was a letter in National Review when I was 14 in 1973 in which I made a joke about Jencks’ book-length meta-analysis of the Coleman Report, Inequality:
Having read Ernest van den Haag’s article on Christopher Jencks, I am reminded of an old psychiatry joke: A psychotic (egalitarian, in this little morality story) says, “All people are equal, and I’ll fight anyone who says I’m wrong.” A neurotic (Jencks) says, “People aren’t equal, and I just can’t stand it.”
My role model as a statistics-driven opinion journalist was always Daniel Seligman, who more or less invented blogging with his “Keeping Up” column in Fortune.
What’s changed since the 1970s?
Basically, all that has happened is that the data has piled up against the Establishment view. I think it’s an exaggeration to say that the left totally dominates the social sciences today. I have been a human sciences aficionado for the past 49 years. And I haven’t seen any decline in social science findings supporting my general worldview, in part because I constantly adapt to new findings, but largely because new advances have typically validated the best old research. For example, the genetic revolution of the 21st century has mostly vindicated the best human scientists of the second half of the 20th century.
Granted, naive journalists tend to not get that tropes like “Race does not exist” are scams to keep scientists from getting persecuted by know-nothings. But if you read the scientific journals carefully, you will know what’s what.
But instead of changing minds, the passing of the years has only made the dominant discourse ever more absurdly antiquarian. For example, the failure of property values to boom in black neighborhoods in the 53 years since redlining was abolished has not made it more acceptable to point out that if blacks want higher prices in their neighborhoods, they should work harder on being better neighbors.
Instead of noting that the hundreds of black inner-city riots last year have helped drive this year’s housing boom in suburbs and small towns, the prestige press has decided to obsess over the Tulsa riot of 100 years ago (which was started by blacks but ended by whites) as the reason blacks aren’t rich today.
My approach in explaining human society has been to follow the general line of Occam’s Razor that “It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer,” or that the simplest feasible explanation is less likely to be contrived for political purposes than a more complicated Occam’s Butterknife rationalization.
And as more data continues to accumulate over the decades, my depiction of the way the world works seems to have a better track record than more fashionable theories.
Now, it’s not that I’m infallible. But (a) I like to argue, and (b) I don’t like to lose. So, I look hard for the strongest evidence so that I can make winning arguments.
And when I lose, rather than double down, I usually change my mind.
Granted, I have the usual human reluctance to admit I was wrong. But I try to deploy that in a constructive direction.
If I find, for example, that some sophomoric policy I advocated as a sophomore in 1978 can’t be justified today, I tend to assert that that may not be because I was wrong then but that times have changed since. For example, many of the Reagan-Thatcher ideas I liked in the late 1970s were successful in the 1980s–1990s, leaving us today with new problems needing new solutions.
Moreover, I would encourage intellectuals to try to subscribe to a form of vulgar Hegelianism in their personal intellectual behavior that I’ve found very useful: If you hold a thesis for what seem like good reasons, and somebody counters with a well-argued antithesis, you have three options:
—Reject the antithesis (the most common).
—Convert to the antithesis (the most dramatic).
—Look for a synthesis that makes sense of both your thesis and the other guy’s antithesis (usually, the hardest but most productive).
For example:
—Thesis: A racial group is a taxonomical subspecies.
—Antithesis: A racial group is a biologically nonexistent social construct!
—Synthesis: A racial group is a partly inbred extended family.
So, what if I’m right? How would the world look different?
Well, it wouldn’t. I’ve taken great pains to make my worldview correspond with how the world actually is.
What policies are implied by my realistic view of humanity? To my mind, nothing terribly new (although out of fashion): We need rule of law, equal protection of the laws, and other old-time principles. That African-Americans seem to have a particular tendency toward criminal violence suggests that they need more, not less, law and order than do even the rest of us.
On the other hand, the one thing that really scares me is that progressive intellectuals seem to assume that if modern science demonstrates that the races often differ genetically, well, that proves Hitler was right and therefore genocide is the only rational alternative. This malevolent insanity on the part of orthodox liberal thinkers terrifies me.
My suggestion: The dominant intellectuals should do some soul-searching and stop projecting their own viciousness onto the rest of us.
News of the Times;
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/smoking-gun-fauci-lied-millions-died-fauci-informed-hydroxychloroquine-worked-lied-public-instead-despite-science-fauciemails/
https://wirepoints.org/scope-of-pending-illinois-constitutional-amendment-goes-far-beyond-appearances-its-a-monstrous-giveaway-to-public-unions-wirepoints/
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/saudi-and-russian-oil-producers-benefit-climate-activism-lobbed-western-producers
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/06/where-has-all-the-global-warming-gone.php
https://anthonyblogan.com/atlanta-city-councilman-votes-to-defund-police-by-73-million-winds-up-carjacked-in-atlanta/
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/03/05/baltimore-student-who-failed-all-but-three-classes-in-four-years-was-ranked-in-top-half-of-his-class/
https://supchina.com/2021/05/28/changsha-officials-give-preferential-hiring-treatment-to-male-teachers-because-chinese-boys-are-too-effeminate/
https://www.lawofficer.com/speaker-at-tulsa-rally-tells-armed-crowd-kill-everything-white-in-sight/
https://www.dailywire.com/news/scientists-successfully-test-drug-that-can-kill-cancer-cells-without-damaging-nearby-healthy-tissue
https://theblacksphere.net/2020/10/real-story-biden-first-wifes-death/
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/mexican-cartels-are-hunting-down-police-at-their-homes/
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/meat-processing-hack/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/america-s-schools-are-falling-disrepair-no-solution-sight-experts-n1269261
https://www.dailywire.com/news/founder-of-black-lives-matter-in-st-paul-i-resigned-after-i-learned-the-ugly-truth-as-insider
https://www.wnd.com/2021/06/governments-paycheck-protection-program-bails-billionaire-george-soros/
Insurance?
My boss asked me, “Why do I always have to come looking for you?”
I smiled and replied, “Because a good worker is hard to find!”
*.*
Driving my 6 year old son home from school the other day when a BMW cuts us off.
A shout of "You stupid fucking cunt!", was quickly followed by "You won't tell mummy I said that that, will you?"
"Not this time," I said, "But you've really got to watch that temper of yours."
*.*
Lines:
I love the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning, what I love even more is the sound of no one talking to me while I drink it.
When a woman laughs during an argument, the psycho part of her brain has been activated. Abort mission.
Remember: A beach body is any body on a beach.
I always say thanks to Alexa so that when the machines take over, they'll know I'm nice
Be decisive, right or wrong, make a decision. The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn't make a decision.
By age 35, you should have at least one fork in your cutlery drawer that you don't like and actively frown at when you accidentally grab it.
I hope in my next life that I come back as a dog, so my pills are wrapped in cheese.
Afraid of not getting what you ordered with online shopping? Try online dating!
I used to just crastinate, but I got so good at it, I've gone pro.
Just watched three people out running past my house and it inspired to get up and close the blinds.
Some days I amaze myself. Other days, I look for my phone while holding it.
If nothing else, at least mosquitos find me attractive.
The more I get to know people, the more I understand why Noah only let animals on board the ark.
*.*
The Beach Boys walk into a bar...
"Round?"
"Round?"
"Get a round!"
"I get a round?"
"Yeah?"
"Get a round...."
"Fuck off, all of yeah." said the bababa bababarman.
*.*
Why do dogs float in water?
Because they are good buoys.
Quote of the Times;
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. - Washington
Link of the Times;
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/ivermectin-new-penicillin
Issue of the Times;
Life Insurance and Covid-19; Something Doesn’t Make Sense by Jeff Harris
You would think that during the worst Pandemic since the 1918 Spanish Flu life insurance companies would be hedging their bets to avoid major losses from Covid-19. I haven’t written a life policy for several years so I was wondering what was going on? I called one of the brokers I deal with that interacts with hundreds of big life insurers to get an inside look into how the Covid crisis has changed their business.
Imagine my surprise when she said it was pretty much business as usual! Last year when the hysteria was just getting ramped up she did say the companies temporarily tightened up underwriting and reduced the amount of coverage they would offer. But as time went by and the hard data came rolling in those same companies went back to business as usual.
I asked her specifically if life insurers wanted a Covid test as part of the underwriting process and she said none that she was aware of. Hmm, that’s pretty interesting isn’t it? The most lethal pandemic in decades descends on the globe with deadly mutations taking millions of innocent lives and the life insurance companies couldn’t care less.
I also asked if the cost per thousand of coverage had increased due to Covid and again she said no. Rates were pretty much the same as they were before the Covid Pandemic ravaged the earth. Life Insurance companies are very risk adverse. They don’t like losing money to unnecessary claims. The fact they’re treating Covid as a nonevent should be an indicator that something is very wrong with the whole narrative.
News of the Times;
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/28/pce-price-index.html
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/joe-biden-received-campaign-cash-top-russia-lobbyist-waiving-sanctions-nord-stream-2-pipeline/
https://www.projectveritas.com/news/more-leaks-facebook-whistleblowers-reveal-secret-filter-for-liberty-based/
https://www.thecollegefix.com/confirmed-black-female-was-behind-racist-instagram-hoax-account/
https://lidblog.com/illegals-bussed-into-tennessee/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/biden-admin-grants-temporary-amnesty-100000-haitians-illegally-us/
https://nationalfile.com/breaking-usps-worker-admits-to-dumping-election-ballots-in-new-jersey-dumpsters/
https://thetruedefender.com/shocking-cdc-report-the-latest-adverse-responses-on-covid-vaccination-are-devastating/
https://humanevents.com/2021/05/20/federal-judge-rules-against-women-says-christian-college-must-allow-biological-males-to-share-showers-with-females/
https://mediarightnews.com/portland-homicides-jump-800-crime-to-continue-skyrocketing-in-2021-experts-fear/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/horror-michigan-prosecutors-determined-destroy-young-conservatives-entire-life-posting-snowflake-joke-private-snapchat-group-video-freelucas/
https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/planeloads-of-illegal-immigrant-minors-relocated-around-u-s-in-middle-of-the-night/
https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/masks-covid-tests-seized-by-cbp/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YbRNgBg9Og
https://www.lawofficer.com/suspect-in-brutal-little-caesars-beating-arrested-on-assault-kidnapping-charges/
I smiled and replied, “Because a good worker is hard to find!”
*.*
Driving my 6 year old son home from school the other day when a BMW cuts us off.
A shout of "You stupid fucking cunt!", was quickly followed by "You won't tell mummy I said that that, will you?"
"Not this time," I said, "But you've really got to watch that temper of yours."
*.*
Lines:
I love the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning, what I love even more is the sound of no one talking to me while I drink it.
When a woman laughs during an argument, the psycho part of her brain has been activated. Abort mission.
Remember: A beach body is any body on a beach.
I always say thanks to Alexa so that when the machines take over, they'll know I'm nice
Be decisive, right or wrong, make a decision. The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn't make a decision.
By age 35, you should have at least one fork in your cutlery drawer that you don't like and actively frown at when you accidentally grab it.
I hope in my next life that I come back as a dog, so my pills are wrapped in cheese.
Afraid of not getting what you ordered with online shopping? Try online dating!
I used to just crastinate, but I got so good at it, I've gone pro.
Just watched three people out running past my house and it inspired to get up and close the blinds.
Some days I amaze myself. Other days, I look for my phone while holding it.
If nothing else, at least mosquitos find me attractive.
The more I get to know people, the more I understand why Noah only let animals on board the ark.
*.*
The Beach Boys walk into a bar...
"Round?"
"Round?"
"Get a round!"
"I get a round?"
"Yeah?"
"Get a round...."
"Fuck off, all of yeah." said the bababa bababarman.
*.*
Why do dogs float in water?
Because they are good buoys.
Quote of the Times;
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. - Washington
Link of the Times;
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/ivermectin-new-penicillin
Issue of the Times;
Life Insurance and Covid-19; Something Doesn’t Make Sense by Jeff Harris
You would think that during the worst Pandemic since the 1918 Spanish Flu life insurance companies would be hedging their bets to avoid major losses from Covid-19. I haven’t written a life policy for several years so I was wondering what was going on? I called one of the brokers I deal with that interacts with hundreds of big life insurers to get an inside look into how the Covid crisis has changed their business.
Imagine my surprise when she said it was pretty much business as usual! Last year when the hysteria was just getting ramped up she did say the companies temporarily tightened up underwriting and reduced the amount of coverage they would offer. But as time went by and the hard data came rolling in those same companies went back to business as usual.
I asked her specifically if life insurers wanted a Covid test as part of the underwriting process and she said none that she was aware of. Hmm, that’s pretty interesting isn’t it? The most lethal pandemic in decades descends on the globe with deadly mutations taking millions of innocent lives and the life insurance companies couldn’t care less.
I also asked if the cost per thousand of coverage had increased due to Covid and again she said no. Rates were pretty much the same as they were before the Covid Pandemic ravaged the earth. Life Insurance companies are very risk adverse. They don’t like losing money to unnecessary claims. The fact they’re treating Covid as a nonevent should be an indicator that something is very wrong with the whole narrative.
News of the Times;
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/28/pce-price-index.html
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/joe-biden-received-campaign-cash-top-russia-lobbyist-waiving-sanctions-nord-stream-2-pipeline/
https://www.projectveritas.com/news/more-leaks-facebook-whistleblowers-reveal-secret-filter-for-liberty-based/
https://www.thecollegefix.com/confirmed-black-female-was-behind-racist-instagram-hoax-account/
https://lidblog.com/illegals-bussed-into-tennessee/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/biden-admin-grants-temporary-amnesty-100000-haitians-illegally-us/
https://nationalfile.com/breaking-usps-worker-admits-to-dumping-election-ballots-in-new-jersey-dumpsters/
https://thetruedefender.com/shocking-cdc-report-the-latest-adverse-responses-on-covid-vaccination-are-devastating/
https://humanevents.com/2021/05/20/federal-judge-rules-against-women-says-christian-college-must-allow-biological-males-to-share-showers-with-females/
https://mediarightnews.com/portland-homicides-jump-800-crime-to-continue-skyrocketing-in-2021-experts-fear/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/horror-michigan-prosecutors-determined-destroy-young-conservatives-entire-life-posting-snowflake-joke-private-snapchat-group-video-freelucas/
https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/planeloads-of-illegal-immigrant-minors-relocated-around-u-s-in-middle-of-the-night/
https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/masks-covid-tests-seized-by-cbp/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YbRNgBg9Og
https://www.lawofficer.com/suspect-in-brutal-little-caesars-beating-arrested-on-assault-kidnapping-charges/
Escaping?
Just once, I want a username and password prompt to say: "Close Enough."
*.*
A man writing at the post office desk was approached by an older fellow with a postcard in his hand. The old man said, "Sir, I'm sorry to bother you but could you address this postcard for me? My arthritis is acting up and I can't even hold a pen."
"Certainly, sir," said the younger man. He wrote out the address and also agreed to write a short message and sign the card for the man. Finally, the younger man asked, "Now, is there anything else I can do for you?"
The old fellow glanced at the card a moment and said, "Yes, at the end could you just add, 'PS: Please excuse the sloppy hand-writing.'?"
*.*
Lines:
So apparently, Bill Gates was allowed to spend a weekend every year with his former girlfriend. Who knew the Gates were open?
New York City says they're going to offer free vaccine shots for tourists. The complimentary muggings will also continue.
New food alert: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal Oatmeal. When you have to get past four words to get to the healthy one, it should be a warning.
Last week was World Bee Day. A honey of an idea.
Naomi Campbell welcomed a new baby daughter into the world this week at age 50. Apparently, the idea of raising a teenager in her late 60s sounded fun.
They're saying that up to 80% of France's vineyards have been damaged by heavy frost. That's some sobering news.
If I'm diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, does that make me a carpool?
Remember, it's physically impossible to make our own sunshine, but we can make moonshine.
Just out of curiosity, what made the Great Smokey Mountains so great?
For the record, the movie "Soylent Green" was set in the year 2022. I'd think twice about that fake meat you were considering.
*.*
A reporter asked a man how he felt when he found out that he won the lottery.
“As soon I saw the numbers line up, I knew it was going to be wife changing.”
*,*
Why haven't aliens visited our solar system yet?
They checked the reviews, but we only had one star.
Quote of the Times;
Adventure is a commitment made by the entire being, and can search our depths to bring out the best, most human qualities which remain in us. When the pack of cards has not been rigged so we win every time, then the game is real, and we find surprise, imagination, enthusiasm to succeed and the possibility of failure.
Link of the Times;
https://www.rooshv.com/30-christian-articles-i-recommend
Issue of the Times;
Escaping Serfdom by Jeff Thomas
The concept of government is that the people grant to a small group of individuals the ability to establish and maintain controls over them. The inherent flaw in such a concept is that any government will invariably and continually expand upon its controls, resulting in the ever-diminishing freedom of those who granted them the power.
When I was a schoolboy, I was taught that the feudal system of the Middle Ages consisted of serfs tilling small plots of land that belonged to a king or lord. The serfs lived a meagre life of bare subsistence and were subject to the tyranny of the king or lord whose men would ride into their village periodically and take most of the few coins the serfs had earned by their toil.
The lesson I was meant to learn from this was that I should be grateful that, in the modern world, I live in a state of freedom from tyranny, and as an adult, I would pay only that level of tax that could be described as “fair”.
Later in life, I was to learn that, in the actual feudal system, some land was owned by noblemen, some by common men. The commoners typically farmed their own land, whilst the noblemen parcelled out their land to farmers, in trade for a portion of the product of their labours.
As a part of that bargain, the nobleman would pay for an army of professional soldiers to protect both the farms and the farmers. Significantly, unlike today, no farmer was required to defend the land himself, as it was not his.
There was no exact standard as to what the noblemen would charge a farmer under this agreement, but the general standard was “one day’s labour in ten”.
This was not an amount imposed or regulated by any government. The nobleman could charge as much as he wished; however, if he raised his rate significantly, he would find that the farmers would leave and move to another nobleman’s farm. The 10% was, in essence, a rate that evolved over time through a free market.
Modern Serfdom
Today, of course, if most countries levied an income tax of a mere 10%, there would be dancing in the streets. And the days of one simple straightforward tax are long gone.
Today, the average person may expect to pay property tax (even if he is a renter), sales tax, capital gains tax, value added tax, inheritance tax, and so on. The laundry list of taxes is so long and complex that it is no longer possible to compute what the total tax level actually is for anyone.
And to this, we add the hidden tax of inflation. In the US, for example, the Federal Reserve has, over the last hundred years, devalued the dollar by 98%, a hefty tax indeed. And the US is not alone in this.
Only 50 years ago, the average man might work a 40-hour week to support a wife who remained at home raising the children. He often had a mortgage on his home but might have it paid off in ten years. He paid cash for nearly everything else that he and his family owned or consumed.
Today, both husband and wife generally must be employed full time. In spite of this, they can’t afford as many children as their parents could, and they generally remain in debt their entire lives, even after retirement. This is significant inflation by any measure.
In contrast, in the Middle Ages, the cost of goods might remain the same throughout the entire lifetime of an individual.
In light of the above, the 10% that was paid by the serfs is beginning to look very good indeed.
However, the great majority of people in the First World are likely to say, “What can you do; it’s the same all over the world. You might as well get used to it.”
Well, no, actually, it’s not. There are many governmental and economic systems out there and many are quite a bit more “serf friendly” than those in the major countries.
Countries such as the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas have no income tax. Further, some have no property tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, value added tax, inheritance tax, and so on.
So how is this possible?
The OECD countries state that it is largely accomplished through money laundering, but this is not the case. In fact, low-tax jurisdictions are known to have some of the most stringent banking laws in the world.
The success of these jurisdictions is actually quite simple. Most of them are small. They have small populations and therefore need only a small government. Yet each jurisdiction can accommodate large numbers of investors from overseas. This results in a very high level of income per capita.
But unlike large countries, the money that is deposited or invested there is overseas money, so it is not captive. Investors can transfer it out overnight if need be.
So, even if the politicians are no better than those in larger countries (generally, they are of the same ilk), they’re aware that, like the noblemen of old, if they attempt to impose taxation, the business will dry up quickly.
In fact, such a free market dictates that the jurisdictions keep on their toes and keep trying to outdo their competitors by being more investment friendly.
Therefore, the politicians in these countries, who might be only too happy to promise entitlements to their constituents, then tax them to the hilt in order to pay for the entitlements, are kept restrained by their own system.
Are there downsides to living in a low-tax jurisdiction? Yes.
As most of them are small but require a very high standard of living in order to attract investors, they must import virtually all goods needed by residents. This means a higher cost of all goods, as compared to the cost in a country that produces such goods. However, the wage level is also higher, which tends to balance out the equation.
But there are also upsides.
Those who move to such a jurisdiction find that after the first year there (when the basics such as cars, televisions, etc., have been paid for), all further income that has been saved from taxation is beginning to get deposited in the bank.
At some point, the deposit level becomes great enough that investment becomes advisable. And as low-tax jurisdictions tend to be naturally prosperous, there is generally no limit to the opportunities for investment within the jurisdiction.
There is a further benefit to living in a low-tax jurisdiction that tends to become apparent over time. Any government that depends on major investments from overseas parties must, of necessity, be non-intrusive and non-invasive. Such a government stays out of people’s business, eschews electronic monitoring and most certainly is not given to SWAT teams crashing down doors for imagined wrongdoing.
Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
He was correct, but the level of tax can vary greatly from one country to the next. And just as important, the level of government intervention into the affairs of its citizenry varies considerably. In a country where the level of tax is low, the quality of life is generally correspondingly high.
A thousand years ago, noblemen, from time to time, became overly confident in their ability to keep the serfs on the farmland and demanded taxes beyond the customary “one day’s labour in ten”. When they did, the serfs of old often voted with their feet and simply moved. Today, this is still possible.
If the reader presently contributes more than one day’s labour in ten to his government, he may wish to consider voting with his feet.
News of the Times;
https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/border-patrol-intercepts-child-rapists/
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/05/10/nearly-half-of-female-soldiers-still-failing-new-army-fitness-test-while-males-pass-easily.html
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-5-9-new-scientific-scandal-shaking-the-climate-alarm-industry
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/the_father_who_fought_brearley_school_racism_has_a_message_for_everyone.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/uk-plans-to-require-voter-id-to-ensure-election-integrity_3810942.html
https://conservativebrief.com/former-mayoral-candidate-40124/?utm_source=CB&utm_medium=RP78
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/05/12/times-square-shooting-suspect-farrakhan-muhammad-taken-into-custody/
https://nypost.com/2020/11/20/scientists-reverse-human-aging-process-in-breakthrough-study/
https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2021/02/03/raymond-michael-weber-vacaville-homicide/
https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/05/21/eric-clapton-astrazeneca-side-effects.html
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/with_shoplifting_legal_organized_crime_has_a_field_day_in_san_francisco.html
https://thelibertyloft.com/biden-waiving-sanctions-on-russian-company-raises-questions-about-colonial-pipeline-hack/
https://rumble.com/vhd2z3-jim-jordan-lays-out-the-democrat-agenda-they-dont-want-you-to-know-about.html?mref=23gga&mc=8uxj1
https://archive.ph/osCWD
https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2021/05/20/mayor-illegal-guns-off-streets-police-found-one-her-home-n45478
*.*
A man writing at the post office desk was approached by an older fellow with a postcard in his hand. The old man said, "Sir, I'm sorry to bother you but could you address this postcard for me? My arthritis is acting up and I can't even hold a pen."
"Certainly, sir," said the younger man. He wrote out the address and also agreed to write a short message and sign the card for the man. Finally, the younger man asked, "Now, is there anything else I can do for you?"
The old fellow glanced at the card a moment and said, "Yes, at the end could you just add, 'PS: Please excuse the sloppy hand-writing.'?"
*.*
Lines:
So apparently, Bill Gates was allowed to spend a weekend every year with his former girlfriend. Who knew the Gates were open?
New York City says they're going to offer free vaccine shots for tourists. The complimentary muggings will also continue.
New food alert: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal Oatmeal. When you have to get past four words to get to the healthy one, it should be a warning.
Last week was World Bee Day. A honey of an idea.
Naomi Campbell welcomed a new baby daughter into the world this week at age 50. Apparently, the idea of raising a teenager in her late 60s sounded fun.
They're saying that up to 80% of France's vineyards have been damaged by heavy frost. That's some sobering news.
If I'm diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, does that make me a carpool?
Remember, it's physically impossible to make our own sunshine, but we can make moonshine.
Just out of curiosity, what made the Great Smokey Mountains so great?
For the record, the movie "Soylent Green" was set in the year 2022. I'd think twice about that fake meat you were considering.
*.*
A reporter asked a man how he felt when he found out that he won the lottery.
“As soon I saw the numbers line up, I knew it was going to be wife changing.”
*,*
Why haven't aliens visited our solar system yet?
They checked the reviews, but we only had one star.
Quote of the Times;
Adventure is a commitment made by the entire being, and can search our depths to bring out the best, most human qualities which remain in us. When the pack of cards has not been rigged so we win every time, then the game is real, and we find surprise, imagination, enthusiasm to succeed and the possibility of failure.
Link of the Times;
https://www.rooshv.com/30-christian-articles-i-recommend
Issue of the Times;
Escaping Serfdom by Jeff Thomas
The concept of government is that the people grant to a small group of individuals the ability to establish and maintain controls over them. The inherent flaw in such a concept is that any government will invariably and continually expand upon its controls, resulting in the ever-diminishing freedom of those who granted them the power.
When I was a schoolboy, I was taught that the feudal system of the Middle Ages consisted of serfs tilling small plots of land that belonged to a king or lord. The serfs lived a meagre life of bare subsistence and were subject to the tyranny of the king or lord whose men would ride into their village periodically and take most of the few coins the serfs had earned by their toil.
The lesson I was meant to learn from this was that I should be grateful that, in the modern world, I live in a state of freedom from tyranny, and as an adult, I would pay only that level of tax that could be described as “fair”.
Later in life, I was to learn that, in the actual feudal system, some land was owned by noblemen, some by common men. The commoners typically farmed their own land, whilst the noblemen parcelled out their land to farmers, in trade for a portion of the product of their labours.
As a part of that bargain, the nobleman would pay for an army of professional soldiers to protect both the farms and the farmers. Significantly, unlike today, no farmer was required to defend the land himself, as it was not his.
There was no exact standard as to what the noblemen would charge a farmer under this agreement, but the general standard was “one day’s labour in ten”.
This was not an amount imposed or regulated by any government. The nobleman could charge as much as he wished; however, if he raised his rate significantly, he would find that the farmers would leave and move to another nobleman’s farm. The 10% was, in essence, a rate that evolved over time through a free market.
Modern Serfdom
Today, of course, if most countries levied an income tax of a mere 10%, there would be dancing in the streets. And the days of one simple straightforward tax are long gone.
Today, the average person may expect to pay property tax (even if he is a renter), sales tax, capital gains tax, value added tax, inheritance tax, and so on. The laundry list of taxes is so long and complex that it is no longer possible to compute what the total tax level actually is for anyone.
And to this, we add the hidden tax of inflation. In the US, for example, the Federal Reserve has, over the last hundred years, devalued the dollar by 98%, a hefty tax indeed. And the US is not alone in this.
Only 50 years ago, the average man might work a 40-hour week to support a wife who remained at home raising the children. He often had a mortgage on his home but might have it paid off in ten years. He paid cash for nearly everything else that he and his family owned or consumed.
Today, both husband and wife generally must be employed full time. In spite of this, they can’t afford as many children as their parents could, and they generally remain in debt their entire lives, even after retirement. This is significant inflation by any measure.
In contrast, in the Middle Ages, the cost of goods might remain the same throughout the entire lifetime of an individual.
In light of the above, the 10% that was paid by the serfs is beginning to look very good indeed.
However, the great majority of people in the First World are likely to say, “What can you do; it’s the same all over the world. You might as well get used to it.”
Well, no, actually, it’s not. There are many governmental and economic systems out there and many are quite a bit more “serf friendly” than those in the major countries.
Countries such as the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas have no income tax. Further, some have no property tax, sales tax, capital gains tax, value added tax, inheritance tax, and so on.
So how is this possible?
The OECD countries state that it is largely accomplished through money laundering, but this is not the case. In fact, low-tax jurisdictions are known to have some of the most stringent banking laws in the world.
The success of these jurisdictions is actually quite simple. Most of them are small. They have small populations and therefore need only a small government. Yet each jurisdiction can accommodate large numbers of investors from overseas. This results in a very high level of income per capita.
But unlike large countries, the money that is deposited or invested there is overseas money, so it is not captive. Investors can transfer it out overnight if need be.
So, even if the politicians are no better than those in larger countries (generally, they are of the same ilk), they’re aware that, like the noblemen of old, if they attempt to impose taxation, the business will dry up quickly.
In fact, such a free market dictates that the jurisdictions keep on their toes and keep trying to outdo their competitors by being more investment friendly.
Therefore, the politicians in these countries, who might be only too happy to promise entitlements to their constituents, then tax them to the hilt in order to pay for the entitlements, are kept restrained by their own system.
Are there downsides to living in a low-tax jurisdiction? Yes.
As most of them are small but require a very high standard of living in order to attract investors, they must import virtually all goods needed by residents. This means a higher cost of all goods, as compared to the cost in a country that produces such goods. However, the wage level is also higher, which tends to balance out the equation.
But there are also upsides.
Those who move to such a jurisdiction find that after the first year there (when the basics such as cars, televisions, etc., have been paid for), all further income that has been saved from taxation is beginning to get deposited in the bank.
At some point, the deposit level becomes great enough that investment becomes advisable. And as low-tax jurisdictions tend to be naturally prosperous, there is generally no limit to the opportunities for investment within the jurisdiction.
There is a further benefit to living in a low-tax jurisdiction that tends to become apparent over time. Any government that depends on major investments from overseas parties must, of necessity, be non-intrusive and non-invasive. Such a government stays out of people’s business, eschews electronic monitoring and most certainly is not given to SWAT teams crashing down doors for imagined wrongdoing.
Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
He was correct, but the level of tax can vary greatly from one country to the next. And just as important, the level of government intervention into the affairs of its citizenry varies considerably. In a country where the level of tax is low, the quality of life is generally correspondingly high.
A thousand years ago, noblemen, from time to time, became overly confident in their ability to keep the serfs on the farmland and demanded taxes beyond the customary “one day’s labour in ten”. When they did, the serfs of old often voted with their feet and simply moved. Today, this is still possible.
If the reader presently contributes more than one day’s labour in ten to his government, he may wish to consider voting with his feet.
News of the Times;
https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/border-patrol-intercepts-child-rapists/
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/05/10/nearly-half-of-female-soldiers-still-failing-new-army-fitness-test-while-males-pass-easily.html
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-5-9-new-scientific-scandal-shaking-the-climate-alarm-industry
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/the_father_who_fought_brearley_school_racism_has_a_message_for_everyone.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/uk-plans-to-require-voter-id-to-ensure-election-integrity_3810942.html
https://conservativebrief.com/former-mayoral-candidate-40124/?utm_source=CB&utm_medium=RP78
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/05/12/times-square-shooting-suspect-farrakhan-muhammad-taken-into-custody/
https://nypost.com/2020/11/20/scientists-reverse-human-aging-process-in-breakthrough-study/
https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2021/02/03/raymond-michael-weber-vacaville-homicide/
https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/05/21/eric-clapton-astrazeneca-side-effects.html
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/with_shoplifting_legal_organized_crime_has_a_field_day_in_san_francisco.html
https://thelibertyloft.com/biden-waiving-sanctions-on-russian-company-raises-questions-about-colonial-pipeline-hack/
https://rumble.com/vhd2z3-jim-jordan-lays-out-the-democrat-agenda-they-dont-want-you-to-know-about.html?mref=23gga&mc=8uxj1
https://archive.ph/osCWD
https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2021/05/20/mayor-illegal-guns-off-streets-police-found-one-her-home-n45478
Suvorov?
“So, you had a lads’ weekend in Amsterdam did you? Did you go with a prostitute?”, the girlfriend asked.
“Of course I didn’t, you daft cow. There’s hundreds of them there already”.
*.*
I hate it when engineering students call themselves "Engineers".
You don't see med students calling themselves "Doctor".
Or art students calling themselves unemployed.
*.*
Lines:
Diet Day 1: I have removed all the bad food from the house. It was delicious.
Ben and Jerry have rolled out a new flavor that includes unbaked cookie dough and brownie batter, called "Unbaked." I have a feeling that in developing that flavor, some baking was involved.
Rage Against The Machine never specified which machine they were angry with, but I'm going to assume it was a printer.
It isn't that I'm not a people person. It's just that I'm not a stupid people person.
I wish people came with a 30-second trailer so I could see what I'm getting myself into.
I'm the Best Man at my buddy's second wedding. Is it OK to open my dinner speech with, "Welcome back, everybody!"?
Getting older is one body part after the other saying, "Oh, you think that's bad. Watch this!"
A wise old man once told his wife... nothing. Because he was a wise old man.
A couple of kids asked me what it was like when I was growing up. So, I took their phones, shut off their Internet, gave them a popsicle and told them to go outside and play until the street lights came on.
I see people my age mountain climbing. I feel good about getting my leg through my underwear without losing my balance.
My kids laugh because they think I'm crazy. I laugh because I know it's hereditary.
It’s interesting growing up and realizing that most adults are not smart. I had my suspicions as a kid, but never thought the situation was this dire.
You know, everyone is waiting for things to get back to normal. What about those of us who weren't normal to begin with?
*.*
A little girl goes to the pet store
She ask the owner of the store if he has any bunnies.
“Well sure sweetie!” He says and takes her to where the bunnies are, “I have a few different bunnies I have this white one with floppy ears, or this fluffy little brown one, or I even have this cute one with black spots! What kind of bunny did you have in mind?”
So the little girl looks over the bunnies and then back to the pet store owner and replies, “quite frankly mister I don’t think my snake gives a damn.”
*.*
4, 6, 8 & 9 have all been killed.
2, 3, 5, 7 & 11 are all prime suspects.
Quote of the Times;
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – Lewis
Link of the Times;
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/a-psychologist-says-parents-of-exceptionally-resilient-and-successful-kids-always-do-these-7-things-yes-some-are-a-little-intense/ar-BB1gCnfy
Issue of the Times;
Barbarossa: Suvorov's Revisionism Goes Mainstream by Laurent Guyenot
A review of Sean McMeekin, Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II
On Sunday morning June 22, 1941, driven by his hatred of “Judeo-Bolshevism” and his insatiable greed for Lebensraum, Hitler treacherously broke his pact of non-aggression with Stalin and launched the invasion of the Soviet Union. Caught off guard and badly commanded, the Red Army was overwhelmed. But thanks to the heroic resistance of the Russian people, the USSR finally routed the Germans, at the cost of some twenty million dead. It was the beginning of the end for the Nazis.
This is, in broad outline, the story of Operation Barbarossa as told by the victors.
The vanquished, naturally, had a different version. At 4:30 am on the morning of the attack, the Russian ambassador in Berlin received a formal declaration of war, later read to an international news conference, justifying the attack by the “steadily increasing concentration of all available Russian armed forces along a broad front extending from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.” It justified the attack as preemptive:
Now that the Russian general mobilization is complete, no less than 160 divisions are deployed against Germany. The results of reconnaissance carried out in recent days have shown that the deployment of Russian troops, and especially of motorized and armored units, has been carried out in such a way that the Russian High Command is ready at any moment to take aggressive action at various points against the German frontier.
The US government ignored the German justification, and claimed that Germany’s attack was part of Hitler’s evil plan “for the cruel and brutal enslavement of all peoples and for the ultimate destruction of the remaining free democracies.”[1]
In the following months, referring to reports from the front, Hitler claimed that the Soviet forces massed on his Western border were even greater than he had thought, and proved that Stalin’s intention had been to invade not only Germany, but all of Europe. He told a large audience in Berlin on October 3, 1941:
We had no idea how gigantic the preparations of this enemy were against Germany and Europe and how immeasurably great was the danger; how we just barely escaped annihilation, not only of Germany but also of Europe. … Lord have mercy on our Volk and on the entire European world if this barbaric enemy had been able to get his tens of thousands of tanks to move before we could. All of Europe would have been lost.[2]
Hitler repeated it to the Reichstag deputies on December 11, 1941:
Today, we have truly crushing and authentic material to prove that Russia intended to attack. … [H]ad this wave of more than twenty thousand [Soviet] tanks, hundreds of divisions, tens of thousands of guns, accompanied by more than ten thousand planes, unexpectedly started to move across the Reich, then Europe would have been lost.[3]
This remained the line of defense of the military commanders accused of “crime against peace” before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1945-46. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Armed Forces High Command, argued that “The attack on the Soviet Union was carried out to preempt a Russian attack on Germany,” and was therefore a legal act of war.[4] His second, General Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Operations Staff, similarly testified: “It was undeniably a purely preventive war. What we found out later on was the certainty of enormous Russian military preparations opposite our frontier. … Russia was fully prepared for war.”[5] Both Keitel and Jodl were denied access to the documents that would prove their point. They were found guilty and hanged.
Was the Soviet threat to Germany and Europe real, or was it just Nazi propaganda? To this day, history textbooks say nothing about it. But it has entered the scholarly debate, thanks to the books of Vladimir Rezun, a former Soviet military intelligence officer who defected to the West in 1978, and wrote two groundbreaking books under the pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov: first in 1988, Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?, and in 2010, after new Russian archives had become accessible, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II. I first learned about Suvorov from Ron Unz’s 2018 article “When Stalin almost conquered Europe,” and I have since read what I could on the subject, starting with articles on Mark Weber’s indispensable site http://www.ihr.org/.
Suvorov’s thesis can be summed up as follows: on June 22, 1941, Stalin was about to launch a massive offensive on Germany and her allies, within days or weeks. Preparations had started in 1939, just after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and had accelerated at the end of 1940, with the first divisions deployed to the new expanded Soviet borders, opposite the German Reich and Romania, in February 1941. On May 5, Stalin announced to an audience of two thousand military academy graduates flanked by generals and party luminaries that the time had come to “switch from the defensive to the offensive.” Days later, he had a special directive sent to all command posts to “be prepared on a signal from General Headquarters to launch lightning strikes to rout the enemy, move military operations to his territory and seize key objectives.”[6] New armies were being raised in all the districts, with mobilization now reaching 5.7 million, a gigantic army impossible to sustain for long in peacetime. Close to one million parachutists—troops useful only for invasion—had been trained. Hundreds of aerodromes were built near the Western border. From June 13, an incessant movement of night trains transported thousands of tanks, millions of soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of tons of ammunition and fuel to the border.
According to Suvorov, if Hitler had not attacked first, the gigantic military power that Stalin had accumulated on the border would have enabled him to reach Berlin without major difficulty and then, in the context of the war, to take control of the continent. Only Hitler’s decision to preempt Stalin’s offensive deprived him of these resources by piercing and disrupting his lines and destroying or seizing about 65% of all his weaponry, some of it still in trains.
Suvorov displays an impeccable knowledge of the Red Army, and an acute expertise in military strategy. Regarding Stalin’s intentions, generally very secret, he produces numerous quotes from the 13 volumes of his writings. He sifted through mountains of archives and the memoirs of hundreds of Russian servicemen. It is not exaggerated to say that the “Suvorov thesis” has revolutionized World War II history, opening a totally new perspective to which many historians, both Russian and German, have now added details: among Germans can be mentioned Joachim Hoffmann, Adolf von Thadden, Heinz Magenheimer, Werner Maser, Ernst Topitsch, Walter Post, and Wolfgang Strauss, who has reviewed Russian historians on the topic.
Suvorov’s thesis has also generated much hostility. His opponents fall into two categories. Some authors reject completely his analysis and simply deny that Stalin was planning an offensive. When considering the symmetrical concentrations of the German and Russian armies on their common border in June 1941, they interpret them differently: German concentration proves German bellicose intentions, but the same movement among the Russians is interpreted as proof of the incompetence of Soviet generals for defense.
This trend is illustrated by David Glantz’s Stumbling Colossus, about which Ron Unz wrote: “Although purporting to refute Suvorov, the author seemed to ignore almost all of his central arguments, and merely provided a rather dull and pedantic recapitulation of the standard narrative I had previously seen hundreds of times, laced with a few rhetorical excesses denouncing the unique vileness of the Nazi regime.”
Another detractor of Suvorov is Jonathan Haslam, who attacks Suvorov for his “highly dubious use of evidence.” Haslam admits that, on May 5, 1941, Stalin had announced an imminent offensive, but interprets it as Stalin’s prevision of Hitler’s attack. He then adds: “The fact that every piece of evidence at our disposal also indicated that he showed considerable surprise when the Germans invaded on June 22 always created something of a puzzle for historians. How could Stalin both expect war and be taken by surprise at the same time?” To answer this question, Haslam gets lost in fuzzy conjectures, while Suvorov’s answer is the only logical one: Stalin knew war with Germany was imminent, but he didn’t expect Germany to strike first.
Not surprisingly, one of the harshest attacks against Suvorov came from a longtime apologist of Stalin, Tel Aviv University professor Gabriel Gorodetsky (Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia). Gorodetsky calls Suvorov’s books “flimsy and fraudulent” because they “engender myths and consistently and deliberately obstruct the search for truth by simplifying a complex situation.” Yet, as one reviewer notes, Gorodetsky “negligently ignores Suvorov’s work after page eight” and his book is replete with contradictions and unsubstantiated claims.
The second variety of authors criticizing Suvorov are those who agree with him in general, and differ only in details. One French example is a recent 1000-page book by French specialist Jean Lopez, Barbarossa 1941. La Guerre absolue (2019). Lopez does admit that Stalin was preparing to invade Europe, but treats Suvorov as a fraud and, in an earlier essay, discounted as a “myth” the notion that “Hitler anticipated an attack by Stalin,” with this argument: “According to several accounts, Stalin believes that the Red Army will not be ready until 1942. No Soviet attack, therefore, could have been undertaken before that date.”[7] This is provably false: it is true that Stalin had originally planned his massive offensive for the summer 1942, as Suvorov himself stated. But there is also plenty of evidence that, in 1940, worried by Germany’s quick victory over France, Stalin had accelerated his war preparations. According to General Andrei Vlassov, captured by the Germans in 1942, “the [Soviet] attack was planned for August-September 1941.”[8] It is hard to make sense of Lopez’s contradictions.
Even more paradoxical in its treatment of Suvorov is a book released a few weeks ago: Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II, by Sean McMeekin of Bard College in New York. I found out about it while searching (unsuccessfully) for an affordable copy of Ernst Topitsch’s book by the same title, Stalin’s War: A Radical New Theory of the Origins of the Second World War (1987). I expected McMeekin’s new book to quote from Suvorov extensively and favorably. I was surprised to find Suvorov mentioned only once. After noting that Suvorov “turned up thousands of intriguing documents” in support of his thesis and that “scores of Russian historians have investigated the ‘Suvorov thesis’,” producing in the process “two thick volumes” of more documents, McMeekin concludes: “But considerable mystery remains surrounding Stalin’s intentions on the eve of war,” and adds that no clear written document can be produced that unambiguously “proves that Stalin had already resolved on war, whether preemptive, defensive, or otherwise.”[9]
I struggled of make sense of this dismissive comment, since McMeekin actually agrees with almost every major points made by Suvorov. Just like Suvorov, and with the same sources, McMeekin shows that, despite his tactical pretense at “socialism in one country,” Stalin was unconditionally devoted to Lenin’s goal of the sovietization of Europe. His analysis of the way Stalin baited Hitler into a war on the Western front with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is totally in line with Suvorov. McMeekin attributes the same significance as Suvorov to Stalin’s announcement, on May 5, 1941, that “we must shift from defense to offence” (to which he devotes his “prologue”). His interpretation of Stalin’s simultaneous self-appointment as president of the Council of People’s Commissars exactly echoes Suvorov’s: “From this moment forward, all responsibility for Soviet foreign policy, for peace or war, for victory or defeat, lay in Stalin’s hands alone. The time for subterfuge was over. War was imminent.”[10] McMeekin repeats most of Suvorov’s evidence that Stalin’s war preparations were offensive and potentially overwhelming. He insists, like Suvorov, on the undefended air bases built near the border:
The most dramatic material evidence of more offensive Soviet intent was the construction of forward air bases abutting the new frontier separating Stalin’s empire from Hitler’s. The “Main Soviet Administration of Aerodrome Construction,” run by the NKVD, ordered the construction of 251 new Red Air Force bases in 1941, of which fully 80 percent (199) were located in western districts abutting the German Reich.[11]
In view of the evidence, McMeekin believes that “the ideal launch date for the Soviet offensive … fell in late July or August.”[12]
McMeekin even reinforces Suvorov’s argument that Hitler’s mobilization on the Eastern Front was a reaction to Stalin’s war preparations, rather than the opposite, by showing that, as early as June 1940, the Germans were receiving Intelligence reports that
the Red Army, capitalizing on the Wehrmacht’s concentration in the West, was preparing to march from Lithuania into virtually undefended East Prussia and German-occupied Poland. … On June 19, a German spy reported from Estonia that the Soviets had informed the departing British ambassador in Tallinn that Stalin planned to deploy three million troops in the Baltic region “to threaten Germany’s eastern borders.”[13]
McMeekin uses the same archives as Suvorov, but never gives him credit for first bringing them into the light. The only exception is in a single endnote, where he mentions that one of Stalin’s reasons for believing that Hitler would not attack in June was that he had “learned, via spies inside Germany, that OKW had not ordered the sheepskin coats experts believed to be necessary for winter campaigning in Russia, and that the fuel and lubricating oil used by the Wehrmacht’s armored divisions would freeze in subzero temperatures.” The note says: “Not all of Suvorov’s claims stand up, but this one gels well with Stalin’s sanguine attitude toward reports of the German arms buildup.”[14] In another footnote, McMeekin disputes Suvorov’s claim that Stalin ordered in spring 1941 the dismantlement of the “Stalin Line” of defense that would hamper the advances of his troops: it was not dismantled but simply “neglected”, says McMeekin, before adding: “Here, as elsewhere, Suvorov hurts his case by over-egging the pudding.”[15] Such criticism would be fair, if McMeekin had also acknowledged the overwhelming mass of facts that Suvorov got right.
Apparently McMeekin thought it tactically wise, not only to snub Suvorov even when he proves him right, but also to endorse his most virulent opponent David Glantz (who, he says, was “right to emphasize how poorly prepared for war the Red Army was in reality”)[16] even when he proves him wrong, with abundant evidence that in June 1941, the issue of the war “would be determined by who would strike first, gaining control of enemy airspace and knocking out airfields and tank parks.”[17]
It is not difficult to guess the motive for McMeekin’s ostentatious contempt of Suvorov. Suvorov has crossed the line by suggesting that Barbarossa saved Europe from complete sovietization. Although he expresses no sympathy for Hitler, Suvorov agrees with him that, if he had not attacked first, “Europe was lost.” Suvorov has committed an unforgivable sin. It is an untouchable cornerstone of both Western and Russian historiography that Hitler is the embodiment of absolute Evil, and that no good whatsoever could ever have come from him. And so academic historians of the Eastern Front are expected to display their good manners by shunning Suvorov, and by not asking: What if Hitler had not attacked first? They must not suggest that Hitler ever told the truth, or that his military commanders were wrongfully hanged.
Well, if the price for bringing Suvorov’s revisionism into mainstream scholarship is to deny one’s debt to Suvorov, so be it. World War II historians must be smart: one careless phrase or reference can cost you a career and a reputation, as happened to David Irving (not in McMeekin’s bibliography, incidentally). Some obvious conclusions are better left for others to draw. There is no question that McMeekin’s book is a great achievement and it must be hoped that it will become a new landmark in the historiography of World War II. It is already receiving mostly praise in the press, and giving “revisionism” a good name. Over with the “good war”!
McMeekin’s main thesis is that World War II was primarily willed and orchestrated by Stalin, whereas Hitler was only tricked into it. This is precisely what Suvorov meant when calling Hitler “Stalin’s icebreaker”. (This is also, more or less, what A.J.P. Taylor argued in The Origins of the Second World War in 1961).
There are, indeed, slight nuances between McMeekin’s and Suvorov’s perspectives. Rather than insisting on the fact that Barbarossa ruined Stalin’s plan for the conquest of Germany and Europe, McMeekin points out that Barbarossa was for Stalin “a kind of public-relations miracle” that turned him from a “mass murderer and swallower of small nations … into a victim in the view of much of the Western public.” Stalin himself, in his July 3, 1941 radio address, said that the German aggression had brought “tremendous political gain to the USSR,” creating a support in London and Washington that was “a serious and lasting factor that is bound to form the basis for the development of decisive military successes of the Red Army.”[18] That is a good point, but a minor one. From what we know of Churchill and Roosevelt’s secret intrigues before Barbarossa, it is doubtful that Stalin would have been deprived of their support if he had attacked first. Churchill had been urging him to attack Germany since 1940, and Roosevelt had started planning to help him right after his second reelection in November 1940, when he told Americans that their country must become “the great arsenal of democracy,”[19] and appointed pro-Soviet Harry Hopkins to start making arrangements.
In fact, McMeekin shows that “Roosevelt did everything he could to improve relations with Stalin” from the early years of his long presidency, starting with official recognition of the USSR in 1933. He purged the State Department of anti-Communists and staffed it with sympathizers or outright NKVD agents, such as Alger Hiss. As early as November 1936, he appointed a Soviet sympathizer, Joseph Davies, as his ambassador in Moscow, to replace William Bullitt who had become too openly critical of Stalin. “Where Ambassador Bullitt had seen deception and guile in Stalin’s foreign policy, his successor saw unicorns,” lavishing him with compliments: “You are a greater leader than Catherine the Great, than Peter the Great, a greater leader even than Lenin, etc.”[20]
And so, even though Barbarossa made it easier for Roosevelt to turn American public opinion favorably toward Stalin, it doesn’t mean that Roosevelt would have prevented Stalin from gobbling up Europe had he attacked first.
Just like Suvorov, McMeekin gives undisputable evidence that Stalin was planning to invade Europe in 1941, and had planned it for a very long time. Like Suvorov, he points out that the Comintern, founded in Moscow in 1919, aimed at the sovietization of the whole world, as symbolized by its emblem, later incorporated into the banner of the USSR.
Lenin’s primary goal was Berlin. For this, he wanted to blow up Poland, a country reconstituted after the First World War between Russia and Germany. During the summer of 1920, the Soviet cavalry attempted to invade Poland with cries of “to Berlin!” But the Poles pushed back the Russians and inflicted them losses of territory (Peace of Riga). Lenin then proclaimed a new strategy at a Moscow party congress on November 26, 1920: “Until the final victory of socialism in the whole world, we must exploit the contradictions and opposition between two imperialist power groups, between two capitalist groups of states, and incite them to attack each other.”[21]
The failure of the communist uprising in Germany in October 1923, confirmed that fomenting revolutionary unrest was not enough to overthrow Social Democracy in Germany. What was to be done was to help create the conditions for a new world war and, during this incubation period, put a damper on internationalist discourse in order to maintain trade relationships with the capitalist countries (who will ultimately “sell Communists the rope they would use to hang them”).[22]
McMeekin agrees with Suvorov that Stalin was the true heir of Lenin, whose public cult he orchestrated: “Stalin’s dialectical view of Soviet foreign policy—in which metastasizing conflict between warring capitalist factions would enable Communism to advance to new triumphs—was firmly rooted in Marxism-Leninism, based on the precedent of Russia’s own experience in the First World War, and clearly and consistently stated on many occasions, both verbally and in print”[23], most notably in his first major work after Lenin’s death, Foundations of Leninism (1924), in which he recalled that the Bolshevik revolution had triumphed in Russia because the two chief coalitions of capitalist countries had “been clutching at each other’s throats.”[24] When a new capitalist war breaks out, Stalin told the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1925, “we will have to take action, but we shall be the last to do so. And we shall do so in order to throw the decisive weight on the scales, the weight that can turn the scales.”[25]
While preparing for World War II, Stalin’s domestic policy consisted, on the one hand, in consolidating his control over the population, and on the other hand, in building a huge military-industrial complex. “Stalin’s industrialization drive,” McMeekin writes, “was conceived, sold, and executed like a military operation targeting the capitalist world. … Whenever onerous production targets went unmet, capitalist saboteurs were blamed, as if they had been spies in an army camp.”[26]
Since the first Five-Year Plan was inaugurated in 1928, the Soviet economy had been on a war footing. The production targets of the third Five-Year Plan, launched in 1938, were breathtaking, envisioning the production of 50,000 warplanes annually by the end of 1942, along with 125,000 air engines and 700,000 tons of aerial bombs; 60,775 tanks, 119,060 artillery systems, 450,000 machine guns, and 5.2 million rifles; 489 million artillery shells, 120,000 tons of naval armor, and 1 million tons of explosives; and, for good measure, 298,000 tons of chemical weapons.[27]
Along with the establishment of a war economy, the first two five-year plans included the collectivization of agriculture. But here too, the goal was closely linked to the war, as Jean Lopez shows. In 1927, reports indicated that the peasant world, under the leadership of the kulaks, would sabotage the war effort. “The worst nightmare of the Bolshevik leaders lies in the emergence of a popular rejection of war similar to that which brought down the Romanov dynasty.”[28] This is what motivated the “Great Turn” of 1928, whose victims, either by execution, deportation, or famine, are estimated at between 10 and 16 million. During this time, Stalin sold an average of 5 million tons of grain abroad each year to finance his armaments.
In 1939, all Stalin needed was to maneuver capitalist countries into fighting each other in a new deadly war. That was the main purpose, from Stalin’s viewpoint, of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on August 23, 1939, with a secret protocol for the partition of Poland and the distribution of “spheres of influence”.
Just two months earlier, Stalin was still negotiating, via his Foreign Minister Molotov and his ambassador to London Maiski, the possibility of a military alliance with England and France in order to contain Germany and protect Poland’s integrity. On June 2, 1939, Molotov handed the British and French ambassadors a draft agreement, under which the Soviets might provide mutual assistance to smaller European states under “threat of aggression by a European power.”[29] On August 12, an Anglo-French delegation arrived in Moscow for further discussion. But Stalin then changed his mind, and Molotov did not receive the delegates.[30] In a speech to the Politburo on August 19, 1939, Stalin explained why he had finally opted for a pact with Germany:
The question of war or peace has entered a critical phase for us. If we conclude a mutual assistance pact with France and Great Britain, Germany will back off from Poland and seek a modus vivendi with the Western powers. War would be avoided, but down the road events could become dangerous for the USSR. If we accept Germany’s proposal and conclude a non-aggression pact with her, she will of course invade Poland, and the intervention of France and England in that would be unavoidable. Western Europe would be subjected to serious upheavals and disorder. In this case we will have a great opportunity to stay out of the conflict, and we could plan the opportune time for us to enter the war. …
Our choice is clear. We must accept the German proposal and, with a refusal, politely send the Anglo-French mission home. Our immediate advantage will be to take Poland to the gates of Warsaw, as well as Ukrainian Galicia …
For the realization of these plans it is essential that the war continue for as long as possible, and all forces, with which we are actively involved, should be directed toward this goal …
Therefore, our goal is that Germany should carry out the war as long as possible so that England and France grow weary and become exhausted to such a degree that they are no longer in a position to put down a Sovietized Germany.
Comrades! It is in the interest of the USSR—the workers’ homeland—that war breaks out between the Reich and the capitalist Anglo-French block. Everything should be done so that this drags out as long as possible with the goal of weakening both sides. For this reason, it is imperative that we agree to conclude the pact proposed by Germany, and then work in such a way that this war, once it is declared, will be prolonged maximally. We must strengthen our propaganda work in the belligerent countries, in order to be prepared when the war ends.
This speech was leaked to the French news agency Havas the same year. Stalin immediately denounced it as a fake in Pravda, which was exceptional on his part. Its authenticity has long been debated, but in 1994 Russian historians found an authoritative text of it in the Soviet archives, and the authenticity is now generally accepted. In any case, there are other sources confirming Stalin’s ploy so that there is no doubt, for McMeekin, that with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, “Far from wishing to forestall a European war between Germany and the Western powers, Stalin’s aim was to ensure that it would break out.”[31] For Stalin,
the benefits of the Moscow Pact for Communism were obvious. The capitalist world would soon be embroiled in a terrible war, and the USSR would be able to spread its territory substantially westward against seemingly helpless foes. All Stalin needed to do was ensure that neither Germany nor its opponents secured a decisive advantage. Once the two sides had exhausted themselves in a death struggle, the path would be clear for the armies of Communism to march in and seize the capitalist world by the throat.[32]
But how could Stalin be so sure that France and England would not declare war to Russia too? One part of the answer is that he had not broken off negotiations with Great Britain after signing a pact with Hitler. It is even thought that on 15 October 1939, less that two months after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, a British-Soviet secret agreement was signed behind Hitler’s back.[33]
With the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Hitler thought he had countered the British encirclement policy against Germany. And he believed that the pact would protect him from a declaration of war by Britain and France if both Germany and Russia intervened in Poland. He had grossly underestimated Stalin.
When Hitler invaded Poland from the west on September 1, the Red Army did not budge. On September 3, England and France therefore declared war on Germany alone. This was a bad surprise for Hitler. He urged the Russians to launch their attack, but the Russians turned a deaf ear. “On September 3,” McMeekin writes,
Ribbentrop wired Ambassador Schulenburg in Moscow, requesting that he ask Molotov whether the USSR would participate in the Polish war as promised and provide “relief” to the hard-pressed Wehrmacht. Did not Stalin, Ribbentrop asked, “consider it desirable for Russian forces to move at the proper time against Polish forces in the Russian sphere of interest and, for their part, to occupy this territory?”[34]
Molotov replied on September 5: “the time has not yet come. … it seems to us that through excessive haste we might injure our cause and promote unity among our opponents.” On September 8, a new Wehrmacht communiqué urged the Soviets to move forward as Warsaw was taken. The Soviets responded that the fall of Warsaw was not confirmed and that “Russia being linked to Poland by a non-aggression pact, she cannot march forward.” On September 10, Molotov declared point-blank to Schulenburg that, “for appearances’ sake we should not cross Poland’s border until the capital had fallen,” and that the pretext for Soviet entry into Poland would be to protect “endangered Ukrainians and Belorussians.”[35] Stalin even tried to persuade the Polish government, which had taken refuge in Kuty, to appeal to him for protection. Finally, on September 17, the Polish ambassador in Moscow was summoned at 3 a.m. and handed the following message:
The Polish-German war has shown the internal bankruptcy of the Polish State. During the course of ten days’ hostilities Poland has lost all her industrial areas and cultural centres. Warsaw, as the capital of Poland, no longer exists. The Polish Government has disintegrated and no longer shows any sign of life. This means that the Polish State and its Government have, in point of fact, ceased to exist. In the same way, the Agreements concluded between the U.S.S.R. and Poland have ceased to operate. Left to her own devices and bereft of leadership, Poland has become a suitable field for all manner of hazards and surprises, which may constitute a threat to the U.S.S.R. For these reasons the Soviet Government, who have hitherto been neutral, cannot any longer preserve a neutral attitude towards these facts. The Soviet Government also cannot view with indifference the fact that the kindred Ukrainian and White Russian people, who live on Polish territory and who are at the mercy of fate, should be left defenceless. In these circumstances, the Soviet Government have directed the High Command of the Red Army to order the troops to cross the frontier and take under their protection the life and property of the population of the Western Ukraine and Western White Russia. At the same time the Soviet Government propose to take all measures to extricate the Polish people from the unfortunate war into which it was dragged by its unwise leaders.
Although not mentioning Germany explicitly as an aggressor, the message was clear: the USSR is not the aggressor, but the defender of Poland. The Soviets had waited two and a half weeks before moving into Poland, leaving all the fighting to the Germans and giving the world the impression that they were intervening to prevent Germany from seizing the entire country. The USSR thus remained officially neutral, and incurred no blame on the part of France and England.
Although the partition of Poland had been Stalin’s idea, only Hitler was blamed for it. His Faustian pact with his worst enemy had not protected him from a war with France and England, and would not protect him either from a Soviet invasion. Clearly he had been duped. By enticing Hitler to invade Poland, Stalin had triggered the Second World War while staying on the sideline. All he had to do was wait for the countries of Europe to exhaust each other in a new war. On September 1, the very day of the invasion of Poland by Germany, the Supreme Soviet passed a general conscription law, which, under the guise of establishing military service for two years, was equivalent to a general mobilization. For Suvorov, this is proof that Stalin knew that the partition of Poland would trigger world war, rather than avoid it as Hitler hoped.
Meanwhile, Stalin would take every advantage he could of Germany’s predicament in the West, gobbling up three Baltic states bordering Germany and stuffing them with military bases. As McMeekin notes:
With his opportunistic moves against the Baltic states, Bessarabia, and northern Bukovina in the wake of the German humiliation of France, Stalin was wringing every last drop of nectar out of his honeyed partnership with Hitler while still, somehow, escaping the hostility of Hitler’s opponents. Britain, in what Churchill called the country’s “finest hour,” now stood alone against Nazi Germany. For some reason, though, Britain had not declared war on Berlin’s alliance partner, despite Stalin having invaded the same number of sovereign countries since August 1939 as Hitler had (seven). But there were limits to Hitler’s patience, and Stalin had just about reached them.[36]
Like Suvorov before him, McMeekin underscores the hypocrisy of the British. “The number of victims murdered by Soviet authorities in occupied Poland by June 1941—about five hundred thousand—was likewise three or four times higher than the number of those killed by the Nazis.” Yet Stalin received not even a slap on the wrist from the Western powers.[37] Foreign Minister Halifax explained to the British war cabinet on September 17, 1939 that “Great Britain was not bound by treaty to become involved in war with the U.S.S.R. as a result of their invasion of Poland,” because the Anglo-Polish Agreement “provided for action to be taken by His Majesty’s Government only if Poland suffered aggression from a European power,” and Russia was not a European power.[38]
In a meeting of the war cabinet on November 16, 1939, Churchill even endorsed Stalinist aggression: “No doubt it appeared reasonable to the Soviet Union to take advantage of the present situation to regain some of the territory which Russia had lost as a result of the last war, at the beginning of which she had been the ally of France and Great Britain.” McMeekin comments: “That Hitler had used the same justification for Germany’s territorial claims on Poland either did not occur to Churchill or did not bother him.”[39]
Stalin hoped that Germany would fight against France and England for two or three years before he would intervene. He therefore continued to supply Germany with raw materials, and was careful not to cut her supply of metals from Sweden, and oil from Romania, when he had the means to do so. When the Germans launched their offensive against France on May 10, 1940, Stalin rejoiced. “Finally, Communists could enjoy watching ‘two groups of capitalist countries … having a good hard fight and weakening each other,’ as Stalin had boasted to Comintern’s general secretary Dimitrov in September 1939.” But the war turned out less bloody than he had expected.
The rapidity of the German victories was alarming, however. Stalin and Molotov would have preferred a slow, grinding, bloody battle of attrition—a German victory, yes, but one that weakened Hitler almost as much as his enemies. According to Khrushchev’s later recollection, after learning the extent of the Allied debacle later in May, Stalin “cursed the French and he cursed the British, asking how they could have let Hitler smash them like that.”[40]
Germany’s military success forced Stalin to rush his preparation for putting the Red Army on the starting blocks in summer 1941. In spring, armament, troops and transport were ready, and preparations entered the final phase. On May 5, 1941, Stalin declared to military officers that the “Soviet peace policy” (meaning the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) had allowed the USSR to “push forward in the west and north, increasing its population by thirteen millions in the process,” but that the days of such conquest “had come to an end. Not another foot of ground can be gained with such peaceful sentiments.” Anyone “who failed to recognize the necessity of offensive action was a bourgeois and a fool”; “today, now that our army has been thoroughly reconstructed, fully outfitted for fighting a modern war, now that we are strong—now we must shift from defense to offense.” For this, we must “transform our training, our propaganda, our agitation, the imprinting of an offensive mentality on our spirit.”[41] Pravda began to prepare the people:
Raging just beyond the borders of our Motherland is the conflagration of a Second Imperialist War. The full weight of its woes is pressing down on the shoulders of the toiling masses. People everywhere want no part of war. Their gaze is fixed on the land of socialism, reaping the fruits of peaceful labor. They rightly see the armed forces of our Motherland—the Red Army and our Navy—as the tried and true bulwark for peace. … Given the current complex international situation you have to be prepared for all kinds of surprises. (Pravda , May 6, 1941 editorial)[42]
By that time, Hitler had realized he was trapped. It may have remembered what he had written in 1925: “the formation of a new alliance with Russia would lead in the direction of a new war and the result would be the end of Germany” (Mein Kampf, vol. 2, chapter 14). With Operation Barbarossa, he was trying to regain the advantage. But, according to Suvorov, it was impossible for Germany alone to defeat Russia, for reasons related to the vastness of its territory, the harshness of the winter, and Germany’s limited resources compared to Russia’s.
Hitler made one irremediable mistake, but not on July 21, 1940, when he ordered preparations for war against the Soviet Union. The mistake came on August 19, 1939, when he agreed to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Having agreed to the division of Poland, Hitler had to confront an unavoidable war against the West, having behind him the “neutral” Stalin. Precisely from this moment, Hitler had two fronts. The decision to begin Operation Barbarossa in the east without waiting for victory in the west was not a fatal error, but only an attempt to right the fatal error he had already made. But by then it was too late.[43]
Arguably, Hitler might have prevailed and conquered the Lebensraum of his dream, had Stalin not been saved by Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Aid: more than ten billions—equivalent to trillions today— worth of airplanes and tanks, locomotives and rails, construction materials, entire military production assembly lines, food and clothing, aviation fuel, and much else. Through four dense chapters, McMeekin makes it abundantly clear (as Albert Weeks before him in Russia’s Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II, 2010), that without U.S. help, the Soviet Union could not have pushed back the Germans, let alone conquer Eastern Europe in 1945. Another factor, on which McMeekin duly insists, was Stalin’s almost unlimited supply of cannon fodder: a total of 32 million soldiers throughout the war, led to the slaughter with machine-guns in their back and the threat that, if they were captured rather than killed, their families would be punished: “The USSR under Stalin is the only state in recorded history to have declared the captivity of its soldiers a capital crime.”[44]
In the end, while Stalin actually entered the war on the side of Germany, he would come out on the side of the Allies. While the pact deciding the partition of Poland by Germany and Russia was signed in Moscow—in the presence of Stalin and not of Hitler—history will only retain the aggression of Germany, and will consider the USSR as one of the attacked countries. While England and France officially went to war to defend the territorial integrity of Poland, at the end of the war all of Poland will be under Stalin.
Yet, as Suvorov said, and as McMeekin leaves unsaid, it was probably thanks to Operation Barbarossa that Soviet troops failed to raise the red flag over Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Rome, Stockholm and possibly London.
Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, destroyed its army, and crushed a large part of Soviet industry. In the end, the Soviet Union was unable to conquer Europe. Stalin lost the war for Europe and global domination. The free world survived, and it could not coexist with the Soviet Union. Therefore, the crumbling of the Soviet Union became inevitable. … The Soviet Union won World War II, but for some reason disappeared from the globe after this distinguishing victory. … Germany lost the war, but we see her, one of the mightiest powers of contemporary Europe, at whose feet we now beg.[45]
News of the Times;
https://www.wnd.com/2021/05/bidens-new-definition-sex-total-nightmare/
https://en-volve.com/2021/05/08/57-top-scientists-and-doctors-release-shocking-study-on-covid-vaccines-and-demand-immediate-stop-to-all-vaccinations/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/dr-cole-covid-jabs-seen-deaths-shot-vaccines-last-20-years-combined-audio/
https://worthypolitics.com/this-is-bidens-america-breaking-news-during-a-family-birthday-party-illegal-alien-gets-in-and-kills-six-people/
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/bidens-middle-east-failure/
https://www.theepochtimes.com/former-professor-sentenced-to-37-months-in-prison-for-using-federal-grants-to-aid-chinas-medical-research_3816589.html
https://reason.com/2021/05/13/the-police-dog-who-cried-drugs-at-every-traffic-stop/
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/another-horrific-chicago-weekend-48-shot-including-2-police-officers-sunday-early-evening
https://nationalfile.com/nfl-argues-black-players-have-lower-cognitive-skills-than-whites-deserve-less-compensation-for-brain-injuries/
https://fee.org/articles/federal-court-rules-against-florida-man-fined-30k-over-tall-grass/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/03/02/seresto-dog-cat-collars-found-harm-pets-humans-epa-records-show/4574753001/
https://vdare.com/posts/mexican-cartels-ratchet-up-their-human-trafficking-operations
https://barenakedislam.com/2021/05/10/ireland-watch-muslim-migrant-thugs-attacking-and-spitting-at-young-local-girls-on-train-platform/
https://tbdailynews.com/umass-kicks-3-girls-off-campus-refuses-to-refund-tuition-for-not-wearing-masks-at-party-while-college-president-marty-meehan-poses-without-mask-on-with-student/
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/05/scenes-from-the-college-meltdown.php
“Of course I didn’t, you daft cow. There’s hundreds of them there already”.
*.*
I hate it when engineering students call themselves "Engineers".
You don't see med students calling themselves "Doctor".
Or art students calling themselves unemployed.
*.*
Lines:
Diet Day 1: I have removed all the bad food from the house. It was delicious.
Ben and Jerry have rolled out a new flavor that includes unbaked cookie dough and brownie batter, called "Unbaked." I have a feeling that in developing that flavor, some baking was involved.
Rage Against The Machine never specified which machine they were angry with, but I'm going to assume it was a printer.
It isn't that I'm not a people person. It's just that I'm not a stupid people person.
I wish people came with a 30-second trailer so I could see what I'm getting myself into.
I'm the Best Man at my buddy's second wedding. Is it OK to open my dinner speech with, "Welcome back, everybody!"?
Getting older is one body part after the other saying, "Oh, you think that's bad. Watch this!"
A wise old man once told his wife... nothing. Because he was a wise old man.
A couple of kids asked me what it was like when I was growing up. So, I took their phones, shut off their Internet, gave them a popsicle and told them to go outside and play until the street lights came on.
I see people my age mountain climbing. I feel good about getting my leg through my underwear without losing my balance.
My kids laugh because they think I'm crazy. I laugh because I know it's hereditary.
It’s interesting growing up and realizing that most adults are not smart. I had my suspicions as a kid, but never thought the situation was this dire.
You know, everyone is waiting for things to get back to normal. What about those of us who weren't normal to begin with?
*.*
A little girl goes to the pet store
She ask the owner of the store if he has any bunnies.
“Well sure sweetie!” He says and takes her to where the bunnies are, “I have a few different bunnies I have this white one with floppy ears, or this fluffy little brown one, or I even have this cute one with black spots! What kind of bunny did you have in mind?”
So the little girl looks over the bunnies and then back to the pet store owner and replies, “quite frankly mister I don’t think my snake gives a damn.”
*.*
4, 6, 8 & 9 have all been killed.
2, 3, 5, 7 & 11 are all prime suspects.
Quote of the Times;
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – Lewis
Link of the Times;
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/a-psychologist-says-parents-of-exceptionally-resilient-and-successful-kids-always-do-these-7-things-yes-some-are-a-little-intense/ar-BB1gCnfy
Issue of the Times;
Barbarossa: Suvorov's Revisionism Goes Mainstream by Laurent Guyenot
A review of Sean McMeekin, Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II
On Sunday morning June 22, 1941, driven by his hatred of “Judeo-Bolshevism” and his insatiable greed for Lebensraum, Hitler treacherously broke his pact of non-aggression with Stalin and launched the invasion of the Soviet Union. Caught off guard and badly commanded, the Red Army was overwhelmed. But thanks to the heroic resistance of the Russian people, the USSR finally routed the Germans, at the cost of some twenty million dead. It was the beginning of the end for the Nazis.
This is, in broad outline, the story of Operation Barbarossa as told by the victors.
The vanquished, naturally, had a different version. At 4:30 am on the morning of the attack, the Russian ambassador in Berlin received a formal declaration of war, later read to an international news conference, justifying the attack by the “steadily increasing concentration of all available Russian armed forces along a broad front extending from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.” It justified the attack as preemptive:
Now that the Russian general mobilization is complete, no less than 160 divisions are deployed against Germany. The results of reconnaissance carried out in recent days have shown that the deployment of Russian troops, and especially of motorized and armored units, has been carried out in such a way that the Russian High Command is ready at any moment to take aggressive action at various points against the German frontier.
The US government ignored the German justification, and claimed that Germany’s attack was part of Hitler’s evil plan “for the cruel and brutal enslavement of all peoples and for the ultimate destruction of the remaining free democracies.”[1]
In the following months, referring to reports from the front, Hitler claimed that the Soviet forces massed on his Western border were even greater than he had thought, and proved that Stalin’s intention had been to invade not only Germany, but all of Europe. He told a large audience in Berlin on October 3, 1941:
We had no idea how gigantic the preparations of this enemy were against Germany and Europe and how immeasurably great was the danger; how we just barely escaped annihilation, not only of Germany but also of Europe. … Lord have mercy on our Volk and on the entire European world if this barbaric enemy had been able to get his tens of thousands of tanks to move before we could. All of Europe would have been lost.[2]
Hitler repeated it to the Reichstag deputies on December 11, 1941:
Today, we have truly crushing and authentic material to prove that Russia intended to attack. … [H]ad this wave of more than twenty thousand [Soviet] tanks, hundreds of divisions, tens of thousands of guns, accompanied by more than ten thousand planes, unexpectedly started to move across the Reich, then Europe would have been lost.[3]
This remained the line of defense of the military commanders accused of “crime against peace” before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1945-46. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Armed Forces High Command, argued that “The attack on the Soviet Union was carried out to preempt a Russian attack on Germany,” and was therefore a legal act of war.[4] His second, General Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Operations Staff, similarly testified: “It was undeniably a purely preventive war. What we found out later on was the certainty of enormous Russian military preparations opposite our frontier. … Russia was fully prepared for war.”[5] Both Keitel and Jodl were denied access to the documents that would prove their point. They were found guilty and hanged.
Was the Soviet threat to Germany and Europe real, or was it just Nazi propaganda? To this day, history textbooks say nothing about it. But it has entered the scholarly debate, thanks to the books of Vladimir Rezun, a former Soviet military intelligence officer who defected to the West in 1978, and wrote two groundbreaking books under the pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov: first in 1988, Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?, and in 2010, after new Russian archives had become accessible, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II. I first learned about Suvorov from Ron Unz’s 2018 article “When Stalin almost conquered Europe,” and I have since read what I could on the subject, starting with articles on Mark Weber’s indispensable site http://www.ihr.org/.
Suvorov’s thesis can be summed up as follows: on June 22, 1941, Stalin was about to launch a massive offensive on Germany and her allies, within days or weeks. Preparations had started in 1939, just after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and had accelerated at the end of 1940, with the first divisions deployed to the new expanded Soviet borders, opposite the German Reich and Romania, in February 1941. On May 5, Stalin announced to an audience of two thousand military academy graduates flanked by generals and party luminaries that the time had come to “switch from the defensive to the offensive.” Days later, he had a special directive sent to all command posts to “be prepared on a signal from General Headquarters to launch lightning strikes to rout the enemy, move military operations to his territory and seize key objectives.”[6] New armies were being raised in all the districts, with mobilization now reaching 5.7 million, a gigantic army impossible to sustain for long in peacetime. Close to one million parachutists—troops useful only for invasion—had been trained. Hundreds of aerodromes were built near the Western border. From June 13, an incessant movement of night trains transported thousands of tanks, millions of soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of tons of ammunition and fuel to the border.
According to Suvorov, if Hitler had not attacked first, the gigantic military power that Stalin had accumulated on the border would have enabled him to reach Berlin without major difficulty and then, in the context of the war, to take control of the continent. Only Hitler’s decision to preempt Stalin’s offensive deprived him of these resources by piercing and disrupting his lines and destroying or seizing about 65% of all his weaponry, some of it still in trains.
Suvorov displays an impeccable knowledge of the Red Army, and an acute expertise in military strategy. Regarding Stalin’s intentions, generally very secret, he produces numerous quotes from the 13 volumes of his writings. He sifted through mountains of archives and the memoirs of hundreds of Russian servicemen. It is not exaggerated to say that the “Suvorov thesis” has revolutionized World War II history, opening a totally new perspective to which many historians, both Russian and German, have now added details: among Germans can be mentioned Joachim Hoffmann, Adolf von Thadden, Heinz Magenheimer, Werner Maser, Ernst Topitsch, Walter Post, and Wolfgang Strauss, who has reviewed Russian historians on the topic.
Suvorov’s thesis has also generated much hostility. His opponents fall into two categories. Some authors reject completely his analysis and simply deny that Stalin was planning an offensive. When considering the symmetrical concentrations of the German and Russian armies on their common border in June 1941, they interpret them differently: German concentration proves German bellicose intentions, but the same movement among the Russians is interpreted as proof of the incompetence of Soviet generals for defense.
This trend is illustrated by David Glantz’s Stumbling Colossus, about which Ron Unz wrote: “Although purporting to refute Suvorov, the author seemed to ignore almost all of his central arguments, and merely provided a rather dull and pedantic recapitulation of the standard narrative I had previously seen hundreds of times, laced with a few rhetorical excesses denouncing the unique vileness of the Nazi regime.”
Another detractor of Suvorov is Jonathan Haslam, who attacks Suvorov for his “highly dubious use of evidence.” Haslam admits that, on May 5, 1941, Stalin had announced an imminent offensive, but interprets it as Stalin’s prevision of Hitler’s attack. He then adds: “The fact that every piece of evidence at our disposal also indicated that he showed considerable surprise when the Germans invaded on June 22 always created something of a puzzle for historians. How could Stalin both expect war and be taken by surprise at the same time?” To answer this question, Haslam gets lost in fuzzy conjectures, while Suvorov’s answer is the only logical one: Stalin knew war with Germany was imminent, but he didn’t expect Germany to strike first.
Not surprisingly, one of the harshest attacks against Suvorov came from a longtime apologist of Stalin, Tel Aviv University professor Gabriel Gorodetsky (Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia). Gorodetsky calls Suvorov’s books “flimsy and fraudulent” because they “engender myths and consistently and deliberately obstruct the search for truth by simplifying a complex situation.” Yet, as one reviewer notes, Gorodetsky “negligently ignores Suvorov’s work after page eight” and his book is replete with contradictions and unsubstantiated claims.
The second variety of authors criticizing Suvorov are those who agree with him in general, and differ only in details. One French example is a recent 1000-page book by French specialist Jean Lopez, Barbarossa 1941. La Guerre absolue (2019). Lopez does admit that Stalin was preparing to invade Europe, but treats Suvorov as a fraud and, in an earlier essay, discounted as a “myth” the notion that “Hitler anticipated an attack by Stalin,” with this argument: “According to several accounts, Stalin believes that the Red Army will not be ready until 1942. No Soviet attack, therefore, could have been undertaken before that date.”[7] This is provably false: it is true that Stalin had originally planned his massive offensive for the summer 1942, as Suvorov himself stated. But there is also plenty of evidence that, in 1940, worried by Germany’s quick victory over France, Stalin had accelerated his war preparations. According to General Andrei Vlassov, captured by the Germans in 1942, “the [Soviet] attack was planned for August-September 1941.”[8] It is hard to make sense of Lopez’s contradictions.
Even more paradoxical in its treatment of Suvorov is a book released a few weeks ago: Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II, by Sean McMeekin of Bard College in New York. I found out about it while searching (unsuccessfully) for an affordable copy of Ernst Topitsch’s book by the same title, Stalin’s War: A Radical New Theory of the Origins of the Second World War (1987). I expected McMeekin’s new book to quote from Suvorov extensively and favorably. I was surprised to find Suvorov mentioned only once. After noting that Suvorov “turned up thousands of intriguing documents” in support of his thesis and that “scores of Russian historians have investigated the ‘Suvorov thesis’,” producing in the process “two thick volumes” of more documents, McMeekin concludes: “But considerable mystery remains surrounding Stalin’s intentions on the eve of war,” and adds that no clear written document can be produced that unambiguously “proves that Stalin had already resolved on war, whether preemptive, defensive, or otherwise.”[9]
I struggled of make sense of this dismissive comment, since McMeekin actually agrees with almost every major points made by Suvorov. Just like Suvorov, and with the same sources, McMeekin shows that, despite his tactical pretense at “socialism in one country,” Stalin was unconditionally devoted to Lenin’s goal of the sovietization of Europe. His analysis of the way Stalin baited Hitler into a war on the Western front with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is totally in line with Suvorov. McMeekin attributes the same significance as Suvorov to Stalin’s announcement, on May 5, 1941, that “we must shift from defense to offence” (to which he devotes his “prologue”). His interpretation of Stalin’s simultaneous self-appointment as president of the Council of People’s Commissars exactly echoes Suvorov’s: “From this moment forward, all responsibility for Soviet foreign policy, for peace or war, for victory or defeat, lay in Stalin’s hands alone. The time for subterfuge was over. War was imminent.”[10] McMeekin repeats most of Suvorov’s evidence that Stalin’s war preparations were offensive and potentially overwhelming. He insists, like Suvorov, on the undefended air bases built near the border:
The most dramatic material evidence of more offensive Soviet intent was the construction of forward air bases abutting the new frontier separating Stalin’s empire from Hitler’s. The “Main Soviet Administration of Aerodrome Construction,” run by the NKVD, ordered the construction of 251 new Red Air Force bases in 1941, of which fully 80 percent (199) were located in western districts abutting the German Reich.[11]
In view of the evidence, McMeekin believes that “the ideal launch date for the Soviet offensive … fell in late July or August.”[12]
McMeekin even reinforces Suvorov’s argument that Hitler’s mobilization on the Eastern Front was a reaction to Stalin’s war preparations, rather than the opposite, by showing that, as early as June 1940, the Germans were receiving Intelligence reports that
the Red Army, capitalizing on the Wehrmacht’s concentration in the West, was preparing to march from Lithuania into virtually undefended East Prussia and German-occupied Poland. … On June 19, a German spy reported from Estonia that the Soviets had informed the departing British ambassador in Tallinn that Stalin planned to deploy three million troops in the Baltic region “to threaten Germany’s eastern borders.”[13]
McMeekin uses the same archives as Suvorov, but never gives him credit for first bringing them into the light. The only exception is in a single endnote, where he mentions that one of Stalin’s reasons for believing that Hitler would not attack in June was that he had “learned, via spies inside Germany, that OKW had not ordered the sheepskin coats experts believed to be necessary for winter campaigning in Russia, and that the fuel and lubricating oil used by the Wehrmacht’s armored divisions would freeze in subzero temperatures.” The note says: “Not all of Suvorov’s claims stand up, but this one gels well with Stalin’s sanguine attitude toward reports of the German arms buildup.”[14] In another footnote, McMeekin disputes Suvorov’s claim that Stalin ordered in spring 1941 the dismantlement of the “Stalin Line” of defense that would hamper the advances of his troops: it was not dismantled but simply “neglected”, says McMeekin, before adding: “Here, as elsewhere, Suvorov hurts his case by over-egging the pudding.”[15] Such criticism would be fair, if McMeekin had also acknowledged the overwhelming mass of facts that Suvorov got right.
Apparently McMeekin thought it tactically wise, not only to snub Suvorov even when he proves him right, but also to endorse his most virulent opponent David Glantz (who, he says, was “right to emphasize how poorly prepared for war the Red Army was in reality”)[16] even when he proves him wrong, with abundant evidence that in June 1941, the issue of the war “would be determined by who would strike first, gaining control of enemy airspace and knocking out airfields and tank parks.”[17]
It is not difficult to guess the motive for McMeekin’s ostentatious contempt of Suvorov. Suvorov has crossed the line by suggesting that Barbarossa saved Europe from complete sovietization. Although he expresses no sympathy for Hitler, Suvorov agrees with him that, if he had not attacked first, “Europe was lost.” Suvorov has committed an unforgivable sin. It is an untouchable cornerstone of both Western and Russian historiography that Hitler is the embodiment of absolute Evil, and that no good whatsoever could ever have come from him. And so academic historians of the Eastern Front are expected to display their good manners by shunning Suvorov, and by not asking: What if Hitler had not attacked first? They must not suggest that Hitler ever told the truth, or that his military commanders were wrongfully hanged.
Well, if the price for bringing Suvorov’s revisionism into mainstream scholarship is to deny one’s debt to Suvorov, so be it. World War II historians must be smart: one careless phrase or reference can cost you a career and a reputation, as happened to David Irving (not in McMeekin’s bibliography, incidentally). Some obvious conclusions are better left for others to draw. There is no question that McMeekin’s book is a great achievement and it must be hoped that it will become a new landmark in the historiography of World War II. It is already receiving mostly praise in the press, and giving “revisionism” a good name. Over with the “good war”!
McMeekin’s main thesis is that World War II was primarily willed and orchestrated by Stalin, whereas Hitler was only tricked into it. This is precisely what Suvorov meant when calling Hitler “Stalin’s icebreaker”. (This is also, more or less, what A.J.P. Taylor argued in The Origins of the Second World War in 1961).
There are, indeed, slight nuances between McMeekin’s and Suvorov’s perspectives. Rather than insisting on the fact that Barbarossa ruined Stalin’s plan for the conquest of Germany and Europe, McMeekin points out that Barbarossa was for Stalin “a kind of public-relations miracle” that turned him from a “mass murderer and swallower of small nations … into a victim in the view of much of the Western public.” Stalin himself, in his July 3, 1941 radio address, said that the German aggression had brought “tremendous political gain to the USSR,” creating a support in London and Washington that was “a serious and lasting factor that is bound to form the basis for the development of decisive military successes of the Red Army.”[18] That is a good point, but a minor one. From what we know of Churchill and Roosevelt’s secret intrigues before Barbarossa, it is doubtful that Stalin would have been deprived of their support if he had attacked first. Churchill had been urging him to attack Germany since 1940, and Roosevelt had started planning to help him right after his second reelection in November 1940, when he told Americans that their country must become “the great arsenal of democracy,”[19] and appointed pro-Soviet Harry Hopkins to start making arrangements.
In fact, McMeekin shows that “Roosevelt did everything he could to improve relations with Stalin” from the early years of his long presidency, starting with official recognition of the USSR in 1933. He purged the State Department of anti-Communists and staffed it with sympathizers or outright NKVD agents, such as Alger Hiss. As early as November 1936, he appointed a Soviet sympathizer, Joseph Davies, as his ambassador in Moscow, to replace William Bullitt who had become too openly critical of Stalin. “Where Ambassador Bullitt had seen deception and guile in Stalin’s foreign policy, his successor saw unicorns,” lavishing him with compliments: “You are a greater leader than Catherine the Great, than Peter the Great, a greater leader even than Lenin, etc.”[20]
And so, even though Barbarossa made it easier for Roosevelt to turn American public opinion favorably toward Stalin, it doesn’t mean that Roosevelt would have prevented Stalin from gobbling up Europe had he attacked first.
Just like Suvorov, McMeekin gives undisputable evidence that Stalin was planning to invade Europe in 1941, and had planned it for a very long time. Like Suvorov, he points out that the Comintern, founded in Moscow in 1919, aimed at the sovietization of the whole world, as symbolized by its emblem, later incorporated into the banner of the USSR.
Lenin’s primary goal was Berlin. For this, he wanted to blow up Poland, a country reconstituted after the First World War between Russia and Germany. During the summer of 1920, the Soviet cavalry attempted to invade Poland with cries of “to Berlin!” But the Poles pushed back the Russians and inflicted them losses of territory (Peace of Riga). Lenin then proclaimed a new strategy at a Moscow party congress on November 26, 1920: “Until the final victory of socialism in the whole world, we must exploit the contradictions and opposition between two imperialist power groups, between two capitalist groups of states, and incite them to attack each other.”[21]
The failure of the communist uprising in Germany in October 1923, confirmed that fomenting revolutionary unrest was not enough to overthrow Social Democracy in Germany. What was to be done was to help create the conditions for a new world war and, during this incubation period, put a damper on internationalist discourse in order to maintain trade relationships with the capitalist countries (who will ultimately “sell Communists the rope they would use to hang them”).[22]
McMeekin agrees with Suvorov that Stalin was the true heir of Lenin, whose public cult he orchestrated: “Stalin’s dialectical view of Soviet foreign policy—in which metastasizing conflict between warring capitalist factions would enable Communism to advance to new triumphs—was firmly rooted in Marxism-Leninism, based on the precedent of Russia’s own experience in the First World War, and clearly and consistently stated on many occasions, both verbally and in print”[23], most notably in his first major work after Lenin’s death, Foundations of Leninism (1924), in which he recalled that the Bolshevik revolution had triumphed in Russia because the two chief coalitions of capitalist countries had “been clutching at each other’s throats.”[24] When a new capitalist war breaks out, Stalin told the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1925, “we will have to take action, but we shall be the last to do so. And we shall do so in order to throw the decisive weight on the scales, the weight that can turn the scales.”[25]
While preparing for World War II, Stalin’s domestic policy consisted, on the one hand, in consolidating his control over the population, and on the other hand, in building a huge military-industrial complex. “Stalin’s industrialization drive,” McMeekin writes, “was conceived, sold, and executed like a military operation targeting the capitalist world. … Whenever onerous production targets went unmet, capitalist saboteurs were blamed, as if they had been spies in an army camp.”[26]
Since the first Five-Year Plan was inaugurated in 1928, the Soviet economy had been on a war footing. The production targets of the third Five-Year Plan, launched in 1938, were breathtaking, envisioning the production of 50,000 warplanes annually by the end of 1942, along with 125,000 air engines and 700,000 tons of aerial bombs; 60,775 tanks, 119,060 artillery systems, 450,000 machine guns, and 5.2 million rifles; 489 million artillery shells, 120,000 tons of naval armor, and 1 million tons of explosives; and, for good measure, 298,000 tons of chemical weapons.[27]
Along with the establishment of a war economy, the first two five-year plans included the collectivization of agriculture. But here too, the goal was closely linked to the war, as Jean Lopez shows. In 1927, reports indicated that the peasant world, under the leadership of the kulaks, would sabotage the war effort. “The worst nightmare of the Bolshevik leaders lies in the emergence of a popular rejection of war similar to that which brought down the Romanov dynasty.”[28] This is what motivated the “Great Turn” of 1928, whose victims, either by execution, deportation, or famine, are estimated at between 10 and 16 million. During this time, Stalin sold an average of 5 million tons of grain abroad each year to finance his armaments.
In 1939, all Stalin needed was to maneuver capitalist countries into fighting each other in a new deadly war. That was the main purpose, from Stalin’s viewpoint, of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on August 23, 1939, with a secret protocol for the partition of Poland and the distribution of “spheres of influence”.
Just two months earlier, Stalin was still negotiating, via his Foreign Minister Molotov and his ambassador to London Maiski, the possibility of a military alliance with England and France in order to contain Germany and protect Poland’s integrity. On June 2, 1939, Molotov handed the British and French ambassadors a draft agreement, under which the Soviets might provide mutual assistance to smaller European states under “threat of aggression by a European power.”[29] On August 12, an Anglo-French delegation arrived in Moscow for further discussion. But Stalin then changed his mind, and Molotov did not receive the delegates.[30] In a speech to the Politburo on August 19, 1939, Stalin explained why he had finally opted for a pact with Germany:
The question of war or peace has entered a critical phase for us. If we conclude a mutual assistance pact with France and Great Britain, Germany will back off from Poland and seek a modus vivendi with the Western powers. War would be avoided, but down the road events could become dangerous for the USSR. If we accept Germany’s proposal and conclude a non-aggression pact with her, she will of course invade Poland, and the intervention of France and England in that would be unavoidable. Western Europe would be subjected to serious upheavals and disorder. In this case we will have a great opportunity to stay out of the conflict, and we could plan the opportune time for us to enter the war. …
Our choice is clear. We must accept the German proposal and, with a refusal, politely send the Anglo-French mission home. Our immediate advantage will be to take Poland to the gates of Warsaw, as well as Ukrainian Galicia …
For the realization of these plans it is essential that the war continue for as long as possible, and all forces, with which we are actively involved, should be directed toward this goal …
Therefore, our goal is that Germany should carry out the war as long as possible so that England and France grow weary and become exhausted to such a degree that they are no longer in a position to put down a Sovietized Germany.
Comrades! It is in the interest of the USSR—the workers’ homeland—that war breaks out between the Reich and the capitalist Anglo-French block. Everything should be done so that this drags out as long as possible with the goal of weakening both sides. For this reason, it is imperative that we agree to conclude the pact proposed by Germany, and then work in such a way that this war, once it is declared, will be prolonged maximally. We must strengthen our propaganda work in the belligerent countries, in order to be prepared when the war ends.
This speech was leaked to the French news agency Havas the same year. Stalin immediately denounced it as a fake in Pravda, which was exceptional on his part. Its authenticity has long been debated, but in 1994 Russian historians found an authoritative text of it in the Soviet archives, and the authenticity is now generally accepted. In any case, there are other sources confirming Stalin’s ploy so that there is no doubt, for McMeekin, that with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, “Far from wishing to forestall a European war between Germany and the Western powers, Stalin’s aim was to ensure that it would break out.”[31] For Stalin,
the benefits of the Moscow Pact for Communism were obvious. The capitalist world would soon be embroiled in a terrible war, and the USSR would be able to spread its territory substantially westward against seemingly helpless foes. All Stalin needed to do was ensure that neither Germany nor its opponents secured a decisive advantage. Once the two sides had exhausted themselves in a death struggle, the path would be clear for the armies of Communism to march in and seize the capitalist world by the throat.[32]
But how could Stalin be so sure that France and England would not declare war to Russia too? One part of the answer is that he had not broken off negotiations with Great Britain after signing a pact with Hitler. It is even thought that on 15 October 1939, less that two months after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, a British-Soviet secret agreement was signed behind Hitler’s back.[33]
With the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Hitler thought he had countered the British encirclement policy against Germany. And he believed that the pact would protect him from a declaration of war by Britain and France if both Germany and Russia intervened in Poland. He had grossly underestimated Stalin.
When Hitler invaded Poland from the west on September 1, the Red Army did not budge. On September 3, England and France therefore declared war on Germany alone. This was a bad surprise for Hitler. He urged the Russians to launch their attack, but the Russians turned a deaf ear. “On September 3,” McMeekin writes,
Ribbentrop wired Ambassador Schulenburg in Moscow, requesting that he ask Molotov whether the USSR would participate in the Polish war as promised and provide “relief” to the hard-pressed Wehrmacht. Did not Stalin, Ribbentrop asked, “consider it desirable for Russian forces to move at the proper time against Polish forces in the Russian sphere of interest and, for their part, to occupy this territory?”[34]
Molotov replied on September 5: “the time has not yet come. … it seems to us that through excessive haste we might injure our cause and promote unity among our opponents.” On September 8, a new Wehrmacht communiqué urged the Soviets to move forward as Warsaw was taken. The Soviets responded that the fall of Warsaw was not confirmed and that “Russia being linked to Poland by a non-aggression pact, she cannot march forward.” On September 10, Molotov declared point-blank to Schulenburg that, “for appearances’ sake we should not cross Poland’s border until the capital had fallen,” and that the pretext for Soviet entry into Poland would be to protect “endangered Ukrainians and Belorussians.”[35] Stalin even tried to persuade the Polish government, which had taken refuge in Kuty, to appeal to him for protection. Finally, on September 17, the Polish ambassador in Moscow was summoned at 3 a.m. and handed the following message:
The Polish-German war has shown the internal bankruptcy of the Polish State. During the course of ten days’ hostilities Poland has lost all her industrial areas and cultural centres. Warsaw, as the capital of Poland, no longer exists. The Polish Government has disintegrated and no longer shows any sign of life. This means that the Polish State and its Government have, in point of fact, ceased to exist. In the same way, the Agreements concluded between the U.S.S.R. and Poland have ceased to operate. Left to her own devices and bereft of leadership, Poland has become a suitable field for all manner of hazards and surprises, which may constitute a threat to the U.S.S.R. For these reasons the Soviet Government, who have hitherto been neutral, cannot any longer preserve a neutral attitude towards these facts. The Soviet Government also cannot view with indifference the fact that the kindred Ukrainian and White Russian people, who live on Polish territory and who are at the mercy of fate, should be left defenceless. In these circumstances, the Soviet Government have directed the High Command of the Red Army to order the troops to cross the frontier and take under their protection the life and property of the population of the Western Ukraine and Western White Russia. At the same time the Soviet Government propose to take all measures to extricate the Polish people from the unfortunate war into which it was dragged by its unwise leaders.
Although not mentioning Germany explicitly as an aggressor, the message was clear: the USSR is not the aggressor, but the defender of Poland. The Soviets had waited two and a half weeks before moving into Poland, leaving all the fighting to the Germans and giving the world the impression that they were intervening to prevent Germany from seizing the entire country. The USSR thus remained officially neutral, and incurred no blame on the part of France and England.
Although the partition of Poland had been Stalin’s idea, only Hitler was blamed for it. His Faustian pact with his worst enemy had not protected him from a war with France and England, and would not protect him either from a Soviet invasion. Clearly he had been duped. By enticing Hitler to invade Poland, Stalin had triggered the Second World War while staying on the sideline. All he had to do was wait for the countries of Europe to exhaust each other in a new war. On September 1, the very day of the invasion of Poland by Germany, the Supreme Soviet passed a general conscription law, which, under the guise of establishing military service for two years, was equivalent to a general mobilization. For Suvorov, this is proof that Stalin knew that the partition of Poland would trigger world war, rather than avoid it as Hitler hoped.
Meanwhile, Stalin would take every advantage he could of Germany’s predicament in the West, gobbling up three Baltic states bordering Germany and stuffing them with military bases. As McMeekin notes:
With his opportunistic moves against the Baltic states, Bessarabia, and northern Bukovina in the wake of the German humiliation of France, Stalin was wringing every last drop of nectar out of his honeyed partnership with Hitler while still, somehow, escaping the hostility of Hitler’s opponents. Britain, in what Churchill called the country’s “finest hour,” now stood alone against Nazi Germany. For some reason, though, Britain had not declared war on Berlin’s alliance partner, despite Stalin having invaded the same number of sovereign countries since August 1939 as Hitler had (seven). But there were limits to Hitler’s patience, and Stalin had just about reached them.[36]
Like Suvorov before him, McMeekin underscores the hypocrisy of the British. “The number of victims murdered by Soviet authorities in occupied Poland by June 1941—about five hundred thousand—was likewise three or four times higher than the number of those killed by the Nazis.” Yet Stalin received not even a slap on the wrist from the Western powers.[37] Foreign Minister Halifax explained to the British war cabinet on September 17, 1939 that “Great Britain was not bound by treaty to become involved in war with the U.S.S.R. as a result of their invasion of Poland,” because the Anglo-Polish Agreement “provided for action to be taken by His Majesty’s Government only if Poland suffered aggression from a European power,” and Russia was not a European power.[38]
In a meeting of the war cabinet on November 16, 1939, Churchill even endorsed Stalinist aggression: “No doubt it appeared reasonable to the Soviet Union to take advantage of the present situation to regain some of the territory which Russia had lost as a result of the last war, at the beginning of which she had been the ally of France and Great Britain.” McMeekin comments: “That Hitler had used the same justification for Germany’s territorial claims on Poland either did not occur to Churchill or did not bother him.”[39]
Stalin hoped that Germany would fight against France and England for two or three years before he would intervene. He therefore continued to supply Germany with raw materials, and was careful not to cut her supply of metals from Sweden, and oil from Romania, when he had the means to do so. When the Germans launched their offensive against France on May 10, 1940, Stalin rejoiced. “Finally, Communists could enjoy watching ‘two groups of capitalist countries … having a good hard fight and weakening each other,’ as Stalin had boasted to Comintern’s general secretary Dimitrov in September 1939.” But the war turned out less bloody than he had expected.
The rapidity of the German victories was alarming, however. Stalin and Molotov would have preferred a slow, grinding, bloody battle of attrition—a German victory, yes, but one that weakened Hitler almost as much as his enemies. According to Khrushchev’s later recollection, after learning the extent of the Allied debacle later in May, Stalin “cursed the French and he cursed the British, asking how they could have let Hitler smash them like that.”[40]
Germany’s military success forced Stalin to rush his preparation for putting the Red Army on the starting blocks in summer 1941. In spring, armament, troops and transport were ready, and preparations entered the final phase. On May 5, 1941, Stalin declared to military officers that the “Soviet peace policy” (meaning the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) had allowed the USSR to “push forward in the west and north, increasing its population by thirteen millions in the process,” but that the days of such conquest “had come to an end. Not another foot of ground can be gained with such peaceful sentiments.” Anyone “who failed to recognize the necessity of offensive action was a bourgeois and a fool”; “today, now that our army has been thoroughly reconstructed, fully outfitted for fighting a modern war, now that we are strong—now we must shift from defense to offense.” For this, we must “transform our training, our propaganda, our agitation, the imprinting of an offensive mentality on our spirit.”[41] Pravda began to prepare the people:
Raging just beyond the borders of our Motherland is the conflagration of a Second Imperialist War. The full weight of its woes is pressing down on the shoulders of the toiling masses. People everywhere want no part of war. Their gaze is fixed on the land of socialism, reaping the fruits of peaceful labor. They rightly see the armed forces of our Motherland—the Red Army and our Navy—as the tried and true bulwark for peace. … Given the current complex international situation you have to be prepared for all kinds of surprises. (Pravda , May 6, 1941 editorial)[42]
By that time, Hitler had realized he was trapped. It may have remembered what he had written in 1925: “the formation of a new alliance with Russia would lead in the direction of a new war and the result would be the end of Germany” (Mein Kampf, vol. 2, chapter 14). With Operation Barbarossa, he was trying to regain the advantage. But, according to Suvorov, it was impossible for Germany alone to defeat Russia, for reasons related to the vastness of its territory, the harshness of the winter, and Germany’s limited resources compared to Russia’s.
Hitler made one irremediable mistake, but not on July 21, 1940, when he ordered preparations for war against the Soviet Union. The mistake came on August 19, 1939, when he agreed to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Having agreed to the division of Poland, Hitler had to confront an unavoidable war against the West, having behind him the “neutral” Stalin. Precisely from this moment, Hitler had two fronts. The decision to begin Operation Barbarossa in the east without waiting for victory in the west was not a fatal error, but only an attempt to right the fatal error he had already made. But by then it was too late.[43]
Arguably, Hitler might have prevailed and conquered the Lebensraum of his dream, had Stalin not been saved by Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Aid: more than ten billions—equivalent to trillions today— worth of airplanes and tanks, locomotives and rails, construction materials, entire military production assembly lines, food and clothing, aviation fuel, and much else. Through four dense chapters, McMeekin makes it abundantly clear (as Albert Weeks before him in Russia’s Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II, 2010), that without U.S. help, the Soviet Union could not have pushed back the Germans, let alone conquer Eastern Europe in 1945. Another factor, on which McMeekin duly insists, was Stalin’s almost unlimited supply of cannon fodder: a total of 32 million soldiers throughout the war, led to the slaughter with machine-guns in their back and the threat that, if they were captured rather than killed, their families would be punished: “The USSR under Stalin is the only state in recorded history to have declared the captivity of its soldiers a capital crime.”[44]
In the end, while Stalin actually entered the war on the side of Germany, he would come out on the side of the Allies. While the pact deciding the partition of Poland by Germany and Russia was signed in Moscow—in the presence of Stalin and not of Hitler—history will only retain the aggression of Germany, and will consider the USSR as one of the attacked countries. While England and France officially went to war to defend the territorial integrity of Poland, at the end of the war all of Poland will be under Stalin.
Yet, as Suvorov said, and as McMeekin leaves unsaid, it was probably thanks to Operation Barbarossa that Soviet troops failed to raise the red flag over Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Rome, Stockholm and possibly London.
Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, destroyed its army, and crushed a large part of Soviet industry. In the end, the Soviet Union was unable to conquer Europe. Stalin lost the war for Europe and global domination. The free world survived, and it could not coexist with the Soviet Union. Therefore, the crumbling of the Soviet Union became inevitable. … The Soviet Union won World War II, but for some reason disappeared from the globe after this distinguishing victory. … Germany lost the war, but we see her, one of the mightiest powers of contemporary Europe, at whose feet we now beg.[45]
News of the Times;
https://www.wnd.com/2021/05/bidens-new-definition-sex-total-nightmare/
https://en-volve.com/2021/05/08/57-top-scientists-and-doctors-release-shocking-study-on-covid-vaccines-and-demand-immediate-stop-to-all-vaccinations/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/dr-cole-covid-jabs-seen-deaths-shot-vaccines-last-20-years-combined-audio/
https://worthypolitics.com/this-is-bidens-america-breaking-news-during-a-family-birthday-party-illegal-alien-gets-in-and-kills-six-people/
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/bidens-middle-east-failure/
https://www.theepochtimes.com/former-professor-sentenced-to-37-months-in-prison-for-using-federal-grants-to-aid-chinas-medical-research_3816589.html
https://reason.com/2021/05/13/the-police-dog-who-cried-drugs-at-every-traffic-stop/
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/another-horrific-chicago-weekend-48-shot-including-2-police-officers-sunday-early-evening
https://nationalfile.com/nfl-argues-black-players-have-lower-cognitive-skills-than-whites-deserve-less-compensation-for-brain-injuries/
https://fee.org/articles/federal-court-rules-against-florida-man-fined-30k-over-tall-grass/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/03/02/seresto-dog-cat-collars-found-harm-pets-humans-epa-records-show/4574753001/
https://vdare.com/posts/mexican-cartels-ratchet-up-their-human-trafficking-operations
https://barenakedislam.com/2021/05/10/ireland-watch-muslim-migrant-thugs-attacking-and-spitting-at-young-local-girls-on-train-platform/
https://tbdailynews.com/umass-kicks-3-girls-off-campus-refuses-to-refund-tuition-for-not-wearing-masks-at-party-while-college-president-marty-meehan-poses-without-mask-on-with-student/
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/05/scenes-from-the-college-meltdown.php
Several animals were savagely beaten in the making of this page, including but not limited to; kittens, rabbits, zebu, skunks, puppies, and platypus. Also several monkeys where force fed crack to improve their typing skills.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.