“It was necessary for somebody, somewhere, to pay a heavy price to break down the mass of the Wehrmacht. Who can imagine the democracies, in any circumstances, bearing a loss akin to that of the 900,000 citizens of Leningrad who starved to death to sustain its defence? Even if Britain had been invaded, the inhabitants […]
Entries from August 2016
No fries with that
August 31st, 2016 · No Comments
Tags: Politics & Law · The Second World War
Liquor and the gun
August 30th, 2016 · No Comments
“The Red Army often displayed courage and determination far beyond anything that ever could have been asked of American or British troops. Yet its achievements on the battlefield seem all the more remarkable given its manic indiscipline. Even the relentless efforts of firing squads proved unable to deter excesses that often became suicidal. Huge injections […]
Tags: The Second World War
Mistah Supa-Bad
August 29th, 2016 · No Comments
“Stalin dominated Russia’s war more absolutely than Hitler controlled Germany’s. The Nazi empire was fatally weakened by the rivalry, self-indulgence, strategic folly and administrative incompetence of its leaders. In the Soviet Union, there was only one fount of power, from whom there was no escape or appeal. [General] Ismay, Churchill’s personal Chief of Staff, recoiled […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The Second World War
Going a full ten rounds
August 28th, 2016 · No Comments
“A courtroom is not a place where truth and innocence inevitably triumph. It is only an arena where contending lawyers fight not for justice, but to win.” — Clarence Darrow (quoted by John J. Lentini in Scientific Protocols for Fire Investigation, Second Edition)
Tags: Politics & Law
Luck of the draw
August 27th, 2016 · No Comments
“Most criminal defense attorneys suspect that most of their clients are guilty most of the time. Having an innocent client has been described as a defense attorney’s worst nightmare because their obligation goes beyond getting the client a fair hearing. If the client is innocent, it is the defense attorney’s obligation to obtain a dismissal […]
Tags: Politics & Law
Brothers in arms
August 26th, 2016 · No Comments
“A critical divide persisted between the Eastern and Western Fronts in the Second World War: most American and British soldiers did not share the bitter hatred for their enemy which prevailed among the Russians. GIs or Tommies were subject to flashes of passion and rage when they were frightened, or when their unit was suffering […]
Tags: The Second World War
Salting the earth
August 25th, 2016 · No Comments
“Because battles are fought by men who wear uniforms and carry weapons, it is easy to forget that, in the Second World War, the vast majority of those who served in every army did not think of themselves as soldiers. They were civilians, who strove even upon the battlefield to secrete a part of themselves […]
Tags: The Second World War
The fog of war
August 24th, 2016 · No Comments
“For soldiers who took part, the north-west Europe campaign seldom looked like a clash of mighty armies, after the fashion of Waterloo or Gettysburg. Rather, it was an interminable series of local collisions involving a few hundred men and a score or two of armoured vehicles, amid some village or hillside or patch of woodland […]
Tags: The Second World War
Keeping their heads down
August 23rd, 2016 · No Comments
“It is the nature of every soldier in every war to focus overwhelmingly upon his own prospects of life and death, rather than to think much about distant battlefields. The men of the Red Army cared little for the doings of their allies, save that they were thankful for American trucks and canned meat. Among […]
Tags: Economics · Politics & Law · The Second World War
However you look at it, it is still it
August 22nd, 2016 · No Comments
“The problems of comparative artistic value still remain after we have given attention to the Freudian psychological factor just as they do after we have given attention to the Marxist economic factor and to the racial and geographical factors.” – Edmund Wilson, “The Historical Interpretation of Literature”
Tags: Lit & Crit
Lingua non-franca
August 21st, 2016 · No Comments
“Like all complex institutions, markets rest on supporting structures of rules, impartially devised and enforced. That requires politics, preferably democratic politics. And no rules, however well formulated and enforced, can prevent large differences in initial endowments of ability, resources, and information from producing extreme and permanent inequality. That requires redistribution. Public or collective goods—infrastructure, literacy, […]
Tags: Economics · Politics & Law
The world as given (or taken away)
August 20th, 2016 · No Comments
“The economic turbulence caused by Indochina war expenditures and a sharp rise in oil prices, along with racial and cultural polarization, nourished a conservative backlash. Nixon did not attack the welfare state directly, but he did withdraw the United States from the Bretton Woods agreement. Carter initiated the fateful estrangement of the Democratic Party from […]
Tags: Economics · Politics & Law
A beautiful dream
August 19th, 2016 · No Comments
“Though challenged periodically by labor unions, Populist farmers, and Progressive reformers, business elites dominated American politics from the beginnings of industrialization in the second half of the nineteenth century. But when the economy collapsed in the 1930s, business could no longer stave off substantial regulation; and the collective effort called forth by World War II […]
Tags: Economics
When the nation has the DTs
August 18th, 2016 · No Comments
“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” – John F. Kennedy, […]
Tags: Politics & Law
For instance, right there
August 17th, 2016 · No Comments
“While it is never a good idea to violate the National Fire Codes, code violations, in and of themselves, are frequently nothing more than code violations. It would be difficult to conduct a thorough inspection of any residence and not detect at least one violation of a fire code.” – John J. Lentini, Scientific Protocols […]
Tags: Other Stuff
What no one wants to know
August 16th, 2016 · No Comments
“If you say A—equality, human rights, and freedom—you should not shirk from its consequences, and gather the courage to say B—the terror needed to really defend and assert the A.” – Slavoj Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes
Tags: Politics & Law
Taking no chances
August 15th, 2016 · No Comments
“Even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.” – Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes
Tags: Other Stuff
Put the sugar down and back away
August 14th, 2016 · No Comments
“Nothing is more critical to people’s health than food. The consequences of poor nutrition are devastating.” – Lisa Marsh Riyerson, President, AARP Foundation
Tags: Economics · Other Stuff
It can take a little time
August 13th, 2016 · No Comments
“Opposites attract. They attract all right. Then they fucking kill each other.” – Chris J. Rice, Rambler American
Tags: Lit & Crit
What’s that buzzing sound?
August 12th, 2016 · No Comments
“I’d listen to my conscience if I were sure it was really mine.” – James Richardson, “Vectors 4.2: Everyone Else”
Tags: Verandah
As heavy as all that
August 11th, 2016 · No Comments
“The Declaration of Independence was written with a feather.” – Dean Young, “Believe in Magic?”
Tags: Politics & Law · The American Constitution
Or she
August 10th, 2016 · No Comments
“He is not the cleanest who cleans the most, but rather, he who makes less of a mess.” –Enrique Sánchez, “Cómetelo”
Tags: Economics
Liberation
August 9th, 2016 · No Comments
“Our column continued forward, and my company shifted to the lead position on tanks. I rode behind the lead tank in the artillery jeep. The little country towns changed into small industrial towns, and we began to notice a scattering of red, white and blue Czechoslovakian flags in the towns in place of the usual […]
Tags: The Second World War
Alles ist kaput!
August 8th, 2016 · No Comments
“I entered the town with my CP group, Already at least fifty German soldiers were assembled before the second house, their hands raised high above their heads and dazed, startled expressions of incredulity on their faces. Others poured from every building as eager GIs sought them out with curses and shouts of derision. Some hurried […]
Tags: Politics & Law · The Second World War
The weight of command
August 7th, 2016 · No Comments
“Someone awakened me at three-thirty the next morning. It was cold in the room, and I shivered as I climbed from my sleeping bag. My mind was dulled with sleep, and I wanted to climb back into the warm sleeping bag and sleep on and on. I wanted to scream to hell with the war […]
Tags: The Second World War
The cost of all costs
August 6th, 2016 · No Comments
“Message after message came over the platoon phone. Lieutenant Wilson was badly wounded. He could not walk and must have a litter. Ammunition was running lower and lower. The M Company machine-gunners with the 1st Platoon were out of ammunition except enough to keep one gun firing a few minutes longer. The 60mm mortars found […]
Tags: The Second World War
You have to be there to know
August 5th, 2016 · No Comments
“OK,” [Private First Class Henry] Croteau interrupted. “I’ve got something to say. Tell them it’s too damned serious over here to be talking about hot dogs and baked beans and things we’re missing. Tell them it’s hell, and tell them there’s men getting killed and wounded every minute, and they’re miserable and they’re suffering. Tell […]
Tags: The Second World War
It looked like a bad day to die
August 4th, 2016 · No Comments
“I awoke the next morning at ten o’clock and stepped outside the pillbox. The sun was shining down with a light so intense that I blinked involuntarily and rubbed my eyes. The effect, after the days of rain and overcast skies, was exhilarating. All seemed right with the world and I wondered why we must […]
Tags: The Second World War
That was then
August 3rd, 2016 · No Comments
“The characters in my story are not fictional, and any similarity between them and persons living or dead is intentional, and some of them are dead.” – Charles B. MacDonald, Company Commander
Tags: The Second World War
And so it re-began
August 2nd, 2016 · No Comments
“It appears that the historical function of neoconservatism was to supply an intellectual rationale for the worst impulses of traditional conservatism. The attack on the welfare state rationalized—in effect if not intention—greed and class privilege. With the same qualification, the attack on affirmative action rationalized racial hostility. The attack on multilateralism and international law has, […]
Tags: Economics · Lit & Crit · Politics & Law