Dickweed’s Burden
Conrad Black.
Crimes: Multiple instances of high level fraud and the destruction of thousands upon thousands of lives of the most vulnerable of our citizens.
Punishment: Slightly over 3 years of minimum security imprisonment (non-consecutive) and a reduction of sentences for everyone who commits similar.
And people wonder why everyone has lost faith in the American Justice System.
Conrad Black, National White Supremacist:
Post-Colonial Killing Fields
Now from the title, you might be worried. Oh no, you might think, will this be some dickweed wingnut trying to modernize the old White Man’s Burden argument and see if it has legs now that the wingnuttery has spent 4 years trying to make “anti-colonial” into a swear word?
I can assure you, hypothetical reader who exists in my mind, twisting my soul to your dark whim, that that isn’t the case.
He doesn’t bother modernizing it.
We’re about to enter a whole “Dark Continent” of jungle this time.
Verbatim:
- No one could seriously dispute that almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, all of North Africa except Morocco, all of the Middle East except Israel and Jordan and most of the oil-rich states, and the entire former British Indian Empire were better governed by Europeans.
So today’s time warp is brought to us by real-life cartoon villain Conrad Black. Fresh off serving a laughably mild sentence further reduced by the oh-so-noble current Supreme Court for cheating widows out of their companies, old employees out of their pensions, and presumably stealing candy from babies in his off time, Connie has apparently been feeling homesick.
Not homesick for his House of Lords homeland of Britain, nor his soon-to-be-expired homeland of Canada, but rather a time when people could get away with stealing whole countries without people even batting an eye.
It is an ever-growing matter of suspense how long it will take before there is general recognition of the fact that, although the spread of democracy is — next to its irreplaceable contribution to victory in World War II and the Cold War — America’s greatest bequest to the world, most of the world worked better in colonial times. No one could seriously dispute that almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, all of North Africa except Morocco, all of the Middle East except Israel and Jordan and most of the oil-rich states, and the entire former British Indian Empire were better governed by Europeans. The Philippines and Cuba and, during the piping days of the U.S. Marines’ occupations (even if they were deployed at times by the United Fruit Company), Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic were all better off under the Americans.
…
We’re really doing this, aren’t we? One sec, need to prepare myself. Hoo boy.
Right, let’s begin.
Well, I suppose we should start with A) a lot of people would probably dispute that shit. Hence why said countries fought often violent revolutions against dangerous, violent forces to gain the right to self-govern. I think when it’s gotten to the point where there’s a revolution, you can pretty much say for certain that the people involved thought the former power sucked on toast.
B) Really, there have been teething issues as these young countries struggle with their self-identification in the post-colonial era? Why it’s almost as if colonialism and racism have some sort of lasting effect and create issues that aren’t solved overnight, especially when one’s economy, natural resources, and original forms of government and culture were destroyed by an antagonistic outside force.
And heck, there’s also the little tiny problem, not worth mentioning, of THEY HAVEN’T FUCKING STOPPED MEDDLING. With all the Christian “missionaries”, ethic-less pharmaceutical companies, leftover European settlers, and bitter European governments missing the days when they ruled the world, Africa, South America, and most of the rest of the developing nations haven’t been able to get 3 minutes of rest without some new Western asshole coming around deciding to use them as a fucking testing ground for some epic level horseshit.
And then there’s C) the fact that this would be what, the seventieth prominent conservative in recent memory coming out strongly behind the “fuck democracy” position. I know I’ve teased about this before, but this is rapidly becoming a mainstream party platform for conservatives. Fuck, I’m giving it 20 years tops before we have an openly fascist party taking over the conservative vote, if we don’t already.
It was an astonishing feat for the British to rule what is today India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka (Ceylon), and Nepal with only 100,000 people.
It took murder, torture, murder, high moral fiber, and murder, but with pluck and determination, by jove, they accomplished it and ruled those mud people with an iron fist.
And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
So Britishly proud! Sniff.
Gandhi, a British-educated lawyer, knew the British well and knew that passive resistance could not be suppressed so violently by so conscientious a country.
Bwa ha ha ha ha! Oh wow, and who said wingnuts didn’t know how to tell jokes. Damn, Connie boy, you wasted your talents writing bad wingnut fanfic for the National Review.
Hitler once told then-foreign minister Anthony Eden that Britain should shoot Gandhi and Nehru, and continue shooting the leaders of the Congress party who were agitating for independence, until the agitation stopped. Had Germany or Russia or Japan been the occupying power, independence would have been a long and sanguinary time coming, and the regime would have been much less constructive than it was under the British for 200 years.
Oh… you weren’t kidding… Well, that’s just awkward.
So, hey, know what’s fun?
Cause, yeah, it doesn’t stop being mass genocide when the victims aren’t Jewish and the perpetrators aren’t German.
I suppose it shouldn’t be all that shocking. I mean, European right-wingers deny the Holocaust, American right-wingers deny that slavery was anything more than rugged job creators rescuing the homeless, so why not expand into denying any ill actions during the Colonial Era?
I mean, sure, those who deny history are doomed to repeat it and all, but that’s just the turn-on. They want to repeat it, but this time bringing heavier machine guns to suppress the locals.
In all that time, there was one mutiny, but there were not the terrible violence and corruption of Pakistan, the wars, the tyranny of the Burmese generals, or the Tamil-led civil war in Sri Lanka.
…That’s a lot of blame being heaped on India for regional problems. That’s like blaming America for Justin Beiber and Nickelback.
And yeah, shock of shocks, there ended up being a war when the colonial powers walked up to lands already inhabited by people and drew up new lines based on how far their “explorers” could get before they ran into a flag held by another European power.
But hey, Britain wouldn’t have any particular visceral experience of the problems that arise when two cultures are forced together and called one united body. *Cough* Northern Ireland *Cough*.
The British left a justice system and the English language, and some spirit of market economics, and departed with scarcely any violence, apart from the regrettable episode at Amritsar in 1919, and the sectarian relocations when they left.
Yes, scarcely any violence except for the 200 years of brutal dictatorial rule where they treated it as a vacation home for the House of Lords and left behind crippling poverty and a continued exploitation by Western powers.
Little things like that.
Also, how odd that you seem to be exclusively focusing on India, the country you were forced to leave when you were pretty much shamed to death, rather than any more say, pertinent examples of British Colonial rule.
It’s almost like this was a shameless attempt to whitewash the crimes of colonialism in order to sell a retread of White Man’s Burden to a bunch of scared racists or something.
The French, though less benign than the British, had a “civilizing mission” and were splendid city planners in Saigon, Dakar, Casablanca, Beirut, and other cities. They founded many universities and their territories never suffered the appalling violence that has ravaged post-independence Mali, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Mauritania, much less Cambodia.
…
Sure, why not. Now the French never committed atrocities as well. Hey, anyone else you want to whitewash? The Dutch? The Belgians? The Spaniards?
There were no Killing Fields under the European colonists, although the Belgians, the Dutch, and, in early South American days, the Spanish were rapacious and often severe. Objections to the cruel exploitations by the Spanish in South America led to the agitations of the Jesuits, and the temporary suppression of the Society of Jesus, except in Prussia and Russia, by Pope Clement XIV in 1773 — a suppression that lasted until 1814, when Pius VII, his mind jogged by being confined and exiled by Napoleon for some years, reinstated the order.
Of course. Why not reduce some of the most famously brutal reigns in history to “often severe”? Fuck, if that’s where the bar’s going to be set, why are the current regimes getting such a hard time? They’re fucking moon launching over that thing.
Oh wait, that’s right, they’re brown and brown people don’t get the super ultra special bar to jump over. On that note, hey Obama, is the economy fixed yet, even though we won’t let you pass any bills to fix it?
And yeah, there was no thing directly called the Killing Fields. Mostly because things like the Killing Fields were violent reactions to centuries of violent, brutal oppression and enslavement by European powers and anger at those among the moneyed classes who sucked up to said powers in order to gain personal wealth and privilege.
The Belgians were frequently inexcusably heavy-handed in the Congo, but they never generated the horrific casualties that have routinely occurred in the civil strife in that country in 50 years of independence, much less the approximately 1 million dead in a single month in the Rwandan massacres of the Tutsi in 1994. It need hardly be said that there were no Darfurs (another million dead) in the Anglo-Egyptian (i.e., governed by the British) Sudan, once Khartoum was liberated from the Mahdi in 1885 (two days too late for General Gordon). The Dutch were no joy in Indonesia, but the natives did not run amok, as they did in 1966 when 700,000 alleged Communists, including the party leader, D. N. Aidit, were massacred. The Portuguese were relatively enlightened in Brazil and Macao, and not overly bad in Angola and Mozambique, again, in the light of the prolonged civil wars that racked both those countries after they left.
When Conrad Black is found strangled by his gardner, this paragraph will be the gardener’s defense.
Hey, Connie, old pal, can I get a line that isn’t open-faced denialism of historical atrocities? Just for a change?
It must be said that the motives for colonialism were discreditably greedy and largely based on racial and sectarian arrogances.
Wow.
That’s more than I could have hoped for. An actual honest line, noting the bigoted arrogance of European forces as they divided a world filled with actual living people as if they were playing a great big game of global Risk.
Hey, sure, I had to wade through 1 and a half pages of complete shit to reach a no duh, but maybe this is the turning point where the remnants of Connie’s soul strangles the rest of him and we get a cogent post for the remainder.
…
What?
It could happen, imaginary reader! Stop destroying my dreams!
In the case of the United States, colonial acquisition was almost an accident
Well, that didn’t take fucking long, did it?
We’re not even halfway through the next fucking sentence and already we’re right back into denialism bullshit.
Yes, colonial acquisition was totally an accident. Sure, America in the late 1800s was bitterly resenting being behind on colonization compared to the European nations. Not to mention, the fact that the Spanish-American War was entirely manufactured for the sole purpose of stealing Cuba from Spain while they were distracted with other matters. And let’s just gloss over the Roosevelt Corollary that followed shortly after. Not to mention that America spent most of the 1800s literally taking over land owned by other forces including Mexico in the name of Manifest Destiny. Or that America has claimed de jure ownership of Latin America and South America since the fucking Monroe Doctrine.
Hey anymore historical atrocities you want to whitewash? Maybe the Salem Witch Trials were an ill-publicized free spa? The Trail of Tears was a popular hiking spot for Native Americans blown out of proportion? The Holocaust was just the destruction of all the German’s EZ Bake Ovens?
SHOOT FOR THE FUCKING MOON, DOUCHENOZZLE!
It is verging on secular heresy to make the point, especially in the week of July 4, but the American colonists didn’t have much to complain about, either.
Wow! Just… wow!
If there is one consolation in this miserable fucking world, it is that the inclusion of this one fuck you of a sentence will insure that it is ripped apart by the prowling tigers of the comment section who would have otherwise eaten this shit up with a spoon.
It’s like Lord Black of Mordor just couldn’t resist his sneering hatred of the contemptible creatures he is writing for and decided to self-destruct just to troll his fanbase right when they were at the tip of ejaculating.
Yeah, sexy British man, deny those atrocities, filthy mud people, yes, so close and… wait, what, we’re considered filthy mud people too?!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
The British pretension that the Mother of Parliaments could represent the Americans although they had no members of it was nonsense, especially as America had 30 percent of the population of Great Britain by the Revolution, and was the most prosperous British entity. But the taxes imposed were less than the British Isles were already paying; Britain gave the Americans a year to propose alternative sources of revenue; and all Britain was seeking was help in reducing the national debt, which had doubled during the Seven Years’ War (largely owing to the effort to throw the French out of Canada, at the insistence of the Americans). The original tea partiers, disguised as Indians, were overreacting to a tax that was confined to tea and was not excessive. Their current emulators are less colorful and imaginative.
The colonists had the better of the argument with the British, but individual Americans did not have substantively more liberties at the end of the Revolution than they had had at the beginning, nor more than the British in the home islands had (then or now or at any time in between), apart from having a resident sovereign government. The whole American notion of liberty came from the British, along with the common law and the English language. If the Americans had maintained their British status, they would control Britain and Canada and Australia and New Zealand now (another 120 million people and over $5 trillion of GDP), have all their energy needs met, and enjoy better government than they have actually endured for the past 20 years. It would have been much easier to abolish slavery and, if there had been a Civil War, it would not have lasted long, nor cost a fraction of the 750,000 American lives that it did. There would have been no World Wars or Cold War, or at least no conflict remotely as perilous as those were. The United States would also have less than its current 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated people, and wouldn’t have a legal cartel that devours 10 percent of its GDP. These are matters that, though they verge on secular heresy, Americans may want to consider, in between singing splendid anthems and rereading Jefferson’s defamation of poor old George III and his blood libel on the American Indian in the Declaration of Independence, this national holiday.
I feel really awkward right now. On one hand, Conrad Black is a worthless waste of jism and should be poisoned by his butler within the hour if there was any justice in the world.
On the other, I almost have to respect someone who self-destructs this hard. I mean, he’s basically giving the only people who still think he’s anything more than an escaped felon a double bird as he flips his skateboard into the Grand Canyon.
I’m not sure what you need to do to get fired by the National Review, but this’ll probably qualify.
And since he succeeded so thoroughly in torpedoing his own post, it has done the unthinkable.
Broken the wingnuts out of their cognitive dissonance stupor long enough to actually respond intelligently and with genuine facts.
If this post has caused you to begin fantasizing about your fellow man being engulfed in flames as the imaginary reader continually urges you to, I say, just this once, jump into the jungle to pet the kitties.
Just this once, they do not bite.
And for that miracle, I say, Bob bless you, Conrad Black. Now please enjoy this special almond cake I have baked for you. I swear there is no Strychnine in it… mostly, because there was too much Arsenic and Cyanide to add it.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. Riding the roller coaster of emotions from homocidal to pleasantly surprised is invented by Life, but stolen by me. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
Wow. Just wow. I got nothin’
Dickweed of Burden?
Rolling Stones, right?
~
So, if countries didn’t have killing fields before colonization but did after, it proves they should have stayed colonies? How… convenient.
I’m afraid Conrad has committed the one truly unforgivable crime of Wingnuttia: stating that a tax increase was justified! “The original tea partiers, disguised as Indians, were overreacting to a tax that was confined to tea and was not excessive.”
Clutch your pearls and faint, folks – such blasphemy cannot stand in Wingnuttia!
Oh dear sweet Cthulhu! That is an amazing steaming pile of rotting entrails of disemboweled colonial subjects. Must have read Gingrich’s dissertation on the colonial administration of the Belgium Congo and believed it was solid analysis.
I knew Conrad Black was rotten, but I didn’t realize he was a fucking idiot.
That explains the decades of mass protests and agitation by hundreds of millions of postcolonial Asians and Africans demanding the return of their beloved European overlords.
That must be why there’s photographs of huge banners in every one of the postcolonial lands which say the same thing in different languages, “Please come back, we miss you!”
You’ve knocked another one out of the park, Cerb; congrats.
Since I’m having a beer in the sunlight — in Seattle, no less! — I will *not* get out of teh boat. Does he ever “explain” why, at the absolute zenith of European dominance over wogs worldwide, The Mighty Fucking British Empire had to summon the United States to save their pasty bacon — TWICE?
There were no Killing Fields under the European colonists…
If I had a
rocket launcherMaxim gun, this sonofabitch would die — like many a local victim of European colonizers. (Canuck reference intentional, of course.)Conrad Black is massively underestimating the genocidal abilities of dear old Leopold II.
Wikipedia on the number of people killed in Leopold’s Congo Free State a little over a century ago:
Adam Hochschild devotes a chapter of his book, ‘King Leopold’s Ghost’, to the problem of estimating the death toll. He cites several recent lines of investigation, by anthropologist Jan Vansina and others, examining local sources from police records, religious records, oral traditions, genealogies, personal diaries, and “many others”, which generally agree with the assessment of the 1919 Belgian government commission: roughly half the population perished during the Free State period. Since the first official census by the Belgian authorities in 1924 put the population at about 10 million, that implies a rough estimate of 10 million dead.
If I remember correctly, Leopold made a tidy profit off his activities in the Congo.
My, what a walking turd of a man.
Funny how he’s trying to sell colonialism to teabaggers- it’s possibly the greatest test of cognitive dissonance ever devised.
B^4-
The irony is he probably would have got away with it if he had been able to resist leaving America off the list of colonies needing the firm bootheel of their oppressors.
…and an awful lot of Indians. Someone once pointed out just how tragically hilarious the trajectory of Indian immigrants is: A bunch of British imperialists burn down a village, take the villagers back to Britain to work as their servants. Generations later, the great-great-grandchildren of those imperialists – now “Britain for British” types – go around telling the great-great-grandchildren of those villagers to go home.
Anyway, is it worth pointing out to Conrad that the oh-so-enlightened British were behind what was perhaps the largest drug trafficking operation of all time? These guys went to war twice to keep pushing the poison. The modern cartels should be so vicious.
The irony is he probably would have got away with it if he had been able to resist leaving America off the list of colonies needing the firm bootheel of their oppressors.
“Don’t tread on me… let’s both tread on those coloreds!!!”
Oh hell. Did anyone notice the date on the article? He posted this thing on Independence Day.
Conrad’s got balls to spare.
SIGH.
The only thing I can say in Canada’s defence as regards Sir Conrad Of Fuckfaceshire-On-Guano is that he so loathed our land that he abandoned it for the island of fried Mars bars & chutney.
Nothing but a bullet to the head can have any meaning when humans make words function w/o meaning or sense.
Stick a fork in it: Your attempt at civilization/humanity/simple decency is over.
If the Americans had maintained their British status, they would control Britain and Canada and Australia and New Zealand now […] and wouldn’t have a legal cartel that devours 10 percent of its GDP.
On top of everything, Black is apparently dumb as fuck. We can have no idea whatsoever what the world would be like if Americans had maintained their British status. I know better than to confidently state how I’d be faring if I’d never married my wife. If I get curious, I’ll ask Conrad Black. Given the amount of information he digested to arrive at his geopolitical conclusions, he should have no trouble telling me what I could have been eating for breakfast tomorrow, and with whom.
I’m trying – and failing – to understand Connie’s purpose in writing this. Does he believe he’ll persuade ninety percent of the world to give up sovereignty?
`Does he believe he’ll persuade ninety percent of the world to give up sovereignty
Hell, yes. Please let us back in the United States Kingdom. Oh yeah, healthcare and guns…look we’ll get back to you on this one.
Being areligious and atheist, I reject the concept of heaven and hell. But sometimes…sometimes…the reptile part of my brain kicks in and I do wish some people would suffer eternal torment.
Being areligious and atheist, I reject the concept of heaven and hell. But sometimes…sometimes…the reptile part of my brain kicks in and I do wish some people would suffer eternal torment.
Should I win Powerball tonight, I will immediately set up a web site with bounties for capturing certain people on video being vigorously struck in the nuts.
Conrad Black will be on that list. As will David Gregory, David Brooks and Ted Nugent.
.
Conrad Black is massively underestimating the genocidal abilities of dear old Leopold II.
Not so much “underestimate” as “deliberate holocaust denial”. File beside David Irving.
It is an ever-growing matter of suspense how long it will take before there is general recognition of the fact that, although the spread of democracy is — next to its irreplaceable contribution to victory in World War II and the Cold War — America’s greatest bequest to the world, most of the world worked better in colonial times.
Someone has broken this sentence’s back in three places and left it writhing in agony.
There were no Killing Fields under the European colonists,
By the 1940s, Germans had had considerable experience in genocide.
Teh Tasmania genocide.
It would be impolite, I guess, to ask where all the locals went to in South and North America if there were no killing fields.
In this immense pile of ahistorical poop, I find one question unanswered : When do Europeans stop being Europeans?
Did the Afrikaners who killed millions under apartheid do it under the name of Colonisers (since 1652) or post-colonial (since 1960) inter-tribal conflict?
Because I’m not entirely convinced that our colonial masters have actually left yet.
You said it
Those would be killing prairies.
And sometimes deserts.
And forests.
Alternatively, Jesus took them all to ride dinosaurs.
This question of when colonisers become colonials is vexing me.
For example, the famous American Revolution was, in essence, between two groups of Brits – us over here and them over there. The colonised people didn’t come into it.
It would be impolite, I guess, to ask where all the locals went to in South and North America if there were no killing fields.
I believe the RNC calls it “self-deportation” these days.
There were no Killing Fields under the European colonists,
Cromwell in Ireland? Drogheda? Anyone? Anyone?
There you have it. The British were nicer than Hitler, so none of them there outlandish South Asian types have anything to gripe about. I don’t want to hear any more whining about a few measly famines.
What with all the holocaust denial, it’s easy to miss, but I want to highlight this line as a really fascinating example of doublethink:
America’s greatest gift to the world: A ramshackle form of government that has made most of the world worse off than it was.
Alternatively, it may just be another example of Black flipping off everybody who isn’t British. Hard to say.
Also:
The major benefit of British rule is that, when it inevitably becomes intolerable, it’s fairly easy to shake off.
Really, that sounds more like an Ambrose Bierce witticism than a compliment.
Allowing comments at the National Review was an excellent idea. A lot of their dimmer columnists get significant pushback from their readers. On the other hand, some extremely witless folks have legions of adoring fans. It’s really interesting to see what does and doesn’t annoy the people there, and I actually think they have a fairly positive community for a large political site.
He does have a point. After all, the concentration camps were very efficiently run.
I can’t believe he’s seriously trying to convince anyone of this shit. The whole thing looks like it was intended to make people sputter with outrage, with arguments so flimsy it’s as if they were deliberately designed to be knocked down. He’s even included a snarky aside about the teabaggers and a suggestion that America is stuffing too many people in prison, comments which are certain to piss off the NRO readership. My guess is that Conrad wanted to stir up a little controversy.
Which one is Conrad?
~
So, places like the silver mines of Potosi where hundreds of thousands of natives and African slaves were worked to death or poisoned by mercury don’t count as killing fields because why? Places like every single slave ship ever where they would be happy to get a 50% survival rate don’t count as killing fields because why? What about every sugar plantation that ever used slave labor, where it was cheaper to work slaves to death than to let them live out their lives and raise families? What about both opium wars and the Tai Ping rebellion?
It isn’t an excuse to say that there would have been wars anyway, when every single major war of the last 250 years hasn’t been directly or indirectly caused by the imposition of colonial servitude, the rejection of colonial servitude or settling scores after the colonial powers departed.
By championing that grotesque policy of colonialism, he’s claiming the last 500 years of slaughter, genocide, and looting on an international scale, are better than a possible alternative where nations didn’t plunder and enslave entire civilizations? Good to know. I’m sure every single person and culture that didn’t survive the colonial process is pleased as punch that they died so fat assed convict Conrad Black could claim their deaths were worth it because civilization!
Ah, gee, that wouldn’t be any fun.
Really, this Conrad is just warmed-over Niall Ferguson, and he has a chair at Hahvad.
Other fun details of the benevolent British Empire: stewing Xhosa heads in a pot (Cape Colony); smashing Kenyan testicles in the “Mau Mau” Emergency; resettlement of half a million (mostly Chinese) in Malaysia into effectively slave labor villages.
Oh yes, it’s Canadian Asshole Awareness Week here at Sadly, No! Who’s up next, Cerb? Adam Yoshida? David Frum?
There seems to be a general lack of understanding of Lord black’s point, though. Some of you seem to think you’ve found “inconsistencies” or “hypocrisies” in the article. That’s because you just don’t understand the fundamental axioms.
1) If a dark-skinned person kills somebody, regardless of the identity of te victim, that is murder.
2) If a white person kills a dark skinned person, it’s nor something to get upset over.
3) If a white person kill a dark skinned person in the course of a profit making venture, it is not only acceptable, but laudable.
These axioms can also be used to understand Gingrich’s dissertation, and mug of Fox News.
mug? Seriously, I type “most” and Jobs’ minions render it as “mug”? Oh iPhone! If I didn’t love you to pieces, I’d throw your autocorrecting carcass in the river.
Yes, autocorrect, it should have been “the muggins of Fox News.”
Thank you Cerb for this superb evisceration. Everyone else has said what I wanted to so I will just add: Fuck Conrad Black with a rusty chainsaw.
I hope there is reincarnation and he is reborn as the poorest woman in Sudan.
Gretchen Carlson is something of a muppet.
~
Between Black and Steyn, the NRO runs the entire gamut from holocaust denialist to holocaust apologist.
Oh, Conrad Black. Suffering under the (as he thinks) humiliation of being Canadian, he had to out-fucking do the English in their xenophobic Englishness. He thinks it’s still 1922, and anyone actually thinks that having “Lord” in front of your name means anything (I don’t, and my cousin is an Earl. Nice guy, but dumb as a box of hammers. I wouldn’t let him dictate policy on my vegetable garden). Black pines, pines I tell you, for the days when the brownies knew their place, and everything was great… for the colonial bastards who took all the goodies and lived like kings, while the natives starved.
Yeah, my grandfather was in charge of the southern half of India in the last days of the Raj, and my mother is so fucking ashamed of that, she can’t even talk about it. We English are responsible for a whole heaping fuckfull of absolute wrong, but most of us have the grace to be really fucking ashamed of our history.
Black, on the other hand, thinks it was just peachy, and doesn’t understand why he still can’t treat the natives like peons – hence the (not nearly long enough) jail sentence. If there was a sky-fairy, Black would wake up tomorrow as a native Indian boy, circa 1900.
“Conrad Black” sounds like a supervillain name.
“Lord Black of Crossharbour” sounds even worse.
Canadian Asshole Awareness Week here at Sadly, No! Who’s up next, Cerb?
I just read today on the Intertr0ns about how Robin Of Berkely is secretly a Canuckistani baby-mama!
Speaking as a Canadian Asshole, I feel the need to point out that Lord Black renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001 to get his title. He doesn’t represent the rest of us.
Is there enough grace for reparations? [sigh] Ah, well. Being the descendant of those who were enslaved, I suppose it is too much to ask, e.g. no backsies!
Is there enough grace for reparations? [sigh] Ah, well. Being the descendant of those who were enslaved, I suppose it is too much to ask, e.g. no backsies!
Unfortunately, our grandfathers spent all the money on really stupid things, like attempting to rescind the vote for women, and oppressing the Irish. Sorry.
going ot early, but this is pretty fucking funny…
now i’m going to settle in and read cerb’s post…
Well, to be more than fair to Conrad Black, Brits certainly aren’t taught about the massacres they perpetrated on the Indians, and I can tell you first-hand, it sure doesn’t come up in school in Canada. I know this because a British friend of mine actually made a much more watered-down version of this argument (basically, that as colonizers, the British were really not that bad and did more good than harm). I’m intending to show him the Telegraph article about the vanished village when next I see him, because I didn’t know that stuff either.
Conrad Black is still an asshole who thinks his shit doesn’t stink (and yours stinks extra because you’re not rich like him) who deserves to be sunk up to the chin in a lake of vomit while people race motorboats around his head.
In my alternate-history timeline I would have treated the natives fairly and ultimately made allies of them.
Then sometime around 1917 the Kaiser’s forces would run into my 1st Apache Division supported by the 5th Lakota Cavalry. After that they’d never have wanted to fuck with us again.
We’re Hegemonic Parasites, creating jobs, making the world a better place, etc. (sometimes a bit “heavy-handedly”, but…)
>most of the world worked better in colonial times.
Beware of verbs lacking objects. This statement sidesteps (not ‘begs’) the question:
For whom?
Smut Clyde:
> Black and Steyn
Wasn’t that on a double-bill with ‘Black You Là’ in 1973?
Makes me look forward to ‘Scream, Black and Steyn, Scream’.
Oh, but in the old days, the colonized celebrated Lord Black’s point, don’t ya know:
Come, tell us how you slew
Them ol’ Arabs two by two;
Like the Zulus, they had spears and bows and arrows;
How you bravely faced each one,
With your sixteen pounder gun,
And you frightened them poor natives to their marrow.
Oh, come out you Black and Tans;
Come out and fight me like a man;
Show your wife how you won medals down in Flanders;
Tell her how the I.R.A. made you run like hell away
From the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra.
Some of you seem to think you’ve found “inconsistencies” or “hypocrisies” in the article. That’s because you just don’t understand the fundamental axioms.
You left out:
4) The subject ‘one’ as used in “No one could seriously dispute,” refers strictly to Royalists and others who believe in the supremacy and infallability of the Anglo-European race. All others are regarded as ‘zero.’
According to Adam Hochshield’s “King Leopold’s Fully,” Belgian exploitation of the Congo cost 11million+ deaths, about 50% of the population.
Perhaps Black will explain how Europe’s splendid self-government culminated, after centuries of dynastic war, in two world wars that largely destroyed European civilization.
I’m actually not a “Black Adder” fan—so much mugging in it my karate-do training makes me want to hand it my wallet and run—but the following is apposite:
George: You know, that’s the thing I don’t really understand about you, Cap. You’re a professional soldier, and yet, sometimes you sound as though you bally well haven’t enjoyed soldiering at all.
Edmund: Well, you see, George, I did like it, back in the old days when the prerequisite of a British campaign was that the enemy should under no circumstances carry guns — even spears made us think twice. The kind of people we liked to fight were two feet tall and armed with dry grass.
George: Now, come off it, sir — what about Mboto Gorge, for heaven’s sake?
Edmund: Yes, that was a bit of a nasty one — ten thousand Watusi warriors armed to the teeth with kiwi fruit and guava halves. After the battle, instead of taking prisoners, we simply made a huge fruit salad. No, when I joined up, I never imagined anything as awful as this war. I’d had fifteen years of military experience, perfecting the art of ordering a pink gin and saying “Do you do it doggy-doggy?” in Swahili, and then suddenly four-and-a-half million heavily armed Germans hoved into view. That was a shock, I can tell you.
Am I the only who assumed the “National White Supremacist” was the National Post?
“The kind of people we liked to fight were two feet tall and armed with dry grass.”
QFT.
Jeebus fooking Keerist! Why does the phrase “suicide by cop” come to mind?
Gerald:
There’s more than a bit of truth to that Black Adder bit.
One reason World War I was such an epic clusterfuck was that all the European powers were used to beating up on poorly armed colonials.
None of them were prepared for the other guys to have Maxim guns.
More fun with actual history:
Hence, the government (apparently not having learned from the example of a very similar situation during the Irish Potato Famine) denied an urgent request from Leopold Amery, the Indian secretary of state, and Archibald Wavell, the Viceroy of India, to stop exports of food from Bengal in order that it might be used for famine relief. Winston Churchill, then prime minister, dismissed these requests in a fashion that Amery regarded as “Hitler-like,” by asking why, if the famine was so horrible, Gandhi had not yet died of starvation.[16] Indeed, he refused to allow free relief shipments of food from the United States and Canada into Bengal on the grounds that the food was needed more elsewhere. George Orwell echoed Amery’s sentiments when he said, “The way the British government is now behaving in India upsets me more than a military defeat.”
OK, it’s just wikipedia, and I believe Lord Linlithgow was the Vice-Roy at that point, but you get the idea, and all-volunteer fanboy-effort ‘zine wikipedia still knows fuck-all more about actual facts than does former newspaper owner Black.
Yeah, my grandfather was in charge of the southern half of India in the last days of the Raj, and my mother is so fucking ashamed of that, she can’t even talk about it.
You descended from any of the fine folks in the above citation? Don’t worry, we’re all free and equal citizens of Sadlytown here.
One reason World War I was such an epic clusterfuck was that all the European powers were used to beating up on poorly armed colonials.
That, and the Old School British Army commanders were still trying cavalry charges into barbed wire as late as 1917. (The Battle of the Somme, which was as much as “battle” as was the later scene at Pearl Harbor, was meant to clear a path for the horses.) There’s a reason all of the intelligent cavalry officers transferred into your gig — still sporting spurs and riding crops, as you probably know — as soon as they could get their hands on an “aeroplane”.
, I say, just this once, jump into the jungle to pet the kitties.
Just this once, they do not bite.
couple things, ‘kay? cerbs, you know damn well that i cannot resist a good mango fisking, you can just come out and ask me to do it…and of course i did…and yes, they do bite…it took exactly 19 fucking comments for the wingnutteers at nro to bring it around to obummer and showing once again that even in their unified disdain for connie which gives us all the willies as we realize ‘wtf? i’m agreeing with a wingnut commentor?!?!? they once again prove that they are still and will always be gigantic pieces of shit…
a comment that will make you say ‘wow’…
and in reply to a filipino who feels betrayed by the us of a over annexation, we have another winner:
As part of the uk, would we have gone to the moon? We’d probably always be held back.
here’s one thing i just don’t get…why is landing on the moon held out to be the yardstick to measure countries with? i mean, yeah, space travel is probably cool, and landing on the moon is pretty fucking amazing, but what has it really done for us besides giving us tang and a great quote?
this moon-boner thing has always boggled me…plz to be clueing me in?
also, too…i was going to say this much earlier, but if lord douchebag is correct in his speculations, i bet the united states is feeling pretty stupid right now…
and that’s my last comment for a while…number one: i’m too tired to run naked through the thread…number two: after a full day of doing nothing, hubbkf and i are going to our local purveyor of frozen dairy treats and then going for a drive through the refuge…
wow…that really makes me feel old…
Juicy mango from the comments:
You may not agree with his thesis, and his concluding paragraphs leave a lot to be desired (like how would WWI and II have been prevented is just stupid), but why are you so against having his point of view on NRO? If you don’t like reading his stuff, then don’t. If you don’t like being presented with viewpoints other than your own, publish your own blog and just read and re-read that.
There’s a lot of stuff on NRO that’s boring, repetitive, or uninteresting. In those cases, I just don’t read them. There’s also a lot of whiners and provocateurs like Kevin Moriarty who calls everyone a racist or a bully or a racist bully, the fish and others who are irritating. But while I would love to see the whiners and provocateurs disappear, I suppose one could say they add a bit of something to the conversation.
So don’t read what bugs you but don’t call for censorship either. Simple as that.
HA HA!
Semi-naked lunachicks.
To bbkf.
One reason World War I was such an epic clusterfuck was that all the European powers were used to beating up on poorly armed colonials.
None of them were prepared for the other guys to have Maxim guns.
Come tell us how you slew
Those brave Arabs two by two
Like the Zulus they had spears and bows and arrows,
How you bravely slew each one
With your sixteen pounder gun
And you frightened them poor natives to their marrow.
Attributed to Brendan Behan, whose only resemblance to Conrad Black was a stint in prison.
You’d think after just getting out of prison, Conrad Black would be more interested in arguing that we bring back droit de seigneur.
The fact is, slandering Conrad Black is mean. He creates jobs that you liberals should thank him for.
Semi-naked lunachicks.
that’s what the whole moon-boner is about? the possibility of seeing the boobehs of other species? i figured the phallic shape of rockets had something to do with but i see i was waaaaaaaay off!
You descended from any of the fine folks in the above citation? Don’t worry, we’re all free and equal citizens of Sadlytown here.
Nope, we were good enough to be used by Her Majesty’s Government, but not good enough to be allowed into the more rarified halls of the aristocracy, having made our money in trade some time in the early 19th century (I’m the poor relation, which is why I know all this ugly history, I don’t have to justify my ill-gotten gains). You have to be really high born to be allowed to allow entire nations to starve.
And believe me, I want to know every ugly, hideous, unforgivable thing my ancestors did so that I know exactly how evil shitheads like Black are. The English upper classes, to this day, have an ugly tendency to look back at the Empire with nostalgia, rather than disgust. I also have a problem with a lot of the “nostalgia” behind steam-punk; it seems like a creepy way to re-write all that colonialism so that we get to keep all the cool things without having to burden ourselves with any guilt.
(I like the costume stuff, but I don’t like the writing. It reminds me too much of an old anglophilic boyfriend who thought he could impress me by liberally sprinkling the word “wog” into every conversation.)
He creates jobs that you liberals should thank him for.
Many Parole officers’ families will eat tonight! Huzzah!
the fish and others who are irritating
Even at nro they blame fish.
What a bleeding hemorrhoid that man is. With his absolute contempt for journalists and journalistic standards, he did more to ruin American newspapers than any other single person not named Murdoch.
…here’s one thing i just don’t get…why is landing on the moon held out to be the yardstick to measure countries with? i mean, yeah, space travel is probably cool, and landing on the moon is pretty fucking amazing, but what has it really done for us besides giving us tang and a great quote?
This is one of those things that kind of embarrasses me about how great I thought it all was. The “race to the moon” was the arms race. Oh, it looked all sci-fi modern and noble and shit, but surely our top scientists knew that beyond satisfying some natural human curiosity about the moon the moon was a worthless piece of real estate and the end goal was ICBMs.
The race to the moon was a spectacle to make us feel like we were spending phenomenal amounts of money developing rocket technology for some transcendent reason. The space program was just another tool for both sides to stoke the pathological rivalry between two nations in a mortal and potentially omnicidal competition to see who could get the most blood out of a turnip.
that’s what the whole moon-boner is about? the possibility of seeing the boobehs of other species?
Dejah Thoris lives on in fantasies, despite this spring’s movie wreck.
I thought it was all a hoax anyway? What did I miss?
I can’t believe he’s seriously trying to convince anyone of this shit.
Not anyone who isn’t already on his side of the aisle. I can believe that he’s trying to start a meme among his own people and re-mainstreaming the idea that really, colonization by the White Saviors was a great and wonderful thing, and that we should all wear it as a badge of pride, not something we should have to embarrassedly sweep under the rug or try to justify with some “both sides do it” equivocation. Which he was doing a splendid job of until that last crack at the United States – every NRO reader knows it’s different when we do it and the Founders, being essentially demigods, must’ve had a good reason for the uprising.
My guess is that Conrad wanted to stir up a little controversy.
Possible. There are some people who write contrarian columns just for the sake of being contrarian, occasionally even towards their own side (“Tellarites do not argue for a reason. They simply argue.”) Of all the conservatives I’ve read Orson Scott Card takes the cake on that, but some others do it too. Not something you’d expect from the National Review though.
Those moon-babes are mine! Mine, I tell you!
Well, we used to be able to say, ‘We can send a man to the Moon, why can’t we…,’ one famous example of which was of course, ‘…why not all of them?,’ but there are more practical versions.
Maybe it’s just early scientifictional brain-washing shewing, but I think great big symbolic technical and social achievements can be used to set the bar higher for the nation…then again I like arguing to right-wingers, ‘We can be a great nation: it should be a point of national pride that we not permit any of our children to grow up with fear and want,’ and think that many Republican arguments boil down to ‘Our rich people are very unpatriotic.’
The English upper classes, to this day, have an ugly tendency to look back at the Empire with nostalgia, rather than disgust.
I can understand, disgusting as it is, why they’d do that – everyone likes to whitewash their own history. What disgusts me doubly is the rock-solid hard-on the American upper classes have for the British Empire, all while claiming for themselves the legacy of founding fathers who put their lives at risk throwing it off. You’d think our own legacy of slave owners, robber barons and military industrial complexes would leave us with enough crimes to deny, excuse or ignore that we wouldn’t have to go and justify the crimes of our former oppressors too.
Mm. I’ll have “euphemisms for every occasion” for another hundred thousand buttons and glass-shards please.
The race to the moon was a spectacle to make us feel like we were spending phenomenal amounts of money developing rocket technology for some transcendent reason. The space program was just another tool for both sides to stoke the pathological rivalry between two nations in a mortal and potentially omnicidal competition to see who could get the most blood out of a turnip.
ehh…this is what i thought…i do find space exploration cool, but i guess i don’t understand the moon-boner because i find the thought of traveling in outerspace is enough to make me hyperventilate…
ehh…this is what i thought…i do find space exploration cool, but i guess i don’t understand the moon-boner because i find the thought of traveling in outerspace is enough to make me hyperventilate…
PROTIP: If ever actually traveling in space, do NOT crack a window.
.
PROTIP: If ever actually traveling in space, do NOT crack a window.
How am I supposed to enjoy all the sound that, according to Hollywood, totally travels through space?
How am I supposed to enjoy all the sound that, according to Hollywood, totally travels through space?
See, ya got me, there.
.
How am I supposed to enjoy all the sound that, according to Hollywood, totally travels through space?
see, this would only makes the thought of space travel even worse for me…i cringe at the thought of my radio voice traveling the universe for ever and ever…immortalizing my dorkiness…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies
Not all of those were moon-related, but some are. Some were also done better by others; the Soviets/Russians had pee-to-water conversion down cold.
RCMP3N1S!
PENNIS
Am I the only who assumed the “National White Supremacist” was the National Post?
I thought he’d just given up all pretense and was writing for something actually called the National White Supremacist.
Russians had pee-to-water conversion down cold.
Nothing worse than warm water-from-pee.
That is amazing.
This conservative blogger dude’s arguing with a random guy who gets drunk in public in the middle of the day, and somehow it’s the blogger who manages to lose the debate. I think this guy could lose a boxing match against a punching bag.
A quote too beautiful not to post.
Extremely wealthy Romney supporter, at a fundraiser in East Hampton:
I especially like her depiction of “everybody who’s got the right to vote” as clueless underlings who are not competent to make proper political decisions. Something really needs to be done to keep the servants and the children from frolicking in the voting booths.
Via Balloon Juice, Digby, Eschaton and many others.
I’m in Rhode Island. But let’s talk about something unpleasant.
I see Snorg beat me to it, but I’m gonna blogwhore anyway.
Can nail-gun ladies vote?
More rich people: A money manager in a green Jeep said it was time for Romney to “up his game and be more reactive.” So far, said the donor (who would not give his name because he said it would hurt his business), Romney has had a “very timid offense.”
PROactive, nimrod, defense is reactive. Jesus, the bigmouth dumbass with the great nails is smarter than you are.
Michael Zambrelli: It’s not helping the economy to pit the people who are the engine of the economy against the people who rely on that engine
Dude runs a marketing/advertising biz and thinks he’s making the world a better place for the little people.
So far, said the donor…Romney has had a “very timid offense.”
He’s right. Romney seems to think that his best bet lies in yelling a dozen times a day what a rotten president Obama is. Considering what little Romney has in terms of actual ideas and plans, he may be right,.
The line of Range Rovers, BMWs, Porsche roadsters and one gleaming cherry red Ferrari began queuing outside of Revlon Chairman Ronald Perelman’s estate off Montauk Highway long before Romney arrived, as campaign aides and staffers in white polo shirts emblazoned with the logo of Perelman’s property — the Creeks — checked off names under tight security.
does this not sum it all up right here? romney’s staff had to wear the uni of his patron…clearly showing who’s in charge…it ain’t mitt…
dead thread alread-y?
Off topic –
When I have a weekend layover in Huntington, I rent a car and drive home to Columbus.
This weekend the rental agency gave me the last vehicle they had – a Dodge Caravan.
Now a minivan isn’t normally my choice of vehicle, but I found myself actually liking this thing. It was roomy, comfortable, drove like a car, got 31 mpg on the trip home and most importantly – completely invisible to state troopers. It was like driving a stealth bomber.
Unless I needed to go offroad (I don’t) or tow a backhoe (likewise) this would seem to be a much more practical vehicle than an SUV.
– a Dodge Caravan
vanna is a lovely ford windstar, and even though driving her sometimes makes me feel old (blogwhore), you can’t beat a mini-van for comfort…and i can still haul shit around if i need to…they also come in handy when using a d.d. to transport a bunch of drunks…
Yeah, but in a minivan, or SUV you have the same problem, no secure, out-of-sight storage. When you’re driving down the road or parked on the side, anyone can see the shovels and bags of quicklime. Give me a full size sedan with a nice big trunk any day of the week.
Give me a full size sedan with a nice big trunk any day of the week.
Relevant:
this thread has a serious case of the mondays…
damning the torpedoes with feint praise
chuckles
…the baby sitters, the nails ladies — everybody who’s got the right to vote — they don’t understand what’s going on.
The gospel of Free Market Jesus!
…anyone can see the shovels and bags of quicklime.
I don’t drive, but can assure you that with good preparation, public transportation is adequate for such purposes, though Fed Ex really does help sometimes.
though Fed Ex really does help sometimes.
our fed ex guy is a really muscley doofus who thinks he’s the bomb…he is dumb as a box of rocks, but, yeah…he doesn’t ask many questions…
do dead people read facebook? this post made me wonder:
Missing my Grandma today!! I am sitting at work thinking of our bake off we had many years ago. Oh course I won and we had wonderful zucchinni bread to eat. Love you Grandma!!
though Fed Ex really does help sometimes.
ahem
I’m a bit late to this here party, but I see that Conrad Black thinks that colonialism is the best thing since before sliced bread. Obviously he now fully supports the Kenyan usurpers bid to bring the US under the control of their African colonial overlords.
” He creates jobs that you liberals should thank him for.”
This includes Prison Guards in Florida
So did rich people always believe the bullshit they shoveled to the peons, or is this a new 21st century development?
Some were also done better by others; the Soviets/Russians had pee-to-water conversion down cold.
In the U.S., we have the marketing department handle this.
…I feel like I’m a bad person, in thinking that there’s a bare glimmering of a point, in addition to the one on the top of Black’s head. Sometimes, a civilization just needs to close up shop. I’m kinda glad the Aztecs, frex, weren’t left peacefully unmolested. Not trying to troll, just pointing out that even the Spanish occasionally had helpful side-effects
It seems that this latest crop of teh 0.1% crowd is a lot stupider than the prior generation. Either that, or they assume that the peons have been sufficiently indoctrinated that they’re free to let it all hang out. Or maybe both…
“10 million dead.
Leopold made a tidy profit off his activities in the Congo.”
Which makes it OK in Conrad’s book!
When you’re driving down the road or parked on the side, anyone can see the shovels and bags of quicklime.
Let me introduce you to the wonderful item which is the TARP. You can cover things with it in the van, then use it to drag things to where you want to leave them. Also you can sit on it for a picnic!
here’s one thing i just don’t get…why is landing on the moon held out to be the yardstick to measure countries with? i mean, yeah, space travel is probably cool, and landing on the moon is pretty fucking amazing, but what has it really done for us besides giving us tang and a great quote?
We got a whole shitload more than Tang from that massive government spending program. And the benefits are continuing.
Check out http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/01/11/is-space-exploration-worth-the-cost-a-freakonomics-quorum/
I’m kinda glad the Aztecs, frex, weren’t left peacefully unmolested. Not trying to troll, just pointing out that even the Spanish occasionally had helpful side-effects
The Spanish merely substituted one murderous, greedy ruling class with another.
New post.
Either that, or they assume that the peons have been sufficiently indoctrinated that they’re free to let it all hang out.
If you say anything about it, YOU ARE THE REAL RACISTS.
So did rich people always believe the bullshit they shoveled to the peons, or is this a new 21st century development?
More often than not, they always believed it.
That’s why history is filled with things like Caligula or King Louis XVI thinking they were untouchable, various nobles assuming that their noble blood made them naturally better at war than some commoner sergeant with a knack of surviving most of the ill planned battles their noble class threw them in, and genuine shock when the colonized powers threw off the yokes of their oppressors rather than thanking the colonials for “teaching them English and ‘civilizing’ them.
Hell, I think of all the things to best demonstrate that, we shouldn’t look to now, but rather the run-up to WWI, where all the things rich assholes had convinced themselves of ran into the brick wall of reality so hard, it left cracks.
>>I’m kinda glad the Aztecs, frex, weren’t left peacefully unmolested. Not trying to
>>troll, just pointing out that even the Spanish occasionally had helpful side-effects
>
>The Spanish merely substituted one murderous, greedy ruling class with another.
But in Peru they let the common folk chew coca leaves; true, it was in pursuit of having them last longer in the course of being worked to death….
As for the Aztecs, I gather that on reason they won so quickly was that most of the Aztec Empire was only recently subjugated, so they replaced, for most of it, one set of foreign rulers wih another such.
>The Spanish merely substituted one murderous, greedy ruling class with another.
Not entirely true. They also replaced an insane death cult with Catholicism.
One thing about the various neighbouring tribes being oppressed by the Aztecs, until the Spanish liberated them, they don’t seem to be there any more. The previous murderous, greedy ruling class weren’t actually genocidal.