Category Archive: HISTORY
Face It, Western Civilisation: You Lost
“It’s Time”, to borrow an old political phrase, Last Orders for Western Civilisation and its running dogs, time even for soldiers in the cause to lay down their easels, quills, violins, compasses and chisels. You got beat – not by folks who were smarter (quelle idée!) or had a worthier plan. They had simply worked-out O’Brien’s dictum that hate was not more exhausting than love. In fact, it could be spread more evenly, calibrated and cadenced, and thus more effective over time. They understood that destruction is an essential part of the human condition and that righteous destruction is virtually…
Continue Reading →Armistice 100
Martin Place, Sydney, 100 years ago today
11/11/11: 11 am, 11 November 1918: The Armistice is signed, ceasing hostilities ahead of the Versailles Treaty the following year (the ’20 year armistice’, which paved the way for further hostilities*). In August 2014, after ceaseless manoeuvring, the War broke out. History records that most of the players thought the engagement would be short, sharp, and decisive. The German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, told his officers, “You will be home before the leaves fall from the trees.” Less optimistic predictions had it all over by Christmas (1914). But Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, got closer to the mark when…
Continue Reading →Asked and Answered, Malcolm
On Thursday evening, 8 November 2018, former MP and PM Malcolm Bligh Turnbull appeared, jauntily jacketed, sans necktie, to “face” the nation (well, the carefully screened Q & A audience, one of whom, in a priceless moment, addressed him as ‘Tony’) in ABC’s Ultimo studios. He knew his enemies. Like the Nixon Administration, Turnbull-in-Exile has drawn an Enemies List. The enemies include Mathias Corman, News Limited (Rupert Murdoch), Peter Dutton, Radio 2GB, Right-wing extremists (see ‘Tony Abbott’ below), Sky News, Tony Abbott. This is not an exhaustive list. Perhaps Malcolm will release a complete one in due course, just before the next Federal Election. Yes, he knew his…
Continue Reading →Lucan
AD 39, 3 November: Lucan born. Lucan spoke truth to power. This from the Pharsalia: “These nations, Caesar, if now the fire does not consume them, with the earth it will consume, with the waters of the deep it will consume. One pile in common is left for the world, destined to mingle the stars with its bones.”
Continue Reading →Frank, My Dear, We Don’t Give a Damn
The Nuremberg boys (Hans Frank in the dock's front row, with arms folded, wearing dark glasses)
East West Street, written by Philippe Sands (2017) “To do a great right, do a little wrong” (The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1) It was a dilemma – in the smoking ashes of WWII, there were several handfuls of Nazi insiders scooped-up by the Allied forces. What to do with them? Hitler and his main henchmen were gone, bullets in their brains or cyanide caps twixt their clenched teeth (sometimes both) – and the residue claimed the time-honoured defence, ‘Befehl ist Befehl.’ Whilst the ‘odious apparatus’ of the Third Reich assiduously documented their outrages, prosecutors yet faced awesome…
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