distinguishing quality

It may be remarked that the harsh opinion of Machiavelli has been more widespread in England and the United States than in the nations of Continental Europe. This is no doubt natural, because the distinguishing quality of Anglo-Saxon politics has always been hypocrisy, and hypocrisy must always be at pains to shy away from the truth. The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom, by James Burnham

pdf

more on heresy

Ad abolendam was promulgated at a time when the scale, variety and effectiveness of mechanisms of government of every kind and at every level, and of the number of men trained and available to operate them, taking full advantage of the consequent opportunities to develop their careers, line their pockets and undermine their rivals, were increasing exponentially. -The War on Heresy, pg 142

“When Statesmen gravely say ‘We must be realistic’
The chances are they’re weak, and therefore pacifistic:
But when they speak of Principles, look out: perhaps
Their generals are already poring over maps."

--W. H. Auden, Collected Shorter Poems

pg 148

ну да, when politicians talk about morals - watch your pockets

more on albigensian crusade starting from pg 171:

The most notorious of the events and atrocities that have given the Albigensian wars the reputation of reaching new levels of savagery and destructiveness took place during this first phase of the campaigns and triumphs of Simon de Montfort.

...

In describing these holocausts Peter of Les Vaux de Cernay uses the Latin phrase cum ingenti gaudio (‘with great joy’)...

The War On Heresy

“Few things could be more unnerving than the spectacle of young, gifted, attractive people insisting on, even glorying in, a terrible death for an utterly incomprehensible cause, ‘like the martyrs of Christ who (for such a different reason!) were once slain by the pagans for the sake of the Christian religion’.” —The War On Heresy, Moore, R. I.

“the accusation of heresy against Stephen and Lisois was a manoeuvre by the supporters of the Blois faction” -Ibid. pg24

жуткая история на стр 49 про то, как Norman peasants protested to Duke Richard II, ну и вообще про Peace of God.

All systems of social organisation are based on rules governing who may or may not sleep with whom, and on what conditions. Changes in those rules are always bitterly contentious and always indicative of profound social or political change. The most important of them determine what constitutes incest – what degrees of kinship are so close as to prohibit marriage. -pg 83

another book by R.I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society [pdf]

Nothing important can come from the south

The passionate desire of people in poor countries to assert control over their natural resources, which pushed them into conflict with the United States during the Cold War, lay completely outside the experience of most American leaders. Henry Kissinger spoke for them, eloquently as always, after Chilean foreign minister Gabriel Valdes accused him of knowing nothing about the Southern Hemisphere.

“No, and I don't care,” Kissinger replied. “Nothing important can come from the south. History has never been produced in the south. The axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn, crosses over to Washington, and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in the south is of no importance.”

это из Overthrow

вспоминается Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

power positions

Power positions do not yield to arguments, however rationally and morally valid, but only to superior power.

--Hans Morgenthau

приводит на память “Do not quote laws to men with swords.”

неплохие заметки про Morgenthau в Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy, в 10-й главе

Politics Among Nations и Система международных отношений. Нации в борьбе за власть - перевод

интересно, что это вовсе не Генри Моргентау, который сформулировал пресловутый План. как говорится, даже не однофамилец 🤡

legitimate attempt

There was never an executive order or memo ordering or even suggesting a coup go forward. The American position was couched in terms of "not stopping a legitimate attempt" to change the government of South Vietnam. --The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War

а тут все наоборот: The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam

Among those dazzled by the Administration team was Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. After attending his first Cabinet meeting he went back to his mentor Sam Rayburn and told him with great enthusiasm how extraordinary they were, each brighter than the next, and that the smartest of them all was that fellow with the Stacomb on his hair from the Ford Motor Company, McNamara. “Well, Lyndon,” Mister Sam answered, “you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once.” It is my favorite story in the book, for it underlines the weakness of the Kennedy team, the difference between intelligence and wisdom, between the abstract quickness and verbal fluency which the team exuded, and the true wisdom, which is the product of hard-won, often bitter experience. Wisdom for a few of them came after Vietnam.

убедительно пишет Halberstam. ох не любил он восточную элиту. что протестантскую, что католическую. да и западную тоже. но в Кеннеди он положительно влюблен.

"The Best and the Brightest" is ostensibly about how shining intellectuals -- primarily McGeorge Bundy, Robert , and Dean Rusk -- of the Kennedy White House trapped America in Vietnam. ... In fact, I came away from the book with the keen sense that these "intellectuals" were just arrogant and shallow, self-serving and power-hungry individuals.

this is from amazon review A Major Disappointment

в 9-й главе он интересно рассказывает про Walt Rostow. вспоминается афоризм про Россию, где за год меняется все, а за 100 лет - ничего. к США это тоже относится.

Balfour Declaration

Arthur Koestler on Balfour Declaration: “One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third.”

quoted in Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017

minor knee surgery

In the aftermath of minor knee surgery, my pain, instead of diminishing as the weeks passed, got worse and worse, far exceeding the prolonged discomfort that had prompted me to decide on surgery in the first place. When I went to see my young surgeon about the worsening condition, he merely said, “This happens sometimes,” and, claiming to have warned me beforehand that the operation might not work, dismissed me as his patient. I was left with only some pills to mitigate my astonishment and manage the pain. Such a surprising outcome from a brief outpatient procedure might have made anyone angry and despondent; what happened in my case was worse. --Philip Roth, Operation Shylock

unchallengeable reasons

“.. she was still drinking herself to death for her two unchallengeable reasons: because of all that had not happened and because of all that had.”

― Philip Roth, Sabbath's Theater

On the upside

It helps that his mother got a job at the local Walmart. Dealing with rude customers is unpleasant, and the job pays a low wage. On the upside, the commute is short. --End Times, Peter Turchin

это он про Стива пишет, из deplorables, довольно убедительно. и дальше - про интеллигентную Кэтрин, смешно:

"What immiseration?” countered Kathryn. “Life has never been better than today!” She then advised me to read Enlightenment Now, a then just published book by доктор Опир Steven Pinker.

и про anti-incumbent voting интересно:

...low subjective well-being is a powerful marker of discontent and is highly correlated with anti-incumbent voting. In 2016, in particular, it was the strongest predictor of county-level voting for Trump.

последний раздел в 4-й главе, The Revolution Devours Its Children, особенно точно описывает происходящее сегодня. вспоминается Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; из The Second Coming. там много инетересных наблюдений.

Early states were usually governed by militocracies, whose main source of social power was simply force. This was a consequence of one of the most important principles of social evolution, namely that “war made the state, and states made war.”

тут вспоминается "...physical force, that unmistakable evidence of sovereignty" - Hawthorne, Blithedale Romance.

в пятой главе раздел The Formation of American Ruling Class познавательный. цитировать сложно.

но в целом книга оставляет желать.

secret of politics

The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia. ― Otto von Bismarck

more from Bismark:

- God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.
- Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.
- People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.
- Politics is the art of the possible,the science of the relative.
- What we learn from history is that no one learns from history.

slavery and war

@SallyMayweather

upd 10/29: интересно, что памятник генералу Ли на днях расплавили, но в Wiki это пока не упомянуто.

store of quirks and prejudices

Deep down where we all keep the store of quirks and prejudices that we have absolutely nothing to do with accumulating. They're handed to us at birth, and they get underscored and intensified by the kind of lives we are forced by our elders to lead before we have anything to say about the kind of life we want to lead. --The enemy camp by Jerome Weidman.

...
Aunt Tessie had put her arms around him as though to protect him from somebody who was about to let him have it. "Shkutzim!" she'd said. "Gentiles!"

George had never heard the word before. But he understood right away what Aunt Tessie meant. He didn't need any translators. All he needed was the sound of Aunt Tessie's voice. This, she was saying, is the home of the enemy. Stay away. George didn't have to be told twice. He soon became used to hearing whispered stories about the crazy things that went on inside the house of the shkutzim. --pg 115

...
...boys and girls shouting and playing in the school yard had been infected by the same excitement that had touched the people in Forman's and the shkutzim in Gerrity's.

...
What else was there to say? Danny's relationship with Mike Gerrity and the shkutzim who hung around Mike's saloon was the only thing that bothered George about his best friend. It bothered a lot of other people on Fourth Street, too. Some of them told Mr. Schorr it didn't look right for his son, a nice Jewish boy like Danny, to be seen going in and out of the enemy camp across the street. From things like this no good could come. Jews belonged with Jews, and shkutzim belonged with shkutzim. --pg 122

...
He saw now that Aunt Tessie had been sound in warning him, when he first arrived on Fourth Street as a boy of three, against having anything to do with the shkutzim across the street, just as she had been sound to criticize and distrust Danny Schorr, first for being friendly and then for living with the Gerritys. Time, George saw now, had proved her right on both counts: a man who could consort with the enemy could do anything, as Danny had demonstrated by what he ended up doing to his best friend; and a man who wanted peace of mind had to stay with his own kind. --pg 309

George, who had enough self-control not to look startled even when he was, decided that this time it was probably wise not only to register surprise but to overdo it a little. ... He tried and succeeded in releasing a boyishly embarrassed smile. --pg 417 ну просто Штирлиц

He didn't think enough of any shikseh to want to make an impression on her... He had never been on a date with a shickseh. --pg 446

In view of all this, George found it surprisingly easy to overlook the fact that Miss Bucknell was not Jewish. It was astonishing when you got right down to it, and George promptly did, how little difference there was between the feel of a Jewish girl's thigh and that of a shickseh.

Having dealt with shkutzim in business for years, George has learned how to appear perfectly relaxed with them on the surface. ... Because I'm not as plain and simple as you think I am, George thought bitterly, but he didn't say it. --pg 463 Штирлиц, Штирлиц!

and on a brighter note

He smiled and took her in his hands: "You know what I like?"
Dora laughed. "A girl begins to get the idea after a while."

--pg 371

ex libris

the only crime in war

This is the way it's always been, the only crime in war is to lose. @HarmlessYardDog

Freud & Gestapo

Nazis forced Freud to swear they did not mistreat him before they would give permission for his family to flee Vienna. To save their lives, Freud signed the statement, saying that he'd added: "I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anyone." @RealTimeWWII

There is a widely repeated story that the Nazis made Freud sign a document stating that they had treated him with “respect and consideration”. According to the story, Freud added beneath his signature: “I can heartily recommend the Gestapo to anyone”.

The document was subsequently found by researchers and contains no such comment.

--10 Quotes Wrongly Attributed to Sigmund Freud

choice in life

“My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.”

― Harry S. Truman

уж этот-то знал одну или две вещи о политике. да и о борделях, вероятно.

даже бляди из Snopes подтверждают

свободная страна

Это свободная страна. Всем на всех плевать. --Особняк, Уильям Фолкнер

It’s a free country. Nobody gives a damn. --The Mansion, William Faulkner

The high cost of vengeance

The high cost of vengeance by Freda Utley

The pen is still mightier than the sword and responsible for more human misery when unscrupulously employed in "psychological warfare." As Samuel Johnson wrote in the eighteenth century : "I know not whether more is to be feared from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie."

Chapter 1, Road to War

это она пишет по поводу истории вообще и истории немецко-французских отношенией в частности. и вот кстати о Рузвельте:

President Roosevelt, by torpedoing the London Economic Conference and devaluating the dollar, gave a further mighty impetus to the economic warfare which was the curtain-raiser to the tragedy of World War II.

вот кстати Байден спотыкается

еще полезно прочесть Chapter 6 The Nuremberg Judgments, "Woe to the Vanquished." и тому подобное. и конечно Chapter 7 Our Crimes against Humanity

It was impossible to travel through the devastated towns of the Western zones without it seeming strange and horrible that we should sit in judgment on the Germans who had never succeeded in killing nearly so many civilians as we did, or in perpetrating worse atrocities than our obliteration bombing of whole cities.

и так далее. там много познавательного, например начиная со слов The effect of my remarks... про Judge Edward Leroy van Roden Allied War Crimes In Germany

pitiful nature of men

'I would never have learned so much about the pitiful nature of men, and how little they care about the pursuit of truly noble aims,' he said, 'if I had not put them to the test through my scientific work. I saw then that science, for most of them, is just a means of earning a living, and that they will glorify error itself if it pays their wages.

'And things are no better in the world of literature. Here, too, it is very rare to find noble aims and a genuine feeling for the true and the good, and a desire to propagate them. One person nurtures and supports another, because he in turn is nurtured and supported by him; true greatness is hateful to them, and they would dearly like to get rid of it altogether, so that they alone might be considered important. That's how the masses think - and prominent individuals are not much better.

--Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann

via

функция вежливости

Одна из важнейших функций вежливости — это выражать обиду. --Амброз Гвиннет Бирс, Офицер из обидчивых

It is one of the important uses of civility to signify resentment. --Ambrose Bierce, One Kind of Officer