Posted On: Thursday - October 4th 2018 12:25PM MST
In Topics: Commies Websites Pundits
Look, there's lots to criticize about modern-day America, and even plenty of things that America and Americans could have done better throughout history... but dissing George Washington??
Yeah, a little history is fine, but "The Heroic Benedict Arnold"?
Come on, guys!
I saw that post title highlighted on unz.com a couple of weeks back, and it quickly just went to the left side in smaller print. It just made me think about this site, one of only four in the Peak Stupidity blogroll to the right. Unz, named after site owner/operator Ron Unz of oh, California (hey, that's not an excuse for EVERYTHING!), bills itself as:
The Unz Review: An Alternative Media SelectionNo, I can't say the site doesn't live up to that billing. There should be no complaints from us, right? Nah, if it's gonna be right here, in bold letters on this, the frame of the Peak Stupidity blogroll, you're damn straight we have a few things to say about it.
A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media
OK, nothing's changed about this site's usability. For reading, navigation, and especially commenting, it's the best! Nice job, Ron Unz. Maybe the political viewpoints of the writers featured haven't changed that much either, and I am just getting sick of some (note: only some) of them. Peak Stupidity gets loads of enjoyment (or, wastes a lot of time) on unz.com, and gets close to 1/2 of the ideas for our posts there, so, it's not like we're trying to badmouth the whole place - it's just a few quibbles, I guess.
First, Mr. Unz himself has been getting into the ~ bi-weekly long essay on his latest discovery of American and conspiracy theories and/or revisionist history. I don't mean "revisionist" as in wrong, in this case, just widely varying from the long-term narrative. I don't totally disagree with any of these essays, and I would like to write a little bit (if that's possible!) about each in a post to come. Because these extremely controversial essays, are THOUSANDS of words long and have comments numbering in the THOUSANDS, I have read them only partially and not delved into the comments heavily*. However, as I'll write more about in that later post, these articles are into the realm of everything "America" is bad.
I don't know if Mr. Unz realizes that that's the appearance of all his writing: America can do nothing right. Don't get me wrong, THIS whole web site, consisting of > 800 posts now, is focused on American stupidity, though we try to cover stupidity around the world too. Most of what I write here however, is criticism of stupidity in, or brought on by, the US Feral Gov't, other governments, large organizations, the Institutions (not just mental, as stupidity is to be expected there, but Universities, Lower-Ed, Big Media, aka Lyin' Press**, etc.). I don't spend a lot of time pointing out stupidity of ordinary individual Americans. I don't criticize ordinary Americans, except to point out the stupidity that has been absorbed from the stupidity of the institutions.
Let me get to the other writers. Steve Sailer and his iSteve blog portion (look to the right on the main page) of unz is some of the most enjoyable reading, with the comments a large part of that. Then there are the few Libertarians, Dr. Ron Paul being one, and Paul Craig Roberts (who I don't read much now due to his closing down of his articles' comments sections). You've got the excellent writer John Derbyshire, who've we've discussed and linked-to many a time. His mention brings up another good feature of unz. That is, a few more of the VDare.com writers are featured semi-regularly and others infrequently. It is great that Mr. Unz. puts these articles up, even though he really seems not to understand the serious problems with the importation of 10's of millions of Hispanics. He seems like a very fair man, in this respect. It is especially nice to see the VDare articles because VDare itself does not have any commenting system. Once can find some VDare articles on unz a day or a few days after they appear on VDare.
Lastly, and back toward the point of this post, there are so many other writers, though, that are just plain, flat-out Communists! As we've written 3 months ago right here (more here from earlier), some of the young people have no recollection of what the Cold War was and the sheer destruction of lives during the "experiments" in the real-life implementation of this most-stupid of ideologies. No, in answer to the obvious question, they must not read any serious history. There's a Tom Engelhardt, a guy named Godfree, and numerous others who make me slightly embarrassed to be seen linking to the site. Besides these Commies, there are a host of others who do nothing but criticize all things American. Again, not just the Feral Beast of a Gov't we have, and the institutions, but Americans period (note carefully the "s").
This is why the headline about Benedict Arnold bothered me. Are we running out of stuff to criticize that we have to go back to the Revolution now?! Hey, a bit of extra history available for me to read is a good thing. It's free! I did click on Mr. Fischer's article, BTW, to be fair here. It wasn't ridiculously critical about all things America, but it had it's moments. George Washington was the bad guy throughout most of it. The writer finally does admit that Benedict Arnold was indeed a traitor, so what was the point? Americans have never been perfect? OK. I! GET! THAT! We've had our screw-ups, sure, but George Washington was not one of them.
There's not any animosity left from the revolutionary war of 240-odd years ago, so no matter what Andrew S. FIscher writes, nobody will get too bent outta shape. The article being featured on unz.com, though, is just an example of the appearance of the website being All anti-American, All the time. You don't have to do that to be "interesting", "important", or "controversial".
I did leave one writer out, readers, whom you might be able to guess the name of, but I've got a separate post in mind for a guy like him.
* This is pretty much in line with what I discussed about comments in the recent post about current-day Zerohedge. Once they get into the high number of hundreds, or 1000's, I've got 2 problems: 1) I just don't have time to read them all, so I often won't get bothered to read any and 2) Were I to write a comment, it's not likely anybody but the other active commenters would ever read it. Who else but this guy would go thoroughly down to comment #1371?
** Mr. James Kirkpatrick of VDare has consistently used a new term lately, the "System Media". It's not a bad way to put it.
Comments:
Moderator
Friday - October 5th 2018 8:43AM MST
PS: For commenter #2, I'm guessing you forgot to fill in something for a handle, ANYTHING would be fine, as I don't even have comment numbering (it'd be easy enough to do when I finally take a break for software improvements).
I've read my share of American history, not just the elementary schools stuff, and I disagree. Of course, war with France would be considered, as Washington made his name fighting the French&Indian War, that is the British (which included American colonists) against the allied French and Indians in upstate NY, and lower (what is now) Canada.
I don't know the details of the fighting methods of the regular Continental Army. I do know about the sneak attack across the Delaware River into Trenton, and you can't go calling Washington a bad fighting general. As far as pay and desertion goes, that's the same in all wars. Our Military nowadays knows nothing about real war against forces with equal manpower, so they are pampered beyond belief compared to those in our history (especially < WWII in which we had the best supplies and logistics).
I'd read that General Washington ASKED the troops to decide to stay on without pay or not, in that cold winter of 1776-7. No, I would NOT compare George Washington, a man who did not run for President again after his 2 terms, even with extreme popular support to a Lincoln, FDR, or Hildabeast. That is a bridge too far.
Yes, anti-FEDGOV is right up my alley, but I'm anti-present-day elite, put it that way. At the time of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin, American elites were a decent crowd. They founded a country like none other ever seen - so ...?
I've read my share of American history, not just the elementary schools stuff, and I disagree. Of course, war with France would be considered, as Washington made his name fighting the French&Indian War, that is the British (which included American colonists) against the allied French and Indians in upstate NY, and lower (what is now) Canada.
I don't know the details of the fighting methods of the regular Continental Army. I do know about the sneak attack across the Delaware River into Trenton, and you can't go calling Washington a bad fighting general. As far as pay and desertion goes, that's the same in all wars. Our Military nowadays knows nothing about real war against forces with equal manpower, so they are pampered beyond belief compared to those in our history (especially < WWII in which we had the best supplies and logistics).
I'd read that General Washington ASKED the troops to decide to stay on without pay or not, in that cold winter of 1776-7. No, I would NOT compare George Washington, a man who did not run for President again after his 2 terms, even with extreme popular support to a Lincoln, FDR, or Hildabeast. That is a bridge too far.
Yes, anti-FEDGOV is right up my alley, but I'm anti-present-day elite, put it that way. At the time of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin, American elites were a decent crowd. They founded a country like none other ever seen - so ...?
Moderator
Friday - October 5th 2018 8:28AM MST
PS: FIrst, BINGO, BernCar. You win a roll of SWA, SouthWest Airlines stickers, or SWAstickers, which can be picked up at any PeakStupidity outlet store.
I will correct my stupid error (of 100 years off), but appreciate your calling this the 1st (of the 2, only the 1st being successful).
I always appreciate the corrections and the readership, period, from both of you.
I will correct my stupid error (of 100 years off), but appreciate your calling this the 1st (of the 2, only the 1st being successful).
I always appreciate the corrections and the readership, period, from both of you.
Friday - October 5th 2018 6:58AM MST
PS I would argue that Washington being a befouled ass is rather important, as it showcases the FedGov from the start as being corrupt and heavy handed. Leaving aside the Whiskey Rebellion, or even his earlier efforts at starting a war with France ( I read an excellent article on this by Gary North many years ago but alas have yet to find it again ) during the war he stopped paying soldiers, and he stop-loss'ed them, then shot them for desertion after they went home to care for their families who couldn't take care of themselves without the bread winner/guy who farmed the place.
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He also insisted that the troops fight the Brits head on in columns, NOT Indian style ( he despised those militia that insisted on fighting smart like that ). He was more concerned with the countries image as a legitimate nation state on par with Europeans and insisted "real" armies fought in set piece field actions rather than like savage barbarians in guerrilla warfare. And he had a 300 man bodyguard to protect himself against the troops he was abusing.
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George Washington was as bad as Lincoln or FDR or Hilary despising the Dirt People. More people need to be exposed to the lies that have piled up pretending the FedGov ever cared about them in the slightest, that they are anything other than cannon fodder or other types of indentured servants ( a whole other discussion highlighting the real class system of the country ). This is NOT anti-America, it is anti-FedGov and anti-Elite, so this should be right up your alley.
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He also insisted that the troops fight the Brits head on in columns, NOT Indian style ( he despised those militia that insisted on fighting smart like that ). He was more concerned with the countries image as a legitimate nation state on par with Europeans and insisted "real" armies fought in set piece field actions rather than like savage barbarians in guerrilla warfare. And he had a 300 man bodyguard to protect himself against the troops he was abusing.
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George Washington was as bad as Lincoln or FDR or Hilary despising the Dirt People. More people need to be exposed to the lies that have piled up pretending the FedGov ever cared about them in the slightest, that they are anything other than cannon fodder or other types of indentured servants ( a whole other discussion highlighting the real class system of the country ). This is NOT anti-America, it is anti-FedGov and anti-Elite, so this should be right up your alley.
BernCar
Friday - October 5th 2018 6:44AM MST
PS Fred Reed? BTW, the first revolutionary war that Fischer wrote about was 240-odd years ago.
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I was Army enlisted and experiencing the utter rank incompetence which formed my lens through which I view military history. And I understand realpolitik and the Big Picture. I know you need to whitewash history when you are an imperial power. Have you run across anything on the Revolution era land spectators? Fighting England for control of the Indian lands? Buying the vets land grants for pennies spectators? We weren’t JUST fighting for freedom and a vote. WWII was never about democracy ( nor was WWI ), but that is pretty well known stuff. I just think it was no different two centuries ago.
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The British elite cleared the land of peasant farmers to graze more sheep to feed the mills. A few “lucky” folks got to work those mills. The rest had no work. So they “volunteered” to be indentured servants in the colonies. And not all of the folks that rented them treated them any better than an Avis car driven in the hood by drunken frat boys. Since no one is ever evil ( Hitler hated the bankers for killing the Volk AFTER the fighting was over in WWI through their lapdog British, and he thought all bankers were Jews, so 2+2= whatever went through his head. I’m not justifying, I’m pointing out everyone has a good reason for their actions in their own mind ), the rich had to find an excuse for mistreating the poor.
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Listen to Rush Limbaugh? I image the elite of the day looked ( plus powdered wig ) and sounded just like him. It is the poor’s fault they are poor, so screw them, no food for them! Rush, you dumb ass. Every society has its less productive. If you ignore and punish them, they have this tall thing with a sharp end that comes down and reminds you gravity sucks. But you can’t be evil, right? And everyone is tribal ( damn that biology ). So you make those you are mistreating subhuman and worthy of your mistreatment. Class warfare, WAY before the Revolution. Washington was an aristocrat, and it stands to reason he hated the poor, since he wasn’t. Does Trump make money in his casino off Latino immigrants? Of course. Why would Washington be any different?
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I know this boils down to an Optimist Verses Pessimist view of history. I like to think of it as human nature against the victors writing history. But I understand that if you are blinded by sunshine you can’t look under the bed or in the closets ( nor can you see much else when you blind yourself with rage, so there is that I’ll admit ). Peace.