A problem with the managerial class is that they themselves seldom suffer when their bad ideas with good intentions fail. They are not elected and have no internal loops for feedback and course correction. We see that in the story.
Thomas Sowell makes this exact same point. Victor Davis Hansen makes a related point about California liberals who wreak impoverishment upon the poor and working class and then retreat to their ivy covered, gated enclaves to live in luxury.
It's happening right now in WA state. People who live lives of relative ease are imposing ruinous taxes on those who have to actually earn a living. Everything that started to lower in price due to new federal policy had to be jacked back up to Biden era prices to keep the revenue going for the elites and their precious programs that help no one but their cronies.
I met a woman at a garage sale the other day. She was living with the friend who was hosting the sale. she was 70 and had lost her house due to the landlord selling and was still homeless after a year. She said, 'nobody would help me, none of the agencies, none of the community action orgs, nobody.' Meanwhile, I'm thinking about the millions being spent in this state to make sure illegals have room, board and lawyers while this woman struggles. The west coast is so fucked.
I can sympathize with the woman you mentioned, because my disabled, indigent 64 year old sister was also forced to move from the house she was renting, when her landlord decided to sell. Her son, who had been paying most of the rent, was moving on, & she was left trying to find shelter on less than $900/month. Just like the lady you mentioned, there was no help to be found, from any government agency or private organization. There is no help for indigent American citizens.
I'm sorry to hear about your sister. I hope that she can find something. So much for the so-called 'safety net' the D's used to brag about preserving.
My rent is $800 a month, but it's basically a space for an RV trailer, which I own (more like owe, I'm still paying back the friend who helped me get it). Depending on her level of disability, perhaps something less traditional might work?
We got her into a $1000/month apartment, using my info, and I pay her rent and she pays me back whatever she can afford. (Meanwhile, my credit card bill is climbing steadily higher.) The most frustrating aspect of our search was finding apartment complexes that offered subsidized apartments for low income residents. Their leasing agents assured us that she qualified. All they needed was a “packet” from her “case manager.” We wasted another several days trying to find out what these terms meant, and eventually gave up. She’s on a list for a subsidized complex specifically for disabled people, but they have a 2 to 3 year waiting list. At least she’s on the list, though!
Yes, I tried to get her into a mobile home or manufactured home in a park in which she would own her own space, and only have to pay her share of the property taxes once a year. There was a modest monthly fee for the pool & trash pickup, and it would have been perfect. Unfortunately, she was mired in severe mental illness at the time and refused to even look at it. After wasting thousands of dollars staying in hotels for 8 months, she no longer had the money for that option. I know a lady who has an RV in a park in a cooler area of Arizona, where she spends summers. That’s a great alternative!
It’s most likely Seattle. I constantly post this web site to give transparent, easy to understand financial information. Washington state is in the middle class of the debt bomb (or not as bad as Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey (sorry Matt). I haven’t looked at Seattle, but a guess is that it’s on its way to bankruptcy -eventually. A Detroit event in which the CCP and leftists everywhere are fighting their revolution on by importing illegals to overthrow the safety net.
Watch Seattle municipal bond rates.
But, yes, the 70 year old on the street is horrible. The safety net is a safety net for U.S. citizens. It’s now overwhelmed with illegals, in cities.
It's this way in every college educated, bourgeois enclave. And what's so odd to observe is how the PMC/bourgeoisie are so convinced its some other 'class' that needs constant critique and modification. The Jake Tappers of the world are always right there, as are those in the Upper W Side & Brooklyn, Los Altos, Palo Alto & Saratoga, Brookline & Cambridge, Brentwood & Santa Monica, etc
As alluded, Greene's entire schtick was his self-image as the worldly european, so much more sophisticated than the provincial American oafs who order their betters around like sniveling little bitches.
Common enough attitude, for people who are reduced to living off long-past glories.
Instead of obese black women cast in bronze, we need a 15' Dilbert to reside in Washington DC. Maybe a traveling Dilbert on Ice show that's always cancelled due to equipment malfunction.
I do believe I despise the Wilsonian crusader even more deeply than any European could. As for the magnanimity of British colonial affairs - that is a keg of self delusion I would not touch with a 10 meter pole. Sykes-Picot anyone?
True, we Americans are gauche in so many ways, but at least we aren't smug, condescending Euros who, 80 years after the end of WW II, presume to look down their noses at us even as we still pay to defend their pompous, freeloading asses.. At least we are not that...
I had just finished “the Quiet American” when my BBQ company fed the survivor families at the annual TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Programs for Survivors) in Arlington, VA. One of the mothers approached me. Her son loved our pecan pie so much so that she had to bring one too him when ever she visited him at West Point. Every Christmas, she visits Arlington Cemetery to leave a slice on his grave. It was all I could do to fight back tears, first in sorrow and then in rage at the modern-day Aldan Piles who did this to our young men and women, to their loving families, and to our country. Refilling the canals in Vietnam with them seems like a just and proper revenge.
Me too. Just lost my beloved brother who served in Vietnam, drafted at 18. The cancer, COPD from agent orange finally got him. He did survive that hideous war while there, but It was always too painful to talk about, and eventually got him anyway.
I’m truly sorry for your loss. Same here with agent orange. Various things with me , also. For me, it’s best to let it rest. My anger flares up from time to time, but then I realize it only affects me. God rest your brothers soul.
"Plans for everyone" succinctly describes the reason for my detestation of the WEF ghouls and their supporters. Sadly, too many are blind to the threat
So in 2009 I’m heading for the bush outside Mzuzu, Malawi doing some church stuff, and a local nurse is showing me a smallish brick building where she does health screenings. I noticed a room that was filled almost to the ceiling with ready-to-distribute bed nets. Knowing how poor the average Malawian is, I said something about giving them out for free. She said something to the effect of:
No way. We charge (the equivalent of a U.S. dollar) per bed net… it is a lot of money for everyone but if we give them away for free, no one will value them. They won’t take care of it and then expect another free one.
She also told me that when AIDS hit Africa, the U.S. and Europe funneled boatloads of AIDS money to African countries… but these nations were actually just moving money away from what they were sending for malaria care even though malaria kills a lot more Africans, especially children, than AIDS.
Anyway, you learn quickly that Africa is where good intentions go to die, which in retrospect should be the slogan for many of our nation’s worldwide grant programs.
Years ago, I read a book called "Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working & How There is a Better Way For Africa" by Dambisa Moyo, and it opened my eyes.
Much of the humanitarian aid we give winds up in the hands of warlords, who hoard it, sell it, or dole it out to their own toadies, while leaving the rest of the population behind. The author argued that Africans would have been better off solving their problems from within.
Thanks for reminding readers about Graham Greene's The Quiet American. Greene was one of the great Catholic novelists of the 20th century, along with Evelyn Waugh and Somerset Maugham.
Based on Walter’s recommendation from some time ago I read the book, twice now. Really enjoyed it. Also, loved his recommendation of American Tabloid by James Ellroy! Thanks Walter.
It seems to me that, whatever Greene's intent, there's no hero here - Fowler, the protagonist, deplores the innocence that allows Pyle his credulity and promotes wrong-headed action, sure - but what does he himself offer us except a study in futility? Unable to act - unwilling to take even the responsibility of an opinion, longing for death's oblivion, in love with a girl he knows he cannot commit to, hiding in opium smoke and whiskey from his own will-lessness.
The two present radical extremes; neither is wholly admirable, nor is either despicable. Both suffer the weaknesses of their relative ages and upbringings. In the end, neither presents a beacon to lead so much as thought through the least threatening of storms.
If they are our only alternative courses, as humans, we're sunk.
Perhaps the Americans are more like the Dutch than the British, who were always so morally virtuous at home, but invented slavery and Capitalism. The Brits were pretty terrible in Ireland too. No civilization is innocent.
I agree with much of your analysis though, with all due respect, the attribution "invented slavery" is of course incorrect.
Slavery is probably about as old as "organized civilization" (i.e., the development of permanent settlements, cities, etc.)
Regarding the Atlantic slave trade, by way of example, the story of Mansa Musa, king of Mali who reigned more than 150 years before Columbus shows how developed the slave trade was:
The last two began no later than 650 AD -- more than 750 years before Columbus and the "Age of Exploration" (which sadly included the beginning of the Atlantic Slave Trade).
Slavery was common among the so-called native-Americans also. And then there's the Maori. I read recently that they were completely unaware that there was a fully inhabited island chain (Chatham Islands) about 150 miles north west of them up until the nineteenth century, when a European ship stopped in for water and told them about it. They promptly launched a small armada or warships and went through it like the October 7th attack - murdering many of the men - anyone old - and telling everyone they were now Maori slaves, and began carting them back to New Zealand. Over the next couple decades they wiped the entire population out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriori_genocide
Why does history have to be so messy and complicated? (n.b., implied sarcasm!!!)
I've taken to using the term "dismissive laziness" to describe the mindset that "everything is simple" and there's no need to "worry about details."
The all-too-prevalent contemporary trend to view everything through a woke-politically-correct lens illustrates this laziness and a willingness for inaccuracy.
The President of the American Historical Association (AHA), James Sweet resigned after a backlash to an essay he wrote on the problem of “presentism” in academic historical writing.
Slavery ended when engines were invented. This reduced the need for primarily manual labor. When it comes to preserving wealth and power things change when circumstances change. The exploitation still exists but in a different form. Now it’s normalized as debt and taxes. In many ways a much easier system. The servants (slaves) feed and house themselves.
Truth. The need for agricultural labor, until mechanization in the post WW2 era, has been the bugaboo for every ideology humankind has ever come up with. It’s no coincidence that Narxism’s greatest disasters-the Holodomor and the Great Leap Forward, sprang out of the inability for productive agriculture to exist in a theoretical Marxist framework ( or Stalin didn’t give a shit and just wanted to starve the Ukrainians).
When I visited the anthropology section of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, some years ago, I discovered that according to the captions, yes, slavery was practiced everywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa; but …
It was *nice* slavery, not like that *bad* slavery in the West.
(N.B.: Travelers’ accounts describe how the kings of the Slave Coast often sacrificed unsold slaves to the gods.)
To obscure the fact that nearly all slaves shipped to the Western Hemisphere were enslaved by fellow Africans, progressives have started to call every slave owner an “enslaver”. Thus, if a baby inherited slaves, that would make it an “enslaver baby”!
I never see anyone who calls themselves LatinX criticizing the Aztec empire for ordering up tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of human sacrifice victims from their client tribes every year in the pre-Columbian ( no white men around) era.
Any follower of conspiracy theories will know that white men are very sneaky, and could easily have influenced the Aztecs before they arrived.
Just like white men are responsible for creating the millennia-old caste system of India. (N.B.: This latter hypothesis is actually intended seriously by some. Anti-colonialist Indians have to blame the Brits for the caste system; or they give colonialism credit for breaking it down, which is a thought crime.)
A lot of this attitude came from Rousseau, who glorified so-called primitive people as superior, because they lived closer to “a state of nature.” An example of its persistence is the land acknowledgement that is in vogue. De Maistre is a good Rousseau antidote.
Belatedly, ditto too for "capitalism". Old as human civilization. Trade. Bartering. Ultimately, the invention of currency as an abstraction to facilitate trade.
Ha! You got me! I was guilty of being lazy and inaccurate! Honestly, I was thinking that as I fired off that comment. I'll leave it unedited for posterity. :-)
Trade -- in contrast to conquest and seizure by force -- is begotten by need and was no doubt first realized in barter.
Currency arose as an agreed-upon abstraction to simplify and expedite transactions.
I'd then say that "capitalism" is simply the organization of an economy based on currency and private ownership. That is, I'd be inclined to keep the definition of capitalism as simple as possible. Open for other considerations though! :-)
I would add: “Capitalism” is apparently a derogatory term invented by Marx (haven’t verified, could be a tall tale) for market economies. Which will generate surplus which can be used for further economic development. When at least some of this surplus is allowed to remain in private hands rather than being confiscated by rulers, what you naturally wind up with is what we call “capitalism” - the use of economic surplus by private actors under enforceable contracts to create more surplus (“profits”). No alternative is remotely close to being as effective in raising the material standard of living of the whole society.
Interesting point! I can believe it -- Marx's "magnum opus" [sic?] was "Das Kapital" after all. I can believe he coined the term "capitalism" therein.
Marx, like so many of the people who claimed to follow his economic philosophy was not an economically productive person. I'm pretty sure he lived off Engels and others. True to form, Friederich Engels was the son of a successful German industrialist.
Mao was the son of a wealthy farmer; Mao never had a job but was for all practical purposes a "professional student" who only got involved in politics after his father cut off his funds.
Pol Pot got interested in communism when he was studying (or arguably more accurately "pretending to be studying") in Paris. Not so many southeast-Asian peasants went to Paris to study.
American "radicals" [sic?] are often from well to-do backgrounds. Bill Ayers's father was the head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-area electric utility.
With all that noted, I will admit that Marx was a brilliant historical analyst -- I've heard him referred to as the first analytical historian after Thucydides.
In particular, I find Marx's concept of "Alienation" to perfectly capture the source of so many of society's woes:
While Marx focuses on the effects of capitalism in alienating the worker from his work and the value of his labor due to being "just a cog in the machine", the concept seems to be very useful in capturing the mental state of people who lack a "connection" -- be it a purpose or an association.
Interesting book that starts out challenging the idea that barter is where economics started. Also that debt and slavery were (are) inextricably intertwined. Graeber was involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement 15 years ago or so.
The Dutch invented capitalism--they created the first stock corporations.
The Dutch were also hideous colonial masters. They mis-treated their colonial subjects and left virtual no trace in their ex-colonies.
The Brits, on the other hand, in general, made their colonial subjects' lives and physical situations much better. They left behind functioning infrastructure, organizations, and institutions.
Yes, the American protestants bear a striking resemblance to the rigid Calvinist Dutch. It's all now morphed into secular progressivism but it's just as rigid and filled with prejudice and intolerance.
Also the Brit’s didn’t invent capitalism. Capitalism is economic reality in its natural state. Money begets money. Governments simply try to tame or reform capitalism, for better or worse. The Brit’s did have a large role in the development of communism. Socialism, too.
“Capitalism is economic reality in its natural state.”
Nice way to put it. That became clear to me working overseas in a socialist country that still used elements of capitalism, such as loans, security for capital, GDP, etc.
Sadly I can't find the link despite searching, but someone created an excellent x.com thread called something like "Confessions of a midwit" a few years back (maybe 2?) that basically had a non-war personal insight consistent with the above.
The thread writer in question was the self-described midwit, and was emphasizing this was the norm in whatever US sponsored USAID, peace core, or whatever he had belonged to and was writing up a crucial "confession" style story in the thread.
Basically the gist was this: he was stationed somewhere, I am pretty sure it was the Philippines, to deal with an area ravaged by addictions and the things that tend to spawn in such areas like gangs and general social malaise and disunity. They tried everything to help and spent crazy sums of money. Well ... everything based on what their research said could help that is. Nothing they did had any impact.
Finally some locals -- all on their own without any US-based outsiders prompting, suggestion or help -- started a basketball league. This apparently apparently gave people enough local focus and things to do outside of work that the problems kind of all solved themselves. None of any of the USAID style midwits could explain it, would have recommended it, or saw it coming. But at least one of them, now years later, was writing a "confession" about it and its implication of the arrogant ignorance of the whole US funded "we know how to fix you" institution and the type of people who populate it.
Before we give Graham Greene praise for being a sensitive imperialist, why don't we ask how the Brits performed in Central Asia for the hundred years before World War 1? The struggle for Afghanistan was hardly a model for competent dealing with the locals.
Loved the book when I read it as a jaded twenty-something. As a jaded forty-something, I will add that I've grown a bit weary of lectures from a continent that spent the better part of three centuries conquering the world, and the better part of three decades squandering these gains in an unparalleled spasm of violence.
Thank you for the clarification. I shall aspire to similarly transform myself from a continent to an individual. Any advice for how to accomplish this metamorphosis would be greatly appreciated.
When you look at the ugly Blut und Boden tribalism that infects the proud boys and girls who populate Matt's comment threads, the wider American fatherland, and its most desired model-state apartheid Israel, I'd say you have drastically less than a snowflake's chance in Hell of becoming anything other than what your above comment says you are.
Not a nit-pick here plus I haven't read it yet I only watched the film.
Fowler was a bad man too.
I saw Pyle as a young indoctrinated true-believer willing to help kill innocents for "the greater good". So, ruthless and unbound by "superstitions" like "Thou shalt not".
Fowler was a man who set up his friend to be murdered (for the greater good), and not coincidentally also get to keep his young girlfriend.
I couldn't do that.
Intelligence people, some of them, can do that sort of thing.
And do do it, as part of their job skills.
That's an absolute fact and it's good to keep that in mind.
Anyways Pyle and Fowler both were murderers.
And Fowler killed a friend and he'd have to know Palmer would just be replaced. Right?
Fowler was a self-deceiver he wanted the girl, got her by killing Pyle and ruining his girl's chance for a better life.
I'm glad you and Walter are coming back, Matt. My life has been a Major 7th chord since the two of you went away. I can't help wishing you'd given us an earlier notice about the book. I haven't had a chance to start it yet.
Again, apologies for going on on this but I want to note that your notation (#9) is the more common. I'd gotten used to using "+" for augmented voicings but the "#" is more direct and unambiguous. :-)
Yes #9 = augmented ninth: in C it would be using a D#, though it's often enharmonically mis-spelled as Eb.
C7+9 = C7#9 = (reading top-down):
D#
Bb
G
E
C
Definitely dig Harrison. Big time.
But....augmented chords can be pleasant!
The river tour boats here in Chicago often have horns that are an augmented chord. Sounds very cool and serene as the echoes hit off the buildings by the river. :-)
Another apology for my compulsive detail. Another, maybe more common, "suspense" chord is the diminished which occurs naturally in harmonic minor sequences.
Think "Phantom of the Opera".
The operative interval is the diminished-fifth/augmented-fourth, aka the "tritone", that "wants" to resolve to a consonant interval.
"Suspended" chords also have a "direction" but you'd more likely associate them with more pop/choral context where the "suspended third" (i.e., to a fourth, the most common occurrence) wants to resolve back to the third to produce a consonant (typically major) triad.
Greene did a little more than flirt with communism . He was briefly a party member. As for Philby , as a Soviet spy who defected, I think it’s fair to point out that his involvement with communism went beyond flirting!
A problem with the managerial class is that they themselves seldom suffer when their bad ideas with good intentions fail. They are not elected and have no internal loops for feedback and course correction. We see that in the story.
Thomas Sowell makes this exact same point. Victor Davis Hansen makes a related point about California liberals who wreak impoverishment upon the poor and working class and then retreat to their ivy covered, gated enclaves to live in luxury.
It's happening right now in WA state. People who live lives of relative ease are imposing ruinous taxes on those who have to actually earn a living. Everything that started to lower in price due to new federal policy had to be jacked back up to Biden era prices to keep the revenue going for the elites and their precious programs that help no one but their cronies.
I met a woman at a garage sale the other day. She was living with the friend who was hosting the sale. she was 70 and had lost her house due to the landlord selling and was still homeless after a year. She said, 'nobody would help me, none of the agencies, none of the community action orgs, nobody.' Meanwhile, I'm thinking about the millions being spent in this state to make sure illegals have room, board and lawyers while this woman struggles. The west coast is so fucked.
I can sympathize with the woman you mentioned, because my disabled, indigent 64 year old sister was also forced to move from the house she was renting, when her landlord decided to sell. Her son, who had been paying most of the rent, was moving on, & she was left trying to find shelter on less than $900/month. Just like the lady you mentioned, there was no help to be found, from any government agency or private organization. There is no help for indigent American citizens.
I'm sorry to hear about your sister. I hope that she can find something. So much for the so-called 'safety net' the D's used to brag about preserving.
My rent is $800 a month, but it's basically a space for an RV trailer, which I own (more like owe, I'm still paying back the friend who helped me get it). Depending on her level of disability, perhaps something less traditional might work?
We got her into a $1000/month apartment, using my info, and I pay her rent and she pays me back whatever she can afford. (Meanwhile, my credit card bill is climbing steadily higher.) The most frustrating aspect of our search was finding apartment complexes that offered subsidized apartments for low income residents. Their leasing agents assured us that she qualified. All they needed was a “packet” from her “case manager.” We wasted another several days trying to find out what these terms meant, and eventually gave up. She’s on a list for a subsidized complex specifically for disabled people, but they have a 2 to 3 year waiting list. At least she’s on the list, though!
Yes, I tried to get her into a mobile home or manufactured home in a park in which she would own her own space, and only have to pay her share of the property taxes once a year. There was a modest monthly fee for the pool & trash pickup, and it would have been perfect. Unfortunately, she was mired in severe mental illness at the time and refused to even look at it. After wasting thousands of dollars staying in hotels for 8 months, she no longer had the money for that option. I know a lady who has an RV in a park in a cooler area of Arizona, where she spends summers. That’s a great alternative!
It’s most likely Seattle. I constantly post this web site to give transparent, easy to understand financial information. Washington state is in the middle class of the debt bomb (or not as bad as Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey (sorry Matt). I haven’t looked at Seattle, but a guess is that it’s on its way to bankruptcy -eventually. A Detroit event in which the CCP and leftists everywhere are fighting their revolution on by importing illegals to overthrow the safety net.
Watch Seattle municipal bond rates.
But, yes, the 70 year old on the street is horrible. The safety net is a safety net for U.S. citizens. It’s now overwhelmed with illegals, in cities.
https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/Financial-State-of-the-States-2024.pdf
Until the grapes that make the Chardonnay they sip turn sour; then they will notice and ask "how did that happen"?
It's this way in every college educated, bourgeois enclave. And what's so odd to observe is how the PMC/bourgeoisie are so convinced its some other 'class' that needs constant critique and modification. The Jake Tappers of the world are always right there, as are those in the Upper W Side & Brooklyn, Los Altos, Palo Alto & Saratoga, Brookline & Cambridge, Brentwood & Santa Monica, etc
"They ... have no internal loops for feedback and course correction."
I think this hits the bull's eye. Thanks for sharing.
If that description includes narcissistic hubris and inability to admit a wrong, then it is complete.
As alluded, Greene's entire schtick was his self-image as the worldly european, so much more sophisticated than the provincial American oafs who order their betters around like sniveling little bitches.
Common enough attitude, for people who are reduced to living off long-past glories.
Nevertheless, his predictive power seems to be pretty good.
And also - curiously - suckers for the Kim Philby types.
The USSR, post-Stalin, was really just one giant Dilbertized bureaucratic hell.
Instead of obese black women cast in bronze, we need a 15' Dilbert to reside in Washington DC. Maybe a traveling Dilbert on Ice show that's always cancelled due to equipment malfunction.
My point, 👍
Of course most of his worldly Europeans weren’t exactly heroic characters - corrupt, failed, addicted, jaded, incompetent, impotent, etc etc
I do believe I despise the Wilsonian crusader even more deeply than any European could. As for the magnanimity of British colonial affairs - that is a keg of self delusion I would not touch with a 10 meter pole. Sykes-Picot anyone?
Yes, Wilson--the First Progressive Crusader Pres... It all started with him... Like all Progressives, he knew better than you...
You can thank TR and his gigantic ego for getting Wilson elected
Probably true.
Him or Edith? Or both?
True, we Americans are gauche in so many ways, but at least we aren't smug, condescending Euros who, 80 years after the end of WW II, presume to look down their noses at us even as we still pay to defend their pompous, freeloading asses.. At least we are not that...
Takes one to know one, I suppose.
You seem to be taking this very personally.
this does nothing to demonstrate that it isn’t true, only that you are young and American?
Did I guess, right? It wasn’t hard ha ha
I had just finished “the Quiet American” when my BBQ company fed the survivor families at the annual TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Programs for Survivors) in Arlington, VA. One of the mothers approached me. Her son loved our pecan pie so much so that she had to bring one too him when ever she visited him at West Point. Every Christmas, she visits Arlington Cemetery to leave a slice on his grave. It was all I could do to fight back tears, first in sorrow and then in rage at the modern-day Aldan Piles who did this to our young men and women, to their loving families, and to our country. Refilling the canals in Vietnam with them seems like a just and proper revenge.
My parents are in the process of moving my brother’s body to Arlington. It’s a weirdly peaceful place.
God rest his soul
Let me help. I’ve got a bone to pick with those incompetents from 1966 . My “tour” in Vietnam
Me too. Just lost my beloved brother who served in Vietnam, drafted at 18. The cancer, COPD from agent orange finally got him. He did survive that hideous war while there, but It was always too painful to talk about, and eventually got him anyway.
I’m truly sorry for your loss. Same here with agent orange. Various things with me , also. For me, it’s best to let it rest. My anger flares up from time to time, but then I realize it only affects me. God rest your brothers soul.
I’m sorry you’re dealing with these issues as well. Bless you for your service.
My brother in law, who did 3 tours in Vietnam, died of esophogeal cancer brought on by Agent Orange -- though the VA fought the diagnosis for years.
"Plans for everyone" succinctly describes the reason for my detestation of the WEF ghouls and their supporters. Sadly, too many are blind to the threat
That it's an Iggy Pop quote makes it even better.
But, yes, definitely. The propaganda has worked remarkably well and many are asleep.
If anyone remembers the movie "The Third Man", it was excellent (Orson Welles was in it), and the story was based on a Graham Greene novel.
That's a FANTASTIC film.
And until recently we were ruled by Harry Limes, says I.
I'm hoping that is changing. Fingers crossed
So in 2009 I’m heading for the bush outside Mzuzu, Malawi doing some church stuff, and a local nurse is showing me a smallish brick building where she does health screenings. I noticed a room that was filled almost to the ceiling with ready-to-distribute bed nets. Knowing how poor the average Malawian is, I said something about giving them out for free. She said something to the effect of:
No way. We charge (the equivalent of a U.S. dollar) per bed net… it is a lot of money for everyone but if we give them away for free, no one will value them. They won’t take care of it and then expect another free one.
She also told me that when AIDS hit Africa, the U.S. and Europe funneled boatloads of AIDS money to African countries… but these nations were actually just moving money away from what they were sending for malaria care even though malaria kills a lot more Africans, especially children, than AIDS.
Anyway, you learn quickly that Africa is where good intentions go to die, which in retrospect should be the slogan for many of our nation’s worldwide grant programs.
Years ago, I read a book called "Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working & How There is a Better Way For Africa" by Dambisa Moyo, and it opened my eyes.
Much of the humanitarian aid we give winds up in the hands of warlords, who hoard it, sell it, or dole it out to their own toadies, while leaving the rest of the population behind. The author argued that Africans would have been better off solving their problems from within.
Thanks for reminding readers about Graham Greene's The Quiet American. Greene was one of the great Catholic novelists of the 20th century, along with Evelyn Waugh and Somerset Maugham.
Based on Walter’s recommendation from some time ago I read the book, twice now. Really enjoyed it. Also, loved his recommendation of American Tabloid by James Ellroy! Thanks Walter.
It seems to me that, whatever Greene's intent, there's no hero here - Fowler, the protagonist, deplores the innocence that allows Pyle his credulity and promotes wrong-headed action, sure - but what does he himself offer us except a study in futility? Unable to act - unwilling to take even the responsibility of an opinion, longing for death's oblivion, in love with a girl he knows he cannot commit to, hiding in opium smoke and whiskey from his own will-lessness.
The two present radical extremes; neither is wholly admirable, nor is either despicable. Both suffer the weaknesses of their relative ages and upbringings. In the end, neither presents a beacon to lead so much as thought through the least threatening of storms.
If they are our only alternative courses, as humans, we're sunk.
In what way are we sunk? Every species goes extinct sooner or later.
Perhaps the Americans are more like the Dutch than the British, who were always so morally virtuous at home, but invented slavery and Capitalism. The Brits were pretty terrible in Ireland too. No civilization is innocent.
I agree with much of your analysis though, with all due respect, the attribution "invented slavery" is of course incorrect.
Slavery is probably about as old as "organized civilization" (i.e., the development of permanent settlements, cities, etc.)
Regarding the Atlantic slave trade, by way of example, the story of Mansa Musa, king of Mali who reigned more than 150 years before Columbus shows how developed the slave trade was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa
Specifically, "His procession reportedly included upwards of 12,000 slaves":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa#Pilgrimage_to_Mecca
More generally, the "Conquest of the Mahgreb" (specifically, the references to the number of slaves taken):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_the_Maghreb
...and the "Trans-Saharan Slave Trade":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Saharan_slave_trade
The last two began no later than 650 AD -- more than 750 years before Columbus and the "Age of Exploration" (which sadly included the beginning of the Atlantic Slave Trade).
Slavery was common among the so-called native-Americans also. And then there's the Maori. I read recently that they were completely unaware that there was a fully inhabited island chain (Chatham Islands) about 150 miles north west of them up until the nineteenth century, when a European ship stopped in for water and told them about it. They promptly launched a small armada or warships and went through it like the October 7th attack - murdering many of the men - anyone old - and telling everyone they were now Maori slaves, and began carting them back to New Zealand. Over the next couple decades they wiped the entire population out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriori_genocide
Why does history have to be so messy and complicated? (n.b., implied sarcasm!!!)
I've taken to using the term "dismissive laziness" to describe the mindset that "everything is simple" and there's no need to "worry about details."
The all-too-prevalent contemporary trend to view everything through a woke-politically-correct lens illustrates this laziness and a willingness for inaccuracy.
The President of the American Historical Association (AHA), James Sweet resigned after a backlash to an essay he wrote on the problem of “presentism” in academic historical writing.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/american-historical-association-capitulates-woke-mob-speechunion/
Slavery ended when engines were invented. This reduced the need for primarily manual labor. When it comes to preserving wealth and power things change when circumstances change. The exploitation still exists but in a different form. Now it’s normalized as debt and taxes. In many ways a much easier system. The servants (slaves) feed and house themselves.
Slavery never ended; in fact, there are more people in slavery now, than at any time in recorded history.
https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/
Yes. That was going to be my next comment. Absolutely right!
Truth. The need for agricultural labor, until mechanization in the post WW2 era, has been the bugaboo for every ideology humankind has ever come up with. It’s no coincidence that Narxism’s greatest disasters-the Holodomor and the Great Leap Forward, sprang out of the inability for productive agriculture to exist in a theoretical Marxist framework ( or Stalin didn’t give a shit and just wanted to starve the Ukrainians).
When I visited the anthropology section of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, some years ago, I discovered that according to the captions, yes, slavery was practiced everywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa; but …
It was *nice* slavery, not like that *bad* slavery in the West.
(N.B.: Travelers’ accounts describe how the kings of the Slave Coast often sacrificed unsold slaves to the gods.)
To obscure the fact that nearly all slaves shipped to the Western Hemisphere were enslaved by fellow Africans, progressives have started to call every slave owner an “enslaver”. Thus, if a baby inherited slaves, that would make it an “enslaver baby”!
I never see anyone who calls themselves LatinX criticizing the Aztec empire for ordering up tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of human sacrifice victims from their client tribes every year in the pre-Columbian ( no white men around) era.
Any follower of conspiracy theories will know that white men are very sneaky, and could easily have influenced the Aztecs before they arrived.
Just like white men are responsible for creating the millennia-old caste system of India. (N.B.: This latter hypothesis is actually intended seriously by some. Anti-colonialist Indians have to blame the Brits for the caste system; or they give colonialism credit for breaking it down, which is a thought crime.)
A lot of this attitude came from Rousseau, who glorified so-called primitive people as superior, because they lived closer to “a state of nature.” An example of its persistence is the land acknowledgement that is in vogue. De Maistre is a good Rousseau antidote.
Belatedly, ditto too for "capitalism". Old as human civilization. Trade. Bartering. Ultimately, the invention of currency as an abstraction to facilitate trade.
Capitalism and trade are not the same things.
Ha! You got me! I was guilty of being lazy and inaccurate! Honestly, I was thinking that as I fired off that comment. I'll leave it unedited for posterity. :-)
Trade -- in contrast to conquest and seizure by force -- is begotten by need and was no doubt first realized in barter.
Currency arose as an agreed-upon abstraction to simplify and expedite transactions.
I'd then say that "capitalism" is simply the organization of an economy based on currency and private ownership. That is, I'd be inclined to keep the definition of capitalism as simple as possible. Open for other considerations though! :-)
I would add: “Capitalism” is apparently a derogatory term invented by Marx (haven’t verified, could be a tall tale) for market economies. Which will generate surplus which can be used for further economic development. When at least some of this surplus is allowed to remain in private hands rather than being confiscated by rulers, what you naturally wind up with is what we call “capitalism” - the use of economic surplus by private actors under enforceable contracts to create more surplus (“profits”). No alternative is remotely close to being as effective in raising the material standard of living of the whole society.
Interesting point! I can believe it -- Marx's "magnum opus" [sic?] was "Das Kapital" after all. I can believe he coined the term "capitalism" therein.
Marx, like so many of the people who claimed to follow his economic philosophy was not an economically productive person. I'm pretty sure he lived off Engels and others. True to form, Friederich Engels was the son of a successful German industrialist.
Mao was the son of a wealthy farmer; Mao never had a job but was for all practical purposes a "professional student" who only got involved in politics after his father cut off his funds.
Pol Pot got interested in communism when he was studying (or arguably more accurately "pretending to be studying") in Paris. Not so many southeast-Asian peasants went to Paris to study.
American "radicals" [sic?] are often from well to-do backgrounds. Bill Ayers's father was the head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-area electric utility.
With all that noted, I will admit that Marx was a brilliant historical analyst -- I've heard him referred to as the first analytical historian after Thucydides.
In particular, I find Marx's concept of "Alienation" to perfectly capture the source of so many of society's woes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation
While Marx focuses on the effects of capitalism in alienating the worker from his work and the value of his labor due to being "just a cog in the machine", the concept seems to be very useful in capturing the mental state of people who lack a "connection" -- be it a purpose or an association.
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
2011 book by David Graeber
Interesting book that starts out challenging the idea that barter is where economics started. Also that debt and slavery were (are) inextricably intertwined. Graeber was involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement 15 years ago or so.
Thanks for the reference -- that looks very interesting.
Man, more to read. There is truth in the statement "too much of a good thing."
I'm not an economist per se but am getting more and more interested.
Graeber's take looks very interesting. Thanks again!
He was socialist, just like Orwell, but I like that book all the same. He was an anthropologist, too.
As Trump is demonstrating regularly in his tariff musings….
What?
The Dutch invented capitalism--they created the first stock corporations.
The Dutch were also hideous colonial masters. They mis-treated their colonial subjects and left virtual no trace in their ex-colonies.
The Brits, on the other hand, in general, made their colonial subjects' lives and physical situations much better. They left behind functioning infrastructure, organizations, and institutions.
Slavery? Was around long before the Brits.
Yes, the American protestants bear a striking resemblance to the rigid Calvinist Dutch. It's all now morphed into secular progressivism but it's just as rigid and filled with prejudice and intolerance.
Also the Brit’s didn’t invent capitalism. Capitalism is economic reality in its natural state. Money begets money. Governments simply try to tame or reform capitalism, for better or worse. The Brit’s did have a large role in the development of communism. Socialism, too.
“Capitalism is economic reality in its natural state.”
Nice way to put it. That became clear to me working overseas in a socialist country that still used elements of capitalism, such as loans, security for capital, GDP, etc.
The British did NOT invent slavery.
Slavery has been a hideous feature of human civilization for thousands of years.
Sadly I can't find the link despite searching, but someone created an excellent x.com thread called something like "Confessions of a midwit" a few years back (maybe 2?) that basically had a non-war personal insight consistent with the above.
The thread writer in question was the self-described midwit, and was emphasizing this was the norm in whatever US sponsored USAID, peace core, or whatever he had belonged to and was writing up a crucial "confession" style story in the thread.
Basically the gist was this: he was stationed somewhere, I am pretty sure it was the Philippines, to deal with an area ravaged by addictions and the things that tend to spawn in such areas like gangs and general social malaise and disunity. They tried everything to help and spent crazy sums of money. Well ... everything based on what their research said could help that is. Nothing they did had any impact.
Finally some locals -- all on their own without any US-based outsiders prompting, suggestion or help -- started a basketball league. This apparently apparently gave people enough local focus and things to do outside of work that the problems kind of all solved themselves. None of any of the USAID style midwits could explain it, would have recommended it, or saw it coming. But at least one of them, now years later, was writing a "confession" about it and its implication of the arrogant ignorance of the whole US funded "we know how to fix you" institution and the type of people who populate it.
Perfect.
Before we give Graham Greene praise for being a sensitive imperialist, why don't we ask how the Brits performed in Central Asia for the hundred years before World War 1? The struggle for Afghanistan was hardly a model for competent dealing with the locals.
I give him credit for being a great novelist - his views were all over the place depending on whether he was writing satire, suspense, etc
Agreed, we are all imperfect products of our time. Le Carré branched out over his career to write more critically of the American and British relationship. I strongly recommend Tanazaki's "Some Prefer Nettles" btw - examines east-west Asian relations from Asian point of view. Kindle unlimited: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Some-Prefer-Nettles-Vintage-International/dp/0679752692/ref=monarch_sidesheet_title
Also worth a read is Martin Cruz Smith's Tokyo Station - American and British spies in Tokyo - cusp of war.
Which is why we need to look deep, as what Greene really tells us is never on the surface.
Like the ex-spy he was. To be a chameleon a job prerequisite. That he survived to write meant he was a good one.
I give him credit for loathing Americans, not your fanciful invocation of "managerial elites" for the benefit of your mouthbreathers, but Americans.
I mean you all will eventually support some fucking war to slaughter some fucking non-white folks so your betters can make big profits.
But no fear Matt. It will be "too complex" for non-experts to understand or judge when it comes.
You don't even have to stray that far, just consider the modern Middle East - the product of English AND French bureaucrats.
e.g., the post-WWI redrawing of maps.
"Look, straight lines are just way easier to draw!"
And the invention of Palestine.
The term, derived from Latin (where it probably had earlier sources), was used to describe a region, not a country.
We can thank the classics taught to those English schoolboys. The Ottomans I believe referred to it as Lower Syria.
Loved the book when I read it as a jaded twenty-something. As a jaded forty-something, I will add that I've grown a bit weary of lectures from a continent that spent the better part of three centuries conquering the world, and the better part of three decades squandering these gains in an unparalleled spasm of violence.
Greene was an individual, not a "continent", moron.
Maybe one day you'll become one too. It must be so exhausting being a *patria*.
Thank you for the clarification. I shall aspire to similarly transform myself from a continent to an individual. Any advice for how to accomplish this metamorphosis would be greatly appreciated.
When you look at the ugly Blut und Boden tribalism that infects the proud boys and girls who populate Matt's comment threads, the wider American fatherland, and its most desired model-state apartheid Israel, I'd say you have drastically less than a snowflake's chance in Hell of becoming anything other than what your above comment says you are.
And what is that, precisely?
A continent? A nation? A tribe?
Anything but an individual I'd guess.
What is wrong with you that you answer an opinion in such a way?
Another boy who was protected by Teacher from getting punched in the face for insults in the schoolyard, I guess.
Actually, Tom, I was the boy doing the punching.
And later on, when telling teacher to fuck off for filling the air with the noxious cliches of liberalism, I finally got expelled.
Didn't graduate high school. Shame, shame.
That was a wonderful write up! Thank you!
Not a nit-pick here plus I haven't read it yet I only watched the film.
Fowler was a bad man too.
I saw Pyle as a young indoctrinated true-believer willing to help kill innocents for "the greater good". So, ruthless and unbound by "superstitions" like "Thou shalt not".
Fowler was a man who set up his friend to be murdered (for the greater good), and not coincidentally also get to keep his young girlfriend.
I couldn't do that.
Intelligence people, some of them, can do that sort of thing.
And do do it, as part of their job skills.
That's an absolute fact and it's good to keep that in mind.
Anyways Pyle and Fowler both were murderers.
And Fowler killed a friend and he'd have to know Palmer would just be replaced. Right?
Fowler was a self-deceiver he wanted the girl, got her by killing Pyle and ruining his girl's chance for a better life.
I think Fowler was the worse person of the two.
Interesting! Now I feel a need to both check out the movie and the book!
Not sure I agree with you, but it has been 25 years since I read the book.
But, in any case, you make a fine argument with good points.
Thanks! Pleased to meet you. :)
I'm glad you and Walter are coming back, Matt. My life has been a Major 7th chord since the two of you went away. I can't help wishing you'd given us an earlier notice about the book. I haven't had a chance to start it yet.
Major 7th chord--is that like sitting on the edge of your seat?!
It's usually a chord which invokes melancholy. As Adam Neely on YouTube has said, it's the sound of your girlfriend telling you she's leaving town.
Man...not meaning to put too fine a point on this. :-)
My life has been more of an augmented chord -- specifically relative to the Lydian Augmented scale.
But! Then it jumps to a dominant 7 +9 (i.e., dominant with an augmented second -- like the beginning of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady").
I'll give you that Major 7ths have a melancholy, pensive aspect. Way too tranquil for my life of late -- which is why ATW is such a relief! :-)
Is that the same as a #9?
Augmented chords. George Harrison used to refer to them as "those nasty chords."
Again, apologies for going on on this but I want to note that your notation (#9) is the more common. I'd gotten used to using "+" for augmented voicings but the "#" is more direct and unambiguous. :-)
I'm always envious of people who have formal musical training. I'm a proud primitive, however.
Yes #9 = augmented ninth: in C it would be using a D#, though it's often enharmonically mis-spelled as Eb.
C7+9 = C7#9 = (reading top-down):
D#
Bb
G
E
C
Definitely dig Harrison. Big time.
But....augmented chords can be pleasant!
The river tour boats here in Chicago often have horns that are an augmented chord. Sounds very cool and serene as the echoes hit off the buildings by the river. :-)
Oh, Darling! begins with an augmented A.
I think Harrison was being deliberately silly. I love augmented chords.
Interesting reference. It's an "unresolved" chord due to the unresolved major-seventh (leading tone).
Never thought of it as melancholy though "pensive" also works.
e.g., (If I'm not mistaken) the opening of "Cherish" by The Association.
Interesting. Got to think about that. Major 7th chords as melancholy.
That's arguably more an augmented chord.
Another apology for my compulsive detail. Another, maybe more common, "suspense" chord is the diminished which occurs naturally in harmonic minor sequences.
Think "Phantom of the Opera".
The operative interval is the diminished-fifth/augmented-fourth, aka the "tritone", that "wants" to resolve to a consonant interval.
"Suspended" chords also have a "direction" but you'd more likely associate them with more pop/choral context where the "suspended third" (i.e., to a fourth, the most common occurrence) wants to resolve back to the third to produce a consonant (typically major) triad.
Greene did a little more than flirt with communism . He was briefly a party member. As for Philby , as a Soviet spy who defected, I think it’s fair to point out that his involvement with communism went beyond flirting!