General

The Real Kamala Harris  

/2 Comments/in /by
The Real Kamala Harris  

It’s crazy for Donald Trump not to agree to another debate. While he may not be everybody’s cup of tea, his opponent is an absolute lunatic who could do permanent damage to our country, in addition to the damage that she’s already done.

The media sure aren’t going to alert the public to this looming danger. It’s up to Trump.

Among her other plans for us, Kamala Harris is for:

— Slavery reparations;

— Defunding the police;

— Taxpayer-supported transgender operations for prisoners and detained illegal immigrants;

— Paying bail funds for violent BLM rioters;

— Decriminalizing illegal immigration;

— Abolishing ICE, (or, as The Washington Post put it, “she signaled an openness to a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency”);

— Banning fracking, offshore drilling and gasoline-powered cars;

— Mandatory confiscation of “assault weapons”; and

— Abolishing private health insurance.

The media act as if she’s changed her mind on only one or two little things, like fracking — as opposed to on every single position she’s ever held — and proceed to coach her on how to explain these trivial reversals.

Here are a few ideas from The New York Times:

Todd Purdum: “One person’s flip-flop is another’s proof of a stateswoman’s maturation. Why not own it?”

James Carville: “The retort can be simple: I learned from my time governing in the White House. These are my positions. Take it or leave it.”

Frank Bruni: “We’re always learning and always growing, or at least we should be: That’s a sign of humility, curiosity, openness.”

Except the problem is, there’s no evidence that Harris has, in fact, changed her mind, and a lot of evidence that she hasn’t. For one thing, she has come out in favor of these policies repeatedly, recently and on tape. Worse, every chance she got, she actually implemented them.

Moreover, that’s a lot of positions to reverse. She’s not so much flip-flopping as completely abandoning her entire worldview. As Stalin is supposed to have said, “Quantity has a quality all its own.”

This column isn’t long enough to cover all of her (alleged) turnabouts, so I will only briefly cover her long-standing positions on law enforcement (hates ’em!) and white Americans (honestly, not a big fan).

Harris has unfailingly, aggressively, in every possible way, opposed law enforcement, while supporting criminals and illegal aliens. At the least, this is an odd disposition for a “prosecutor” (as her fangirls boast), rather like an orthodox rabbi whose hobby is curing Virginia hams.

She is on tape comparing ICE agents to the Ku Klux Klan, and on other tapes saying she wants to abolish ICE. It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that as “Border Czar” she presided over the worst border crisis this country has ever seen. (The media once touted her as Biden’s “Border Czar,” but realizing that that sounded like calling Lizzo the “Intermittent Fasting Czar,” now they try to deny it.)

When Harris was San Francisco district attorney, she released Edwin Ramos, an illegal alien and known MS-13 gang member, over the angry objections of the police. Three months later, Ramos drove alongside a father and his two sons and opened fire into their car, killing all three. (Another “migrant” just trying to make a better life for himself and his family!)

As per usual, Harris refused to seek the death penalty against Ramos.

Another illegal alien sprung by Harris managed to go a full five months before killing an American, breaking the record previously held by Ramos. Roberto Galo, an “undocumented” immigrant from Honduras, took an illegal left turn, hit 25-year-old law student Drew Rosenberg on his motorcycle, then backed over him again.

Elevated to California’s attorney general, Harris wrote the wildly misleading titles and descriptions for the two pro-crime initiatives, Propositions 47 and 57, that put violent criminals back on the streets, where they run rampant today. Imagine that on a national scale and — presto! — suddenly you’re living in Haiti.

When the BLM riots were in full swing, she endorsed the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which was paying bail funds for BLM rioters, to get violent criminals out of jail and back to doing what they do best.

She openly cheered the BLM riots — on tape — enthusing to Stephen Colbert, “They’re not gonna stop. They’re not gonna stop, and this is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not gonna stop, and everyone beware, because they’re not gonna stop. They’re not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after Election Day. Everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they’re not going to let up — and they should not. And we should not.”

Harris has said time and again that she supports defunding the police — or “re-imagining public safety,” as she puts it.

The only guns Harris wants the government to forcibly confiscate are so-called “assault weapons,” which are predominantly owned by white men, who are “more likely to have higher incomes, to have served in the military and to be Republican” than other Americans, according to The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, gun homicides are overwhelmingly committed with illegally owned handguns. So she’s cool with drive-by shootings but will institute a government confiscation program to eradicate a hobby of rich white men.

Naturally, Harris totally believed Jussie Smollett’s hoax hate crime, which stirred up real hate toward white male Trump supporters. (They’re not hated enough, apparently.) His story about being attacked by two white men shouting, “This is MAGA country!” at 2 a.m. in Chicago in the middle of a polar vortex — because they recognized him from “Empire”! — was so preposterous that, in short order, Jussie was criminally prosecuted and his acting career “re-imagined.”

But Harris immediately believed Jussie, calling his invented hate crime a “modern-day lynching” and pushing through “anti-lynching” legislation. She’s never apologized.

She has enthusiastically said — again, on tape — that she supports convening a study on slavery reparations. What’s her position on reparations today? She refuses to say. The Post reports: “The Harris campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment on her current position on reparations.”

Can the Post ask her for “her current position” on those KKK-ers at ICE, defunding the police, the destructive BLM riots, the pro-crime propositions she helped impose on the hapless citizens of California, confiscating AR-15s, Jussie Smollett, the homicidal illegals she released, the support she gave to bailing out BLM rioters, and on and on and on?

It’s not like she doesn’t have an answer. Her answer is, “I grew up in a middle-class household and in college, I worked at McDonald’s.”

            COPYRIGHT 2024 ANN COULTER

Jack Ohman on Tucker Carlson

/6 Comments/in /by

From Wiki: Jack Ohman (born September 1, 1960)[4][5] is an American editorial cartoonist and educator. He is currently a contributing opinion columnist and cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle.[6] He formerly worked for The Sacramento Bee and The Oregonian.[7] His work is syndicated nationwide to over 300 newspapers by Tribune Media Services.[4] In 2016, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.[8]

NYTimes: Prof. Amy Wax Suspended for Believing in Race Realism

/2 Comments/in /by

This is way worse than what happened to me at CSU-LB. All I had to deal with was hate and ostracism. And faculty resolutions and faculty Inquisitions. Wax (who is Jewish) says she will sue. I hope she does and wins in the Supreme Court.

Penn Suspends Amy Wax, Law Professor Accused of Making Racist Statements

The case tested the limits of academic freedom and tenure.

A brick building with large windows on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.
The accusations against the professor, who had invited a white nationalist to her class and said that Black people and women were less intelligent, led students and others to call for her to be fired.Credit…Rachel Wisniewski for The New York Times

By Vimal Patel and Stephanie Saul

The university issued a “public letter of reprimand” to Dr. Wax describing the terms of her suspension, which will begin in the fall of 2025 and which also includes the loss of her named chair and the loss of summer pay in perpetuity.

Disciplinary proceedings against Dr. Wax tested the tenure protections of professors and whether such protections allow them to voice opinions that might be seen as inappropriate or downright insulting [but not untrue]. Many students said that they could not trust Dr. Wax to grade students without bias. But many professors — even those who found her comments profoundly racist — objected to disciplining her, on the grounds of academic freedom.

Among allegations against her were that she had described some non-Western countries as “shitholes” [all countries are equal and all would succeed if not for White racism, just like all races are equally intelligent…] and had said that “women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men [a reasonable point of view given Richard Lynn’s findings; in any case, they are less politically based].  She has said that Black people from the United States and people from non-Western countries feel shame for the “outsized achievements and contributions” of Western people [nothing angers non-Whites more than bringing up the relative accomplishments of the West versus the rest], and has derided as unrealistic television ads depicting “Black men married to white women in an upper-class picket-fence house” [Good for her! Pisses me off]. 

Dr. Wax denied making some of the comments and said that others were taken out of context.

She has also invited a white nationalist, Jared Taylor, to class [I’d love to see that. Jared is very articulate and convincing for all but those in the leftist fever swamps].

In a 12-page complaint filed in 2023, Theodore Ruger, the law school dean at the time, wrote that Dr. Wax had demonstrated “callous and flagrant disregard” for students, faculty and staff, subjecting them to “intentional and incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic and homophobic actions and statements.”

Her statements, the complaint added, “have led students and faculty to reasonably believe they will be subjected to discriminatory animus if they come into contact with her”[far more realistic to suppose that White students would be downgraded by woke professors for being White. Notice that no examples are given.] Mr. Ruger declined to comment on Monday.

Dr. Wax declined to comment on the decision. She has previously warned that she will sue the university if she is disciplined. A lawyer for Dr. Wax, David J. Shapiro, also declined to comment.

For several free speech groups, the case represented a threat to one of the key tenets of academic tenure — the right of faculty members to speak freely, without fear of punishment, whether in public or in the classroom.

Reacting to the suspension, Alex Morey, an official with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech group, said that Penn’s decision “should send a chill down the spine of every faculty member, not just at Penn but at every private institution around the country.”

Ms. Morey, the group’s director of campus rights advocacy, argued that Penn had altered its customary disciplinary procedure to prosecute Dr. Wax. She added that she was gratified that Penn had not revoked Dr. Wax’s tenure — an indication, she said, of how flimsy the accusations were.

Peter Wood, president of the conservative-leaning National Association of Scholars, where Dr. Wax serves on the board, accused the university of a “serious error of judgment.”

“Professor Wax’s various statements on race, gender, ethnicity, immigration, inculturation and other matters were entirely within the zone of academic freedom,” he said, predicting that Dr. Wax would not “back down.”

A former assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, Dr. Wax argued 15 cases before the Supreme Court. Though Dr. Wax’s outspoken viewpoints have been a subject of debate for years, student demands for sanctions began in earnest in 2017, after she co-wrote an opinion article arguing that “all cultures are not equal.”

The long-running disciplinary case had gone before a faculty hearing committee. The university’s hearing board has said it does not dispute that academic freedom protects Dr. Wax’s speech, but said that she had violated “behavioral professional norms” in the way she presented her views.

The reprimand letter to Dr. Wax, dated Sept. 24 and signed by the university’s provost, John L. Jackson Jr., said that while academic freedom should be “very broad,” professors must conduct themselves “in a manner that conveys a willingness to assess all students fairly.”

It said Dr. Wax’s conduct had included making “sweeping generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and immigration status. It also said that she had breached “the requirement that student grades be kept private by publicly speaking about the grades of law students by race, and continuing to do so even after being cautioned by the dean that it was a violation of university policy.”

The letter said that the university’s interim president, J. Larry Jameson, had confirmed the decision to suspend Dr. Wax. Because the academic year has already started, the suspension, which was first disclosed by The Philadelphia Inquirer, will not begin until next fall.

The letter also said that, in future public appearances, Dr. Wax must say that she was speaking for herself and not on behalf of the university.

Wikipedia: The ADL is an unreliable source

/6 Comments/in /by

Wikipedia editors label the ADL as an unreliable source on the Israel-Palestine conflict | CNN Business

Wikipedia’s editors declared that the Anti-Defamation League cannot be trusted to give reliable information on the Israel-Palestine conflict [duh!], and they overwhelmingly said the ADL is an unreliable source on antisemitism. It’s a stunning rebuke to one of the world’s preeminent authorities on anti-Jewish hate and a significant advocate for the rights and causes of American Jews.

The editors, a group of volunteer moderators for one of the world’s most popular information websites, voted last week to label the ADL as a “generally unreliable” source on the Israel-Palestine conflict. That means that the ADL should usually not be cited in Wikipedia articles on that topic except for extraordinary circumstances. Other generally unreliable sources, according to Wikipedia editors, include Russian state media, Fox News’ political coverage and Amazon reviews.

The ADL also faces a vote from Wikipedia editors to potentially label the organization as unreliable on the topic of antisemitism [also obvious]. The editors overwhelmingly support that label but continue to debate the decision, which could ultimately deal a blow to the credibility of the leading source of research and information on antisemitism. JTA was first to report the vote.

The Wikipedia editors said in an online forum that the ADL’s dual role as an advocacy and research organization prevented it from providing unbiased accounts on Israel or antisemitism.

“The ADL is heavily biased regarding Israel/Palestine to the point of often acting as a pro-Israel lobbying organization,” [I’m shocked!] wrote an editor with the username Loki, who has edited more than 3,000 Wikipedia articles. “This can and does compromise its ability to accurately report facts regarding people and organizations that disagree with it on this issue, especially non-Zionist or anti-Zionist Jews and Jewish organizations.”

A minority of editors disagreed, arguing the editors voting in favor failed to provide evidence that the ADL has made false claims because of its advocacy work.

The ADL strongly rebuked the decision.

“It is deeply disturbing that the many editors who flagged the severe flaws and inaccuracies in both the reasoning and sources being used in this campaign to delegitimize ADL are being ignored,” an ADL spokesman said in a statement. “They have provided point by point refutations, grounded in factual citations, to every claim made, but apparently facts no longer matter.” [Facts have never stood in the way of anything the ADL says.]

Calling the decision “a sad development for research and education” and “devastating for the Jewish community and society,” the ADL said it would continue its work to fight antisemitism. But the spokesman warned Wikipedia’s action would prevent information on antisemitism from reaching the public. [Yes!]

ADL adapts to a changing world

Prior to Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7, the ADL had been largely focused on educating about and advocating for action against the rise in antisemitism around the world. That alarming trend included (and continues to include) a growing number of threats and anti-Jewish actions taken by White supremacist groups, and ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt became a frequent guest on television news, such as CNN. [The ADL has always had a lot of representation in the elite mainstream media. Of course, there are exceptions. They refused to come on Tucker Carlson’s show to discuss Jewish hypocrisy on their attitude toward immigration to the West versus immigration to Israel.]

After the events of October 7 and the ongoing war that followed, the ADL produced numerous reports about rising antisemitic hate speech and incidents, particularly on college campuses [but never provided appropriate contest, such as the 20-year blockade of Gaza]. It produced two report cards on universities’ actions to protect Jewish students, giving failing grades to more than a dozen colleges [with the result that, unlike BLM protesters who were treated with kid gloves, anti-Israel protesters face serious consequence, such as beating by Ziosnist thugs and campus police at UCLA, university discipline, etc.].

But the ADL faced some criticism for doubling down on what some detractors believed was an overly broad definition of antisemitism that included anti-Zionism and some anti-Israel speech and actions.

“ADL’s leadership has taken a much more aggressive stance than most academic researchers in blurring the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism,” said James Loeffler, professor of modern Jewish history at John Hopkins University. [Ya think??] “It’s clear from reading the Wikipedia editors’ conversation that they are heavily influenced by the ADL leadership’s comments.”

Greenblatt and the ADL made clear that political opposition to Israel’s government and policies were acceptable and not antisemitic. But those who denied Jews had the right to self-determination and freedom in their homeland were antisemitic, according to the ADL.

“Let’s make this very clear: Anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” Greenblatt said at an ADL “State of Hate” event in March. “Antizionism is a negation of Jewish history, a denial of Jewish humanity.”

That didn’t sit well with Wikipedia’s editors. For example, one editor, with the username Sameboat, claimed the ADL leader’s advocacy “demonstrates its skewed views and manipulative presentation on the IP (Israel-Palestine) topic and thus (is) highly unreliable.”  True.

Balancing advocacy with trusted information

The ADL has built an expertise in tracking antisemitic threats and hate groups and has done beneficial work in providing the world with information and data about antisemitism, particularly because so few organizations are doing that kind of research, noted Loeffler. And the fact that the ADL balances advocacy with research is not a new problem for the organization. [I.e., research that supports their advocacy.]

But Wikipedia’s decision may reflect a changing landscape that the ADL needs to reckon with. The war in Gaza has deeply divided people of all backgrounds, including Jews. The war has added significant ambiguity and complications to the world’s view of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

If Wikipedia’s editors are distancing themselves from the ADL, that could suggest media, academic and partnering advocacy organizations will think twice about how they approach ADL data in their own efforts to inform their audiences on antisemitism.

“The challenge to the ADL is to separate the advocacy from the data when it comes to the overall message,” Loeffler said. “I think this is going to be a difficult blow to the credibility to the ADL in its role on this issue. The staff there will continue to do rigorous work, but this will provide an opportunity for self-reflection.”

 

 

When Technology Kills

/2 Comments/in /by

When Technology Starts Killing – by Alexander Dugin (arktosjournal.com)

Agent Double Zero

/10 Comments/in /by

         After yet another assassination attempt on Donald Trump — or as The New York Times calls it, “what the FBI is calling an assassination attempt” — it’s time for Trump to hire Blackwater to do his security. (You can choose your own pronouns, but it’s up to the Times to decide if someone tried to assassinate you.)

            My last suggestion along these lines was this:

“Dear Bureau of Prisons: Please get Jeffrey Epstein to a supermax prison pronto, or the people who want him dead will make sure we never know the truth. ACT NOW!” — posted on Twitter, 1:05 a.m., July 25, 2019

They didn’t move him, and three weeks later, Epstein was dead. I’d rather not be right this time, although neither he nor Trump built the wall.

You may have noticed that, instead of taking readers through the facts that lead to my point, I began with the conclusion. Trump isn’t known for being a detailed reader, so I had to put it up front.

But here’s my reasoning.

Only in Hollywood movies are intelligence agencies repositories of wisdom, courage and derring-do. In real life, a Secret Service agent isn’t Clint Eastwood, matching wits with evil genius John Malkovich to save the president’s life, but a bum passed out drunk in bed with a Colombian whore hours before President Barack Obama arrives for an international summit.

Let’s review just a few of the protective branches’ greatest hits, starting with the CIA, the most falsely admired agency. If nothing else comes of this column, I’d at least like to reduce the number of ignoramuses attributing superpowers to the CIA, as if we’re talking about James Bond and not Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

CIA, aka the Most Discredited Intel Agency on the Planet:

The CIA didn’t see 9/11 coming, couldn’t locate Osama bin Laden for a decade, had no inkling the USSR was on the verge of collapse throughout the ’80s, and was stunned by the 1979 Iranian revolution.

This is all pretty common knowledge about an elite, top-secret agency with a billion-dollar budget, having been reported in major media outlets — e.g.:

— The New York Times, March 29, 1987: “The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that the Soviet economy significantly improved last year, putting the agency at odds with some Western specialists.”

Months later, the USSR was bankrupt.

— The Washington Post, Dec. 8, 1985: “Five months before the downfall of the Shah of Iran, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the CIA concluded that ‘Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation.’ A month later the [Defense Intelligence Agency] asserted that ‘the shah is expected to remain actively in power over the next 10 years.’”

In short order, the shah was fleeing for his life as hundreds of Americans were taken hostage by Islamic lunatics.

            In another triumph for these all-knowing prophets, in 1999, NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by accident because the CIA had failed to update its addresses of foreign embassies.

            Among the many enemy spies the CIA didn’t notice in its own ranks was Aldrich Ames, whose betrayal led to the execution or imprisonment of dozens of Soviet sources. Despite the fact that Ames was a drunk, an adulterer and living well beyond his means, the CIA didn’t realize he was a Soviet spy for eight years. Hey, anybody can have a bad few decades.

And don’t forget that, during the 2020 presidential campaign, it was former CIA acting director Michael Morell who organized the letter signed by “51 intelligence officers” claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation.”

The only thing provable about CIA agents is that they know less about the world than anyone who isn’t a CIA agent.

Which of these is your favorite FBI moment?

— A yearslong, multimillion-dollar Russia investigation instigated by a corrupt, Trump-hating FBI agent, who pushed the Hillary-supporting DOJ brass to sign off on multiple FISA warrants against American citizens, based on a nonsense “Russian dossier” compiled by someone being paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

— Shooting dead a woman holding her child, a 14-year-old boy, and a dog at Ruby Ridge.

— Incinerating more than 80 men, women and children to death in Waco, Texas (with assistance from crack ATF and DEA teams).

— Blowing off Phoenix FBI agent Ken Williams’ detailed memo two months before the 9/11 attack warning FBI higher-ups that a lot of Muslims were taking flight lessons, saying it looked like a “coordinated effort” by Osama bin Laden. Appalled by the agent’s Islamophobia, the bureau ignored his report.

— Clearing Islamic terrorist Omar Mateen shortly before he slaughtered 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.

— Refusing to follow up on repeated warnings about Parkland, Florida, mass shooter Nikolas Cruz.

— Dropping its investigation of recent school shooter Colt Gray because he told them his computer had been hacked.

At least under J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI was competent. Today, the bureau is the Social Justice Warrior version of the Keystone Cops.

Secret Service:

Rounding out this very brief review of the crackerjack performance of U.S. protective agencies is the one in the news this week, the Secret Service.

It’s bad enough that a dozen agents engaged in the aforementioned drunken whoring in Colombia while allegedly doing “advance work” for Obama in 2012. But guess how they were caught? One of the agents got into a screaming match with a Cartagena prostitute over her payment. Suggestion for a new Secret Service motto: Immoral and Stupid.

The following year, Secret Service agents were found passed out in the hallway of a Netherlands hotel the day before Obama arrived, and two other agents drunkenly wrecked a car in the Florida Keys. After that, the service issued a new rule: Agents must be sober for 12 hours before the beginning of their shift protecting the president. Good to know.

At least in Florida this week, Secret Service agents noticed that someone was pointing a gun at Trump. In 2011, illegal alien Oscar Ortega-Hernandez riddled the White House with bullets, but when a Secret Service agent tried to respond, his supervisor ordered him to stand down, saying there had been no shots fired. The shooting was only discovered days later, when an alert housekeeper found glass all over the floor where Ortega-Hernandez had shot out a window.

Although there are plenty of impressive individuals within these agencies — like Ken Williams, blown off by his superiors — they’re trapped in the maw of a criminally incompetent federal government.

After two assassination attempts on Trump within three months, it’s time to stop believing in Hollywood fantasies and get Trump some real security. He should hire Blackwater today.

            COPYRIGHT 2024 ANN COULTER

Spencer J. Quinn on Counter-Currents: Cathy Young vs. Darryl Cooper

/1 Comment/in /by

Cathy Young vs. Darryl Cooper

In order for white Europeans to finally escape the hole they have dug for themselves, they must reevaluate the Second World War. This was the war in which Europe was conquered by the forces of liberal democracy coming from the west, and the forces of communism coming from east—two sides of the same globalist coin. Ultimately, whites were the big loser in that conflict, with over ten million needlessly slaughtered. But this was all for the good, we’ve been taught. This was all to crush a great evil, one we were told we’d do much better without. Only now, we are beginning to realize that we not doing any better without this so-called evil. With Europe and America being invaded by the Third World, and with this catastrophe being funded, enabled, and cheered on by the very inheritors of the victors of the Second World War, we’re beginning to discover an evil greater than the one we eradicated in 1945.

I would say reevaluating the Second World War ranks higher in importance than being versed in race realism, the Jewish Question, or white identity, as crucial as all of these things are. Fortunately, former Fox News personality and independent journalist Tucker Carlson is doing just this. Recently, he hosted historian and podcaster Darryl Cooper for an interview on X to discuss the Jonestown massacre and Cooper’s upcoming and sure-to-be-controversial project on WWII. Given the million-plus views and ten thousand comments their conversation has garnered, revisionist notions are suddenly, miraculously back in play in the American mainstream. As I listened to this engrossing podcast, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Starting off, Carlson could not have praised Cooper more effusively—so much so that what followed will be impossible for him to walk back. Darryl Cooper, according to Carlson, is “the most important popular historian working in the United States today” thanks to his “relentless curiosity and honesty.” As it turns out, Cooper’s curiosity and honesty have led him to some rather scandalous opinions on the Second World War, which he correctly described as “the founding mythology of the order that we’re all living in.” You can say what you want about other historical events, but to deviate from the accepted narrative on this one is to violate some serious taboos. And one way to ensure a topic remains poorly understood is to slather it with taboos.

I mean, again, like a historical event like World War two, where I mean, the one rule is that you shall not do that. You shall not look at this topic and try to understand how the Germans saw the world. Like how the whole thing, from the First World War on up to the very end of the war, how these people might have genuinely felt like they were the ones under attack. That they were the ones being victimized by their neighbors and by all these, by the Allied powers. You know, and you can handle that with a sentence, you know, you can wave it off and say, well, you know, they’re justifying themselves, their rationalizing their evil, or whatever you want to say. But again, I think we’re getting to the point where that’s very unsatisfying . . .

So Cooper wishes to understand the German perspective regarding the war. That in and of itself is not terribly scandalous. Then again, never once did he say that the German perspective was necessarily correct or moral. He understands that there are layers upon layers here—nothing one can uncover in a two-hour podcast. But like a good historian, he also knows that demonizing one side of a conflict isn’t right.

And so if you start talking about the interwar period and how Weimar, the Weimar culture, you know, after the First World War led to something like, the rise of the National Socialists and why the people who embraced that movement did embrace it. . . . You know, you had this country, Germany, a sophisticated cultural super power. That was fine. And then they all turned into demons for a few years, and now they’re fine again. Like, that’s sort of the official story. And I think deep down, we all know that makes no sense.

If he refuses to demonize the German people, that’s one thing. But at least Cooper has the sense to demonize Adolf Hitler, right? Well, not so fast:

Churchill was the chief villain of the Second World War. Now, he didn’t kill the most people. He didn’t commit the most atrocities[…] I think when you really get into it and tell the story right and don’t leave anything out, you see that he was primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did, becoming something other than an invasion of Poland.

Cooper argues further that Hitler, after achieving victory over Poland, fired off peace proposals to France and England, begging them to rescind their war declaration. Hitler even flew planes over England to drop leaflets expressing Germany’s desire for peace. According to messages like these, Hitler not only wanted peace, he wanted England to remain strong—with all of its colonies intact—in order to thwart the great communist menace in the Soviet Union. All sadly fell on deaf ears.

The reason I resent Churchill so much for it is that he kept this war going when he had no way, he had no way to go back and fight this war. All he had were bombers. He was literally, by 1940, sending firebomb fleets, sending bomber fleets to go firebomb the Black Forest. Just to burn down sections of the Black Forest. Just rank terrorism, you know […] What eventually became the carpet bombing, the saturation bombing of civilian neighborhoods […] the purpose of which was to kill as many civilians as possible. And all the men were out in the field. All the fighting age men were out in the field. And so this is old people. It’s women and children. And they knew that.

Sort of like how the Allies starved 850,000 Germans—old people and children, mostly—during their naval blockade at the end of the First World War. Of course, the Germans remembered that. Of course, they would scoff at any Allied notions of human rights after that. One thing that Cooper does not mention however was that Churchill had been egged on by none other than President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington. FDR had desperately wanted war with Germany and had pressured Churchill’s predecessor Neville Chamberlain during the late 1930s into provoking one—as it turned out, by propping up Poland with a “blank check.” According to Robert Stinnett in Day of Deceit FDR had goaded Japan into war for this very reason due to Japan’s alliance with Germany. And those long-range heavy bombers which Cooper mentions? They were manufactured for the very purpose of bombing German civilians by the supposed appeaser Chamberlain throughout 1938 and 1939. …