Posted on 06/22/2006 4:29:24 PM PDT by Pokey78
THE SOUND of lusty Germans filling World Cup stadiums with the refrain of what much of the world still thinks of as Deutschland über Alles has provoked mixed reactions. Despite the best efforts of the enforcers of political correctness, it will never be possible for any of the current generations of Englishmen or women (or many other Europeans, for that matter) to dissociate the sound from the nation’s still unpleasantly recent past.
Certainly, it’s not the Horst Wessel Lied, and the anthem’s words (“Bloom, in the glow of happiness, Bloom, German fatherland!”) are almost bathetically bucolic by comparison with the old, troublingly blunter: “Germany, Germany, above everything in the world!” But there’s something about the sight of muscular Aryans and blonde-plaited Fräulein belting out the familiar tune that prompts some to reach instinctively for the tin helmet and the map of Poland.
But to others, me included, the development is a welcome one. It marks another small, symbolic victory in the unending struggle of people everywhere to preserve their national sovereignty. It says much, too, about the enduring nature of national identity. Despite centuries of efforts to extinguish it, the nation remains the unit in which most peoples, especially those in Europe, invest their loyalties. You can read too much into the behaviour of football fans, as we English know only too well. But the guiltless embrace of patriotism by football-loving Germans fits with a general perception in recent years that Germany is close to being a normal nation again.
Nationalism, of course, has long been a dirty word. It is generally deemed to have consigned Europe to almost continuous war between the early 19th century and the mid-20th century. And so it did.
But as with so many attempts to extirpate evil, the desire to crush its baleful consequences overreached. It was not just nationalism, but patriotism that was suppressed. The idea that your country can stand for something benign became unsayable, even with nations whose past fully entitled them to make such a claim.
The conviction took hold, in the governing and opinion-forming classes in the West, that the nation state itself was somehow an abomination, an intrinsic threat to peace and stability. So for half a century, emboldened political leaders in Europe made larger and larger efforts to snuff it out.
But while you can submerge nationhood in a tight web of supranational institutions, you can’t destroy the basic allegiances that animate the hearts of men. You can take the soul out of a country but you can’t take a country out of the soul. And the risk has always been that the more you attempt to suppress the idea of a nation, the more you will foster resentment and the very sort of indignant nationalism that has proved so tragically costly.
The European Union, of course, is not alone. The post-Second World War multilateral settlements designed to promote international co-operation between sovereign nations have become, in the dreams of many, an even larger opportunity to suppress the nation itself. There are political and cultural elites everywhere who regard the nation state as an unhealthy anachronism, who want to bury national pride and identity beneath an avalanche of deracinated, brotherhood-of-man, why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along-together mush. It is a conviction founded on a moral relativism, of course — no one nation is any better than any other — and promulgated by diplomats, business leaders and entertainers who have long since shaken off the irritating shackles of their own nationhood to play on a much larger global stage. To these people the United Nations is the highest achievement of humanity, and they would happily subjugate the will of peoples everywhere to its rule.
What is so striking about this effort to extinguish national identity and the popular will is that it is persistent, and through history repeatedly reveals itself in different ways. Marx regarded the nation as a capitalist construct, another manifestation of false consciousness to distract alienated labour from its true plight. The Soviets certainly did their bit to eliminate national boundaries, but the vigorous and renewed national pride in Eastern Europe is testament to the enduring failure of global communism.
Radical Islam wants the umma to replace national communities — and is willing to eliminate nations by violence. And I suppose, for reasons of absolute fairness, and as a Catholic, that I should also acknowledge that the Church has had a long history of adopting a bluntly political interpretation of its universalist claim, though today it has, fortunately come to happier terms with the nation state.
In some parts of the world, of course, popular allegiance is paid to even smaller units of society — tribes and ethnic groups. Indeed in places like Iraq, we should wish there were a stronger nationalism.
But the principle remains that voluntary loyalty to one’s own group is the most powerful popular coagulant. Belief in the supremacy of national sovereignty is not at all, as its critics claim, an inevitable driver of racism or nationalism. Even if, like the Dixie Chicks, you claim not to be able to understand the very idea of patriotism, you should at least acknowledge that, for most people, the nation is the primary political unit, the one that legitimises the governing of their nation.
Nor is support for the principle of a world of free sovereign nations consonant with economic isolationism. Globalisation has worked (and it has been the greatest antidote to poverty the world has ever seen) because it has been driven by consumer choices, individuals acting freely to promote their own welfare, not by elites.
Indeed, economic integration remains the best way to promote global co-operation and genuine prospects for peace. It gives people a tangible stake in each other’s futures in a way no supranational ideal or multilateral institution ever could.
Upper-crusty antisemitism didn't get going until the 1870's in the U.S. Not sure where it came from, or why, but I recall reading that its first manifestations were in resort society in upstate New York back then.
Although U.S. Grant did issue some restrictive regulations (with harsh comments) on Jewish business agents who followed the Army around the South.
I'm no communist, but in all honesty I think one of the finest national anthems I've ever heard is that of the old Soviet Union. It's quite majestic sounding.
Mutatis mutandis, I know a white woman who works for a Chinese-American-owned business with lots of business ties to China. She knows which way the wind blows over there, and her Chinese bosses make no bones about it. She knows she's kwai loh.
Likewise, I worked for a Jewish-owned jewelry store 32 years ago. I thought that, as a geologist who'd studied (of course) mineralogy and X-ray diffraction methods, I might have a leg up as a potential jeweler. How naive. The jewelry counter was where the real money was made, and the jewelry salesmen were the only commission-earning employees in the store. They made serious money. We made subminimum wage. And I found out pretty quick, I wasn't going to get a shot at the jewelry counter, ever -- I was a gentile. No way for me. Oh, and I didn't get the seven extra Jewish holidays a year, either, or the 10% pay differential paid to Jewish employees, and if I'd had kids, they wouldn't have had shots at summer jobs there like the Jewish employees' kids did. Too bad, so sad, poor little shagitz boy, didn't get a shot at the better job inside the company.
So I went out and got a real job, instead. Went back to that place two or three years later, and it hadn't changed a bit. Same sleepwalking employees, same old deal. But I'd moved on, and was making more than double my old pay. Glad I got laid off so they could give my job to that black guy they'd brought in at a wage 20% lower than mine.
A couple of years ago, I saw cooks at this greasy spoon where I often got breakfast giving the white waitresses a hard time. I asked a couple of them about it, and it turned out that these three cooks were just really sanding them down any way they could. The cooks were illegals from Mexico, and they were trying to get the white women to quit so their jobs would come available for hermanas.
I came back a couple of months later, and the waitresses were still there, but the cooks were gone. Ooops. Didn't work that time.
Last night I went to an event honoring Sandra Day O'Connor.
She graduated 3rd in her class from Stanford Law and she went about getting a job. She did exactly the same things as the men did to get a job, but she did not even get an interview let alone a job.
She did say that times had changed much since then and women now get a very fair shake.
Staytrue may be interested to know that although my ancestors came from transalpine Europe, my immediate boss is an immigrant from Asia (Iran), and the head of our organization is of Mexican and Spanish descent. And i get along with them just fine.
Glory to our fatherland, glory to our freedom
We come together to defend the hopes of our people.
Flag of the Soviets, flag of the people.
Carry it from one victory to another.
One of the lines in the second verse reads, "Stalin has raised us in loyalty to the masses, inspired us to labor and heroic deeds." After Khrushchev denounced Stalin, the song was only played instrumentally but not sung, and one could even get in trouble for singing it.
I have a couple of recordings of this song from the 1940's and an instrumental version from 1975.
If by that you mean:
then I agree with you.
Ahem. Don't think so.
Nationalism did not consign Europe to "continuous war", ever. Nothing did, because they didn't have "continuous war."
That's the first point.
Second point, Napoleon started the Napoleonic Wars, nationalism didn't. Nationalism was stirred up by European monarchs responding defensively to the threat posed by Napoleon's massive, ably-led armies. Napoleon had inherited, or rather taken into receivership, the concept of "people's war," which was originally the response of the Directoire to the threat of the superior abilities of the professionalized European armies ranged against the French Revolution.
Third point, with the exception of World War I, the European wars of the 19th and 20th centuries were caused, moved, precipitated, by personalities not "isms" -- specifically, by two of Nostradamus's three "great tyrants," the third of whom, "the man in the blue turban," has yet to appear but is now due to do so. If you like Nostradamus.
There has been a move afoot in historiographical circles to deny the importance of the single actor in history for about 80 years now, pari passu with the Marxist political cabal in academe. That fact -- that derangement of facts -- needs to be kept in mind and not emulated.
Hadn't heard about that one at all. You mean, The New York Slimes isn't putting out the whole story?
</shocked, shocked>
free dixie,sw
MANY northern corporations like banks, insurance companies, railroads, shipping companies, etc OWNED slaves, mostly through "off-shore, nominee stock companies" or "holding companies".
when slavery became UNPROFITABLE in the north,the VAST MAJORITY of the northern slave owners SOLD their slaves "south" & to the Caribbean. to the FILTH that "made their living" by engaging in "the human flesh trade" PROFIT was EVERYTHING!
sorry, but i'm NOT going to let you try to WHITEWASH the hypocrites in the NORTH, while bashing southerners constantly.
free dixie,sw
the VAST majority of southerners were TOO POOR to own a slave, even had they wanted to. the TRUTH is that there were relatively FEW slave owners in dixie, but that those who DID own slaves owned MANY. (for example, in my home county in 1860, there were 3 total slavers. one owned one (his WIFE), one had 2 slaves & one had MANY.)
according to the TAX RECORDS the percentage of overall slave-ownership was about 5.75%.
peddle your "statistics" elsewhere. as my grandfather used to say, "figure don't lie, but liars sure figure."
free dixie,sw
Priceless.
Perhaps you should read what Sandra O'Connor said friday night.
It is post 105.
regarding 109
maybe payback is a bitch.
I've often wondered about this. As slavery was outlawed in successive northern states, what happened to the existing (few) slaves in those states? Were they freed or were they sold South before the law went into effect? I've never been able to find any statistics on the subject.
Slaves certainly weren't sold from the north to British or French Caribbean islands, as slavery was outlawed in those islands early in the 19th century and the slave trade earlier yet.
The Spanish islands allowed slavery for a short time longer than the US did, but I strongly suspect slave prices were higher in the US than in Cuba or PR, so it is likely very few slaves were ever sold out of the US.
This is all very logical. Prior to the latter 19th century most American Jews were upper-class Sephardim whose ancestors had been here since long before the Revolution. They were completely assimilated in all but religion.
In the late 19th century huge masses of poor, uneducated German, Russian, Polish and other Eastern European Ashkenazim began arriving and concentrated into terrible slums in the major cities, complete with awful crime and disease. They appeared to be poor prospects for assimilation and Americans reacted to them negatively even more than they did to immigration at the same time by poor uneducated Irish or Italian peasants.
All of these groups have since assimilated quite well.
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