From: "Jeff Wood", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
John Sukey wrote:
"You almost got it right. Edward VII was the reason that
"little Willie didn't start things off until 1914 as he was
scaredof his uncle. Edward VIII was the Nazi lover."
Quite right. There are too many Edwards to count properly.
"Wonder why anyone bothers to read the Manchester Guardian
unless its because they miss Pravda and Isvestia."
Oh dear, where to begin .
As a matter of general political history, the Communists were always more
terrified of the constitutional parties of the left than they were of those
of the right. This is why, when the Soviet Union was securing central and
Eastern Europe in the 1940s, leaders of the Socialist parties disappeared
into camp or fell out of third floor windows just as fast as during the Nazi
period. Of course, one could always add that "Nazi" stands for "National
Socialist, which may prove something.
It is a fact that the first fighters against fascism were of the left: those
who took on Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Many were Communists, most
Socialists and anarchists of one sort or another, and most ended
disillusioned after being shafted by the Communists, on the instructions of
Stalin. George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" is an excellent first hand
account of what happened. It was partly as a result of this time that many
of the most bitter fighters against communism have been in fact Socialists.
For some on the right, the Communists were a convenient bogeyman with whom,
on the quiet, they could do business.
Now, about the attempt to censor my reading. A little linguistic analysis
shows the words Liberal, Liberty, and Libertarian to be derived from the
same root. Of course, when we move from language to humanity, things get a
little more complicated. There are social liberals and economic liberals.
Among the former , some grant freedom to the individual in some social
matters, while depriving them of it in others - such as firearms ownership.
Economic liberals tend to allow freedom to the rich men, while actively
depriving those whom they temporarily employ pending downsizing.
Lots of scope for ambiguity then, but you get my drift: those of a
libertarian persuasion come with various labels and attached, and our common
enemies are the people-controllers of both left and right. Like other
shooters as the correspondence page proves, I read the Guardian, and the
Observer of London, and feel no need to apologise for that. It is a place
where, whatever the frustrations, one can make one's voice heard and also
pick up the news one needs to know: in recent times this list has carried
intelligent and informed accounts from those papers of both the matter of
Echelon and the RIP Bill.
Perhaps I could be a land a word or two of on the subject of the Queen
Mother. My posting was simply to expand on an earlier entry, and didn't
express a view, though given that I have perhaps more experience of a
certain sort of Scottish aristocrat, I could have. If John wants to venerate
her, that's up to him. Personally I am cynical of authority whether
inherited or elected, though at least in the case of the latter when they go
bad, as they all do, there is the chance of getting rid of them without
fighting in the streets.
It does seem she had a good war, and appeasement was not always a matter of
treachery but often a sincere desire to avoid the miseries of the previous
war. On the other hand, when that took the form of handing over the Czechs
to Hitler, it was time to draw a line, as plenty of people pointed out at
the time. The incident on the balcony of the Palace with Chamberlain, if
correct, needs explanation.
Yours sincerely
Jeff Wood
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