Wednesday, 10 May 2017

Patriotism, the love that dare not speak its name

'Patriotism...is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity and increases his arrogance and conceit.' Emma Goldman. 
She was a Communist but I wonder how many British people nowadays who are not Communists (so excluding Jeremy Corbyn) also think patriotism a bad thing.

It shows you how the Communists have succeeded to a very large extent. Many, perhaps most, of their ideas have triumphed. Sexual equality; free love, including for homosexuals; contraception; abortion; internationalism; the end of colonialism; racial equality; confiscation of property from the rich; atheism; materialism; the general idea that tradition is oppressive. 

The fascists, by contrast, lost the battle of ideas comprehensively. 

Monday, 8 May 2017

De Gaulle would have opposed immigration and the modern EU

I have always been a Gaullist. The General wanted a "Europe des nations" and knew England would not be suitable to join the Common Market (E.E.C.) He strongly opposed Arab immigration into metropolitan France. I imagine if he were alive and politically active today his political causes would be dismantling the modern EU and opposing further immigration.
I wonder had he come to power a year or two sooner whether the EEC would ever have come into existence. Had it not this might have saved Europe a vast amount of pain and wasted energy.

De Gaulle, of course, began his memoirs with the very stirring words