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> Churchill was a notorious scoundrel The topic of churchill was the first time I realized I lived in a bubble. In the US, we laud churchill as a great statesm

by qubax 8y ago

> Churchill was a notorious scoundrel The topic of churchill was the first time I realized I lived in a bubble. In the US, we laud churchill as a great statesman and take pride in that he's half-american by his american mother. He's seen as, next to FDR, the most important man in the fight against nazi germany to free europe. And naively we assume the rest of the world also loves churchill. Turns out much of the world hates churchill because the guy was virulently racist, genocidal and a war criminal. The things churchill said and did were no different than what hitler said and did. The first time I heard my indian colleague say something negative about churchill, I was shocked because I was so conditioned into thinking the guy represented good. "As the resistance swelled, he announced: "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion." This hatred killed. To give just one, major, example, in 1943 a famine broke out in Bengal, caused – as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proved – by the imperial policies of the British. Up to 3 million people starved to death while British officials begged Churchill to direct food supplies to the region. He bluntly refused. He raged that it was their own fault for "breeding like rabbits". At other times, he said the plague was "merrily" culling the population." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-finest-hour-the-dark-side-of-winston-churchill-2118317.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-fines... Were it not for the unprecedented horrors of hitler, churchill would rank up there with the worst of the leaders of the 20th century.

ip26 8y ago
Many historical figures are like that. Both great & terrible. Ghandi, too, had his major flaws completely unbefitting his image.
- denzil_correa 8y ago
  > Ghandi, too, had his major flaws completely unbefitting his image. For some reason, this incorrect spelling of "Ghandi" always gets my goat. The actual spelling is "Gandhi". You can clearly see it in his signature and countless other letters. Yet, I have no idea why this spelling persists even though I understand it might produce similar phonetic sounds. I imagine, it shouldn't be difficult in 2018. Sorry to go off topic but I hope you empathize where I come from.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  Yep. In particular Gandhi promoted the caste system and disagreed with those who said it should be eliminated.
  - iamshs 8y ago
    Gandhi promoted caste apartheid and actively went on a hunger strike to prevent 'lower castes'/'untouchables' from getting representation in Parliament. This event was whitewashed in our school books as Gandhi did it to prevent English from breaking Hindu unity as not anyone reduce Gandhi's bargaining power. Gandhi also suppressed India's linguistic diversity and promoted Indians to have only one language. Here again, he used the crutch of Britishers forcing English on Indians. He wanted to assimilate and absorb diverse religions of India into Hinduism too. More I learn about him, more I hate him.
    - psibi 8y ago
      > Gandhi promoted caste apartheid and actively went on a hunger strike to prevent 'lower castes'/'untouchables' from getting representation in Parliament. Any source where I can read more about this ? Never heard this part about Gandhi.
    - fellellor 8y ago
      That is just plain bullshit. He called them harijans which from today's cultural standpoint looks patronizing, but he had nothing but altruistic intentions for them and wanted the caste system gone.
      - iamshs 8y ago
        Ok, change my view. Quoting him directly, “I believe that caste has saved Hinduism from disintegration. One of my correspondents suggests that we should abolish the caste system but adopt the class system of Europe, meaning that the idea of hereditary castes should be rejected. I am inclined to think that the law of heredity is an eternal law and any attempt to alter it must lead to utter confusion. Hindus believe in transmigration of the soul and Nature will adjust the balance by degrading a Brahmin if he misbehaves to a lower caste, and upgrading one who lives the life of a Brahmin to a Brahmin in his next life.” He believes in hereditary inherited caste apartheid. Any wiggle room in his words there?
philwelch 8y ago
And yet, were it not for Churchill, the unprecedented horrors of Hitler may have gone completely unchecked, or else only been stopped by the even greater horrors of Stalin. Churchill was the cornerstone of Britain's continued resistance, and the primary reason they didn't sue for peace after the fall of France. Hitler would have let Britain and her empire survive had they left him unmolested; Churchill instead led the country down the road of stopping Hitler, ultimately at the cost of her empire. > Up to 3 million people starved to death while British officials begged Churchill to direct food supplies to the region. He bluntly refused. He raged that it was their own fault for "breeding like rabbits". This is an extremely common criticism of foreign aid and even private philanthropy to this day, to the point where the Gates Foundation lists it as one of the "10 tough questions" they get asked: https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-Letter#ALChapter5 https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-Letter#ALChapter5 I'm not trying to whitewash or excuse Churchill, but like many other historical figures whose actions and attitudes would be repugnant to us today (including even Abraham Lincoln), his failings are not as important as his heroism, at least to those of us living in a Western world that may have fallen to totalitarianism but for Churchill's resilience. Though I certainly don't blame your Indian colleague for his own perspective.
- nabla9 8y ago
  The western front was relatively small part of the WWII. It was the Eastern Front and the U.S material support to USSR that really decided the war. It's interesting to think what would have happened after Pearl Harbor if Britain would have not been so strongly involved. The US could have still sided with the USSR and defeated Germany. Without the Western Front the war between USSR and the US would have been more likely aftermath. Maybe we would remember in horror the bombings of Hiroshima Nagasaki, Leningrad and Moscow as the end of the WWII and US victory. (After Germans were defeated and surrendered, they immediately wanted to fight with US against USSR).
  - philwelch 8y ago
    Without any Western Front at all, the Soviets would most likely have eventually prevailed and come to rule the entire continent of Europe. Britain's support for the resistance and governments-in-exile of the various European democracies also effectively prevented a power vacuum that Stalin would have exploited. Churchill was far more distrustful of Stalin than FDR was. Even if the US sided with the USSR, they would have likely conceded to Stalin more of his goals. Also, without French, Belgian, Dutch, etc. resistance movements and governments-in-exile surviving under British support, the US would have an extremely limited capacity to occupy and rebuild continental Europe, and very little motivation to. Without the Free French movement and Charles de Gaulle, the only seemingly legitimate French leadership after the war would have been the very same government that collaborated with the Nazis, and the Soviets would have just summarily killed all of them and replaced them with their own collaborators. It's also not entirely clear to me that the US would have joined the war against Germany at all without Britain already being in it. If Britain sued for peace with Germany, they would be unhindered in protecting their empire against Japanese aggression, while the Germans would be unlikely to cooperate with the Japanese against the British. Without Japan attacking either Britain or Russia, there's no reason for a Japanese attack against the United States to provoke American intervention against Germany. Britain's continued belligerency and the escalating American efforts to aid Britain without formally joining the war were necessary parts of joining the two wars into one. Speaking of which, it also shouldn't be underestimated how deftly Churchill was able to convince the Americans--who had just been attacked by the Japanese, not the Germans--that Germany, rather than Japan, should be their first war priority.
tomohawk 8y ago
1943 - the British were in engaged in a multifront war against Germany, Italy, and Japan with their very survival in doubt. Then, Japan cut off a major food supply to Bengal. Blaming this all on Churchill is a bit much.
- ironic_ali 8y ago
  Have you a source for Japan cutting off it's supply of food, I'd not read about that before.
  - tomohawk 8y ago
    Wikipedia talks about it a bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 Japan occupied Burma, cutting off supplies. Japan was also sinking British shipping - the whole empire was in extremis. It seems likely that this whole sad episode would have turned out quite differently without the war going on.
  - scythe 8y ago
    See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#Pre-famine_shocks_and_distress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#Pre-famin...
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    More here as well: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-bengal-famine-of-1943-195073 https://www.thoughtco.com/the-bengal-famine-of-1943-195073
- gammateam 8y ago
  Backing Poland was a choice in the 1930s. Just like not backing the Ukraine was a choice in the 2010s. There were applicable treaties. It was a choice, and now all your friends are dead.
  - reitanqild 8y ago
    > Backing Poland was a choice in the 1930s. Not backing Poland has to be blamed on the guy before Churchill though?
flying_whale 8y ago
Wait, why is this comment being down-voted? It's written in a respectful manner, cites a strong source, and is very much relevant to the link posted.
- denzil_correa 8y ago
  > The things churchill said and did were no different than what hitler said and did. Most likely, this.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    If these quotes are correct: > He raged that it was their own fault for "breeding like rabbits". At other times, he said the plague was "merrily" culling the population. Then the "said" part is accurate. The "did" part may be hyperbolic, but not enough to overpower an otherwise excellent post. It really does seem like people are just knee-jerk reacting to criticism of a popular figure.
- dang 8y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18089829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18089829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18087888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18087888 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ironic_ali 8y ago
As a Brit, through history classes and exams, I didn't learn anything other than how brilliant Churchill was. Then in my 20's the internet appeared and Churchill's real history was there in black and white. All it did was make me question everything I'd been taught about Britain and the establishment. Questioning everything from then on, only lead to the concrete conclusion that the British education system and establishment (aristocracy, business, corporation of London, parliament, the lord's, judiciary, the class system) was designed/evolved to keep them rich and holders of power ad infinitum. The rest of us, the plebs, we're/are kept deliberately misinformed and devoid of virtually all the opportunities "they" had and still have. The plebs that rise up the ranks into politics, banking and business are brought into the club and the system of corruption and ignorance continues. The US founding fathers knew what they were doing with the declaration of Independence.
- olivermarks 8y ago
  “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” — Winston Churchill...who was principally a writer...
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  the British education system and establishment (aristocracy, business, corporation of London, parliament, the lord's, judiciary, the class system) was designed/evolved to keep them rich and holders of power ad infinitum. Noted by John Stuart Mill in the 1870s, as reported by Han Jensen: the members of the university "hierarchy" made it their "business, the business for which they ... [were] paid," to "uphold certain political as well as religious opinions," namely those of the "ruling powers of the state" (J.S. Mill, Autobiography and Literary Essays, p. 429 (1981), J.S. Mill, Journals and Debating Speeches, p. 350. (1988) ). Thus the universities pursued with vigor their assignment to inculcate in their students those political and ideological views that were cherished by the power elite. The graduates of the ancient universities were, therefore, well prepared for employment in, and by, those institutions that were instrumental in perpetuating the existing maldistribution of income. Hans E. Jensen, "John Stuart Mill's Theories of Wealth and Income Distribution". Review of Social Economy. Pages 491-507. Published online: 05 Nov 2010. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00346760110081599 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00346760110081599 Exerpts and commentary: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6x7u6a/on_the_role_of_universities_and_primary_education/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6x7u6a/on_the_...
wyldfire 8y ago
Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast had an episode called "The Prime Minister and the Prof" [1]. The episode goes into Churchill's relationship with India and a friend named Frederick Lindemann. Gladwell discusses evidence from a book called, "Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II". [1] http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/15-the-prime-minister-and-the-prof http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/15-the-prime-minister...
abtinf 8y ago
> The things churchill said and did were no different than what hitler said and did. That is an obscene statement and likely the cause of your downvotes.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
Something that's completely socially unacceptable to say: The real thing that put Hitler in power to begin with was the horrendous war reparations Germany was saddled with from WW1 because it was "last man standing" on the losing side. You get called a Nazi sympathizer and things like that for trying to provide that context, but to my mind that is the real reason they said "Never again" and instituted global protections for financial stuff at the end of WW2. People seem to forget the entire world was suffering through a depression prior to WW2 and most wars are, at their root, motivated by resource limitations.
- stordoff 8y ago
  > The real thing that put Hitler in power to begin with was the horrendous war reparations Germany was saddled with from WW1 because it was "last man standing" on the losing side I'm not sure why this is socially unacceptable - I thought it was widely accepted that Hitler rode the economic woes into office, and used them to blame the Jews (amongst others). Now, if you start using that to justify what the Nazi party did, I can see why you might be called a Nazi sympathiser, but I don't see why that statement on its own is particularly controversial (if perhaps only presenting one factor). The question does remain though - would the Great Depression on its own (without reparations), or had Germany been in a better economy situation, been sufficient to result in Hitler's rise to power?
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    My mother is German. She once said to me something like "Hitler was doing good things for the country -- until he went nuts." I brought that up on a forum. It isn't justification for Nazi atrocities. It is insight into how the people on the ground suffering hardship saw him in his early years. He was perceived to be a good leader doing good things for the people, at least at first. But, hey, my previous comment is already deep in the negatives, so I'm guessing HN won't be much more reasonable than Reddit was when I tried to make that point. People also seem to forget that the entire point of Milgram's experiments was to prove that something like that absolutely could not happen in the US. The theory was that there was something peculiar to the German people. His experiments proved the exact opposite, which was quite shocking at the time and likely part of why they are so very well known, though most people appear oblivious to the origin story.
throwaway771625 8y ago
You will get plenty of downvotes here for mentioning such a topic, I know I've had myself in the past. Churchill is a fair representation of one of the most, if not the most, depraved, vicious, ignorant, racist and violent people in the world, the island of inbreds AKA Britain. I'm chilling myself a big bottle of sparkling wine waiting for March 29th next year. They had it coming.
- dang 8y ago
  We've banned this account for trolling, and will ban your main account as well if you do it again.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
It would be better to give the whole truth rather than try and land it on Churchill individually, quoting one suspect author as only source. 1. The UK had a coalition government and a war cabinet of 9 not a Churchillian dictatorship, so blaming it on Churchill is pure hyperbole. 2. Burma fell in 42 from which point Bengal lost previous regular rice imports and was now on the front line with the Japanese. Had Japan reached Bengal the death figures would have been an order of magnitude higher. To hugely understate it, Japan didn't have a great reputation for treatment of populations of countries they occupied. Burma was the location of the infamous Burma-Siam railway that was being built with slave labour, to supply Burma and the expected Bengal front. 3. Many of the Indian states under their respective Maharajas applied trade restrictions with Bengal after the fall of Burma, through 42 starting with Punjab. That significantly heightened food shortages and profiteering. Seeing how prices rose most of the other Indian states joined in. It was the inability to internally import rice that was perhaps the largest single factor. Thanks to the vassal nature of the states under the Raj these decisions were not by the British. 4. Bengal was inundated with half a million refugees fleeing Burma, and thousands more defeated troops. Most were injured and ill. 5. At that point in the war there was little could be done to prevent Japanese attacks in the Bay of Bengal. The War Cabinet did indeed decline Mountbatten's requests for shipping food due to expected shipping losses. The cabinet papers are now freely available. 6. A series of natural disasters in the region, including extensive crop disease, a cyclone that killed 15,000 and spread the disease spores widely, followed by further floods. What was Churchill's part in these? Churchill had faults, and some appalling decisions in his career that could be easily criticised. The Bengal famine is probably one of the weakest as it is mostly untrue.

by qubax 8y ago

ip26 8y ago

Many historical figures are like that. Both great & terrible. Ghandi, too, had his major flaws completely unbefitting his image.

denzil_correa 8y ago
> Ghandi, too, had his major flaws completely unbefitting his image. For some reason, this incorrect spelling of "Ghandi" always gets my goat. The actual spelling is "Gandhi". You can clearly see it in his signature and countless other letters. Yet, I have no idea why this spelling persists even though I understand it might produce similar phonetic sounds. I imagine, it shouldn't be difficult in 2018. Sorry to go off topic but I hope you empathize where I come from.
TaylorAlexander 8y ago
Yep. In particular Gandhi promoted the caste system and disagreed with those who said it should be eliminated.
- iamshs 8y ago
  Gandhi promoted caste apartheid and actively went on a hunger strike to prevent 'lower castes'/'untouchables' from getting representation in Parliament. This event was whitewashed in our school books as Gandhi did it to prevent English from breaking Hindu unity as not anyone reduce Gandhi's bargaining power. Gandhi also suppressed India's linguistic diversity and promoted Indians to have only one language. Here again, he used the crutch of Britishers forcing English on Indians. He wanted to assimilate and absorb diverse religions of India into Hinduism too. More I learn about him, more I hate him.
  - psibi 8y ago
    > Gandhi promoted caste apartheid and actively went on a hunger strike to prevent 'lower castes'/'untouchables' from getting representation in Parliament. Any source where I can read more about this ? Never heard this part about Gandhi.
  - fellellor 8y ago
    That is just plain bullshit. He called them harijans which from today's cultural standpoint looks patronizing, but he had nothing but altruistic intentions for them and wanted the caste system gone.
    - iamshs 8y ago
      Ok, change my view. Quoting him directly, “I believe that caste has saved Hinduism from disintegration. One of my correspondents suggests that we should abolish the caste system but adopt the class system of Europe, meaning that the idea of hereditary castes should be rejected. I am inclined to think that the law of heredity is an eternal law and any attempt to alter it must lead to utter confusion. Hindus believe in transmigration of the soul and Nature will adjust the balance by degrading a Brahmin if he misbehaves to a lower caste, and upgrading one who lives the life of a Brahmin to a Brahmin in his next life.” He believes in hereditary inherited caste apartheid. Any wiggle room in his words there?

philwelch 8y ago

And yet, were it not for Churchill, the unprecedented horrors of Hitler may have gone completely unchecked, or else only been stopped by the even greater horrors of Stalin. Churchill was the cornerstone of Britain's continued resistance, and the primary reason they didn't sue for peace after the fall of France. Hitler would have let Britain and her empire survive had they left him unmolested; Churchill instead led the country down the road of stopping Hitler, ultimately at the cost of her empire. > Up to 3 million people starved to death while British officials begged Churchill to direct food supplies to the region. He bluntly refused. He raged that it was their own fault for "breeding like rabbits". This is an extremely common criticism of foreign aid and even private philanthropy to this day, to the point where the Gates Foundation lists it as one of the "10 tough questions" they get asked: https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-Letter#ALChapter5 https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-Letter#ALChapter5 I'm not trying to whitewash or excuse Churchill, but like many other historical figures whose actions and attitudes would be repugnant to us today (including even Abraham Lincoln), his failings are not as important as his heroism, at least to those of us living in a Western world that may have fallen to totalitarianism but for Churchill's resilience. Though I certainly don't blame your Indian colleague for his own perspective.

nabla9 8y ago
The western front was relatively small part of the WWII. It was the Eastern Front and the U.S material support to USSR that really decided the war. It's interesting to think what would have happened after Pearl Harbor if Britain would have not been so strongly involved. The US could have still sided with the USSR and defeated Germany. Without the Western Front the war between USSR and the US would have been more likely aftermath. Maybe we would remember in horror the bombings of Hiroshima Nagasaki, Leningrad and Moscow as the end of the WWII and US victory. (After Germans were defeated and surrendered, they immediately wanted to fight with US against USSR).
- philwelch 8y ago
  Without any Western Front at all, the Soviets would most likely have eventually prevailed and come to rule the entire continent of Europe. Britain's support for the resistance and governments-in-exile of the various European democracies also effectively prevented a power vacuum that Stalin would have exploited. Churchill was far more distrustful of Stalin than FDR was. Even if the US sided with the USSR, they would have likely conceded to Stalin more of his goals. Also, without French, Belgian, Dutch, etc. resistance movements and governments-in-exile surviving under British support, the US would have an extremely limited capacity to occupy and rebuild continental Europe, and very little motivation to. Without the Free French movement and Charles de Gaulle, the only seemingly legitimate French leadership after the war would have been the very same government that collaborated with the Nazis, and the Soviets would have just summarily killed all of them and replaced them with their own collaborators. It's also not entirely clear to me that the US would have joined the war against Germany at all without Britain already being in it. If Britain sued for peace with Germany, they would be unhindered in protecting their empire against Japanese aggression, while the Germans would be unlikely to cooperate with the Japanese against the British. Without Japan attacking either Britain or Russia, there's no reason for a Japanese attack against the United States to provoke American intervention against Germany. Britain's continued belligerency and the escalating American efforts to aid Britain without formally joining the war were necessary parts of joining the two wars into one. Speaking of which, it also shouldn't be underestimated how deftly Churchill was able to convince the Americans--who had just been attacked by the Japanese, not the Germans--that Germany, rather than Japan, should be their first war priority.

tomohawk 8y ago

1943 - the British were in engaged in a multifront war against Germany, Italy, and Japan with their very survival in doubt. Then, Japan cut off a major food supply to Bengal. Blaming this all on Churchill is a bit much.

ironic_ali 8y ago
Have you a source for Japan cutting off it's supply of food, I'd not read about that before.
- tomohawk 8y ago
  Wikipedia talks about it a bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 Japan occupied Burma, cutting off supplies. Japan was also sinking British shipping - the whole empire was in extremis. It seems likely that this whole sad episode would have turned out quite differently without the war going on.
- scythe 8y ago
  See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#Pre-famine_shocks_and_distress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#Pre-famin...
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  More here as well: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-bengal-famine-of-1943-195073 https://www.thoughtco.com/the-bengal-famine-of-1943-195073
gammateam 8y ago
Backing Poland was a choice in the 1930s. Just like not backing the Ukraine was a choice in the 2010s. There were applicable treaties. It was a choice, and now all your friends are dead.
- reitanqild 8y ago
  > Backing Poland was a choice in the 1930s. Not backing Poland has to be blamed on the guy before Churchill though?

flying_whale 8y ago

Wait, why is this comment being down-voted? It's written in a respectful manner, cites a strong source, and is very much relevant to the link posted.

denzil_correa 8y ago
> The things churchill said and did were no different than what hitler said and did. Most likely, this.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  If these quotes are correct: > He raged that it was their own fault for "breeding like rabbits". At other times, he said the plague was "merrily" culling the population. Then the "said" part is accurate. The "did" part may be hyperbolic, but not enough to overpower an otherwise excellent post. It really does seem like people are just knee-jerk reacting to criticism of a popular figure.
dang 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18089829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18089829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18087888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18087888 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ironic_ali 8y ago

As a Brit, through history classes and exams, I didn't learn anything other than how brilliant Churchill was. Then in my 20's the internet appeared and Churchill's real history was there in black and white. All it did was make me question everything I'd been taught about Britain and the establishment. Questioning everything from then on, only lead to the concrete conclusion that the British education system and establishment (aristocracy, business, corporation of London, parliament, the lord's, judiciary, the class system) was designed/evolved to keep them rich and holders of power ad infinitum. The rest of us, the plebs, we're/are kept deliberately misinformed and devoid of virtually all the opportunities "they" had and still have. The plebs that rise up the ranks into politics, banking and business are brought into the club and the system of corruption and ignorance continues. The US founding fathers knew what they were doing with the declaration of Independence.

olivermarks 8y ago
“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” — Winston Churchill...who was principally a writer...
dredmorbius 8y ago
the British education system and establishment (aristocracy, business, corporation of London, parliament, the lord's, judiciary, the class system) was designed/evolved to keep them rich and holders of power ad infinitum. Noted by John Stuart Mill in the 1870s, as reported by Han Jensen: the members of the university "hierarchy" made it their "business, the business for which they ... [were] paid," to "uphold certain political as well as religious opinions," namely those of the "ruling powers of the state" (J.S. Mill, Autobiography and Literary Essays, p. 429 (1981), J.S. Mill, Journals and Debating Speeches, p. 350. (1988) ). Thus the universities pursued with vigor their assignment to inculcate in their students those political and ideological views that were cherished by the power elite. The graduates of the ancient universities were, therefore, well prepared for employment in, and by, those institutions that were instrumental in perpetuating the existing maldistribution of income. Hans E. Jensen, "John Stuart Mill's Theories of Wealth and Income Distribution". Review of Social Economy. Pages 491-507. Published online: 05 Nov 2010. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00346760110081599 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00346760110081599 Exerpts and commentary: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6x7u6a/on_the_role_of_universities_and_primary_education/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6x7u6a/on_the_...

wyldfire 8y ago

Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast had an episode called "The Prime Minister and the Prof" [1]. The episode goes into Churchill's relationship with India and a friend named Frederick Lindemann. Gladwell discusses evidence from a book called, "Churchill's Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II". [1] http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/15-the-prime-minister-and-the-prof http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/15-the-prime-minister...

abtinf 8y ago

> The things churchill said and did were no different than what hitler said and did. That is an obscene statement and likely the cause of your downvotes.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

Something that's completely socially unacceptable to say: The real thing that put Hitler in power to begin with was the horrendous war reparations Germany was saddled with from WW1 because it was "last man standing" on the losing side. You get called a Nazi sympathizer and things like that for trying to provide that context, but to my mind that is the real reason they said "Never again" and instituted global protections for financial stuff at the end of WW2. People seem to forget the entire world was suffering through a depression prior to WW2 and most wars are, at their root, motivated by resource limitations.

stordoff 8y ago
> The real thing that put Hitler in power to begin with was the horrendous war reparations Germany was saddled with from WW1 because it was "last man standing" on the losing side I'm not sure why this is socially unacceptable - I thought it was widely accepted that Hitler rode the economic woes into office, and used them to blame the Jews (amongst others). Now, if you start using that to justify what the Nazi party did, I can see why you might be called a Nazi sympathiser, but I don't see why that statement on its own is particularly controversial (if perhaps only presenting one factor). The question does remain though - would the Great Depression on its own (without reparations), or had Germany been in a better economy situation, been sufficient to result in Hitler's rise to power?
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  My mother is German. She once said to me something like "Hitler was doing good things for the country -- until he went nuts." I brought that up on a forum. It isn't justification for Nazi atrocities. It is insight into how the people on the ground suffering hardship saw him in his early years. He was perceived to be a good leader doing good things for the people, at least at first. But, hey, my previous comment is already deep in the negatives, so I'm guessing HN won't be much more reasonable than Reddit was when I tried to make that point. People also seem to forget that the entire point of Milgram's experiments was to prove that something like that absolutely could not happen in the US. The theory was that there was something peculiar to the German people. His experiments proved the exact opposite, which was quite shocking at the time and likely part of why they are so very well known, though most people appear oblivious to the origin story.

throwaway771625 8y ago

You will get plenty of downvotes here for mentioning such a topic, I know I've had myself in the past. Churchill is a fair representation of one of the most, if not the most, depraved, vicious, ignorant, racist and violent people in the world, the island of inbreds AKA Britain. I'm chilling myself a big bottle of sparkling wine waiting for March 29th next year. They had it coming.

dang 8y ago
We've banned this account for trolling, and will ban your main account as well if you do it again.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

It would be better to give the whole truth rather than try and land it on Churchill individually, quoting one suspect author as only source. 1. The UK had a coalition government and a war cabinet of 9 not a Churchillian dictatorship, so blaming it on Churchill is pure hyperbole. 2. Burma fell in 42 from which point Bengal lost previous regular rice imports and was now on the front line with the Japanese. Had Japan reached Bengal the death figures would have been an order of magnitude higher. To hugely understate it, Japan didn't have a great reputation for treatment of populations of countries they occupied. Burma was the location of the infamous Burma-Siam railway that was being built with slave labour, to supply Burma and the expected Bengal front. 3. Many of the Indian states under their respective Maharajas applied trade restrictions with Bengal after the fall of Burma, through 42 starting with Punjab. That significantly heightened food shortages and profiteering. Seeing how prices rose most of the other Indian states joined in. It was the inability to internally import rice that was perhaps the largest single factor. Thanks to the vassal nature of the states under the Raj these decisions were not by the British. 4. Bengal was inundated with half a million refugees fleeing Burma, and thousands more defeated troops. Most were injured and ill. 5. At that point in the war there was little could be done to prevent Japanese attacks in the Bay of Bengal. The War Cabinet did indeed decline Mountbatten's requests for shipping food due to expected shipping losses. The cabinet papers are now freely available. 6. A series of natural disasters in the region, including extensive crop disease, a cyclone that killed 15,000 and spread the disease spores widely, followed by further floods. What was Churchill's part in these? Churchill had faults, and some appalling decisions in his career that could be easily criticised. The Bengal famine is probably one of the weakest as it is mostly untrue.