Monthly Archives: October 2022

A Medieval Desire For Revenge

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Notes: The Monday Taki post is up. This week is a post about the natural coercion that takes place in any democratic system. Sunday Thoughts is up behind the green door, covering some news items of the day. SubscribeStar and Substack.

Toward the end of the Second World War, the “Allies”, which by this point was a polite fiction, were thinking about what comes after the war. The three big powers of Europe, France, Italy and Germany, were in ruins. The British were bankrupt. Then you had the Russians, who were clearly looking past the war. The big item on the agenda was what to do about the Germans. Within living memory, they had been blamed for two monstrous wars that crippled the West.

United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau produced a plan in 1944 that called for the annihilation of Germany as a country. The central argument was that there was something defective about German people that causes them for no reason at all to do the things they were doing. The only solution was to make it so these people could never do those things again. Morgenthau did not blame politics or ideology for the wars, but the German character.

The plan called for the de-industrialization of Germany. This would have been done by partitioning Germany into various bits. Some portion would go to Poland, while another portion would go to France. The Ruhr Area, the main industrial area of Germany at the time, would be stripped and occupied. What remained of Germany would be divided into two areas with no industry. Basically, the country known as German would cease to exist and its people would soon follow.

That last part is key. Even after it was made clear to Morgenthau and his supporters that his plan would result in wide-scale starvation, he pressed forward. Optimistic analysis at the time said that 40% of Germans would starve to death if the Morgenthau plan was implemented. Of course, the number would be much higher due to the inevitable revolts by the Germans, which would be met with force. The goal of the Morgenthau was the genocide of the German people.

From the point of view of this age, it sounds like madness, but war does funny things to people, especially long wars. The Russians had lost tens of millions of people fighting the Germans, so left to their own sensibilities at the time, they probably would have exterminated most of the Germans and reduced the country to rubble. What was left would have become a slave state in the Soviet Union. Of course, Morgenthau had similar motivations for destroying Germany.

The chief supporter of the Morgenthau plan in Britain was Churchill’s assistant Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell. Besides having a great name, Lord Cherwell was described as having “a medieval desire for revenge” not just on Germans but on anyone he disliked. Naturally, the Morgenthau plan for Germany tickled his natural desire to see opponents suffer. This bit of trivial reinforces the fact that the plan was purely retributive, rather than remedial.

The Morgenthau plan has a curious history. It was published in the closing days of the war, but it became a rallying point for the Germans. All of sudden, the very real prospect of extinction was on the table. Allied commanders said the plan had made their job much more difficult. After the war, there was an effort to memory hole the idea because of the Cold War. Recently the plan has gained attention because it draws attention to certain subjects that are bad for current narratives.

Interestingly, the plan was quickly deemed impractical by the people who would be charged with implementing it. This happened before anyone stopped to consider the morality of committing genocide on the Germans. Genocide is the right word, as that includes erasing the culture of a people. Despite the obvious impossibility of the plan, the backers never gave up on it. It was only the clever machinations of people around Roosevelt and Churchill that prevented the genocide.

Today it would be nothing more than a side note to the history of the war, but it seems as if that old “medieval desire for revenge” still casts a shadow. The events in modern Europe look like an updated version of the Morgenthau plan. The Germans are slowly being reduced to peonage by Anglo-American policy. The pretext this time is not fear of German militarism, but fear of German independence. Ukraine policy makes sense when the goal is the destruction of Germany.

That is what is on tap unless something changes. German industry cannot survive if energy conditions persist much longer. Their primary advantage in Europe and the world has been easy access to cheap energy. The energy crisis not only deprives them of cheap energy but may deprive them of energy. The Germans are now facing the prospect of blackouts and periodic shutdowns due to gas shortages. This is just the start of what could be a long crisis.

Then there is the knock-on effect. Energy is not just about making things like cars and chemicals, but about growing food. All of Western Europe will be facing a serious fertilizer crisis in 2023. Germany has relied on imports for all of its commercial fertilizer, so cuts in those imports will wipe out German food production. A country that cannot make anything, heat its homes or feed itself looks a lot like what the people behind the Morgenthau plan had in mind eighty years ago.

Of course, there is another element to this. The first Secretary General of NATO was Brit named Hastings Lionel Ismay, also known as First Baron Ismay. He is credited with having said the purpose of NATO was “to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” In retrospect, the sole purpose may have been to keep Germany down. Germany is the key to Russian involvement in Europe, so controlling Germany is a way to control Russia.

That is what we see in the current crisis. Washington blew up those gas lines because those gas lines primarily served the Germans. It allowed them to do business with Russia and could perhaps allow the Germans to be an honest broker in the war between Washington and Moscow. It speaks to that “medieval desire for revenge” that Washington would rather risk a nuclear war with Russia than let the ancient enemy get even a hint of independence and self-respect.

Perhaps the way to read this crisis in Europe is as the final chapter in a long story with roots into the 19th century. The cutting off of cheap energy to Germany will finally reduce the Germans to poverty. They will be dependent on Washington and the rest of Europe for survival. This may strike modern ears as insane as the original Morgenthau plan, but like that old plan, the new plan, maybe it should be called the Kagan Plan, is about a “medieval desire for revenge.”

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

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The NFL’s Racial IQ Problem

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The absurdity of America’s racial politics is no more obvious than in sports, where a collection of low-IQ jocks and circus performers wrestle with the irreconcilable contradictions of race and racial morality. Everyone involved is smart enough to understand the message they are required to push, but they lack the brainpower to make it work. Guys like Stephen A. Smith or Michael Wilbon come off as white nationalist parodies.

The NFL is probably the best place to see the ridiculousness, as that league has been trying hard to racially atone for the last twenty years. The NBA has been a black sport for generations now. Even the coaches are black. Hockey and baseball are impossible to make into black sports, because running and jumping are not critical qualities in either game. Outside of a few positions, running and jumping are important qualities in American football.

The main area of focus in the NFL has been quarterback, which is a position dominated by white players. The assumption has always been that the position requires smarts, and, well, you know. The league has been working to make it easier for the passing game by limiting what defenders can do. By making it easier to pass the ball, the threshold for being a quarterback has dropped. Add in changes to enhance the value of running quarterbacks and you get more black quarterbacks.

This is not all due to racial morality. The target audience for the NFL is declining in IQ so they are dumbing down their sport to chase the audience. Stupid people like to see simple plays where the star does all the work. Complex offenses that require field generalships are no fun to the typical fan. It will not be long before CGI is added to make the games more interesting for television. Maybe a new play will be the Fast & Furious style car chase.

A feature of football broadcasts is the talking heads assuring us that the quarterback who makes his living running the ball, a guy like Lamar Jackson, for example, is actually winning through intelligence. Jackson’s test scores say he is a full standard deviation below the typical quarterback, but we are told he is a football genius. In reality, he is just faster than everyone else at the moment. He is the Michael Vick of this generation, less the dog fighting business.

This demand to respect the intelligence of the new vibrant quarterback is turning up in the controversy over Tua Tagovailoa. He was slammed to the turn in a game and suffered a serious concussion. He was carted off on a back board and sent to the hospital for evaluation. The sports commentariat has been ordered to put on their outrage faces over this. How dare the league put this young genius at risk by letting him take a blow to the head!

The video looks like one of those things that happens in sports. Whenever one human being tries to throw another human being onto the ground, there is a chance someone is going to get hurt. Given that hitting the ground means sudden deceleration, concussions are to be expected. Anyone who has played football or boxed or wrestled has had their bell rung more than once. It is just a thing that happens, no matter how hard you try to prevent it.

Of course, concussions are a controversial issue. A whole new racket has grown up around the dubious claims from the CTE people. The term is short for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Concussions probably have some negative impact on brain function, but the science is unclear. The CTE business is mostly a scam, which has a racial element to it. The guy who sold the idea is named Bennett Omalu. Will Smith played him in a movie.

The racial angle in the concussion story gets even more nutty when you look at the efforts to remediate the issue. The NFL has set up a fund to compensate players claiming to suffer from CTE. The NFL is race norming the concussion settlements to reduce payouts, which brings out the usual suspects. You see, Jamal is stupid because of the concussion, not because of genetics. It is a classic example of biological reality slamming into racial and political morality.

The truth is no one knows if concussions have a direct or even an indirect connection on cognitive issues later in life. We have always known that taking blows to the head is bad for you. We have the term “punchy” for a reason. Boxers who took too many blows over their career were often quite stupid later in life. It has always been assumed that it is the blows to the head, but no one really knows for sure. Maybe they started out stupid, which is why they took so many shots to the head.

There is a good chance that IQ plays a role. Intelligence strongly correlates with health outcomes, so it is possible that it plays a role in concussions. Higher IQ players may suffer fewer concussions or suffer less from them than low-IQ players. Boxers have never been known as smart guys, so maybe the reason they seem punchy in their later years is the combination of blows and their low-IQ. Maybe smarter people are better at avoiding concussion and recovering from them.

None of this is allowed to be said, so it does not matter much. The NFL is going to have to pay for these black former players. In a way, it is like the ongoing demands by blacks for compensation because of slavery. The math is not the issue. It is the moral blackmail that comes once you accept the current morality of race. The NFL, like white society, can never pay for the sins of the past, but it must keep paying. Discrimination is a nightmare from which will never awake.

In the larger context, the dumbing down of the sport and the presentation of it, corresponds with the dumbing down of race relations. Half a century ago, race relations were better because they were more thoughtful. Both sides sought an accommodation based on what was possible. Today it is two tribes flinging their poo not at one another, but at the rest of us. Like car chases in movies, race relations are now part of the menticide inflicted on our society.

If you like my work and wish to kick in a few bucks, you can buy me a beer. You can sign up for a SubscribeStar subscription and get some extra content. You can donate via PayPal. My crypto addresses are here for those who prefer that option. You can send gold bars to: Z Media LLC P.O. Box 432 Cockeysville, MD 21030-0432. Thank you for your support!

Promotions: We have a new addition to the list. Havamal Soap Works is the maker of natural, handmade soap and bath products. If you are looking to reduce the volume of man-made chemicals in your life, all-natural personal products are a good start. If you use this link you get 15% off of your purchase.

The good folks at Alaska Chaga are offering a ten percent discount to readers of this site. You just click on the this link and they take care of the rest. About a year ago they sent me some of their stuff. Up until that point, I had never heard of chaga, but I gave a try and it is very good. It is a tea, but it has a mild flavor. It’s autumn here in Lagos, so it is my daily beverage now.

Minter & Richter Designs makes high-quality, hand-made by one guy in Boston, titanium wedding rings for men and women and they are now offering readers a fifteen percent discount on purchases if you use this link. If you are headed to Boston, they are also offering my readers 20% off their 5-star rated Airbnb.  Just email them directly to book at sales@minterandrichterdesigns.com.