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malaise

(269,087 posts) Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:14 PM Mar 2018

In WInston Churchill - Hollywood rewards a mass murderer

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/opinions-in-winston-churchill-hollywood-rewards-a-mass-murderer/ar-BBK7flL?li=AAggNb9
<snip>
Shashi Tharoor is author of “Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India.” He chairs the Indian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

“History,” Winston Churchill said, “will be kind to me, for I intend to write it myself.” He needn’t have bothered. He was one of the great mass murderers of the 20th century, yet is the only one, unlike Hitler and Stalin, to have escaped historical odium in the West. He has been crowned with a Nobel Prize (for literature, no less), and now, an actor portraying him (Gary Oldman) has been awarded an Oscar.

As Hollywood confirms, Churchill’s reputation (as what Harold Evans has called “the British Lionheart on the ramparts of civilization”) rests almost entirely on his stirring rhetoric and his talent for a fine phrase during World War II. “We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. … We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets. … We shall never surrender.” (The revisionist British historian John Charmley dismissed this as “sublime nonsense.”)

Words, in the end, are all that Churchill admirers can point to. His actions are another matter altogether.

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This war criminal orchestrated more than a few coups as well.

16 replies

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Highlight:

In WInston Churchill - Hollywood rewards a mass murderer (Original Post) malaise Mar 2018 OP

Did NOT Know this. Eliot Rosewater Mar 2018 #1

Read this malaise Mar 2018 #2

SMH...sigh. Eliot Rosewater Mar 2018 #3

Too true, but re Nobel Prize: marybourg Mar 2018 #4

History is written by the winners Hav Mar 2018 #5

K&R. WhiskeyGrinder Mar 2018 #6

And FDR put American citizens in prison camps because they were Japanese BannonsLiver Mar 2018 #7

+1 uponit7771 Mar 2018 #14

Is there anyone from that time period who isn't a war criminal? Initech Mar 2018 #8

Democracies elect leaders to murder for us maxsolomon Mar 2018 #9

Which is why white supremacy will remain a problem malaise Mar 2018 #10

what are the han chinese doing to the uighurs and the tibetans? maxsolomon Mar 2018 #11

Hey now! Watch it! GulfCoast66 Mar 2018 #13

Who did Carter kill? gabeana Mar 2018 #12

I don't know, I presume the CIA killed someone in those days maxsolomon Mar 2018 #15

BULL CRAP !!! The only "TRUE" charge against him as a mass murderer would be the Bengal Famine uponit7771 Mar 2018 #16

Eliot Rosewater

(31,112 posts)

1. Did NOT Know this.

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:19 PM

Mar 2018

malaise

(269,087 posts)

2. Read this

Reply to Eliot Rosewater (Reply #1)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:20 PM

Mar 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/26/mi5-files-coup-british-guiana

Eliot Rosewater

(31,112 posts)

3. SMH...sigh.

Reply to malaise (Reply #2)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:26 PM

Mar 2018

Neo con thinking.

So Winston would be Putin and the GOP biggest enemy now, when you think about it.

marybourg

(12,633 posts)

4. Too true, but re Nobel Prize:

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:28 PM

Mar 2018

he was a wonderful writer, just as he was a wonderful orator. Only tRump has absolutely no redeeming virtues; most other humans do.

Hav

(5,969 posts)

5. History is written by the winners

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:30 PM

Mar 2018

I am thankful for whatever role he had in helping England get through the war. But one could also make the argument that deliberately targeting large population centers with no military benefit out of revenge is giving up the moral superiority and could be considered a war crime as well.

WhiskeyGrinder

(22,362 posts)

6. K&R.

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:30 PM

Mar 2018

BannonsLiver

(16,403 posts)

7. And FDR put American citizens in prison camps because they were Japanese

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:32 PM

Mar 2018

I think one of the things history teaches us is that nobody's perfect, despite our romanticized notions of the past.

BTW, the authors contention that Hollywood is rewarding a war criminal is a bit kooky. The Academy is in the business of presenting awards to its members based on their job performance. Downfall, for example, was nominated for an Oscar as well. Are we to take that nomination as an endorsement of Adolf Hitler by the Academy, or a reward for an outstanding performance the Academy's voter's deemed worthy of such an honor? By the author's logic they are rewarding Hitler with the nomination.

uponit7771

(90,347 posts)

14. +1

Reply to BannonsLiver (Reply #7)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 01:20 PM

Mar 2018

Initech

(100,087 posts)

8. Is there anyone from that time period who isn't a war criminal?

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:36 PM

Mar 2018

maxsolomon

(33,345 posts)

9. Democracies elect leaders to murder for us

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:38 PM

Mar 2018

even Obama and Carter killed.

malaise

(269,087 posts)

10. Which is why white supremacy will remain a problem

Reply to maxsolomon (Reply #9)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:40 PM

Mar 2018

It is practiced globally.

maxsolomon

(33,345 posts)

11. what are the han chinese doing to the uighurs and the tibetans?

Reply to malaise (Reply #10)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 12:59 PM

Mar 2018

is that white supremacy?

GulfCoast66

(11,949 posts)

13. Hey now! Watch it!

Reply to maxsolomon (Reply #11)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 01:19 PM

Mar 2018

Who are you to fuck up a perfectly good rant with pesty facts!!

gabeana

(3,166 posts)

12. Who did Carter kill?

Reply to maxsolomon (Reply #9)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 01:16 PM

Mar 2018

haven't heard this before

maxsolomon

(33,345 posts)

15. I don't know, I presume the CIA killed someone in those days

Reply to gabeana (Reply #12)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 01:22 PM

Mar 2018

No president is 100% innocent of it.

He's not on the scale of Churchill's oppressions, of course. It was a relatively calm time for American Imperialism.

uponit7771

(90,347 posts)

16. BULL CRAP !!! The only "TRUE" charge against him as a mass murderer would be the Bengal Famine

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Mon Mar 12, 2018, 01:27 PM

Mar 2018

... and history's ... DETAILS ... dispute this in his deeds even though his words were screwed up.

https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/did-churchill-cause-the-bengal-famine/

5 War Cabinet Meeting, 7 October 1943, Confidential Record (Cabinet papers, 65/36). Arthur Herman wrote: “We might even say that Churchill indirectly broke the Bengal famine by appointing as Viceroy Field Marshal Wavell, who mobilized the military to transport food and aid to the stricken regions (something that hadn’t occurred to anyone, apparently).” See “Leading Churchill Myths,” Churchill Centre, The Bengali Famine (accessed 10 November 2014).

When it comes to "REAL" bad man its their words and their deeds that have effect

This is hyperbole relative to the facts

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